Gone (34 page)

“I know.” I entwine my fingers with his. “But I can’t hold mine inside any longer.” And then I open my mouth and my terrible truth, my terrible past starts to blurt out of my lips and there is no way I will be able to stop and hold it in again. “Remember you asked me if I had a friend to stand by me during the trouble after Emily was bullied, and I told you I did but I pushed her too far.”

“Yes.” Josh’s thumb circles a pattern on the palm of my hand.

“When I say I pushed her to far, what I really meant.” A massive solid lump blocks my throat like a lump of dry clay. “What I really meant was that she died. And she died because of me.”

The circling stops on my palm and Josh’s spine straightens a little. He does not say a word, so I bumble to fill the space.

“It’s the one label I was given that I’ve never been able to deny, because the truth is I can’t remember what happened the night of the accident. The only thing I remember is her shouting at me and screaming at me. “Will you just learn to behave, Rebecca, and get in the damn car.””

“What?” Josh’s voice is nothing more than a low whisper.

“We were out, and I was well, behaving like my normal self. I’d drunk too much, smoked too much and then, well then I don’t really remember. The next thing I knew was that I woke up in the car, but there was something not right with it, the glass was bending, there was this terrible screeching noise and then just a huge bang.” I take a deep breath as I remember the terrible noise and the way it echoed in my mind for weeks after.

“It was the counsellor my parents took me to who explained that the noise I could hear but couldn’t forget was the sound of my own scream.”

Josh is as still as an unmoving rock and it feels like a palpable silence is deepening between us.

Again I try and fill the emptiness between us with words. Useless words.

“I couldn’t remember anything about the accident, I still can’t, but everyone blamed me. I guess it wasn’t hard to blame the girl who was known for being dangerous. Rumours spread that I must have tried to get out of the car, I must have grabbed the wheel, a lot of whispers and a lot of people calling me a killer.”

A gasp escapes
Joshua’s lips. “Are you, Bex? Is that what you think you are?”

That’s the question of my existence. Am I a killer, or am I a girl in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know what my head tells me and it isn’t what my heart wants to hear.

“I don’t know. I just started to believe it, I was drunk, and I was out of control. I must have really pissed her off if she was shouting at me like that. If I couldn’t recall that small fragment then maybe I would believe my innocence but the truth is I don’t know.”

“What happened then?”

“Nothing. Everyone made stuff up about me, and I sat in my room hiding from the world. The only thing the police could tell me was that the car was travelling at fifty three miles an hour.”

Joshua
’s fingers reach for the bangles and run over them one by one. “Fifty three?”

I hang my head low and let tears run down my face. In six months I’ve never talked about that night. Even during the counselling sessions I just sat silent
, ready to bear the prison sentence I served on myself for being in some way to blame for my friends death.

“So I never forget.” The words creep out of my soul along with tears of anguish.

Slowly Joshua leans over the bed and slides his arms around me. Then he gently pulls me onto his lap, smoothing my hair and planting kisses on my damp cheek.

My crying gets harder and harder until it feels like I am going to swim away in sea water.

“You’ve just got to let it go, Bex.” He whispers into my ear, and with his words he gently lays me down on the bed and fits himself around me, cocooning me in the safety of his arms.

TWO DAYS TO GO

Bridge Cottage

St Agnes

Cornwall

25th August 2013

Dear Ellie,

There I’ve said your name. All these months, and those four short letters have been so hard to say. Ellie, my friend.

Ellie, my best friend. 

Last night I told Josh all about you. For the first time ever I told someone about that night, but I still couldn’t get my words to express just what I feel at losing you.

I wish you could tell me what happened. I wish you could tell me what made you/us get in the car?

Josh was gone when I woke up, but do you know what? It didn’t hurt that bad because I think now I have finally acknowledged losing you, anyone else leaving me is just a fraction of the pain I felt over you.

My final truth was too much for Josh. I always knew it would be. The whole village will know about me soon enough, but it’s okay. It’s time for me to move on. Just me and you. I will never leave you behind.

Still missing you.

B.

xx

Rebecca

Breakfast

Josh is gone when I wake.

I knew he would be. I never expected it to be anything else. No one wants to find out the girl they have spent two weeks with could have caused the death of another.

It’s okay. I’m going to start packing and then I will be gone.

Another chapter in my life to leave behind me.

The Day to End Days

As I step out of the shower I can hear the chattering of loud voices. Whatever is going on down there my mum sounds very over excited. I catch a note of another voice which I don’t recognise through the floor boards. For a split second fear grips hold of me and I wonder if it is the police coming to talk about the other night. I don’t know what else they would want me to say, I told them every detail I could remember yesterday.

I quickly rough dry my hair and run a comb through it before counting on my bangles and pulling on a pair of cotton shorts along with a vest-top and flip-flops. The bangles don’t feel as heavy as they did yesterday, nor the day before that, nor the day before that. 

As I head out the door I notice a fold of paper dropped in the corner of the room. Scooping it up and unfolding it I stare as a mammoth lump fills my throat, this lump aches like my heart. It’s a piece of paper with the local police constabulary’s header on it. On the paper Joshua has drawn a field of sunflowers with their faces turning towards a sun that you can’t see. In a scrawl at the bottom he has written, ‘It’s time to say goodbye.’

Shit. That’s it. He’s saying goodbye to me. A deep twist of pain settles somewhere in my chest. . With heavy feet I walk down the stairs ready to tell my parents and Emily that as they have probably guessed I will be leaving. As I swing into the kitchen I plan to tell them that I will leave tomorrow. I don’t want to stay here any longer than I need to.

My feet screech to a halt. Sitting at the table is someone who I never expected to see again. I glance at my mum who is bright red in the face and my dad who is running a rueful hand through his hair.

“What is
he
doing here?” My voice is so loud it reverberates off the kitchen cupboards. I can’t keep it down. I want to be sick. It’s too much. I want to reach for Joshua but he left me and told me goodbye.

Sitting at the kitchen table is Drew my Dads former bosses son. The guy who four weeks ago ruined what little semblance of a life I had. I appreciate now it wasn’t that much to ruin, not compared to what I have here, but he did it all the same. Not just what happened that night at the party, but also with all the shit on Facebook afterwards.

Drew looks so out of place in this kitchen it is almost laughable. His designer clothes and spiky hair could not be more wrong. Drew in turn flicks his eyes over me, first taking in the red marks I have on show under my vest-top and then the bangles I have lining my wrist. “Hi Rebecca.” He shifts uncomfortably.

“Dad what have you done?” I demand.

Dad looks at me his gaze defiant. “Rebecca, I won’t have my daughter thinking that she deserves to be treated a certain way, the wrong way. And I won’t have her thinking that things are her fault when they’re not.” He coughs a bit. “I hope you can forgive your old man for trying to do the right thing and save his daughter.”

I stare at my dad for a long moment while his words swim around my brain. “Save his daughter.” He was trying to save me? My parents were trying to save me when they dragged me away to the back of beyond?

“You were trying to save me? I thought you were trying to save Emily?” My heart thuds in my chest as the understanding makes the last two weeks take on a very different meaning.

Dad laughs, one short sharp burst. “Why would we need to save Emily when she has an older sister who kicks the shit out of anyone who comes near her?”

I never thought about it like that.

“Well that’
s true.” I shrug offhandedly, not wanting anyone to see just how much my dad’s words mean to me. Specifically not wanting Drew to see. I can show my parents later. I
will
show my parents later. When I leave I will make sure they know I am trying to
save
them, not run away from them.

“Bex. Let Drew speak. He might be able to help you get some closure.”

I turn to Drew. I can’t even bring myself to make eye contact.

“Want to take a walk?” He asks scraping the chair back across the kitchen tiles and standing.

No not really
but I walk towards and through the kitchen door without a glance in his direction.

“Pretty town,” he acknowledges as he sparks up a cigarette. The smell makes my stomach roll. I never realised how much I hated it before.

“Yeah it is.”

“It looks like it agrees with you, you look amazing. Well, apart from the bruises.” His eyes flick over me quickly, but then slide away again.

We are heading into towards the town and I start to feel nervous that we may bump into Joshua or, well, anyone. “Yeah, well I am learning the hard way to be very careful about who to trust.” I stop my feet and turn to face him. “What are you doing here, Drew? Did my Dad come and get you?”

He blows a lungful of smoke away.

“Yeah, he turned up yesterday and told me that something bad had happened to you, and he was hoping I could help you. Thing is, I have been trying to contact you for ages, I just didn’t know how. I know you have changed your number and as you are not on Facebook anymore I didn’t know how to get hold of you.”

“Funny that, me not being on Facebook,”
I say.

He reaches his hand out, the one not holding a cigarette, and holds my fingers. It feels wrong. So wrong. I pull my fingers away and jam them into the pocket of my shorts.

“So are you Bex now?”

I stop and stare.

“No, I am Rebecca to you.”

“Guess I deserve that.”

Silence clings to the air around us. What was my Dad thinking? A feeling of anger starts to burn in my chest. This is the guy that made my family move two hundred and fifty miles and now he is standing in front of me pretending that he’s been trying to contact me, smoking a cigarette that stinks, in a town that I now consider to be home?

The burn of anger flares into a full out rage. Not the rage of London Bex, but a new rage, one that I can control.

“I don’t know why you are here, and I don’t know why my dad bought you here.”

“I wanted to apologise about what happened at my party.”

I can’t speak. It’s all too much.

“And I wanted to apologise about what happened afterwards, on Facebook and with your dad losing his job. I should have stood up for him and told everyone what really happened. That he was just trying to protect you.”

“Why didn’t you?” I don’t even have the energy to shout. I just keep remembering my Dad’s face when he marched in and saw me there.

“The truth is I kind of always wanted to mean more to you than some guy you would get drunk with and do silly things with. I took advantage of you, I know that. It’s not something I’m proud of.”

“I fucking hate you.”

“I know. I deserve it. I hated the fact that you only got close to me when you were drunk.” I cringe with his words. “I always knew the only time you considered me was when you went to that destructive place you always held inside.” The switch. He means my switch.

“What so you didn’t want anyone knowing that the only way you could get a girl to go down on you was when they were paralytic.” My words are cruel but I don’t care. Drew doesn’t flinch though. He takes my anger.

“I just didn’t want anyone thinking I may have forced you to do worse than what your dad saw.”

I think back to the wet sand the other night and what someone did nearly force on me. I hate Drew for what he did but I know he is not a depraved pervert.

“Okay. Are we done now, I’ve got some packing to do.”

“No, I need to tell you something else.” My stomach pinches with his words. I can think of nothing he can tell me that will make any of this better.

“I know you always believe what people say about you. And I know after Ellie died you just believed what people said. That it was your fault.”