An;Reading your reviews makes me really happy writing is what I do. I can't say thank you enough.
An2: I'm not looking to portray anyone in this story as a villain, that is honestly not my intention. There're no bad guys and good guys in this story. There're just people, and decisions and consequences and how they deal with them.
This chapter is Bo-centric, I've been looking forward to writing it for a really long while, I hope it's half or even quarter as good as I intended it to be.
All mistakes are mine.
"Do you ever dream about it?" Bo asked smoothing Lauren's hair from her face as they lie side by side in the blond's bed.
"Think about what?"
"What our lives will be like in the city. What the city itself will be like." Bo's voice had a dreamy quality to it the more she talked. It made Lauren smile.
"Every day. I can't wait to live with you."
"Me neither," she said with a smile, "I am going to make you so happy, Lauren."
Lauren didn't doubt it for one second.
...
When days decided to get hard, they got so hard that Bo found it hard to even leave the bed.
She missed her life. She never thought she would but she missed her life so damn much it physically hurt.
She'd never, in all her planning, thought of what it would be like to live without a family, without anyone really. Because as screwed up as things were between she and Aife, the woman was still her mother and some part of Bo, although she hadn't thought it possible, missed her.
She was like everyone else on earth, she was hurting and she was lonely and she desperately needed some human contact. She needed her mother to tell her things will be okay.
She needed someone to care and as much as Lauren's parting words had given her hope the blond still wasn't here.
Bo couldn't touch her, see her, feel her, make her smile, she couldn't even text her because she had promised to give Lauren space. And she was trying this new grown up thing where she doesn't just think of herself, where she considers other people's feelings too.
But it didn't mean it wasn't hard.
That's why when Dyson turned up at her door, confused as to why she had been avoiding him at school and wasn't even returning her calls, "did I do something wrong? Just tell me if I did." his voice was desperate and hurt.
She let him in.
She was lonely and his desperation made her feel needed so she let him in.
...
It took all of five minutes for her to realize that maybe this was a bad decision.
She was lonely and needy, he' was available and easy, it was a fucking bad decision.
"You should leave." She said before he even had a chance to sit down.
He arched a brow, "why?"
For all his faults, and there were a great many of them, no one could ever claim that Dyson didn't love Bo. Because he did, a lot, and even she knew that. They'd grown up with each other, she was his first everything, in his mind they were as good as married.
Which is why answering his question made Bo take in a huge breath.
Things were fucked up left right and center, some of it was his fault, but not all of it, not even most of it. And among the people who were going to come out of this situation with a broken heart, he was almost top in line.
"Because I don't want you here."
"But you- " he eyed her with confusion, "Bo, what's going on?"
"Nothing,"
"Bo-"
"Look, this is over. In fact it should never have started in the first place." She looked away from his confused eyes, "just leave, Dyson. Please."
"Did I do something? You can tell me if I did, Bo. I can fix it."
There he goes again, blaming himself.
Part of her wanted to tell him yes, yes you did something, you ruined my life. Because a big part of her still blamed him for dropping that ultimatum on her that night.
A big part of her still associated him directly with her losing Lauren.
But then another part of her knew that he was a victim in all of this as much as anyone else. Because however you want to look at it, she had used him.
To keep Aife's suspicions away from her and Lauren. To please Aife, to keep her reputation intact, to make Lauren jealous, to keep her family's status intact.
Time and again, over and over, she had used him. And when things went wrong she had used him some more.
She had hated him and used him all at the same time. And the worst part of it all is that she didn't even know how to feel sorry for doing it because this big part of her being still felt so violated by him, still felt like he had taken something huge from her.
Like that warranted her to punish him. Make him hurt just as much as she was hurting, whether he knew it or not.
It gave her a headache just looking at him.
"There's nothing to fix Dyson."
He stayed silent. Looking at her just like he always did, like he was trying to figure her out but couldn't quite get it right.
Sometimes she wanted to tell him he'll never get it right, she wasn't his to figure out. She didn't even want to be figured out by him.
"Will you at least tell me why?" his voice sounded resigned, like he knew she was serious.
She shrugged, "it was a mistake. We were never meant to be and you know it."
"No I don't."
"Yes you do, you're not stupid Dyson. You've known from the very start."
"We've been together for years, Bo. And now out of nowhere you're telling me we're over and you just expect me to know why?"
He sounded genuinely hurt. He sounded like someone who's heart really was breaking and he couldn't understand why. Bo wanted this conversation done, she had enough to deal with with her own broken heart, she wasn't up to dealing with his too.
"Look, I'm not expecting anything from you other than that you respect my decision. That's all."
He nodded, but he didn't seem like he got it, but he nodded anyway, "is there someone else?"
He asked softly, using the voice that he used when he wanted to show her that he cared for her more than anything. Dyson wasn't by nature a soft person, it just wasn't him. And when he used that voice it was usually to show Bo that he could make exceptions for her.
She sighed and answered, she owed him that much.
"No." it wasn't a lie. She was giving Lauren space, the blond wasn't her's to claim right now, as much as she wanted her to be.
And as much as she was doing this for Lauren, because she wanted the blond to see that she was serious about them, she was mostly breaking up with Dyson for herself. She was so so tired of feeling cheap every time he touched her and she couldn't do it for a day more.
She just couldn't.
"Right." Pause, "so this is it, after all these years, this is it."
It wasn't a question, she nodded anyway, her heart feeling light all of a sudden. Like she was finally dealing with things. She was taking control of things. It was hard as fuck but she was doing it ."This is it."
It was a confirmation.
He nodded and cast her one long look before he left. She didn't know if it was over for him, if this was all the fight he was going to put up. But she didn't really care, she had said her piece.
They were done.
...
She was going to do it tonight. She was finally going to say something and not just hold the phone to her ears like some sort of idiot, she was going to apologize and ask for just a little more time.
She could be brave, she could, she just needed a little more time.
"Hello?" All that she wanted to say vanished when she heard that voice.
"Hello...is someone there?" Lauren asked again.
A few seconds passed, "Bo?Bo, is that you?"
She wanted to say yes, she wanted to say so many things that she couldn't decide on just one. It now seemed entirely too stupid to ask for more time.
Time to what? Go back living some secret that just made their lives harder?
No, she had to be strong, she had to be strong and then get Lauren, because Lauren deserved to be with someone who was strong and not afraid to be with her.
"I'm hanging up now," a short silence, a sigh, then she had the dial tone.
...
When she wasn't at school, she spent her time doing homework, reading and watching Doctor Who and Grey's Anatomy because she wanted to learn as many geeky jokes as she possibly could.
"Want summa my pie?"
"I-I don't get it Lauren."
"You know pie like pie the sign and...oh forget it."
She learnt to cook too.
Breakfast meals, light snacks, Asian food, Mexican food;
"I'm going to be surprising you with breakfast in bed when we're in our apartment in the big city."
Lauren laughed, light and free, "you can't cook, Bo. You burn water."
"Hey!" she hit the blond lightly on the arm then kissed the spot she had hit when Lauren pouted, "that was once," she said, her eyes shinning, looking right into twinkling brown ones, "and I can learn to cook so that I can make you breakfast in bed. I want to give you everything great in this world, Lauren. No matter what I have to do to make that happen."
When she wasn't reading, or learning how to cook or doing house chores, she went and hanged out with Vex.
He was easy to be around and he didn't make her feel judged.
"I don't think you should hang out around here so much, kiddo."
He said as he handed her a Smirnoff.
She rolled her eyes and took the drink from his hands, "shut up, you love it when I come here. I'm good for business."
"Your boobs are good for business. You on the other hand are a one way ticket to prison. Are you even legal yet?"
She rolled her eyes again, she was a chronic eye roller when she was around Vex, it couldn't be helped, "you know full fucking well that I'm legal, Vex, you were at my party."
A silence descended on them. It always did when they mentioned anything regarding Bo's life before everything. As much as he pretended not to, Vex cared a lot for Bo,she was family in some really far fetched way, "you good?"
He would never outright ask if she was okay, or if she was holding up fine. Because he knew she was trying to be strong and be her own person and he wanted her to know he acknowledged it.
She was grateful for that.
She took a swig of her drink to stall for time, he just watched her patiently, "I'm fine." She said finally.
"Yeah?"
She nodded, "yeah. It gets a little hard sometimes but mostly it's good, I feel like I can finally breath for the first time in a really long time, you know."
He nodded and smiled, pride and fondness clearly showing in his eyes, "so no regrets?"
She thought of Lauren saying how proud of her she was, calling her brave. She looked at Vex looking at her with respect that she hadn't seen in his eyes before, she thought of the lightness that she sometimes felt that had never been there before and she shook her head, "none."
His smile grew even bigger, "good, good. " he lit a cigarette, "so, have you thought of telling your old man that you moved out and why?"
"No."
"Kid-"
"No, Vex. Not yet."
"Not yet?" he asked blowing out some smoke. His eyes were challenging her.
"Not yet. He's isn't due back till next month and this isn't a conversation one has through the phone."
"But it's one you're thinking of having?"
Was it?
She hadn't given it much thought, not lately anyway. She was doing it one step at a time, this learning who she is thing, she's playing her cards as they're dealt.
She broke up with Dyson because he sort her out. She let Vex in because he noticed there was a change in her.
She's not hiding, not anymore. But not hiding and revealing yourself are two different things. She wants people to see her, the her that she is now, the her she's trying to be, but she doesn't want to call attention to herself.
She's not looking to carry a rainbow flag just yet.
And she definitely isn't looking to get judged by her father.
"I don't know. It's just that- it's easier like this, it's easier to not know what he thinks of me than to be certain that he hates me."
"He couldn't hate you, Kid."
"Oh yeah?" she challenges with an arched brow.
"Yeah, he's your dad. Give him some credit."
But that's just the thing. She keeps giving people some damn credit and they keep hitting her with it in the bloody face and there's only so much she can take.
Both the people she trusted with her secret have screwed her in the worst possible ways and she doesn't know if she's ready to pin her hopes in people right now.
She's kind of really fucking tired of people letting her down.
"I'll talk to him when I talk to him."
Vex knows that that means the conversation is over and done with.
...