Letters of Love (Lessons in Love) (15 page)

“But your future is the point.”

“I don’t believe in my future.” Oscar’s tone darkened.

“But why not?”

“Because I don’t deserve it.”

“Why would you think that? Of course you deserve your future!”

Oscar looked away into the distance, at the trees on the far side of the park and the people walking around. Alex noticed how his dark eyes misted over, something she had never seen before, and when he went to take another cigarette, his hand trembled.

“Can I smoke?” he asked Alex without looking at her.

“Yeah, sure.” She wanted to place her hand on his leg to comfort him, seeing how distressed he was becoming, but was unsure of what was now acceptable behavior between them. They weren’t a couple, so surely now she couldn’t touch him? There were boundaries now when before there were none. It felt so confusing and unnatural to be neutral around him.

“Five years ago I was in a car accident,” Oscar explained.

“Was it bad?”

“Pretty bad, yeah. I was driving and lost control on a patch of black ice, spun around and
hit an oncoming truck.”

“How frightening
,” Alex sympathised.

“My sister died on impact.”

Alex felt her breath catch in her throat. She had no idea that Oscar had once had a sister.

“That’s awful.” Alex could feel tears forming in her own eyes as she imagined Oscar’s pain.

“She was my twin sister. We grew up together, but she was always the star. She had an amazing voice, and I kept telling her that one day I’d take her to New York and help her forge a career. But that day I stole it all away from her. I walked away with surface injuries, but the truck struck her side of the car and crushed her.”

Oscar could no longer talk
. He placed his hands over his eyes and shook silently.

“Oscar
.” Alex placed a consolatory arm on his shoulder before giving in to her instincts and embracing him. He wept into her hair as she held him.

“I should have told you,” he whispered. “But I’ve felt so terrible about it for
so long. I hate myself for what I did. She should be the one here living. I’m the one who should be dead.”

“It was an accident,” Alex told him.

“But it changed everything.”

“I know how that feels.” Alex pulled away slightly to look Oscar squarely in the eye. “When I was fourteen I watched my father get shot and killed at a 7-Eleven after he stopped in to get me a drink.”

Oscar sat silent for a long time, looking deeply into Alex’s eyes, stunned at what she had just revealed, a mutual look of understanding developing between them. Finally moving, he pulled Alex towards him, their lips connecting as they lost themselves to a deep, passionate kiss, desperately trying to devour one another after all the pent-up months of longing came flooding to the surface.

****

“I missed this,” Alex whispered as she looked up at the ceiling of Oscar’s dorm room. Nothing had changed since she had last been there. The air still smelt of stale smoke and cologne, the posters on the wall were still of his favorite movies and bands. It was as though time had stood still within the four small walls and their breakup had never even happened.

“I missed you,” Oscar said fondly, leaning to kiss Alex’s forehead as she lay nestled in the crook of his arm, both of them on their backs in his bed beneath the sheets.

“I just wish you’d called me, or at least texted.” Alex sighed.

“I couldn’t
.” Oscar’s jaw clenched as he spoke. “Pushing people away, it’s been my thing since Olivia…”

He was still unable to really talk about his sister’s death. Since the revelation about the accident he’d admitted small details to Alex, like her name, when it had happened and how it had torn his family apart
, but his parents now placed especially high expectations upon Oscar, as he was now the sole torchbearer of all the hopes and dreams they’d had for both of the twins.

“I understand
.” Alex moved her hand to find Oscar’s and intertwined her fingers with his.

“I never thought I’d find anyone who could, who would have been through the same stuff. Most people our age are so naïve it infuriates me.”

The couple were silent for a while, focusing on their own thoughts and on soaking up one another’s company. Alex liked how Oscar smelt, she liked how his sheets carried that scent and how after being in bed with him, she too would faintly carry his odor as though she were stealing away a part of his essence.

“How did you deal when your
dad died?” Oscar asked after a while. He didn’t deliver the question with delicate precautions like most people did. Usually when someone asked about Alex’s father, they acted as though they were walking on eggshells, terrified of saying the wrong thing, but Oscar’s question had been direct, as though he were asking her what she’d want for breakfast. She liked that their shared understanding of grief meant that they could be frank with one another. It was refreshing.

“Denial
, I guess,” Alex admitted. “We lost everything, our home, all our money. I had to go to a really lame school, so I lost all my friends too, and I just pretended to be someone else, because that way it sort of felt like it hadn’t happened to me.”

“So who did you pretend to be?” Oscar asked, intrigued.

“I stopped being Alexandra Heron the perfect student and became Alex Heron, head cheerleader.” Alex laughed at herself as she spoke. It felt surreal to say out loud what had happened, who she had once been.

“Head cheerleader
.” Oscar smiled to himself at this. “See, I had you pegged as a cheerleader.”

“But I was only a pretend one.”

“Even better.” He smirked cheekily. Then his face stiffened as he became more serious. “But did it help? Being a different Alex, did you get over your dad easier?”

“No
.” Alex’s voice was soft and regretful. “It made it harder because I had no one to talk to about it.”

“That sucks.”

“Mmm.”

“But you ended up here, in Princeton, so studious Alex must have returned at some point, so how did that happen?” Oscar asked with genuine interest.

Alex opened her mouth to answer and then stopped. Mark was the reason she’d got her life together. He’d believed in her enough to support her getting into Princeton. He’d started out as her mentor but evolved into something more, but she couldn’t tell Oscar that, not when they’d just rekindled their relationship.

“I just finally got my act together and realized what was important,” Alex said flippantly.

“I admire that, it took me so long to accept what happened. What am I saying? I’ve still not accepted it.” Oscar sat up and ran a disgruntled hand through his hair. “I flunk out of school and treat you like crap, all because of my inability to accept that I’m alive and that she died. It sucks.” His fists bunched together in anger.

“It takes time
.” Alex sat up and began to gently caress Oscar’s bare back. His skin was warm and moist with sweat.

“The worst part is that I’m starting to forget her, like how her voice sounded or what she looked like when she really laughed
.” Oscar hung his head. “Forgetting parts of her is like losing her all over again.”

“I feel the same way about my
dad. I struggle to remember how he smelt or even how tall he was. Because he seemed giant to a fourteen-year-old me, but he can’t have been.” Alex stopped rubbing Oscar’s back and instead wrapped her arms around him, kissing his cheek as she did so.

“I’ve never been able to talk to anyone about it like this,” Oscar admitted.

“Me neither.” Alex tightened her embrace around him. She held him for a few moments before he suddenly spun around, using his arms to push Alex back onto the bed so that he was looking down on her.

“Do you think that you can save me, Alex Heron? Because I badly need saving.” His eyes were both pleading and sad.

“I’ll save you if you save me?” Alex suggested.

“Deal,” Oscar declared before leaning down to passionately kiss her, lifting her hands up above her head and
lacing their fingers together.

The intensity of their discussion, of their promise of salvation
, soon evaporated in the heat of their union. Alex panted beneath him, her body longing for him. Oscar moved from kissing her to placing his lips seductively upon her neck, making Alex groan with pleasure.

“Oscar, I love you,” she panted to him.

“I love you,” he answered before things intensified and there was no longer any need for words between them.

****

“Hey, is that Alex?” Ashley sprang up from her bed when she heard her bedroom door open and positioned herself directly in front of her friend.

“I’m not sure it is since I’ve forgotten what she looks like
.” Mockingly Ashley scrutinized Alex’s face.

“I mean, you look like Alex, but you can’t be Alex.” Finally Ashley stood back, hands on hips
, and allowed Alex to enter the room.

“I’m sorry
, Ash. I know I haven’t been here much.” Alex threw herself onto her bed, exhausted from lack of sleep.

“You’ve been gone for
, like, two days. The last time I saw you, you’d gone to meet up with him of whom we do not speak. What happened? Did you kill him, and you’ve been busy disposing of the body? If so, I’ll be your alibi, no problem.” Ashley positioned herself back on her own bed and looked across at Alex expectantly, eager to learn about where her friend had been.

“Sorry to disappoint you
, but I didn’t kill him.”

“Then where have you been?”

“I’ve been with Oscar,” Alex admitted sheepishly, knowing that Ashley would fervently disapprove of such behavior.

“With Oscar!” Ashley’s eyes widened with shock and rage. “Alex, how could you go back to him after how badly he treated you! What are you thinking!”

“I know, I know, but… well, he explained himself to me. He explained why he behaves the way he does.”

“He better have a pretty impressive explanation!”

“Five years ago his twin sister died in a car accident. He was driving.” Alex decided it was best to be honest with Ashley. The two girls shared everything, and she didn’t want there to be any secrets between them.

“Oh my God, seriously?” Ashley was subdued and looked slightly shamed by her previous outburst.

“He opened up to me about it all.”

“That’s…
so terrible. And with you having lost your dad, you two must understand each other.”

“Yeah, we do.”

“Well, now I feel bad.” Ashley sighed, flopping back onto her mountain of pink scatter cushions.

“I’ve been ragging on the guy for months
, and he’s actually just carrying some serious baggage about a dead sister. Urgh, I’m a bitch.”

“You’re not a bitch,” Alex comforted her. “Neither of us knew. I’ve been hating him all through the summer
, having no idea he was just going through similar issues to me.”

“That’s crazy.”

“I know.”

“So are you two like…
back together now?” Ashley asked tentatively.

“Yeah.”

“And that’s what you want? Because if it’s what you want, then I support you completely. You know that, don’t you?” Ashley raised herself up on one arm so she could look across at Alex directly.

“I feel like he’s my soul mate,” Alex admitted. “We’ve got so much in common.”

“Commonalities does not a soul mate make,” Ashley commented, a bitter edge coating her words.

“Everything okay?” Alex asked, concerned.

“Pierre broke up with me.” Ashley tried to sound flippant, but her quivering lip belied her true emotions.

“And I wasn’t here for you!” Alex sprang from one bed to another, immediately embracing Ashley
, who began to weep.

“I’m so, so sorry. What happened?”

“He met someone in Paris.” Ashley snivelled despondently. “Apparently she’s more
convenient
for him.”

“What a bastard,” Alex seethed.

“I thought he loved me,” Ashley wailed mournfully as Alex held her tightly.

“I’m sorry, Ash.”

“I’m just so hurt and so mad.”

“I know.”

“Why can’t love be easy? Like in the movies?”

“I don’t know,” Alex admitted sadly.

“Do you think that when it’s true love, it’s easy, and that’s how you know?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

****

Oscar was leaning against a column
, waiting for Alex as she came out of class. He caught her eye and smiled fondly, and she felt a flutter of butterflies dance wildly in her stomach.

“I didn’t know you’d be here waiting
.” Alex smiled, slipping her hand into his as they began walking away from the building.