Race

Chapter 26

Six months had passed.

I hadn't heard from Harry a single time in those six month. Neither had I heard from Niall or Jake.

To be honest. It was not their fault. They simply no longer had any means to contact me.

Shortly after having decided to pull myself together and not let my life go to waste over a guy, I had gotten a new job and moved. My old place had held too many memories and I had felt the urgent need to get out of there as fast as possible. And while I had stayed in the same city, London was big enough to get a complete change of scenes when moving into a different quarter of the city. I no longer lived anywhere near the Starbucks I had worked at or the club that Jake worked at. I had also gotten a new phone number, feeling like I needed a fresh start – a complete one.

I had always been someone who didn't just cross the bridge, I burned it down, too, trying to make sure I could not be followed. So naturally, this was what I had done. Burn the bridges down.

I had been too blind and too in love with Harry to realize it but my whole life had started to evolve around him. I had been like earth, orbiting him like he was the sun, the central point of my existence. But at some point I had come too close and he had burned me alive. I had been too caught up in him and what I thought was shared chemistry to realize that I had no friends of my own, that I depended on him, that I didn't even have a job. But fact is: The planets are dependent on the sun, they need the sun to stay alive and go on existing. But the sun doesn't need them. The sun can exist by itself. And if I had learned one thing, it was the fact that I had to be my own sun, that I had to burn bright and depend on no one but myself.

I still thought of him, now and then – now and then meaning at least once a day. It is ridiculous how someone could have that effect on you. You haven't seen them for months and they still constantly take over your waking thoughts – and sometimes even your dreams.

But I was my own sun now. I was the one creating life, mine to be exact.

It was snowing outside. I desperately wished I could stay at home in my small but cozy apartment. Just sit in the pastel pink armchair in front of the giant window and watch the flurry off snow passing by, a mug of hot coffee in my hand. As it was, I had to go to one of my two jobs.

I was finally doing something with my life. I worked at a book shop and had a second job, composing pieces of writing for a blog. The first job paid well, the second okay but looked good in my CV. I was working towards something. To be exact, I was trying to save up enough money to enroll at a university and study Literature. I had always been someone who loved books and read a lot – yet another thing I had neglected while running after Harry – and had decided that I wanted to do something with that passion of mine.

I had gotten the first job when browsing for books at a book store not far from my new apartment. While moving, I had noticed just how little books I owned and as someone who had used to be a bookworm, that realisation had been so appalling that it had driven me to the next book store the minute I had unpacked all my boxes. I had bought a pile of books, most of them classics, some of them not, and the girl working the shop had recommended me some more, which then in return had led to a full conversation that lasted about an hour and her offering me a job when I mentioned that I was looking for a job.

The girl in question was Natalie and now one of my best friends. I hadn't noticed how much I actually needed a female friend, something that had practically been impossible around Harry – or at least I had felt that way. Most of the girls I had talked to before, when I was still regularly hanging out with Harry, had either been trying to get to him through me or been rude to me, thinking I was their rival in his affection – which technically I had been, something that I still thought didn't necessarily call for rudeness, but apparently other girls felt differently.