His bodyguard

~Countered Emotions~

“Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that your Leonard Sullivan?!”, Sophia asked. Immediately, they had entered Avner's room and gotten away from Leonard's watchful eyes.

She was trying to put the pieces together, to understand why the person her dear friend hated so much was in the same vicinity as him and was also introducing himself as his bodyguard.

Avner didn't answer her question and instead went to lie down on the couch beside his window, staring at the ceiling. He was lost in his thoughts on how he was going to keep his feelings for Leonard a secret, especially from Sophia, because heaven knew the number of times he had bragged that he didn't have any feelings left for Leonard. He knew he wouldn't hear the end of it once she found out the truth.

It was one thing for him to be tortured by his feelings for Leonard, and another thing entirely for him to be mocked by Sophia for having those same feelings.

“Back to earth, man!”, Sophia flicked her fingers in front of him to get his attention.

“Ugh?", Avner responded, confused.

“Were you talking to me?” He asked.

“What are you thinking about? That took all of your attention from me? I should be your center of attention, Avner”, Sophia called playfully as she jumped on his lap.

“Sophie, please get off me, I'm not in the mood to play with you,” Avner grumbled and turned over to the other side.

“What's the problem, Avner? Why are you so cranky? Is it because of him? And please don't you dare to say no, it's written all over you,” Sophia sneered at him. It irritated her with the attitude he was putting on.

“Okay, I admit, it's because of him. He affects me even after a long time. I thought I had forgotten about him, but seeing him brings back all the memories I have tried so hard to forget, especially all the pain he put me through, that boy out there hurt me, and I… I… hate…”. Sophie held his arm and comforted him as he broke down in tears. She realized how hard he was trying to act like everything was fine with him.

“I'm so sorry you have to go through such painful emotions, but I have to ask what went wrong between you two? What did he do to you? You never really told me what happened between you two. I don't know, maybe if you share it with me, it may ease your pain because keeping it all locked up isn't helping you”, Sophia advised.

She was right. Avner had never discussed what had happened between him and Leonard. People only knew that Leonard had hurt him, but not the reason behind it.

Avner sighed deeply and rose from the couch. He sat upright with his legs spread and began rubbing his palms. He was trying to calm his nerves before he began narrating the story behind his endless hate towards Leonard. He started from how he met Leonard to what led to the ending of their friendship.

“It was on my tenth birthday, and of course, I was being the spoiled brat that I had been all my life. I was ranting about the absence of my parents at my party to my grandmother when Stephen Sullivan walked into her private chambers with a young, anxious boy who looked uncomfortable and was hiding behind his father. Grandmother introduced Stephen as my new mentor and told me he was going to assist me with whatever I needed, something that I didn't understand the reason behind. I mean, you can't blame me, I was only a mere child who was being groomed as the heir to Averaza holdings.”

“I thought Stephen was going to be like one of those employees who was only working with our family for what they could gain from us and not what they could offer to us, so I was, of course, skeptical about accepting him as a mentor. But then he did something no one had ever done to me. He went down on his knees and promised to always be by my side, no matter what, and then introduced his son to me, Leonard.”

“I was so excited, in my heart, that I had finally found a playmate and someone who I could treat like a little brother. I stretched my hand out to welcome him, but instead, I got an indifferent reaction from him. You could tell that he didn't want to be there, and he was being forced to do so.

The day went by quickly with me staring at Leonard and wondering why he had refused to exchange pleasantries with me, as he was the first person ever who didn't seem interested in getting to know me. That alone had me intrigued”.

“A day soon turned into days, and days turned into weeks of Leonard living with us without saying a word to me. I tried everything I could to get his attention, but to no avail, so eventually I decided to ignore him and forget he existed. I kept on with the act for several days until, one fateful night, I found this cold-hearted Leonard crying as he sat in a corner of the greenhouse with his hands covering his mouth, not wanting to be heard by others. I wanted to avoid him because why not, he had ignored me all these while, so why should I care about him that was what I thought but something in me told me to go to him and comfort him, so I walked over to him and asked him why he was crying, and his reply broke my heart.”

“I miss my mum, he said softly as he wiped his tears off and glanced at me”.

“I didn't know when I sat down on the floor and hugged him tightly and promised him I was going to be his mum. He stared at me dumbstruck by my foolish words and let out a little chuckle, then he said. My mum is still alive, I just miss spending time with her.”

“Why aren't you with her? I asked because I wanted to know more, and it elated me that he was finally talking to me, and he trusted me enough to open up to me about his mum.”

“She is at a rehabilitation center, she ODed, which is why dad is the one taking care of me presently, he revealed.”

“I was short of words and all I could think about was what he must have gone through these previous weeks and how alone he must have felt, so I hugged him and told him I was going to protect him and make sure his mum gets better, so he can go be with her.”

“Even though I have been rude and cold to you these past few weeks?” He asked me, and I nodded my head, assuring him I meant what I said”.

“He looked at me and smiled and told me thanks, he then stood up and went back into his room. I followed right behind as well and made it back into my room.

The next morning, I met a different Leonard, one I hadn't seen before. It was a whole new side of him. He had the most beautiful smile that blossomed from his eyes. He walked up to me and introduced himself and asked if we could start afresh: with no hesitation, I said yes, and there and then, our beautiful friendship had started”.

“There was no Leonard without Avner the same way there was no Avner without Leonard. We were each other's shadows. He was my best friend, as I was his. We celebrated our wins together and sulked about our failures. I thought what we had was just a Platonic friendship, and it never occurred to me I had feelings for him, and I was attracted to him until his sixteenth birthday, when he had his first love confession from one of the most beautiful beings I had ever seen; I found myself getting jealous and not wanting to share him with anyone, but I was too scared to let him know because I wanted to avoid ruining the perfect friendship we had going. So, I did what anyone in my position would do. I pretended to hide my feelings for him”.

“Those were one of my most hurtful memories. Seeing all the girls flocking around him, wooing him, and trying to get him to date them broke my heart into pieces. I cried myself to sleep every single night.”

“Hold on, didn't he notice any change in you?”, Sophia cut Avner off and asked, angry that his supposed best friend had not noticed such a giant change in him.

“Of course he did, Sophie. Leo knew something was up with me. Although I tried to hide it from him, I couldn't. He knew me better than I knew myself. He tried his best to get me to open up to him, but I couldn't. I was too scared to say it.

I had a lot of what-ifs. What if he didn't like me? What if he thought I was disgusting or weird for liking someone of the same gender? These questions kept running through my mind, so I refused to tell him the truth. I just told him I was troubled about getting into the college my parents had always wanted me to go to”.

“Did he believe it?” Sophie asked.

“Well, he didn't. We were both straight-A students, so why would I be worried about that? Those were his exact words, but I brushed it off and changed the subject as I didn't want him to dig deeper,” Avner said to Sophie.

“But did you finally tell him you had feelings for him?”, Sophie questioned, impatient with the pace of the story.

“Oh Sophie, I did”, Avner revealed with a gloomy face.

“On my eighteenth birthday, I received a call that my parents and my grandmother had just had an accident, and they needed me at the hospital. I drove over quickly, but when I got to the hospital it was too late. My parents had already passed, but my grandma was battling for her life. I was devastated and confused. I didn't know what to do or how to handle the information, but you know what hurts the most? Leonard wasn't there by my side. He was nowhere to be found. I texted him on my way to the hospital, and he told me he was on his way, but I waited for him for days; he was nowhere to be found, it wasn't until the day of the funeral of my parents that he showed himself.”

“I didn't care to ask why he had been late for the past three days. I knew he must have had a good reason behind it. I was relieved that he was there with me. The man I loved was standing beside me and holding my arms while I buried both my parents. That was all that mattered to me.”

“Later that night after the funeral, I told myself I was going to tell him how I felt because life was too short. I had just buried my parents who, I thought, would be around for the next fifteen to twenty years of my life, so I said to myself, why waste my time trying to hide my feelings for a moment longer? So, I summoned the courage and confessed my feelings to him and even though I was expecting the worst reaction from him, he shocked me and kissed me first and said the best words I could have possibly heard, he said he had waited two years for me to say these words”.

“Sophie, I was excited. The man I loved was kissing me, which only means that he also had feelings for me. It was like they struck me with thunderous lightning, down to my spinal cord, which brought shivers all over my body. My stomach was swimming with butterflies in them.”

“I was surprised and in disbelief, but happy that he loved me back. I jumped into his arms and hugged him tightly. Although I had buried both of my parents earlier that day, I was the happiest boy on earth.

We embraced ourselves for quite some time until his phone rang, and he told me he needed to take the call and said that when he came back, he had something to tell me and that I should go wait for him in my room before he excused himself.

Foolish me, I hurriedly ran up to my room and lay on my bed daydreaming about the both of us until I slept off and was woken up by a phone call from the hospital that my grandmother had passed away. I passed out immediately; I heard the news and was unconscious for a week and when I woke up, Leonard was nowhere to be found again. I was told that the funeral night was the last time anyone had set their eyes on him, not until today”.

“What?”, Sophia's eyes popped out in shock.

“Yes, Sophie. This is the first time in nine years and since I confessed my feelings to him I have set my eyes on him after he disappeared with no explanation or whatsoever as to why he left me when I needed him the most,” Avner exhaled deeply as he tried to hold down his tears, but he couldn't as the tears were already trailing down his cheeks,

It was the first time Sophia had ever seen him shed a tear.