The Boy and His Ribbon (The Ribbon Duet, #1)(71)

My favourite subject, and yes, I’m being sarcastic.

I know I keep flogging this subject, and this is the last time, I swear, but when it was just me and her…I loved her. I need you to see that.

I wholeheartedly adored that girl.

But when it was the three of us…well…what can I say that I haven’t already?

Ren was mine.

Even as a kid, I’d known that. To a seven-year-old, my need for Ren stemmed from being the centre of his attention, the favourite in his heart, and confident in my place as first within his life.

Cassie threatened all of that.

And now, as an almost-adult, I can say she threatened my future too.

I didn’t know it then, but over the years, she and Ren got close—even when they weren’t sneaking behind barns or into stables to make out, they still had a fondness for each other.

Ren would often drop everything whenever she called on the emergency cell phone she’d make him have on the nights she’d sneak out with her troublemaker friends.

I’d tagged along with him for a few pickups.

Whenever that phone rang—way past midnight when John and Patricia believed their innocent daughter was safely tucked up in bed—Ren and I would ‘borrow’ the Land Rover and drive to wherever she was currently tipsy and partying.

She’d squeal my name, grab my hands as if I was her favourite person, then dash to the driver’s side and plant a big, wet kiss on Ren’s mouth.

I hated that, but I didn’t mind her floppy and giggly in the back seat, regaling us with tales of bonfires and who hooked up with whom that night.

She was hard work, but she made it enjoyable by including us in her escapades.

Ren and I would share a look from where I sat up front with him. He’d roll his eyes and whisper things under his breath only I could hear—copying her or mocking her—our own little game.

In a way, Cassie made us become closer.

We had something in common, and we all shared a secret that the adults didn’t know about. Even Liam didn’t know what his sister got up to at night, and I enjoyed being in the big kids group even if I didn’t understand what she meant when she used words like fucked and fingered.

During those conversations, Ren would turn on the radio and make me dance along with him. He’d drive one-handed while grabbing my arm with the other, distracting me with loud music from whatever naughty things Cassie was confessing.

Anywho, I did it again…I went on another Cassie tangent.

I’m not talking about her again for a while.

Ren.

I want to talk about Ren.

I better start by saying, he survived the chicken pox.

Obviously.

He healed faster than I did, bounced back to a boy full of health and was back on the tractor even before his skin was spot and scratch free.

Cassie returned to her popular world of friends and sometimes-boyfriends, and I was able to focus in school again, returning to the top of the class and hanging out with a girl called Celine who I swapped lunches with (she got chocolate while I got yoghurt…so naturally, I wanted what she had).

Life was good.

In fact, it was super good for the rest of the year.

During summer, I’d help Ren with his copious amount of chores around the farm, and in winter, we bunkered down just the two of us in our warm one bedroom.

I’m sure some days stood out where happiness was acute and misery was absent, but right now, I’m drawing a blank on anything super special to write about.

I don’t mean to sound as if life wasn’t amazing because it was.

Life on a farm was full of routine and new things every day.

Sunrise was our alarm clock, noon was our opportunity to stuff hungry bodies with delicious home-cooked meals, and evenings were spent with the Wilsons or ourselves.

The Wilsons gave me and Ren a safe place, and Ren gave his labour to ensure I lived a perfect childhood.

I couldn’t have been luckier.

And that’s why I’m going to start skipping forward to years I do remember clearly because, as much as this assignment is no longer for public reading, I don’t want to bore myself. Especially, when I have some juicy memories just begging to be written.

Let’s start with 2008.

The year started off awesome because it was just me and Ren camping in the hayloft in our old tent for New Years. It was smaller than I remembered and cramped, but we spent the evening eating candy, and Ren caved under pressure to tell me story after story.

He told me what he did during the days while I was at school. He painted pictures of himself saving a couple of sheep from a neighbour’s farm who had tangled themselves in the boundary fence. He regaled secrets of getting too hot hauling hay on his own and jumping naked into the same river where we all swam.

He made me laugh.

He made me fall asleep knowing 2008 was going to be the best year ever.

And in many ways it was, but it was also full of embarrassing moments as I started to grow up faster than before.

For the past year or so, I’d been acutely aware that older kids and even adults kissed, touched, and did things that I was curious about.

I’d wanted to ask Ren why watching him kiss Cassie made my tummy go queasy, but a curiosity welled to know more, too.

But I never dared.

I never asked the questions burning inside me, swallowing things like: ‘Why do you have different body parts than me? Why does Cassie rub against you like a moronic cat? Why does Liam have the same body as you but smaller? Do you rub against Cassie like a moronic cat, too?’