The Gay Delusion

22: The Gradual Delusion

Heyyy, time for one of my rambly af author's notes! You know you love them (I'm kidding, I'll try and make this brief) ;) ;) ANYWAY, first of all, and as always, an APOLOGY for my dire, dire updating/replying/general wattpad skills these days. I came back from the best vacation of my entire existence, and now life is back to moving at a million miles an hour, and I've been too caught up with trying to re-acclimatize to update. I've also been really frustrated with wattpad/writing/the internet lately, and that's why I've kept a bit of a distance recently and not updated or been very active, because I don't want to be conversing with you guys etc when I'm anything but in a great mood :P ANYWAY! Sorry if this chapter feels quite bleak to start with, it picks up a lot in the next one ;) HOPE YOU'RE ALL GOOD! Tell me how you are! Hope you enjoy this, and I'd love to know what you think :) xoxo

22: The Gradual Delusion

The summer before my third year of university had been one of the best I could remember, even now. Time passed quickly, full to the brim with adventure and new experiences.

Nathan and I went traveling, he met my mum, who was newly remarried and loved up with Alec, and our days began and ended, blissfully, in bed together. He had slotted into my life so perfectly that it were as if Nathan had become an extension of me – or rather, that I had become an extension of him. I couldn't imagine my life without him in it.

And then change came, one of my least favourite things in the world. The differences in him were slow, at first, beginning once we moved in together that autumn. They were so gradual that I could hardly notice them occurring, until one day I was sat in the bathtub examining the fading bruises on various parts of a body that I didn't fully recognize as belonging to me anymore, and wondering how on earth they had got there.

The first time he raised his voice at me was the only time I was ever (metaphorically) hit by the unexpected, and it was all I could recall and really classify, in hindsight, as a turning point in our relationship.

It was a Friday evening and Nathan had suggested we stay in, as opposed to us going out clubbing with his friends. By this stage, all of the friends who I had met at university had stopped texting and suggesting we meet up. I still had Nova, although I didn't want to burden her with my drama while she completed her own degree. We saw each other every month or so in our final year of university, both of us living the lives of broke-ass students who couldn't afford to get the train to see each other more often than that. However, it meant that my life revolved even more around Nathan.

At first I was fine with that, because few things in the world compared to being cuddled up with him on the sofa, watching reruns of Friends or Smallville. Even when we stressed out together about classes and finals, wasting time together in the greatest ways, I didn't mind.

That night, though, as I hummed along to a song on the radio, I had accidentally spilt some of the sauce for our dinner on the floor. For reasons I could never fully fathom, that had pissed him off.

'For fuck's sake, can't you do anything properly?' Nathan snapped, his tone making me flinch in shock, the spoon I was using to stir the sauce nearly falling out of my grasp and almost causing an even bigger mess. 'Fucking useless.'

In the six months of our relationship so far, Nathan and I hadn't even had a proper fight. Small quarrels over silly things, sure, but neither of us had ever spoken to each other in that tone before. That was one of the reasons I was so happy with him – both of us were so laid back and relaxed, foregoing drama for a good time together.

'Hey, it was just an accident,' I said, feeling stung as I turned to look at him. My heart plummeted when I caught a glimpse of his furious expression, his jaw clenched as his blue eyes spat fire. His words hadn't been as extreme as they could have been, but his expression made an inkling of fear – an emotion I hadn't felt since I was a little kid, afraid of the dark or the non-existent monsters under the bed – appear in a corner of my heart and mind for the first time.