by Nia Lucas
Choices Shape, Losses Break
A novel by Nia Lucas
In 2016, shocked by the realisation that they’d have turned 40 that year, I wrote a book influenced by two people who unwittingly changed everything. I’ve re-written it and edited it so many times that I almost gave up. Then I realised that the best thing to do is go back to the start, go back to where it began. This is the original version I wrote all those years ago. It’s not perfect or polished but nothing ever was. It’s simply what it is. This is for C and D. Thank you for all the things you’ll never know you gave me. I hope you made it to 40. I hope you kicked 40’s arse. This is also for Sheddy. I will always write stories about incredible brothers because it’s all I’ve ever known.
Please be aware that this book contains challenging themes, very strong language throughout and some strong sexual content. If that’s not your cup of tea, this is not the book for you.
Prologue
April 1997
The inky mudflats below this bridge shine in the 2am moonlight, rhythmically walloped by the choppy black river. The wind screams through the thick suspension cables drowning out my sobs, my hair whipping wildly and clinging to my tears. This jacket holds his scent and I sniff the collar as my fingers stroke the silk of a basketball top I claimed as mine long ago, seeking comfort that’s not coming.
The falling feeling starts to swoop in my chest, the exhausting inevitability of it validating the choice I’ve made. This unending vertigo day after day; my floor oscillating, never knowing if this time it will completely give way beneath me. The worst swoop is always that first one after I wake before I remember what reality holds for me and then whoosh, the floor drops away and the pain is unbearable. I’m here tonight for the final fall.
My heart is broken. Total bollocks. Hearts don't break. It's not a delicate process with tinkling pieces tumbling to the floor and shocked gasps. Hearts are torn, nerves trapped in their wake, burning in agony, leaking blood, pierced, ripped, battered. Hearts don't break. Hearts get tortured until they collapse.
They disappeared from my life like the cruellest of illusionists and the abyss they’ve left behind is far scarier than the swirling depths below me. At least there’s a bottom beneath me on this bridge. It's muddy, reed and rock filled but it's there nonetheless. I welcome rock bottom; it's the perpetual falling that tortures me. Nothing has changed in the lives of those around me and I want to scream, I want to jolt them into appreciating the howling emptiness of my altered existence but we’re all eighteen and, as always, it's me that has plunged prematurely into life experiences best delayed for an age when greater perspective is afforded.
They left in such a hurry that there’s traces of them everywhere. Clothes, possessions and documents needing to be packed up and dealt with yet again. Back in the flat I couldn't escape their echoes and I didn't want to. I wanted to cling to the fragments I had left. I couldn’t change the bedding. I cashed in my pill prescription, unable to stomach the idea of deviating from the norm.
I decided to come here after today’s Geography class, inspired by pictures of mudflats and salt-marshes. See, no matter what they all say, it won't get easier with time. Time will just force changes, it’ll take me further from what we had. It’ll take me into a life I don’t know the fucking rules for any more in a world that will judge me. Time is my enemy who needs halting with a kalashnikov and a big fuck-off tank. So I’m taking matters into my own hands.
I feel the rain soak through my combats, needles of chill pricking my legs and I take pleasure in it. Driving here in the car that I can't legally drive with the license I don't possess, the cinema in my head let me see them, hear them, touch them. Kisses lying on warm grass, strobe-lit clubs, bared tanned flesh, meals, cuddles on the sofa, safe in bed, laughter, tears, arguments, blood on concrete, warm flesh pressed, mundane routine, smirks, love, guilt, fear, resentment, heat, possession. Two years. Two months. Two.
I left letters for Nico, Han, Dan, Gill and my Dad, apologising for the fuss and drama. I told Nico that his warm hand in mine was a gift undeserved. I left them a letter too. I raged at them for their recklessness, their lack of consideration. I'm too angry at Rosa to leave her a letter. Irrational, raw, petty anger at the fact that her Farm Boy stayed with her and mine did not. I’ve been left behind yet again in a life I no longer understand.
I fiddle with the triskelion on my necklace as I reach the midpoint of this bridge, cursing the naivety that made me have such faith in this talisman. Together forever? Bollocks. The boxy white metal railings are surprisingly low, my hair plastered to my face by the rain as I sob their names. We could still have fixed it y’know, the parts of us that had been broken for so long, if I could just have stopped feeling...trapped.
The swooping feeling, it's not stopping, it's not fucking stopping this time. I grab at the railing, pulling myself against the cold, paint-flaking metal. I’m wobbly but I get my foot up onto the handrail and push my knee over. The other leg leaves the floor and I'm sitting on the handrail like a podium. I laugh a strangled cackle into the wind, amused because my final moment involves railings yet I’m not dancing against them, tanned and in Lycra.
The water far below sparkles when the distant lights catch the ripples of the current and I’m not scared. I'm honestly not. Like a marathon runner, I’m filled with relief to have the finish line in sight. The final swooping fall. A lorry swooshes past honking its horn as I recall our goodbye on that last morning, my unwitting participation in the final scene of our drama. As I push down on my hands, my feet stretch down towards the water and my wasted arm muscles force my body up and off. Going.
Nico. I’m so fucking sorry for letting go. I’m sorry.
As my grip loosens, I hear a rush of feet, arms hold me, a deep voice shouts, I’m pulled backwards, my spine hitting the handrail so hard I see stars.
Flight aborted. Finish line moved.
Fuck.
Chapter One
Friday 3rd February 1995
This is incredible. I've never felt anything like this. My skin is tingling in response to the pulsing music, sensation roaring through me as the strobing lights compel my limbs into rhythmic motion. I didn't know that this was what music could do to you, I’d no idea that it could provide the key to a lock within me. I can see Gary gurning as the pills kick in, shouting at me loud enough to get my attention over the noise.
His eyes are so wide I’m worried his eyeballs might actually pop out, “This is amazing Lorna, these pills are boss, you should have one”.
The beaming smile I throw his way has little to do with him and a huge amount to do with the music that’s soaking into my bones. I turn and scope out the sea of bodies, a mass of movement in the smoky, strobe-distorted gloom. I can't imagine that the pills could have added to my enjoyment of this moment to be honest because this is beautiful and unbelievably, I’m a part of it.
This warehouse rave is the latest of my dates with eighteen-year-old Gary. He told me on the way here tonight that he loved me. Even at nearly-sixteen, I can appreciate the unlikelihood of this given the brevity of our relationship so I’d muttered “OK” and concentrated on tuning the radio. It fell short of the 'sweeping me off my feet' fantasies fuelled by teenage novels and John Hughes films.
My parents think I'm at Han's. Hannah Warren and I have been best mates since we were three-years-old and started playgroup together, bonding over a mutual hatred of the free milk and our possession of equally terrifying mothers. Since her Dad left thirteen years ago, Han's Mum spends almost every night on dates or pissed at the Social Club on the High Street and my Mum, she’s….. Anyway, our parents would never think to call each other to check where we are, too wrapped up in their mutua
l dislike to ever work as a team. I love Han and she loves me and frankly, that’s all we have in our arsenal at this point.
Han didn’t want to come tonight, my begging falling on deaf ears. Han thinks six-foot-four-inch, bespectacled Gary is a 'divvy twat'. Harsh but fair. Lanky Gary is the third person that I could ever vaguely refer to as a 'boyfriend'.
The first lucky winner of that title was Stephen, with whom I went to the park every night for the two months of our epically crap romance when we were fourteen. I'd sent Stephen a Valentines card when we were seven and had used this as my conversation starter when we started a paper round together at the local newsagent.
“You sure you sent the card to me?”, he’d muttered whilst filling his delivery bag, struggling to look less interested.
I scooped my dignity off the paper-strewn floor of the shop, “Yup”.
He'd shrugged, “Oh. Well, might see you at the park tonight yeah”, before mounting his BMX and peddling off, a cloud of Lynx wafting in his wake.
Draping myself artfully over the swings in the park that night, romance had commenced with a bored, “alright?”, followed by a bob of the head and a set of dry lips placed on mine. Han dutifully sat on the bench waiting for us to finish, a deeply unimpressed audience. Two months of snogging led to inept groping. The look of awe on Stephen's face as I shucked off my bra led to the realisation that I may be in possession of weapons more powerful than 'Carry On' films had led me to believe. Stephen swiftly graduated into knicker exploration but when it became clear that he had 'blabbed' to his mates, indignation prompted me to dump him. Stephen didn’t speak to me again and I changed my paper round to avoid him.
As a Catholic child, it was beaten into me that Confession required actual content and its weekly occurrence was not to be marked by mumbled assertions of innocence. The pressure to think of something led me to create a colourful life of fabricated petty crime which an elderly, celibate Parish Priest was unable to identify as the bullshit that it was. Aged eleven, I’d been marked as a soul in peril, loud mutterings that I was 'wayward' making their way to my furious, tight-lipped mother. The Priest somehow got me into the selective Catholic school, a forty-five minute bus journey from home. No entry exams needed for a sinner like me.
The school has a reputation for being the place where people who want to avoid school fees send their kids. Amongst my wealthy, privileged peers, I’m the 'pov' on the ‘special circumstances’ pass, out of place by virtue of everything I own, say or do. These kids, they use words like ‘supper’ and I’d bet a lot of money that ‘supper’ has never once involved a Findus Crispy Pancake. With Han, Dan and all my Primary School lot at the local Comprehensive, I’m isolated in a world I don’t understand.
Shunned and ridiculed from Day #1, friendly, Thai-born Ellie who transferred to our school last year and gentle, well-spoken Jenny are my only friendly alliances. I used to think that the kids at school hated me because I was a bit different but these days, I actually think they hate me more for not reacting, for not retaliating when they bite. My passivity is interpreted as derision and it annoys the bejesus out of them.
When popular, wealthy and good looking Charlie Forsythe from Year 11 asked me out last year I’m not sure who was more astonished- me or the rest of the school. Snooty Emelia Hunt, the most massive pain in my arse, had a crush on Charlie that was open knowledge. She was apoplectic with rage and stepped up her Bitch Squad’s torment of me to new levels. After two weeks of furtive snogging and inept handjobs behind the History Department, Charlie took me to a house party one Saturday night and plied me with strong, sweet cider. As my fuzzy head struggled to process what was going on, he dragged me to an empty bedroom, leaving bruises on my arms.
Nowhere in the ‘Birds and Bees’ talks that I had failed to be offered by parents or educational establishments did anybody prepare me for the painful reality of sex between a large, determined sixteen-year-old and a woefully under-aroused, semi-conscious fifteen-year-old virgin. Trashy romance novels, my main source of sex information, didn't drop that little pearl of wisdom on me amongst all their 'turgid loins' and 'heaving bosoms'.
I’ve never told anyone what happened in that bedroom, I can’t find the right words, even for Han. Charlie told everyone I’d been ‘gagging for it’. He told them endless lies about me, he told them that I’m a slag. He became the loudest voice in the hissed taunts that follow me down school corridors. Slut, slag. Emelia Hunt and the Bitch Squad delighted in this development and my school life further deteriorated. The rumours reached the teachers and the bloody nuns, their suspicious eyes following me everywhere. Charlie left school last June after his GCSEs but the rumours and taunts, they remain. I can’t describe how shit school makes me feel but to leave now, during my own GCSE’s, would be academic suicide. I’ve got no choice but to stay because I need to get those exams to go Uni. My ticket out.
I haven't drunk alcohol since Charlie Forsythe. I tell Han I don’t like the taste. I give fewer shits about getting in trouble too, it’s like….it’s like I’m a bit numb, I guess.
In the cafe where I work as a waitress on Saturdays, I don’t scuttle away when the hungover groups of builders and older lads aggressively flirt and suggestively leer. I used to but since Charlie, I don’t. I give sass back. I enter into the danger zone by surprising these lads with possibility, meeting them on nights when I’m supposed to be at Han’s. Furtive dates with faceless guys who are counting down the minutes until they can take my bra off somewhere dark and secluded. Shit nights sat in cars being touched and slobbered over by guys whose name I’ll forget tomorrow. I’m never sure why I’m there or what it is I’m supposed to feel. I’m doing it because...because I guess this is how I play this game now. I don’t give them my number. They don’t ask. They drop me on Han’s road afterwards. If I see them again in the cafe, I serve them without meeting their eyes.
Trainee carpenter Gary was sweet and kind, his lack of sleaze and gentle chat led somewhat uniquely to further dates. Tonight’s all-nighter miles from home is an escalation in my misdemeanors, fewer fucks given in an increasingly unpredictable pattern of recklessness. Some days, I’m so frightened that I’ll push it too far that dizziness makes the floor wobble. I feel weighed down by other people’s dislike of me; my Mum, the kids at school. It only seems to lessen during those few hours of furtive kisses and clumsy grabs with instantly forgettable lads. At least they want me.
Tonight at this rave, I’m the astonished recipient of opportunistic cool rather than a beacon of teenage sophistication. At nearly-sixteen, I'm unremarkable; short, a bit gangly with freckles and green eyes. My hair is a waist length, thick, curling, burnished-copper curtain of chaos, unruly like its owner.
Tonight Gary paid for us to get in, handing over cash at the entrance to a lad in an improbable mix of thick parka jacket over a shirtless torso. I’m at a rave with my older boyfriend and I feel legendary although my outfit of silver mini-dress with my blue Airwalk trainers, makes me feel a bit wary. The guys here are older, cooler and they can probably smell the blood of a naïve raver wannabe. I had no idea that my body could move like this though; the euphoric beat is being matched by every twitch of my hips and my arms are moving in perfect counterpoint. Me, the girl who was never allowed to do ballet classes. I can dance.
I'm startled out of my trance as Gary suddenly yelps next to me, clapping his hands to his mouth. Looking a bit green, he mumbles, “Find you in a bit” and he pegs it towards the smoke shrouded exit. I spend a few painful seconds trying to dance by myself before I feel a bit daft and head off to explore the space, finding hidden rooms and makeshift wallpapering-table bars. I buy a can of Coke, awkwardly secreting the change in my bra as I catch the eye of the lad next to me. He's only a couple of inches taller than me, skinny with an elf-like face and he confidently holds my gaze.
He smirks “You look lost love”.
Feigning nonchalance I shrug, explaining, “My boyfriend went off to be sick and I don't really kno
w anyone else”
He winks, “Ah, fair enough. I came with a bunch of tossers who've fucked off too. Stay here and talk to me until up-chuck returns, eh?”, I smile warily, not wanting to look too keen to grasp the lifeline I'm being offered.
He nudges me with his bony shoulder, “I'm Justin by the way”
I smile, “I'm Lorna. Do you know.....”, but suddenly there’s a roar of noise and my words are lost in the wall of sound that reaches us.
Justin grabs my hand, “Oh shit, this is a proper tune, c’mon love”, and he drags me through a different door into the main room.
The beat is overwhelming, bass so strong that it gives me arrhythmia and my entire body responds. Justin's hand in mine feels like some sort of beacon as he finds us a space amongst the bodies. Space located, he turns to face me as the strobes light his face up and he starts to dance. I grin and close my eyes, letting the music wash over me as I move without thinking for blissful minutes until his shriek makes me jolt.
“Lonely Lorna, you've got some moves girl! I'd be turned on right now if tits did it for me!”, Justin is pointing at me with a smile a mile wide, winking as I gape in astonishment.
We dance together for hours, revelling in music which seems to speak to me in ways I genuinely can't explain. I’ve never enjoyed anything as much as I'm enjoying dancing with this stranger-boy and as time goes on, I become frightened that Gary will lurch into my peripheral vision or Justin's tosser mates will return and take him away.