Race

Chapter 34

Christmas – and my parents with it – had come and gone. New Year's Eve had passed. And I was utterly alone.

Adrien was spending the holidays in France with his family and Natalie was somewhere in Nottinghamshire, visiting an aunt of some kind. Harry was in Italy.

The only positive aspect about all of these absences was that due to Natalie's in particular, I was asked to cover most of her shifts at the book store, which provided some kind of distraction from my loneliness at least. Though even that was quite lonely, seeing that there were next to no customers coming to the store, which equaled long hours behind a desk, that were spent reading an enormous amount of books or reordering shelves at least twice a day, just to get a break from sitting all day.

This lack of entertainment also gave me a chance to think about the whirlwind of events that had taken place before the holidays: dating Adrien, Harry's return, Harry's story, breaking up with Adrien, Harry's newfound maturity and attempt at being a better person. Over the days spent at the quiet book store, I eventually came to a decision regarding my exact feelings – both towards Harry and Adrien.

I would be able to test the practicability of my decision in reality soon enough.

It was easy enough on paper. Though only having had two relationships throughout my entire life – my short time with Adrien not counting – both had ended disastrously. I was quite obviously really terrible at falling in love. Hence, I had decided to not be in a relationship – not necessarily forever, but for now at least. If one ignored the mess that was currently my love life, I was actually at quite a good place in my life right now. I was loving my jobs, both at the book store and the online journal that I was writing for, and was hoping to soon apply to universities to start a degree in September. I loved my flat and my neighbourhood, my bookshelf was constantly growing and I had more close friends than I had had for a while – Adrien and Natalie and her group of friends having adopted me.

My decision regarding Adrien and Harry specifically related to that last point. Yes, I would let Harry back into my life – but only as a friend. And maybe, just maybe, this would also lead to Jake becoming part of my life again. To be fair, I had been so focused on working out the entire messy business between Harry and me, I had completely forgotten that Harry's return could possibly also mean a return from Jake. I hadn't heard from him yet, which was not surprising considering the general state of things. After all, Harry had most definitely informed Jake that I was not too fond of people just casually showing up on the doorstep of my new home, seven months after I had last seen them or talked to them. In this entire affair, Jake was the most innocent party of all, though. Unlike Harry, he had not abandoned me. My move and blocking of both him and Harry before changing my number had been what had servered our contact. If anything, I would have to apologise to him, should I see him again.

Friendship. Would that even be possible? A friendship between Harry and me? We had never quite been there before, as I would not call whatever it was we had been before our very short relationship a "friendship" exactly. But considering his new maturity and the fact that he had seemingly changed a lot, I was willing to give it a try.

The truth was, no matter how hard I tried to deny it, I wanted Harry around. I liked his company. I liked him. I liked being near him, talking to him, not talking to him but still being around him. I had rarely felt as comfortable around anyone as I had done with him during the months we had spent together. Yes, he had driven me crazy most of the time. But – during our relationship in particular – I had noticed that I felt free to tell him every embarrassing secret. Insecurities that I had, he had loved and even complimented me about at times. And I missed him. So much. Just being around him.