Kiss Me Like you Did -IGHS Sequel-

Taylor’s POV

‘We should probably try to stay apart.’

I knew it was the right thing to do, to say. I knew I had to stay away from Jake, to protect my already irreparably damaged heart from being broken all over again.

So why did it feel like somebody had ripped a hole in my chest and was slowly tugging on the edges, making it bigger, all encompassing; as I was collapsing into it?

I was sitting on my bed, my knees pulled up to my chest, in the corner beside the window where my pillows were. I had pulled the curtains and the room was in relative darkness; the sun outside was bright and hot and the curtains weren’t thick enough to keep it out completely, but the dimness was enough so that when the door opened and somebody walked inside, he managed to trip over his own feet.

‘Oof!’ I heard somebody exclaiming as they landed with a thud on the floor. I didn’t want to say anything, didn’t want to engage, but I knew if I kept silent, it would be pretty, well, creepy.

‘You okay?’ I managed to choke out, as a dark, shadowy form pulled itself back into an upright position. I could see the vague outline of a suitcase and some bags by the door; my roommate had finally arrived, a day after everyone else.

‘Yeah, but you’re clearly not,’ the voice said, obviously registering the distress in my voice. ‘I’m Landon.’

‘Taylor,’ I replied, not moving from my place on the bed, even though I knew I should probably go help him with his stuff.

‘You wanna talk about it?’ Landon asked, pretty easily for someone who had just met me.

‘Not really,’ I mumbled.

‘Well, it’s cool if you do,’ he said cheerfully. ‘If you change your mind I mean. I’m the Dorm Assistant, so it’s pretty much my job,’ he added lightly, as if it was the thought of burdening him that made me reluctant to talk.

‘The what?’ I asked, curious in spite of myself.

‘Dorm Assistant. It’s a student who assists the Dorm Director? I just help out with administration, student difficulty, and so on.’

‘Do you get paid?’

‘Less than slave children in India,’ he said, his tone getting a little dark for a minute before brightening again. ‘But you gotta pay the bills somehow right?’

‘Um,’ I said, having no concept of what it would be like to have to put myself through college. ‘Right.’

‘What are you studying?’

‘Liberal arts. English. You?’

‘Third year Civil Engineering,’ Landon said, and I was surprised I’d been roomed with an older student. Also, unless Jake had changed as radically as me over the last year, I knew he’d be taking engineering as well.

‘I’ve got a... Friend doing that,’ I said, choking a little on the word “friend”.

‘Ex-girlfriend?’ Landon asked, picking up on my tone. He was more intuitive than I thought. I bet he was pretty good at that Dorm Assistant thing.

‘Boyfriend,’ I corrected him quietly. Living in California, there hadn’t often been a lot of negative reaction when people learned my sexuality, and there’d been none in Ireland, based, probably, on the fact that I came out only about two weeks before I left. But I was still always a little wary when telling people for the first time. I mean, I’d spent the majority of the last year having to find explanations for every little thing about me; being psychoanalysed and judged was the last thing I wanted at college.

‘Should have known,’ Landon said easily. ‘Not a lot of girls take engineering; at least, there are only three in my class. You been moved in long?’

‘Since yesterday.’ I was glad the conversation had moved away from Jake – it was stupid of me to take it there in the first place – but the memories of moving in and seeing him again for the first time were starting to rush in and I could feel my vision starting to tunnel again. God, why am I so weak?

I slipped off the bed and walked quickly to my still-unpacked bags, rummaging around until I found my small medication bag and tipping a couple pills into my hands before swallowing them dry. I’ve taken so many tablets over the last year that I don’t really need to take a drink with them anymore; it is somewhat easier to wash the taste away with a gulp of water, but it’s not necessary.

‘Headache?’ Landon asked, noticing the gesture. Christ, he was nosy. But the tone of his voice was so friendly, he just came across as trying to be helpful. ‘I have an ice pack if you like?’

I shook my head. ‘That’s okay, thanks. I might just go for a walk.’

‘Are you sure? It’s pretty bright out there.’

‘Fresh air will help,’ I muttered, slipping out of the room and closing the door gently behind me. Feeling the anxiety well up in my chest again at having left the room, I quickly pulled my phone out of my pocket and called Ryan.

‘Everything okay?’ he asked lightly, and I remembered he thought I was still with Jake.

‘Um. Are you busy?’ I asked tentatively.

‘Where are you?’ He’s even more intuitive than Landon.

‘In the hallway,’ I said listlessly. ‘Outside my room.’

‘Did you lock yourself out?’ I could detect the small hint of hope in his voice that I had some sort of practical problem, that it wasn’t mental this time. That it was something he could fix.

‘No,’ I said in a small voice, feeling like more of a burden than ever.

‘Stay where you are, I’ll be right over,’ he said, and the line went dead. Sighing, I leaned against the wall and slid to the floor, resting my forehead on my knees.

‘You sure you don’t want to talk about it?’ I looked up to see a bemused looking Landon leaning against the doorjamb, raising his eyebrows at me. I saw there were two more bags on the opposite side of the door; he’d left some of his stuff in the hall.

I sighed, tipping my head back to lean against the cool wall instead. ‘You think you’ve been roomed with a complete weirdo, don’t you?’ I asked, staring at the ceiling. I felt Landon sit down next to me.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Bit of a headcase maybe, but I’ve seen worse.’ I glanced sideways at him to see that he was grinning.

‘I doubt that,’ I murmured, returning my gaze to the ceiling, which had some very unattractive watermarks and a little mould growing in one corner.

I felt pressure on my arm and looked down again; Landon had put his hand on my bicep – if you could even call my skinny excuse for an upper arm a “bicep” – and had squeezed it gently. ‘You know 85% of people suffer one form of depression or another after a break-up?’

How is it, that with all the counselling and therapy I’ve been to, I didn’t know that? Not that it would have made me feel any better, I don’t think. But maybe I wouldn’t have felt like such a freak.

‘No,’ I admitted. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Hey,’ a voice I recognised interrupted suddenly, I looked up to see Ryan looking down at us, his expression confused. I realised Landon still had his hand on my arm. It was big and warm, and I was way too tired to shake him off.

‘Hey,’ I said, attempting a smile. ‘Landon this is my boyfriend, Ryan. Ryan, my roommate, Landon.’

‘Hi,’ Ryan said awkwardly, attempting a half-wave at Landon.

‘Hello,’ Landon said cheerfully, taking his hand off my arm of his own volition and moving to stand up. ‘I’d better finish unpacking. Nice meeting you,’ he added to Ryan, then picked up his remaining bags and went back into the room.

I reached my hand out towards Ryan, who took it and pulled me to my feet. I felt an overwhelming sense of relief to see him, and let myself fall towards his body, wrapping my arms around his neck and burying my face in his familiar smell. I felt his grip tighten around my waist and after a moment he began stroking my back soothingly.

‘Shh,’ he mumbled, as he felt his shoulder starting to get wet, and my body start to shake. I know I’ve said I’m not much of a crier, and I never used to be, but that has changed. When I’m not feeling numb and dead inside, you can pretty much guarantee I’ll be crying.

Ryan started rocking us gently from side to side, muttering nonsense noises in my ear trying to calm me, and I knew he knew what was wrong. That’s where the imbalance lies in our relationship; anybody else would have been upset with me for crying on his shoulder about another guy. Not Ryan. All he ever wants is to fix me. Maybe he thinks I’ll get better one day and be able to love him like he loves me, and if I was a little bit less selfish I’d let him in on my suspicion that that’s never gonna happen.

But I don’t. Instead I pretend like there’s some hope for me, some hope that I’ll come out on the other side of this wretched disease stronger and happier, and have an even greater capacity for love than before.

‘Maybe your doctor was right,’ he whispered after ten minutes, when I’d finally started to calm down, my sobs quieting so I was just leaning on him, silent tears leaking from my eyes every couple of seconds. ‘Seeing him has only made things worse.’

This, admittedly, was 100% true, so I nodded against his shoulder, tightening my grip around his neck. Still that horrible, knee-quaking fear that he’ll someday realise he’s too good for me and leave.

‘Maybe...’ I could tell he knew I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say. I knew what was coming, but I didn’t want to say it or hear it, so I didn’t help him. ‘Maybe you should just, I dunno, cut all ties with him. I know it’ll be hard,’ he rushed on, before I could argue, even though I wasn’t going to, ‘but being around him isn’t good for you, baby.’

I paused, swallowed, then nodded again, and pulled back from him, wiping my eyes. ‘I told him we should stay away from each other,’ I admitted, my voice blocked with tears. Ryan looked surprised.

‘What did he say?’ he asked.

‘He said he agreed.’ And that, really, was the part that killed me.

Jake’s POV

I wandered back to my room alone after having lunch with Kelly and listening to her waffle on for a full hour about how wonderful Ethan was. I’m not sure poor Jacob stood much of a chance, but it was nice listening to her gossip about boys again like before. The last time she’d been this excited about a guy was the night of our somewhat ill-fated house party, where she’d planned on hooking up with some dude called Evan but had ended up in bed with my girlfriend at the time instead.

I shook my head, smiling at the memory in spite of myself – I had been in love with Taylor at the time and jealousy, where Jenny was concerned, was pretty much non-existent, even if I had been angry for a while – and let myself into my room, fully intending to take a nap. Having spent the majority of my life over the past year or so asleep, going this long without a midday nap was exhausting. When I looked up after closing the door, however, I saw Ryan sitting on his bed, looking at me and biting his lip.

‘Hi,’ I said tentatively. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to get into it with him right now. If he was going to berate me for fucking up Taylor’s life, then fuck it, I was already doing enough of that myself. I still didn’t feel like it was Ryan’s place to defend Taylor, it felt like I should be doing that. But how do you defend someone against yourself?

‘Hi,’ he replied, his bottom slip slipping out from between his teeth when he spoke. I looked away quickly; I didn’t want to think about his lips being anywhere near Taylor’s. ‘Um, can we talk?’

I sighed, dropping onto my bed and kicking off my shoes. ‘Look, whatever it is you want to yell at me about, I’ve probably killed myself over it a hundred times already.’ I bit my own lip then; it probably wasn’t the best choice of metaphorical verb, all things considered, and I almost apologised until he spoke up.

‘No, I don’t want to yell at you,’ he said quietly. ‘I want to, um, to thank you.’

I raised my eyebrows; what little part of me wasn’t already surrendering to sleep was, admittedly, curious.

‘For agreeing to stay away from Taylor,’ Ryan went on, and I felt an icy cold knife stab through my stomach. ‘I know he told you everything, and about that doctor that stopped him from talking to you, and I agree that she was wrong,’ he went on in a rush, ‘but now that he’s seen you he’s even worse than ever and I think since he’s been doing it for so long it’ll only get worse and worse if he keeps seeing you,’

Not really anything I hadn’t figured out on my own, but it still hurt a lot more to hear it from someone else. Being detrimental – dangerous even – to the person you love is the most painful thing I can imagine.

‘So thanks. I know it, um, I know it can’t have been easy.’ He stumbled over the words.

‘No,’ I whispered. ‘It wasn’t.’

‘So, you’ll do it? You’ll keep away from Taylor for the rest of the year?’

Slowly, I nodded, thanking god that sleep was so close. I would never, ever cry in front of Ryan Chambers. ‘Yeah,’ I whispered. ‘I’ll stay away from him for the rest of the year.’

And so I did. I tried my hardest. Taylor never came to our room anymore, and I definitely never went to his. We didn’t have any classes in the same part of campus, seeing as our courses were so different, and when I ran into him in the hall we both stared at the ground and hurried past. Ryan and I rarely spoke, though Kelly gave him filthy looks whenever she came to visit, driving him out of the room, until I asked her to stop because, well, because I knew where he was going every time he left. I became close friends with Johnny, and practically fluent in sign language, so we were joined at the hip quite a lot of them time. Kelly ended up in a fickle relationship with Ethan, which ended in November and she started seeing Halley instead. This almost drove Jacob over the edge, who spent half the time waxing lyrical about how hot it was, and the other half in a dark silent place muttering about how she would date anyone before she’d date him.

It was on December fourteenth, shortly before Christmas break began, that Taylor and I started having what I suppose you would call an affair.