Save Me

Chapter Nine

"Don't let your memories break you."

-Rihanna

♔ Chapter Nine ♔

I couldn't believe him. Speaking to me like that? Laughing at me like I was a fucking idiot. Who the fuck did he think he was talking to?

I drove back to the university campus after leaving him there. For a second, I thought I should drive back around, but I just couldn't. I didn't have the humility to go back to him. So I left him there. Fuck him, I kept telling myself. He was a melodramatic drama queen anyway, I told myself.

But even I knew there was a bit more to Hedley than that. For a while, I thought we had the same understanding of the world. I thought he was just as detached from it all as I was. I thought he hated the world, just like me. I thought he'd been fucked over time and time again, and I saw myself in him. In his eyes, I saw myself, and maybe deep down, a part of me thought - maybe if I can fix this one boy, I could make up for what I've done. If I could save him, I thought I would get some kind of redemption.

But I knew I could never make up for everything. I could never right the wrongs, take back time, and stop myself... I saw those chalky white cliffs in my mind, rain lashing down, the waves of the ocean thundering wildly. No. Not there. Not back there.

I didn't deserve a fresh start, or even a chance with Hedley. Maybe I was punishing myself, but that was only because I deserved it. I really did.

I stepped out of the car after that, feeling too enclosed inside. The campus was dark. It was getting late, I realised. The sky was a cold Prussian blue, blanketed by dark grey clouds. There was a storm coming, I could tell.

I didn't want to go back to the flat, though. I'd spent too much time locked in there, staring at blank walls and seeing things in the shadows. I wouldn't let that happen to myself, not again. It made me feel so weak, so alone, and I thought - this is what I do to people. This is how I make them feel, when I use them, when I break them. And I can't help but think - I am the worst person I know.

I couldn't stop the memories, after that. The very first one, in the boys' bathroom at school. The first time I fucked a boy.

The whole room was tiled white and stank of piss, but neither of us cared. The boy was the shy kid in school, who never looked you in the eyes and always sat in the corner of the classroom. He wandered into the toilets, and for the first time, his eyes caught mine. A light blue colour, and kind of sad. He was soaked in sadness, drowning in it. He'd always been that way, I'd realised. For as long as he'd gone to this school, he'd always been the sad boy, quiet and lonely and friendless. I think, more than anything else, that was what drew me into him.

I used to be so heartless, back then. The way he would look down at his feet in fear, the way his eyes would light up just as he saw me, I knew I was in control. I guess that was what it was all about. Control. Especially for me. I liked knowing that I held all of the cards, that he wouldn't speak up to me because he was so broken inside.

He was broken, just like me. That was why I picked him out.

I knew he wouldn't fight it, I knew he'd lie there and take it from me. He was so easy to control, like clay that I could mould in my hands and in between my fingers, like someone I could drop and reuse whenever I wanted. Time and time again, I played with his heartstrings like a violin, and every time I did it, I loved it more and more. Some part of me knew that he'd fall for me, and maybe that was why we could never have worked.

Even after everything I put him through, the pain and the suffering, the heartbreak and the abuse - maybe I'd grown to love him back. And I knew that sickened me more than anything else. The thought of being that weak. I'd tried so hard to blend in, to be like everyone else, and to have someone so painfully imperfect drag the worst part of myself out for the world to see, it terrified me.