Where I Found You

Chapter 9 - Will.

Chapter 9 - Will.

I don't really know how I make it back to my room. But when I get through the door it's like my mind shuts down and I collapse onto Sterling's unmade bed with his head poking out of the covers.

A cry of, "Whadafuh!" makes me roll onto the floor and I lie there with my eyes feeling ten times their usual size. My heart's still beating like a drum and not in a good way.

As Alyssa's cries of, "I would have done anything, anything for you!" echo painfully in my head, Sterling rubs his eyes and shoots up into a sitting position.

"Bloody hell!" He exclaims, shaking his head once in a vigorous, dog-like way. I think it's to wake himself up. "Out of all things . . . I never expected . . . You have a girlfriend, you say? Is that a cover up? Cause what I just saw sorta eliminated all possibilities."

This might be funny if all that hadn't just happened with Alyssa. I slowly get onto my knees, and haul myself up onto the side of his bed, shaking.

"Sorry." I cough and look at him, to see he's staring at me like I'm an exhibit in a zoo. His big, almost-black, Minstrel-like eyes are almost popping out of his head.

"Dude-"

"Don't say that. It's American. We're in England."

Sterling gives an eyeroll, and then a smart-arse grin. "Well, sorry. My uncle's American. I spend time with him a lot."

"My aplogies."

We look at eachother for a few seconds, my chest rising and falling heavily and abnormally fast and his hair sticking up in all different directions - basically as normal.

"So- uh- I guess now is the most appropriate time to ask why you were trying to get into bed with me." He looks at me with such seriousness in his eyes that it reminds me of a doctor or counsellor. I would be smirking right now if everything was normal. But it's not.

"It was an accident. Uh, I'm in a state of shock," I inform him, and have to blink a few times to stop the room from spinning around me.

"What - your girlfriend give you your first blow job?" He smirks broadly, crossing his arms over his skinny chest.

I don't hesitate to shove his forehead backwards, and obviously my strength is much more than his because he ends up being sent flying backwards back onto his pillow.

"No, you fucker." I open my mouth to tell him what really happened but my stomach convulses and my throat closes, making me have to swallow hard an look away. I slide off his bed and onto the floor, then sort of slide across the floor to the foot of my bed, my eyes stinging with tears.

Goddammit - I'm close to crying.

"Uh - you okay?"

"Fuck, no!" I yell at the white washed wall, and stand up, kicking my foot hard against it. Sterling will either think I have anger management issues or I'm a gay drama queen but I'm too preoccupied to control myself. I spot the dark mark my shoe has made against the wall but ignore it and sit down heavily on the bed.

That's when the wave of sadness and pure an utter agony washes over me, making my heart pound in my throat. It hits me that I've truly lost her now, it hits me like a blow in the gut. I lie back on my bed and swallow hard but it barely helps, and I have to squeeze my eyes shut.

Sterling's been silent. I can't see him. He's a bit like a therapist because soon all the words are tumbling out of my mouth without him doing anything. "I used to live in Kingston. I knew Alyssa since I was five and when I was sixteen . . . She became my girlfriend. Then after a few months she had this accident and she lost all her memory of the time we spent together so she didn't think we were going out and she was all confused and shit. I told my dad I wanted to move cause I'd fucked up even though I wasn't thinking straight and he agreed because he took advantage and wanted to move to Oxford anyway. And then I had like three days to make Alyssa like me again and I did. I made her love me again but I still had to move. And when I moved, I fucked up the whole situation even more, because I slept with a whole load of sluts and didn't tell her until this morning."