Only One I Call Home

Chapter 3 - "There is never a time or place for true love..."

Chapter 3

“There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.”

-       Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

So we talked.

We talked for hours.

We talked until our stomachs were both rumbling and our mouths were dry and I could see at least three stars in the darkening sky outside the window. We told each other secrets that no one else knew and in that moment I felt like I really knew whom Trey Jackson was. That was something I’d never accomplished, truly knowing a person.

I felt as though I’d finally found someone who understood even the dustiest corners of my crazy mixed up soul, someone whose demons played well with my own.

He’d told me that he was in an accident. He was drunk and he had his younger brother, Alex, and his father in the car and he’d swerved and smashed the whole left side of the car. Trey had walked away unharmed but his father was close to death and his brother was lucky to be alive and well with merely a few broken bones.

He told me his mother had practically disowned him after what happened even though his father was the one who had encouraged the drinking. He told me that every night he replayed the crash over in his head and that it haunted him with every breath he took.

He was completely ruined that he couldn’t talk to his brother. He said Alex was the person he cared most about in the world. He told me he was scared about what would happen. He knew his mother wouldn’t welcome him back and if his father died he’d have nowhere to go.

I told him about my parents, how I’d never known them. How I’d been in foster care my whole life and that I’d never found a family to accept me. I told him how all I ever wanted was a big brother to protect me but because I never got one I had to protect myself, that’s why I was so ignorant all the time.

I told him about the drugs, and how I’d ended up in this place and we’d cried about nothing and I realised how stupid I had sounded when I told him I hadn’t even taken the drugs myself.

I told him how this place made you go kind of stir crazy after a week and he had groaned and asked me to promise to keep him sane and I had agreed. I wasn’t sure why I was allowing this stranger to get under my skin but it was happening and I couldn’t complain.

Finally when Rob came back into the room and told us that dinner was being served I stood up and Trey hugged me. I’d never felt what it was like to hug before and when I wrapped my arms around him I knew exactly what I was missing out on; all the hugs with my mother after a hard day at school, or a hug from my father after my first breakup.

I didn’t tell him that he was the first person I’d ever really hugged because that was stupid but I loved the fact that he was.

We walked to dinner together and sat at the same table and we talked some more. We talked about the weather and our favourite Jane Austen books. I had been surprised that he was even remotely interested in Jane Austen but he was. He loved poetry too, he recited his favourite poem to me and I swear my heart melted.

He sucked in his breath and smiled. “’Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold those who favour fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction ice is also great and would suffice.’”

“I love that one.” I whispered in approval. “Lust and hate; both as destructive as the other.”

He nodded once. “What about you, what’s your favourite poem?”