Chapter Ten
During that week, Toby and I pretty much became inseparable. We found each other at every opportunity we could at school. After school, Toby always offered to walk me home and on the days when my workloads wasn’t too bad I’d offer to help him walk his dogs.
Very soon it almost felt like my life revolved around Toby and when alone I constantly thought about when we would next meet. He was like a drug. But if I was honest, there was no company I preferred more than his. He made everyone else… just seem so boring.
After about a week of this, I was walking the dogs with Toby when he asked me about the inevitable.
“Can I ask you a question? If you don’t want to answer it, it’s okay…”
“Um sure,” I said, suddenly feeling a bit uneasy as everyone does when asked a question like that.
“Sylvia was telling me about this Greg just before you got to the canteen. She said you went into some kind of fit…”
I sighed heavily. I was going to kill that girl. But I did need to stop running away from the past and I did feel more comfortable talking about things, especially to Toby.
“It started two years ago when I was in Year 11. For some reason, Greg liked me so he asked me out. You see, I hadn’t ever gone out with anybody before so I didn’t know what to expect. I wasn’t sure about it, but then Sylvia pushed me to say yes.”
“Should’ve known she had something to do with it,” interjected Toby.
“So I said yes. At first it was okay, we were just talking really. Then one day, he invited me to this party. When I got there, of course everybody was really drunk. I had never seen anything like it.
“Then I found Greg. He was quite drunk but not that bad. Of course, he tried to drag me somewhere quiet and alone. I didn’t really know what to expect, I was pretty stupid really. Then Greg started pulling at me a little… I could smell his beery breath… and then they all came back.”
“What?” whispered Toby.
“The memories. I hadn’t thought about them at all since two years before. I simply pushed them away and it was surprisingly easy. I didn’t know they were still there.
“So of course, when these memories suddenly appeared, I couldn’t help but scream and cry. They were so vivid and so clear. I could feel everything; I felt that terror all over again. Greg wasn’t Greg anymore, suddenly he was him.
“So I ran away and never really spoke to Greg after that. He kept telling other people but no one believed him except Sylvia. I refused to admit or even talk about it. It was then when my life changed. Suddenly, every single man I knew was him. I refused to go out with anybody else, despite Sylvia’s pestering. I wasn’t so happy anymore, I just wanted to be alone all the time. I was wallowing in my own past.
“Then that was when the dreams started. More or less every night, I would have dreams about it. It was terrible. And what was worse, was that I felt I couldn’t tell anybody about it. I was completely alone.”
Toby pulled me into a tight hug. The dogs got tangled up in their leads.
“I didn’t expect that,” he said softly in my ear.
“Thanks for being there,” I whispered mean fully.
By the time we reached my house, I felt full and free again and I was delighted at how positive my life had become.
I didn’t account for what was going to happen in the following days.
It had been a dreary Friday afternoon and the rain hadn’t stopped since the day before; I thought. Nonetheless, I happily skipped through my front door. The day had been perfect so far. Lessons had been particularly bearable today, in terms of homework I hadn’t been given that much and of course; it was the weekend! A whole two days with Toby was practically my idea of heaven.
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