Heal Me

David

My life is quite boring to the strangers' eye. I start my days taking my border collie Koda, for a morning run in the nearby park. After showering I leave to work and have my breakfast while driving. Then work, work, work and after that I usually go hiking or biking with Koda for an hour or two. When we get home I make dinner and have a nice quiet evening by myself reading books or watching Netflix. I told you it was boring. But to me it has been enough for these past four years after I found my ex cheating on me with his co-worker. A female co-worker. It was quite tough for a long while - after all we had been together for almost five years at that point and I had been absolutely sure he was 100% gay. Boy, was I wrong. Daily routines helped me through the agonizing pain I felt when thinking of the ultimate betrayal. I decided I would never give anyone the power to hurt me like my ex Matthew did. He ended up marrying this girl, and was kind enough to send me an invitation to the wedding. I naturally burned the card and cursed Matthew to the lowest of hells.

But here I am, still making every day the same with my routines. Nowadays at least I don't have to remind myself to eat and drink or take my car keys and leave to work. I don't want to seem like I am complaining because I am happy on my own way. Well, I am content with my situation. I have my own house and a dog I love. I live in Waterbay, a small town I grew up in and the only place I consider home. I really like my work and I have a couple of great friends I see almost every weekend for a game of golf and barbeque afterwards. The thing is, for a couple of months there has been this nagging feeling every time I meet my friends and see them with their families. Almost all of the have a child or two and a wife they adore and who adores them. Their life seems... complete. They have all the things I wanted with Matthew. And still want with someone I love. The love part is the difficult part though.

It's not like all hope is lost for me. I am still reasonably young at 33 years. I take care of myself so I look nice with my defined figure which shows my active life. I have brown eyes with dark lashes and wavy golden blonde hair hanging just above my shoulders. Someone might mistake me for a surfer if I wouldn't live over 500 miles from the nearest beach. So on the looks department I am okay. Why I am so down on this is because I feel all hope is lost on the inside. I don's seem to be attracted to anyone anymore. I have been on a blind date couple of times just to please my friends, and even though they have been good looking enough, they did nothing to me. I have tried to meet and talk with people and feel something, anything... but nothing happens. I have enjoyed the time I have spent with my dates, but I wouldn't even dream of having sex with them, let alone having something more lasting and meaningful.

So I will be alone forever it seems. I don't know if I am capable of loving anyone because it feels like something in me (along with my heart) broke when I broke up with Matthew. The ability to trust anyone new was harmed a great deal, but most of all, I think that the wall I built to guard my heart from further pain is so thick that it buried the part in my brain that makes me attracted to anyone. If I'm not interested in someone, they can't hurt me, right? At least I have Koda to keep me company.

Little did I know that this spell that was cast upon me, was about to break.

Joey

Moving to a new city is always a big step. Especially if you move from a big and vibrant city to Waterbay, a small rural town in the middle of nowhere. It's not like it wasn't my own choice - I wanted a change and that is exactly what I got. Even though I like the quiet little town and the slower pace people have here, I really wasn't ready to be quite this lonely and culture-shocked. But this town has grown into me over these two months I have lived here. And my dog, Lila the siperian husky has loved the change. Long gone are the boring walks in small parks in the middle of concrete jungle I once called home. We can nowadays leave on foot from our home and in five minutes we are in the nature where Lila can be free of leash. I don't have to be scared of the traffic or other people hurting my dog. There barely is any people in the trails where me and Lila hike.

Some might think I was escaping something or hiding away when they hear about my drastic move. If I was running away from something, it was boredom. I moved to the big city to study and just kind of got stuck there after getting a job right after graduation. All my friends moved away one by one from the busy city central and settled down in some nice suburban neighborhood. I lived alone in a city full of people but I didn't get interested or excited about anything the city was ready to offer. My ex-boyfriend and I broke up a little over year ago because we just didn't love each other anymore in that way. He is a great guy but we met when we were still in school and we both grew up to be someone different from what we were in the beginning. We were together for over five years, and truth be told, it would have been a lot shorter time if after moving in together it wouldn't have been just easier to stay together out of habit. So after living alone for a while in a city I never even wanted to stay permanently, I figured it was time to make a change.

The reason I chose Waterbay was the challenge it presented me. The challenge to start over and try a new path in life. I got a great job offer from Waterbay's High school and now I am the new football coach, PE-teacher and I also teach some classes of basic photography and film making. I love to teach, and I find it's even more enjoyable when you don't have over 1500 students in your school. Now I have more time in my hands and less students. I get to know the kids more and actually help them when they need help. That's why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place. The kids seemed to like me, which is important to me. I think me being only 27-years-old and reasonably good looking doesn't hurt in a school full of hormone filled teenagers. The shy glances sent my way make me smile, but luckily I know the charm will fade when familiarity kicks in. I have short black hair and a permanent five-o'clock shadow. My dark eyes have been called expressive and I have heard my dimples melt hearts. Due to my profession I naturally have a good physique, and I keep sure I maintain it so I go to the gym several days a week.

So all in all there are more positive things in Waterbay than negative, but I wouldn't want to be so lonely on a Friday afternoon that I don't have some kind of plan for the weekend. I want to have something to look forward to during the week. Now my weekend will be the same as every other weekend. I have tried to google some events or activities I could do, but all Waterbay seems to offer are yoga classes in the park and reading club for the elderly. I didn't even find a gay bar when I googled it. But knowing this town I wouldn't be surprised if the local businesses simply didn't have websites because information seemed to move here from person to person. All I needed to do was ask if I wanted to know something: people here knew everything.

*****

I hope you enjoyed my first try at writing. Please leave feedback if you want to see how these two make it through :) English isn't my first or even second language, so I am sorry for the typos and such.