Gone (14 page)

I want to avoid eye contact for as long as possible. What must he think? To all intents and purposes it must have looked like I was trying to top myself. Who drinks a litre of vodka that close to the tide?

I do.

Of all the times I wished I was dead, this morning is not one of them. Tears sting the back of my eyelids when I think of what could have been. What I would have done to Emily if that sea had crept up the sand another metre or so.

Joshua lifts my face with his fingertips so I have to look at him.

“Morning.” He smiles, his green’s dazzling in the sunlight.

“
Morning.”

“What do you fancy for breakfast?”

The thought of eating anything makes my stomach roll. Joshua wiggles himself so we are level, his nose touching mine. He stares at me before allowing one corner of his mouth curve up in a smile. “No more vodka.”

Vodka.

I must turn a funny colour because he chuckles as he skims his nose along my cheek. I breathe him in, how can he still smell of the sea and mint? My hands move from around his waist and I slide them down his chest. It might be my imagination but I am sure I see the greens darken fractionally.

“Be. . .” he starts but does not get to finish because there is a loud knock at the door.

“Rebecca?” Shit. It’s my dad.

We look at each other in shock, and then in a move worthy of the GB gymnastics team Joshua rolls off the bed and underneath it before dad has turned the handle and slowly pushed the door open.

“Who you talking too?” he asks hovering in the doorway, clearly unsure whether to come in.

I pull my duvet up and offer him a smile. He looks confused at my smile, but I guess my family aren’t that used to having a beaming Rebecca around.

“No one, Dad. I was having a debate about what to do today.”

“What are you going to do today?”

Snog boys with dreadlocks.

“
I don’t know yet.”

Dad walks over and lowers himself uncomfortably to the bed. Before he has a chance to investigate closer and find two head shaped dents on pillows I throw myself back onto them.

“Bex, can I talk to you about something.”

“It’s Rebecca and yes you can.” My voice sounds uncomfortably tight. There is something in his tone which is making me very aware of the fact Joshua is under the bed able to hear everything my dad is about to say.

“I wanted to talk to you about what happened on the high street yesterday, and what you said to that young man.”

Crap.

“Dad, I already apologised to you guys yesterday, and I also apologised to Josh.” For some reason I can’t explain I can’t call him Joshua in front of my dad. There is something strangely intimate about it.

“Yeah, I know and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s just you seem a different girl to the one that we dragged kicking and screaming into the car just a few days ago in London. I just wanted to let you know that I kind of like her.”

Blank. My brain is completely blank.

There is a split second of uncomfortable silence as I scramble for something to say. “Dad, you of all people know that I am not going to change my mind about leaving, money or no money, I can’t stay.”

“Why?”

“Uh, because of Emily. She’s gonna start that new school in a few weeks and it won’t be long before I am the reason she gets teased again. When it does, I won’t be able to help myself, again, and the family will be back to square one, again. Everywhere I go everyone will look at me as the girl that causes trouble, and every time they look at you they will think, there is the dad of that girl that causes trouble, or the sister, or the mother. I don’t want that anymore. I’m always going to be ruining everything for you all.”

“Rebecca, none of us blame you for what happened that night, we have only ever supported you and believed everything you told us.”

I glare at my dad. We are never ever allowed to talk about it. That and the fact I know Joshua is under the bed listening.

“Dad the only reason you say that is because I am your daughter and you are obliged to. If I wasn’t you would believe the same as everyone else.”

My heart squeezes as I remember the night I earned another label. Well, not the night itself, because I still can’t remember that, no matter how hard I try. But I recall only too clearly the next day. The day I lost everything including myself. The night that resulted in the bangle prison sentence that hangs over my heart.

“Rebecca, will you just learn to behave and get in the damn car.”
I lock the voice away.

Dad stares at me intently watching my face. “One of these days Rebecca you will realise how much your mum and I love you. I just hope it’s before we lose you for good.”

“Love me?” I shout. “How can you love me? What about the other week? What about what I made you see??”  This is the clincher. It was the events of the night two and a bit weeks ago that sealed our move to the country and upgraded the move from something that my parents would like to do, into something that they had to do as soon as they could.

Dad shifts uncomfortably and turns to face me. Squaring his shoulders he reaches for my hand. “Rebecca, you just need to promise me that you will never get yourself into that situation again, because the truth is, if I believe that, then I may be able to let you go.”

I stare long and hard at him, my eyes reading the new lines around his mouth and across his forehead and I know I am the one who put them there.

“I’
m sorry, Dad.” My throat tightens.

“So am I. I’m sorry that your mum and I never taught you to value yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re beautiful, Rebecca, we should have told you every damn day until you saw it yourself, so that you could see the light instead of the dark. Then you would never have trusted people who would use you and abuse you.”

Although I hate crying more than anything in the world, hot fast tears slide down my face. It’s the second time I have cried in as many days and with every drop of saltwater I feel like I am coming undone.

“I’m sorry you lost your job.”
The words wrench their way out of my throat.

Dad reaches for me and smooths down my straw hair. “Are you kidding me? It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. Well that and the act that necessitated my freelancing.”

I grimace and compulsively shudder.

Gently he tucks my hair back behind my ear, something he hasn’t done for years. “You know, Rebecca, you need to stop living by what other people tell you about yourself.”

“Maybe.” I concede.

“Spend time with your sister before you leave, she’s going to miss you.”

Oh god.
I start to cry harder.

“I’m going to miss her too, Dad, that’s why I have got to go.”

Dad pats my head again and then gets up from the bed. “Family dinner tonight?”

“Since when do we have family dinner?”

“Since tonight. You can bring Josh if you like.”

“Dad!”

“Okay, I’m going.” He raises his palms in a surrender motion. As he gets to the door he turns and faces me. “We want you to stay, Rebecca, but we also understand why you’ve got to go.” And with that he lets the door swing shut behind him. I watch it for a moment and wait for Joshua to come out from under the bed.

Joshua kneels on the bed next to me and touches his fingers under my chin lifting my face to his. My face feels damp and sticky from my outburst of tears and I clamp my teeth down on my lower lip to stop myself from crying anymore.

“What happened, Bex?” He leans down and kisses along my cheek, gently fluttering kisses all the way around my eyes, absorbing my tears with his lips. Slowly his fingers link through my hair and he lowers his mouth to mine. It’s a different kind of kiss, this is slow and tender like he is trying to unravel all my secrets with the taste of his mouth.

“I can’t tell you.” I pull my mouth away
, my heart thudding uncomfortably.

“Why?”

“If I told you, then you would judge me and I probably wouldn’t see you again.” The thought of not seeing him again makes me get this unfamiliar ache in my chest.

Joshua pushes away from me slightly. “It’s okay, we said we would keep our secrets. I’m not going to push.”

He slowly lifts one side of his lips into a crooked smile and the green’s read deep into me.

I speak without thinking. “Two weeks ago my dad was worried about me because I didn’t come home from a party.”

Joshua leans back further still, the green gaze steady and intent. His hands hold my shoulders, smoothing circles with his thumbs. “Yes?”

“The party was at the flat of the son of Dad’s boss. Dad didn’t like me spending time with him because everyone knew he was a druggie and something really bad happened a while back. I promised Dad that I wouldn’t see him anymore. But.” My voice falters.

“Yes?” Josh keeps his gaze steady.

“I was just bored. I hadn’t been out in months. I’d just been sat around doing nothing. I didn’t know where else to go. So I called him up, grabbed my stuff and legged it. Thankfully I left a note in my room.” I hesitate again.

“Why are you thankful about that Bex?” I stare into the pool of green as I cast my mind back to the night a couple of weeks ago, the nightmare evening that changed the course of everything. The night that consequently lead me to be sitting on a bed with Joshua, laying bare some of the horrible things I’ve done. “The party was manic, as they always are. I should have known better. The last time I left one of those parties everything was destroyed, this time was no different. I drank a bottle of vodka. I hadn’t drunk in months, hadn’t touched anything in months. Then someone offered me a spliff and I thought, fuck it why not? I mean shit happens to me anyway, why should I try and stop it? It’s hard to explain, it’s like there’s a switch in my brain and when it’s flipped I can’t hold myself back. It ends in destruction.”

I don’t tell him that yesterday on the high street was the switch being flipped. That I can’t stop it, that I need to push until people leave me or don’t want to be around me anymore. Joshua’s fingers are still rubbing their soothing circles. “And?”

“And well that’s kind of it. Dad came to find me in the end. Found me doing some stuff that I shouldn’t have been. That I wish I hadn’t been. He decked his bosses’ son and dragged me out.” 

“Fuck, Bex.”

“That wasn’t all. Dad got the sack and well I got rebranded. I mean I’ve been living with labels so long it almost wouldn’t have mattered but I couldn’t let Emily go through it all again.”

“Go through what?”

“Being blamed for who I am. Teased for who I am.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“No.”

His voice is so low I can barely hear his next words. “What did they call you Bex? Before you came here?”

“A whore.” The words hammer into the air between us and I feel the slice of every syllable cut me deep.

I start to extract myself from his embrace, thinking it better if I am the one to do it. But instead of letting me move away he grasps his hands around my arms and holds me still.

“Don’t run.” He holds me firmly as I battle my emotions on the inside.

“Don’t run,” he says again, his voice firmer and a fraction louder.

It’s hard because every cell in my body is telling me to move away from him, to run as fast as I can and don’t look back. I don’t do sharing secrets, and I don’t do heartfelt conversations about the mistakes I have made.

I don’t even tell people the mistakes I have made. I just hide, so no one will ever know them. Know me.

His fingers don’t let go and I squirm against him. I want to hide my face and duck away from the shame that I feel. It’s been over two weeks. Two weeks of continual hell, a hell that I only really started to forget about when I
met the boy made of the moon and sea. The limited memories I have assault my brain, my Dad’s face when he told us about losing his job. The guilt and the blame that is stamped on my heart because I have repeatedly caused grief for my family and the fact that I know that the only way I can protect them is by leaving them.

Tears start to course down my face again, and my breathing takes on a strangled feeling as it attempts to fight its way out along with my gush of emotions.

Joshua slowly, so slowly, pulls me in towards him and I bury my head in his chest as sobs rack through me. This is why I don’t like to think about the things that I have done. It’s never pretty. I can feel his lips against my hair as he makes a shushing noise.

We kneel like that for what feels like an age on the bed, until I start to feel his body go rigid under my touch. This is going to be it. He must have realised what I was doing at the party. What my dad found me doing.

Now he’s going to go.

“Who was it?”

“What?” I look up through my sore eyes and try to read his face.

“Who was the guy whose party you were at?”

I give a humourless laugh, “I don’t think it matters.”