Time – it can either heal you or kill you a little more inside with each passing second. For me, it's most definitely been the latter of the two. For three weeks, I've thought of little else but Rex. There have been so many times that I've wanted to contact him. I had meant to. It's just, I was kind of hoping that he would first. As the days slowly rolled into one another, it just got harder and harder to make that call. So I didn't, and now three weeks have numbly passed.

Although I haven't wanted to admit it to myself, I know that for the second time in my life, I have lost Rex.

That in itself, cuts deeper than deep. I am inwardly ripped apart and it's only the normality of life around me that is holding me together.

I know he wasn't mine to lose, but that doesn't stop me from missing him. This missing is different to the one that I had carried around with me for those intolerable nine years before. This missing is worse, because now I carry around with me a hopeless feeling of hope; a ridiculously stupid feeling of hope.

I keep hoping that I am wrong. That I haven't lost Rex all over again.

I shouldn't be thinking this way.

It's stupid to even think that Rex would ever want me again.

It's also stupid to think that it could ever work again.

No good will ever come from us being together because the truth will always eventually destroy what we have.

Rex still wants the truth.

I still can't give him that truth.

Once again, we are over before we have even begun. It's emotionally draining and its emotionally frustrating. I want what I can't have and it's slowly killing me a little more inside each and every day.

The less I hear from Rex, the more that I want him. My sad soul wants to rebel, it wants me to fight for him. The hope within me relentlessly keeps telling me that Rex was brought back into my life for a very good reason, then the honest part of myself tells me that it's merely my punishment for what I did to him. If my punishment is for Rex to be thrown back into my unfulfilled life, I'll gladly accept it because it means that I have been given the chance to see him again. It's the knowing what to do with him being back in my life that I'm having a really hard time with. You see, everything goes back to that desperate kiss and his words spoken just before that desperate kiss. "I don't want to want you, but I do."

That kiss, those words...they meant something.

It's that something that makes me want to push my research into Saxon artefacts completely out of the way and call him right this second. Such a ridiculous thought falters in my mind, only to be ambushed by the overpowering memory of his demanding kiss. That memory alone wills me to start fighting back. To fight for the only man that I have ever truly loved. Before I even have time to question whether I should call or not, I can hear his mobile phone already ringing in my ear.

"Hello." His quiet hello is coated in aloof familiarity, so I'm guessing he already knows that it's me who is calling him.

My heart frantically thuds within me, which only escalates to the sound of his voice. "I didn't think you'd answer." I freely admit, so very pleased that he has.

"What's up?" He asks in an offhand manner.

Although I'm quickly filling with dread, and any confidence that I had is quickly leaving me, I still try not to react to his curtness. "I was just wondering if you were okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Once again, his reply is pointed and gruffly blunt.

I'm quickly realising that this conversation is going in completely the opposite direction to which I was hoping it would go. It hurts when Rex talks to me in this way; an annoyed tone of indifference.

My Rex, the Rex who loved me with all that he had inside of him; would never talk to me this way. That's when an overwhelming wave of hopelessness rushes through my body, engulfing me within its truthful grip. The truth is, I left my Rex. He no longer exists and I no longer exist to the Rex that I left behind. That desperate kiss meant nothing. It was just a moment of weakness on his part. A moment where Rex was chasing the long-gone ghost of us. He was only kissing the memory of the people we used to be and of what we could have once been together. Now I understand why he hasn't contacted me. He had realised long before I ever did that there was never going to be an us again, that we were now just a bitter memory.

Deflated and broken, I mumble out my reply. "This is another goodbye, isn't it?" My voice trembles with my question.

Rex sighs loudly down the line. "This is actually our first goodbye, Angel. You were too cowardly to say it to me nine years ago."

Now I'm the one who is resigned to a loud sigh. "You're right." I solemnly admit, feeling more and more deflated the longer I stay on the line.

The silence between us is excruciating. A silent nothingness that is just so awful and so emotionally draining. I don't know what more I can say, I now feel ready to end the call but Rex stops me from doing so. "What did you really expect from me, Angel...forgiveness?" He doesn't even give me a chance to answer, he cruelly continues. "I don't think that what you done to me is forgivable. I loved you. I had plans for our life together and you walked away from it all without a truthful explanation. You didn't trust me enough with your past to give us a future, Angel. You've made me become a man who is distrustful of women. You made it impossible for me to love someone else. A broken heart damages you on the inside and hardens you on the outside...you are the one who has done that to me, Angel."

He can't see my tears, but they fall freely down my cheeks. "I'm so sorry." I apologise through my softly coming sobs.

Rex is angrier than ever now, he loudly snaps back at me. "There you go again. You keep telling me how sorry you are but you won't tell me what for."

I know he's referring to my unwillingness to tell him the real reason why I left him. I desperately wish that I could tell him about his father, but I just as desperately can't. My past and present are without doubt, stubbornly gridlocked; both refusing to give Rex what he really wants for fear of hurting him all over again. When I walked away all those years ago, I accepted that I would never see Rex again. That acceptance was the only thing that at the time made any real sense to me. I was walking away from the one thing that I loved and wanted, because staying would have only made things much worse. I knew that if Rex and I had stayed together, we would have married and had children together. I just couldn't bear the thought of that happening, and then for the truth to eventually come out about me and his father. And it would have come out. I couldn't stand being in the same room as his father for less than an hour, let alone a lifetime because of his wonderful son. If we had stayed together, had children; it would have destroyed even more lives. Even in my empty and hurting heart, I still know that I did the right thing. Even though it's excruciating to hear how much I've hurt Rex for leaving him, I still believe that I did the right yet very painful thing. Weighted down with a new understanding of why this is to be our final goodbye, I am only able to reply in a broken whisper. "I won't bother you again, Rex. Goodbye." And just like that, I hang up on him. Saying goodbye causes a painful ripple effect within me. I curl up into a foetal ball on my bed and sob my broken heart out. Drenched in despair, I wail like a neglected child. The very arms that I've just said an eternal goodbye to are the only arms that I now want warmly wrapped around me. Even though it's hopeless to be in love with Rex, I know that I am...I always will be.

How do I recover from that?

Am I destined to forever be alone because I'll compare every other man to the man that I've lost twice?

I honestly believe that I am dismally destined to be alone. But when I saw Rex again after all those lonely years, for just one stupid and whimsical moment, I thought that I wasn't going to be alone; yet here I am again...alone.

The only time I have ever felt this lost and lonely before, is on the night that I lost my parents. The actual grief itself didn't kick in until a few weeks later, but that initial and soul destroying loneliness is a feeling that I'll never forget. It just kind of swept in and overtook me. It cast a shadow over every thought and feeling that I possessed, and I'm feeling it again. To be in love with someone who doesn't love you back is the most penetrative of all hurts. There's no recovering from it. It's just a grief, that in time, you'll eventually learn to cope with. I had to grieve for the loss of Rex being in my life once before, I just don't think I have the strength to do it all over again. If I hadn't seen him at Angela's and Aidan's, I would have been okay. Now, I'm not. To lose him twice is just too much to bear. I don't know which is worse; knowing that he'll never exist in my world or knowing that I never existed in his. I slip more and more away from reality, falling to a place of pain and despair. My sobs echo around my room, pitifully bouncing from wall to wall until finally an exhausted sleep comes for me.

**

"Are you eating enough my darling? You look awfully gaunt and pale."

"I'm fine, Mum." I roll my eyes at my adoptive mum. I no longer think of her that way, though. Diane and Alan Lee happily became our loving parents on the day that they adopted me and Faith. Although as much as I do love my mum, she is a terrible fusspot. "I'm just not feeling 100%, that's all." I throw a silly excuse her way, because I honestly can't face telling her all about Rex.

"She's not fine, Mum. She looks shit because of Rex." Faith breezes into the kitchen, grabbing a piece of carrot with a smirk and pops it casually into her mouth.

I sigh heavily, crossing my arms with obvious annoyance. "Thanks a lot, Faith." My eyes narrow on her still smirking face. When did my life suddenly become one big bloody joke? I think to myself, frustration brewing within me.

"No need to swear, Faith." Mum thankfully scolds my sister. "Now what's all this fuss about this Rex fella?" Mum looks in my direction, then back down at the carrot that she's just about to chop up. "Isn't he that lovely young chap that you went out with years ago?"

Quickly wanting this conversation to come to a very speedy conclusion, I hurry out my answer. "Yes." I glumly say.

"I do remember meeting him once or twice. Such a lovely young man, if I remember rightly. He had a Cary Grant way about him." Mum adores the old black and white movies and simply loves to compare modern men with all of her favourite Hollywood actors.

Faith grins, ready to tease mum. "A Cary Grant way about him?" She asks, popping yet another chopped bit of carrot into her mouth with an arched brow.

Mum smiles, scooping up all of the carrots with both her hands. "Yes, Cary Grant. I took quite a shine to Rex because he was quietly debonair without being vain or arrogant." She drops the carrots into the waiting pan, looking at me with her affectionate brown eyes. "You were both completely smitten with each other and then it was suddenly all over between the two of you...why was that again?" She casually asks, like it's supposed to be one of the most simplest of questions I'll ever have to answer.

Feeling incredibly on edge, I lift my chin in an attempt to look confident. "We just wanted different things." My reply is said just as casually as her question.

"Even so, Angel...it was such a shame." Mum says, looking at me with a forlorn expression.

Faith lifts the pan of carrots and fills it with water. "Well if our Angel has anything to do with it, Rex will be joining us in the future for some of your infamous Sunday roasts." She cheekily grins at me, her sisterly eyes so mischievously bright.

I can't help but smile, partly because Faith just somehow manages to do that or because I am hoping that what she just said could one day come true. Casting aside any hopes that I may stupidly still hold on to, I gloomily answer. "I wish that were true, Faith. But I don't think Rex wants to be with me."

"Why would he kiss you if he didn't want to be with you?" Faith asks, frowning at me as she reaches for the unwashed mange tout.

"He kissed you?" Mum asks, her vocal pitch excitedly high.

I honestly want the flag-stoned kitchen floor to just open up and swallow me whole. I quickly throw a dirty look in Faith's direction, only to have mums eager eyes now fixed on only me. Sulkily leaning against the kitchen worktop, I huff and cross my arms just like a child. "Seriously you two, can we please just drop this conversation. Nothing is going to happen between Rex and I. It was over nine years ago...and it's over now. So no more talk of Rex Ford, please?" I sarcastically plead, feeling increasingly uneasy.

"Rex Ford...isn't that the lad that you used to go out with?" Dad now breezes into the kitchen, carrying some freshly cut roses in his dirty hands after his mornings worth of gardening.

I dramatically roll my eyes. "Oh God, can we just drop this conversation, right now?" I'm smiling, but my annoyance is detected by everyone.

Mum pats my arm, in the maternal and patronising way that mothers often do. "Okay, darling...no need to get your knickers in a twist."

Trying to lift the frown from off my face, I weakly and gratefully smile back at her. Dad is soon beside me. "Can you grab a vase, please Angel?"

I nod, making my way towards the Welsh dresser that has all kinds of pretty crockery, vases and ornaments on it. Choosing a heavy crystal cut vase to display the fragrant pink roses in, I hand it straight to dad. "Will this one be okay?" I ask, my bad mood lifting slightly.

Dad smiles, nodding enthusiastically. "Perfect." He says, carefully trimming the long and thorny stems of his well-loved roses. "So what's all this about Rex Ford? Are you seeing him again?" Dad gently asks, his warm blue eyes staring sideways at me.

Mum comes up behind dad with a smile and a playful whisper. "He kissed her." She says before quickly disappearing again, just like a tale-telling child.

Dads eyes widen with surprise, the corners of them crinkling up with his smile that quickly spreads across his mature and weathered features. "He kissed you?"

Embarrassed, I quietly reply. "It was nothing, Dad."

Gently cocking his head to one side, Dad wears a subtle frown. "Nothing is nothing. A kiss is a kiss." He states with simple explanation. Bringing his arm right around me, he holds one of his fresh roses high in the air in front of us. "Angel, a Rose is very much like love. It can hurt you...but that makes it no less beautiful." He squeezes me against him, instinctively knowing that I am quietly hurting deep inside.

Not wanting to cry, I suck in a deep and determined breath. I don't say anything, I just snuggle in against my dad and he affectionately kisses the top of my head before leaving me to go and talk to his domestically busy wife. It's moments like this that I feel both incredibly blessed and incredibly guilty at the same time.

Blessed, because Diane and Alan are in mine and Faith's lives.

And guilty, because I said and did such horrible things to my wonderful adoptive parents when I was grieving for the loss of my real parents. I know it was a long time ago, but it still chips away at me sometimes. They love us. They love us as if we have always been theirs. That is something so very precious. It's something to never take for granted. I took the love of my real parents for granted and I made a promise to myself that I'd never do the same with Diane and Alan. They are such natural and loving parents, even though they've never been able to have their own biological children.

Alan was unfortunately involved in a near-fatal motorbike crash during his late teens. His injuries were a broken pelvis, a spinal fracture to his tibia, a dislocated shoulder and a cranial bleed. All of which he recovered from, but during the accident, he caused irreversible damage to his epididymis. This meant that he could never naturally have children. Of course, none of this came to light until after he and Diane had got married and found that they were struggling to fall pregnant. The sad yet beautifully poignant part about it all, is that if Diane had met and fell in love with someone else, she more than likely would have had many of her own babies. Only she didn't. She loved Alan, and that was that. Their love is a strong kind of love. It's bound together with the deepest of respect and commitment. It's a love that both Faith and I aspire to.

As crap and as empty as I am feeling, Faith was absolutely right about me needing to spend some quality time with our family. As fatigued as I am with my suppressed sadness, a small and thoughtful smile soon reaches the corners of my mouth. That smile happily sits there as I watch mum carefully turning the sizzling sausages in the pan and playfully smacking dads hand away as he tries to pinch one with his still muddy fingers. "Go and wash your filthy hands!" She loudly tells him off with a loving grin.

The ever respectful husband, dad does as he is told, but not before pinching the sausage he had his greedy eye on and giving mum a quick peck on her cheek. "Nice Cumberland!" He teases her, taking a big bite of his naughtily stolen sausage with a triumphant smirk. As he does, he starts frantically fanning his wide open mouth. "Oh! H..h..hot!" He gasps, trying to cool the meat down that scalds his outstretched tongue.

Diane wears nothing but a satisfied smirk. "Serves you right, you greedy bugger." Then she laughs as she puts the very hot sausages in the top oven to stay warm.

I'm now laughing as I quickly grab a glass tumbler and fill it with cold water. "Here." I say, handing it to dad.

Gulping it back with relief sweeping across his face, his eyes slowly close. Once he has finished his water, he sheepishly dabs his one finger on the top of his sore and red tongue. "Ouch...I won't be doing that again." He winces, totally milking his scalded tongue injury.

"Yes you will!" Mum tells him, her smile still very much firmly in place.

Again, I find myself watching them both really closely. I watch how mums short dark hair is always slightly messier than usual during the making of a roast dinner. It's where she is forever running her busy hands through it as she blows away a cooling breath the more hotter that she gets. Then there's dad, always getting under mums feet in some way or other, yet her loving brown eyes are secretly happy that he's there.

Mum is now looking inside of dads mouth, checking his tongue with sweet concern. It actually is quite a comical sight. Mum is just a little taller than dad, and has managed to retain her trim figure. Whereas dad has the typical middle aged spread. His small pot belly just about touches against mums as she peers inside of his wide mouth. "Have I got a blister, love?" Dad tries to ask, his expression so tight with worry.

Mum shakes her head, forcing his mouth shut before roughing up his greying blond hair. "You'll live." She casually adds.

Dad looks at mum, adorning a boyish grin. "I think it needs kissing better?" He sticks out his tongue, wiggling it in front of mums face.

"Put your greedy tongue away!" Mum screws her face up, backing away.

"Oh, just a little kiss...it's Sunday!" Dad waggles his brows.

Mum puts a warning hand on dads chest. "I mean it, Alan." She tilts her head at him, unimpressed.

"Just one little kiss, then I'll go and wash my hands." He holds them both up, playfully wriggling his mucky fingers.

Mum huffs, tutting dramatically. "Oh for goodness sake...come here." Her smile is irrepressible. She's so loving this.

Dad obediently steps in front of mum, dramatically puckering up his thin lips. She delivers her promised kiss and then they both separate; happy.

I'm still wearing my smile, feeling a little better inside. "I'll start laying the table, Mum." I chirpily tell her.

"Thank you." She just as chirpily replies back.

"I'll help you." Faith says, following behind me as I walk into the beige walled dining room. I love our large dining room, other than the kitchen, it's the heart of the house. I don't have a dining room at all back in my lovely little cottage and it's oddly a room that I miss the most. I miss sitting down at an actual table to have my meals. It's not the same when you eat your meal on a plastic tray that's being precariously balanced on your uncomfortably tilted lap. I am definitely not a lap eater. I'm a table eater.

We have, as a family, always ate our meals in this well-loved room. Its natural coloured beige walls warmly showcase all of our best photographs, or just mum and dads favourites. Cherished pictures of Faith and I in different school plays, our fun sports days and our exciting school proms. A timeline of precious moments that surround us while we eat. I contently sigh, just taking my time to reacquaint myself with this nostalgic room. "You okay?" Faith looks across at me as she puts the floral centrepiece into the middle of the table.

Smiling, I pull myself away from my brief but sweet reminiscing. "I'm fine, just thinking." I say, putting the placemats carefully into position on the large walnut table.

Interested, Faith asks. "What about?"

I glance up at my intrigued sister with a weightless, happy gaze. "I was just thinking how much I miss having a dining room."

Faith languidly moves around the table, now putting the cutlery beside the oval shaped placemats. "Your postage stamp sized cottage barely has enough room for a tray, let alone a dining table." She chuckles softly, finishing off the cutlery by placing the dessert spoons beside the neatly straight knives and forks.

Faith knows better than to have a messy set of cutlery on the table. Mum prides herself on a well dressed home, including a well dressed dining table. She likes it to look invitingly luxurious. With an 100% Egyptian cotton tablecloth, quality coir placemats and an expensive floral centrepiece; mum can dine in refined satisfaction. She's not a snob, not at all. She just likes things to look nice, using quality key pieces to achieve that look. She loves to mix superior old with well made new. Mum has this incredible knack for making a home, look like a real home. She just knows what colours work well together and is passionate about quality pieces of furniture to dress her home with. She just loves everything about properties. Which is why I think she's such a great estate agent. Her creative flair and exceptional attention to detail makes not only the seller feel confident about having mum as their agent, it also puts prospective buyers at natural ease, too.

"I know we have that artificial thingy in the middle." Dad happily swans into the room, carrying his just-picked roses in their crystal vase as he stares down at the artificial centrepiece that regally sits upon the table. "But you can't beat the beautiful smell of fresh flowers, can you?" He gives them a quick but thoroughly satisfied sniff.

I agree with dad, catching a lovely whiff of the pink roses sweet aroma. "They're lovely, Dad." I say, watching him proudly put the heavy vase down onto the table.

With mum passionately making the inside of their four bedroomed detached cottage into a cosy home, dad is the one who has made the gardens that maturely surround it, an horticultural masterpiece. After his awful motorbike accident, Alan needed something else to do. He was already training to be a tree surgeon, and from there, his avid interest in trees and plants really took hold. He's naturally green-fingered. He loves nothing more than the scent of his beautiful garden and his weeded soil between his fingers. Some of my fondest memories are of dad and I, out in the garden during sunny Spring days and warm summer evenings. We would both chase Faith around the freshly mowed lawn, pretending to have worms in our clenched up hands. It didn't matter how many times that we did it, Faith would always run to mum, screaming her head off. Which was funny, because at the time, she was twelve and I was eighteen. Alan would always get a severe telling off by Diane, but it still didn't stop us doing it again to Faith. Even now, she still shudders at the sight of a worm. That's why I love this room so much. It kind of just pulls every happy moment together—binding us with true family unity.

After losing our real parents, I never thought that Faith and I would ever share happy family moments again. The pain and grief that followed the crash just erased every good time that we had ever had together. Anger was all that I was capable of feeling. Yet Alan and Diane believed in us, they believed in me. The more I kept pushing them away, the more they let me know that they were there. I would slam doors, they would calmly open them back up. I would scream, they would listen from a distance. When I ran away and the unthinkable happened between me and Rex's father, I scared everyone. Not just myself, but Faith, Alan and Diane. When I walked back through the door on that awful night; they all tightly held me and cried until there were no more tears left to cry. It was then that I knew I truly belonged. I knew that I never wanted to hurt any of them ever again in the way that my running away had. Over the years, our closeness has preciously grown. Of course, I still think about my real parents, I sometimes still cry about them. But I know that if my beloved mother and father could have chosen who were to be the ones who get to love us like their own—they would have chosen Alan and Diane.

"Alan dear, can you come and make your lovely stuffing?" Mum shouts out from the kitchen.

Dad has a wickedly placed smirk on his slightly wrinkled mouth. "Now there's an offer you don't get every day, girls." His brows naughtily rise and with his smirk, he strides from out of the room.

Faith is laughing, softly shaking her head. "He's such a fool. A lovely fool, but a fool nevertheless."

I laugh too, amused yet strangely feeling calmer inside. "That he is." My laugh fades, but my smile doesn't.

"It's good to see you looking a lot happier than you were earlier on." Faith says, smiling from the opposite side of the table.

Her smile is affectionately returned. "You were right, some family time is just what I needed." I gently shrug my content shoulders.

Faith walks around to my side, slipping her sisterly arm around my waist. "Everything will work out just as it should be, Angel. If you and Rex are meant to be together, it will happen. If you aren't, then that's okay, too." She rests her cheek against the top of my arm, her hazel spheres looking at me with a warm intensity. "Being the oldest, I think you found it harder when mum and dad died. You remember things that I can't or won't remember. What I do know though, is that we thought we would never be a part of a family again...yet here we are."

I slowly nod, accepting what Faith is saying. I wrap both of my arms around my younger, but often wiser, sister. "Thank you." I say, squeezing her tight.

"As they always say, love will find a way." Faith smiles up at me, giving me one last helping of her wise words of wisdom.

As Faith's positive words slowly go in, a strange calmness saturates my soul; knowing that I will eventually be okay. It's something that I really have to cling onto. It's something that I really need to believe in. I guess it's just finally time to let go of Rex. I have to stop hurting myself, by wanting something that I can't have—or wanting someone who doesn't want me. It's going to take time. I'm no fool, but time I have plenty of. I've had to let go of Rex once before, I can reluctantly do it again. Holding onto my loving sister, whose caring arms are still wrapped around me; I let out a long and accepting sigh. "I don't think our love will ever find its way, Faith." I quietly affirm, hugging her tighter still.