"I went to war for what we had,
You never even laced your boots."
~ N. R. Shepherd
The Road to Each Other is Paved with Selfish Intentions
I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes in anticipation for the upcoming conversation and what it might bring. I had been thinking about this moment over and over again for the past few days and now that it was finally here, I could not remember what I had wanted to say. I couldn't even remember how to begin.
The air stirred beside me as Wes sat on the bench. I could feel the tension and pull of electricity as seconds went by and I waited for Wes to start. But it seemed as though he had the exact same thought and the silence stretched by as he waited for me to start. Being with Wes suddenly felt like a life-time ago and the longer the time we spent apart, the harder it was for me to remember how I used to be around him. How we used to banter and flirt and argue constantly. It suddenly felt alien here, sitting beside him. And that saddened me more than I could have ever imagined.
"So, you came," my lips finally managed to form coherent words. Wes' eyes quickly flickered to mine and I could see he was holding back from making a sarcastic sassy remark at my obvious statement. My face quickly reddened and I internally face-palmed myself at my opening sentence.
"I did," he slowly replied. It was evident that the amount of control he exerted into providing a decent response was massive and despite being embarrassed, I deeply appreciated the sentiment.
"What did you think of the party?" I asked. Oh my God. What was wrong with me?! He had barely even seen the party since he had walked straight into the strip scene! Ugh. I really did have to get my act together.
"It would have been good...if I swung that way," he carefully replied, a small smirk tugging at his lips. Once more, we fell into silence. I sighed, I couldn't keep embarrassing myself with this small talk. It was his turn. I tried and tried, but it didn't seem as though he wanted to reciprocate.
"Why did you come here, Wes?" my heart beat faster as his name escaped my lips.
"It's Jordan's birthday party," he stated the obvious. His monotonous voice sent a lance straight through my heart and instantly killed whatever eagerness it had hyperactively been beating in the anticipation of. If he wanted to play this game, I wasn't going to be a part of it.
Standing up, I shook my head at him in disappointment. I had thought we were beyond this stage, but it seemed as though I had guessed wrong, "Then I hope you enjoy the party. Goodbye, Wes."
I turned away from Wes, suddenly feeling like an idiot- no better than a toy. Why did he even bother coming out here if it wasn't to talk to me?
I had barely taken a step before a warm hand clasped around mine. Wes' hand felt very different to last night. It had a certain urgency that I couldn't quite comprehend. It was no longer the steady calm and safe hands that I had become accustomed to so long ago.
"Please don't go," Wes' words were a mere whisper over the night breeze. The sudden vulnerability in his voice was even scarier than the prospect of walking away. My surroundings suddenly disintegrated, changing, morphing into my dark dreams and I was gripped with the same fear that haunted me every night. And through all this darkness, it was only Wes' hand, holding me so tightly- grounding me to the truth.
And I did what I refused to do every night. I turned around. The darkness fell apart and there sat Wes. He looked up at me with eyes full of sorrow and pain. The façade had broken away with the darkness and the two of us remained here- vulnerable and together.
"Why?" my voice was barely louder than his whisper.
"Because I'm sorry," he bowed his head in regret. "I keep hurting you."
I looked at the vulnerable boy in front of me, eyes lowered and head bowed in abandon. This was not the same cocky guy who had confidently waltzed into my life and barrelled through my walls. No, this was the boy who had slipped through the cracks of my heart. But I had only seen glimpses of him before now.
I gently placed my fingers under his chin and slowly raised his head to look at me. His grey eyes came back to meet mine uncertainly.
"I'm sorry for hurting you too," I replied softly.
Wes gently removed my hand from his face and looked at me in regret.
"But I could have prevented it all if I had just told you from the beginning," he continued. His eyes were hardened coals as he pierced mine with his truth.
"About you and Renee?" I asked him to clarify that we were talking about the same thing. "I know that you two used to date. I just don't know how this all got out of hand, honestly." It was all just a bad mixture of my reaction to what I had seen and heard and his reaction of it all.
"Because she was more than just an ex-girlfriend that I once dated," Wes replied quietly. My heart raced at his words. I didn't understand what he was trying to say and I tried to block every presumptuous idea that raced in my head before I knew the entire truth.
"What do you mean?" my voice was strained when Wes didn't continue immediately.
He shook his head slowly, eyebrows furrowed in deliberation, "It might seem silly why I kept this part of my past hidden or why it's been so difficult for me to just talk about it. It's just that I've never told anyone this, not even Jordan, because, well- I'm kind of ashamed of it."
"Anything that you think is important, is important to me too, Wes," I reassured him as I sat beside him on the bench. But he didn't look at me. Instead, he looked into the distance, remembering a past I had no part of.
"What do you know about my relationship with Renee?" Wes eventually replied, turning to face me.
"That you two dated years ago and she left you for your brother. Then you and Mase had a fight," I summarised what information I had gathered.
"That's a very simplified version," Wes gave a very short humourless chuckle. He paused, taking in a deep breath before he explained. "You know, Renee was my very first girlfriend. Back then, relationships were very sacred to me. I had tried to get her attention for months before I finally asked her out. I loved her- or at least I thought I had loved her. And I thought she loved me, too. It seems silly now even talking about it." Wes shook his head with a silly shrug. "You see, we decided to wait before we took our relationship further. We were saving ourselves for each other. That was until I found out she'd slept with my brother. Multiple times."
I stayed silently still, listening to his story. The hurt and anger in his voice was almost as palpable as it would have been that day.
"That was the day I lost both my girlfriend and my brother. She left me for Mase. Then a few weeks later, she came back to me and told me that leaving me was the biggest regret of her life and that she was going to leave Mase. She told me she wanted to make it final. So we did."
My heart clenched at the thought of him being with someone else, especially like that. You would have thought that I would have gotten used to it by now with his past, but he never loved any of the other girls. But he had loved Renee.
"She lied to me. She cheated on Mase and had kept it a secret. We kept seeing each other but I felt so guilty. I told Mase but he accused me of sleeping with Renee only to get revenge. I told him what had happened but he didn't believe me. Regardless of whether I believed she was going to leave him, nothing excused what I did. That was the day we got into a fight." Wes' eyes had glazed over, reliving the past.
I could see the worried faces of Andrew and Marie at the hospital, wondering if the problems of all those years ago had returned. In fact, she had never left.
"Renee didn't care, she stayed with Mase. In fact, she felt flattered that we had fought over her. She came to me again while she was still with Mase. For some stupid reason I still loved her, but I rejected her and she got very angry."
"Surprisingly, months went by quietly. Mase and Renee were still together, Mase was graduating and starting college and I was beginning to get over Renee. I even met a new girl. I asked her out one day. A few hours later, Renee came to me and told me that she'd left Mase and wanted to be with me. Now that Mase was leaving for college, we could finally be together. I was stupid and naïve and a little wishful thinking went a long way. We were back together again."
"But a few months later when Mase visited for the first time since he'd left, she went straight back to him. This pattern repeated itself a few times. Every time I would try to go out with another girl and move on from Renee, she would come running back to me. I realised that for her, it wasn't enough that she wouldn't be with me completely- It was that she didn't want anyone else to have me. It was because of her that I received my 'playboy' status. It was never because I 'didn't do' relationships- it was just because Renee never let me stay in another relationship long enough. And I was weak enough to let her."
My eyes widened at what he was saying. Any kindness I had felt towards Renee at the hospital immediately disintegrated and I saw bursts of red at the thought of her anywhere near Wes. But my anger was equally dampened down by the guilt. All those times I had called Wes a 'man-whore' or a 'womaniser'.
"What about all those girls?" I asked.
"Rumours," Wes shrugged. "Tell me, since the time we started hanging out all those months ago, how many girls have you actually seen me with?"
My mouth opened and closed multiple times, trying to think of an answer. I suddenly felt so stupid! I had been so busy hating Wes and his 'womanising ways' that I had completely ignored all the evidence before me!
"So, what happened then?" I asked, trying to evade the topic of my obvious miscalculation.
Wes looked up at me, his lips twitching into a smile, "I met someone who taught me how to be selfish."
I knitted my eyebrows together in confusion and he poked my forehead in sudden affection. I raised my eyebrows in shock. I could feel the mechanics of my brain clicking into place, trying to process all that he was saying. He couldn't possibly mean....
"I met a girl who told me that I deserved closure for myself- that if I were to mourn, it'd be to mourn for myself and not for Renee," Wes searched my eyes carefully as he waited for my response.
Selfish. Selfish. It was as though all the pieces of a puzzle floated around in my head and suddenly, all at once, they all fell into place. Surely- it couldn't be?
"Th-that was you?" I stuttered.