Split

Quiet and imaginative, Derek O'Reilly spends a lot of time watching a movie in his head. His fiancé Nathan wonders why Derek hasn't taken any interest in their wedding planning, and Aunt Fran -- his spiritual guru -- would like to know when her guilt-tripping nephew became a kept boy. When she drops Derek's childhood journal on his lap, he's forced to remember the name he's been trying to forget since he was twelve years old. Nicolai Lund. Nick was Derek's neighbor ... and first love. Weeks before Derek's engagement party, a chance meeting with Nick catapults Derek into the past. But Nick isn't that seventeen-year-old rebel anymore. He's a man hardened by invisible scars. A man struggling with grief. As Derek reads through his childhood diary, he realizes what Nick was to him, still is today, and yet might be ... NOTE: This edition has been expanded and substantially edited.

Mel Bossa · LGBT+

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89 Chs

Chapter 39

“Shit, Derek.” He reached for my fingers, and I let him hold my hand. “You think I don’t hear you talking in your sleep? You think I don’t see the circles under your eyes? You’re fighting something. Let me fight it with you. Der, you can’t do everything alone all the time. You don’t need to be so secretive.”

“Nathan.” But that was all I had to say.

“Come here.” He pulled me close and kissed my head. “I love you. And I’m not messing around on you. Iswear it, baby. I swear it on my father’s life.”

“You hate your father.”

He laughed and his chest shook against my cheek. “Good point,” he said. “Okay then, I swear it on our love.”

If you swore on the very thing you were destroying, wouldn’t that cancel everything out?

Chapter 11

Dear Bump,

One morning, just minutes after the red sunlight had flooded my bedroom, I crept out of the room and tiptoed to the washroom. I closed the door behind me and sat on the cold ceramic floor, with my back against the door.

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