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6 months later

JUSTIN

Even six months later, there are good days and bad days, but the good days far, far outnumber the bad ones.

On a bad day, it’s a struggle to get out of bed.

Axel asks me, “What do you need?”

I always tell him when it’s a bad day, because although I hate to be a burden, I know that my bad days affect him as well.

Sometimes what I need is to lose myself in him, to touch and make love and lose myself in the sex and the closeness of our bodies. Other times I need to quieten my mind and focus my thoughts on my art. On those days, I sit at my art table and draw and paint for hours, until my mood lifts and I’m able to rejoin the world. Axel sits with me and reads or works on his computer, a reassuring presence in the background. When I’m ready to reconnect, he welcomes me back with a smile and a hug.

I still see my counselor, but the sessions are becoming less and less necessary as time goes by. I’m healing, sorting through my thoughts, and re-learning my own worth.

Axel has never doubted it. He tells me daily how amazing I am, and how perfect I am for him. I suspect he’s a little biased, but it is Axel, so I should believe him, right?

I know I’m one of the lucky ones. They didn’t exert their influence over me for terribly long, and I have the best support structure in the world – a loving boyfriend, his friends, and a borrowed grandma who treats me as her own.

Soon I’ll be starting university. It turns out someone important at one of the private veterinary colleges owed Axel’s friend Shannon a very big favor.

They disregarded my final exam scores that weren’t up to scratch for entry and gave me ‘special entry due to extenuating circumstances’. There’s also a new scholarship to support a veterinary student throughout their course, and I’m the first beneficiary. I have a suspicion if this hadn’t happened that Axel would have found a way to fund it himself. But I’ll never know.

What I do know, is that I cried when he said he would move to Melbourne to be with me. I know how much he loves the sea, and it’s no small thing to leave his childhood paradise to live inland in another state. That he would do it for me is humbling.

We rent a two-bedroom house together near the university, though we rarely use the second room unless we have visitors.

I reach up and touch Axel’s neck chain which I still wear, will always wear. Does it really have the mystical powers it’s claimed to have? Who can say? All I know is it drew us back together, and it’s a symbol that proclaims I’m his, and always will be.

We met far from my home, lost each other, found each other again, and now I can safely say, wherever Axel is, that's my home.