The boy and his ribbon

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

REN

* * * * * *

2015

FOR TWO YEARS, things were back to normal.

It was just me and Della against the world, but I wouldn’t lie and say I didn’t think about what had happened between us.

Della had shown me two sides of herself in those few days that I hadn’t seen before or since. Sure, there’d been a few incidents in the forest: a few heated looks, an early morning embrace that had been instinct and not thought, and even a couple of fierce arguments.

But we’d ironed out the kinks and found a new acceptable.

As time went on, problems were few and far between.

And that worried me.

Della had revealed she wasn’t just the simple blonde angel I’d raised and adored, but a girl with evolving needs; a trickster who could hide behind a mask and successfully keep her secrets.

Lately, she’d been too amenable—none of her usual fire or willingness to get into trouble for speaking her mind. But no matter how many times I caught myself studying her and no matter how often I tensed in her embraces, there was never anything more to her affection. No tension or undercurrent.

Just natural, sinless love.

It was the same as it had always been: given freely, kindly, wholeheartedly, but most of all, purely with no underlying contraband.

Her smiles were i

Her touches appropriately platonic.

I did my best to relax, but no matter how normal things became between us, I couldn’t let it go. A niggle was always there, searching her actions and tones, knowingly putting a barrier between us that I didn’t want.

She knew the wall was there, just like I did.

But we never addressed it, never tried to bulldoze it, and as time marched on, we learned to live with it. We accepted that the wariness would never fully dissolve and had become a fracture in our otherwise perfect relationship.

I hated it.

I hated that I’d lost the child I loved with all my heart and been traded a girl who had the terrifying capacity to destroy me.

Maybe it was all in my mind.

Perhaps the late-night dreams of phantom kisses with a woman I couldn’t claim was turning me mad. Maybe I’d been ruined all along and that was why I could never give myself to Cassie.

Whatever caused my vigilance, I never found any reason to be suspicious.

Guilt drowned me because how could I pretend to trust Della, when night after night, I was waiting to catch her? And catch her in what, exactly? A confession that she actually loved me in a completely different way to what was allowed? A hint that she felt just as scrambled and confused as I did and couldn’t find her way back to i

At least, we still had each other.

That was all that mattered.

We fought against winter for as long as we could, but eventually, the icy winds and snowy chill drove us from our sanctuary and back into the cities we despised.

It took us a few weeks to adjust being around people again. And another few to figure out the rules as we navigated our way into well-oiled society where finding somewhere to stay meant paying rent and paying rent meant finding work and getting work meant providing references.

I had cash for a down payment on a rental, and I learned on the job how to walk into letting agencies, ask to view a place, and tolerate being chauffeured around, guided through the home in question, and sold on every benefit.

Even though Della and I had lived with the Wilsons, gone into town, and been around public before, this was on an entirely different level.

We couldn’t hide behind the Wilsons anymore. We couldn’t rely on them to find us a place to stay or talk to the smarmy salespeople on our behalf. I couldn’t work my ass off and ask someone I trusted to buy everything we’d need. I had to pre-empt Della’s requirements with school uniforms and stationery. I had to plan groceries and living locations so she could get to school safely without a long commute.

There were no empty farmhouses for us to borrow. No perfect villages where we could happily live off the scraps unseen.

It suffocated me, seeking places to live where no trees grew or rivers ran. My brain battled daily with my heart, forcing me to give up house hunting and focusing on why we were there.

School.

Della had to go to the best school possible.

That was the reason.

And I clutched it hard even when finding a good school proved to be as much as a challenge as finding a home.

Della helped and researched online. She narrowed her results to two, and together, we walked from our hidden shack we’d commandeered as our winter abode on the edge of a campground, and did our best to hide the fact that we were still homeless.

The cracked weatherboards and grimy windows hadn’t been maintained, but it had a small stove for the extra blizzard-filled nights and it kept us from freezing to death.

It didn’t help with our bathing arrangements—having to melt snow and scrub down with the other person shivering outside to grant privacy, but at least the clothes I’d bought were fresh and new and Della’s hair shone gold and her eyes glowed with intelligence.

Any school would be lucky to have her.

And thanks to her skills, she managed to enrol into an all girl’s high school by acing the entrance exam and telling the headmaster to call her last school for her file.

I hadn’t thought to do that and used the trick when we finally found a cheap one-bedroom place three blocks away, asking the listing agent to call Cherry River Farm and ask John Wilson for a reference.

They did.

And whatever he told them ensured within the week Della attended a new school and I’d moved our meagre backpacks into a bare essential, unfurnished apartment and chewed through a chunk of my savings paying bond, first month’s rent, and Della’s tuition fees.

Della and I transformed its empty spaces into a semi-liveable home, thanks to flea market bargains and the odd furniture found on street corners.

I’d achieved more than I had in my life.

I’d dealt with people and hadn’t been recognised for being a runaway slave or for being the man who stole Della Mclary. My fears of being taken and sold were still strong, even though I was no longer a boy, and I preferred not to be too close or talk too long to anyone.

All winter, Della caught the local bus to school, bundled up in the thickest jacket, mittens, and hats I could afford, and returned straight after class ended.

I didn’t mind she didn’t make friends straight away. In fact, I was glad because it meant I had her company when I returned from work after toiling away at a local building site, and we spent the evenings together with our second-hand TV, street-salvaged couch, and snuggled under a shared blanket watching whatever was on.

The job I scored wasn’t perfect and didn’t pay well, but it meant I could keep a roof over our heads and di

I never grumbled as I lugged timber and dug holes.

I was the bitch on the site, gathering tools and doing the chores no one else wanted to do. The foreman who gave me the cash job said I got the dregs because I wasn’t a skilled builder, but I knew it was because I refused to drink with the guys or let them get to know me.

I didn’t want people to know me.

That was where danger lay.