I inhaled the night air and tipped my head back, my eyes scanning as far and as wide as I could see for a shooting star—just one of them for me to wish upon. I caught the flash from the corner of my eye and my breath stilled in my lungs as I quietly spoke the words I’d screamed and cried so many fucking time. “I wish you were here, Dad.”
I followed the bright swish of light that disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared, swiping at my cheeks to catch those damn tears before they were joined by any more, and turned towards home.
As I rounded the corner and neared the house, my brows drew together in confusion at seeing the front door ajar. I took a tentative step up and over the threshold, entering the house slowly as I tried to assess the situation. Low voices came from the living room, one of them being Jack’s and one of them Doug’s. But there was a third, and a fourth—a female voice.
My stomach rolled, and I blew out a small breath between pursed lips, slipping quietly out of my jacket and hanging it on the end of the banister. I should have left them to it and gone to bed, but my curiosity got the better of me, forcing me down the hallway until I reached the doorway of the living room.
Jack was sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands as Doug paced the floor—jacket off, tie loose and his hands on his hips—but it was the police officers who held my attention, the female one speaking into her radio as the male jotted something in his notepad.
I watched them for a moment, flicked my eyes back to Jack, back to the coppers and finally back to Jack as my brain caught up with what I was seeing.
I stepped into the room, shoving my hands into the pouch pocket at the front of my hoodie. “What’s going on?”
I was pretty sure I knew what was going on.
Doug stopped mid-pace and spun around at the sound of my voice, but Jack cut in. “Nothing. Go to bed.” He looked up over the tops of his now steepled fingers.
Doug threw his arms in the air. “Your friend and mine has only got himself caught stealing a fucking car.” He swung around and bent his body forwards so he was almost nose to nose with Jack. “And now yours truly is having to sort the mess out.”
He was a good actor: it would sound to anyone who didn’t know better that this was a one off, and so I played along, even though it felt dishonest with the cops looking over the situation.
I raised my brows in question at Jack. “Seriously?” I glanced at the policeman, who was now perched on the edge of the armchair.
“It’s nothing you need to worry about, Sy. Go to bed. I’ll talk to you later.” Jack stood, combing his fingers through his hair, and I watched his every movement. The muscles in his shoulders were visibly tense, the one in his jaw flexing and ticking. He walked over to the window and linked his fingers together on top of his head causing his T-shirt to rise above the waistband of his jeans. I don’t know why I looked, but I did, and my breath caught in my throat at the sight and quickly dragged my eyes away to look around the room again, the presence of the police unnerving me a little, but more than that, spiking my curiosity.
Why was Jack not being hauled down town or whatever the hell happened to people who stole cars? Aside from the worry etched into Jack’s face and Doug’s fiery eyes, the whole situation was pretty calm and it felt all kinds of fishy.
“Go to bed.” There was a tone in Jack’s voice that I didn’t like: it was one I’d never heard before. He was dismissing me, and tears pricked at my eyes as I shook my head and left, heading up the stairs.
I was a hypocrite.
Here I was with my nose out of joint and pissed off because he wasn’t talking to me about his shit, yet I expected him to deal with being an outsider when it came to mine.
I threw myself onto my bed, fully clothed, and stared at the ceiling and the way the long shadows of the sparse furniture were cast across it, creating eerie looking shapes. Stretching out my arm, I fumbled around on my bedside table until I located my headphones, dragging them towards me and shoving them in my ears.
There’s something quite magical about music—about the way it can transport you from where you are to an exact moment in your past where every smell, sound and feeling comes rushing back to you, without warning and unapologetically, and equally, the way it can transport you to somewhere completely new. As I hit shuffle on my playlist, I was whisked to the day my father died.
Syra
Heaven Crashed Down by Shannon LaBrie
“SYRA, I’M LEAVING for work. Do not be late.” My mother’s voice thundered up the stairs as I burst in to my parent’s bedroom to say good morning to my dad before I left for school.
I was already late.
I was always late.
Dad was still asleep, so I came to a halt before I reached the bed and sat down carefully on the edge of it to watch him for a moment.
It was almost Christmas, and the bite of the cold weather had begun, bringing with it winter hats and coats. I felt the cool air as it blew through the open window. It was always open now for Dad: it helped him to catch his breath sometimes, giving him the feeling of being able to fill his lungs more easily, so he said. I watched the curtains flap around for a moment and listened to the crashing of the waves before turning back to him. Despite the oxygen mask that had become a permanent feature of his face for the last few weeks, he looked so peaceful propped upright, his body under the blankets and his eyes closed.
Most mornings I would wake him by giving him a little shake so I could kiss his cheek and tell him I loved him. But there was something different that morning. It took me a little while to notice, and when I did, my own breathing became deeper and more urgent.
I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but my eyes darted over his figure, over his face, his hands that lay curled slightly on top of the duvet. I looked closer at him, to work out why this morning of all mornings was causing fear to slither the length of my spine and coil in my stomach like writhing snakes.
My voice came out as a whisper to start with. A silvery breath laced with barely-there words. “I’m going to school, Dad.” I don’t think I expected him to respond because I almost didn’t hear them myself, but tears bit at the corner of my eyes anyway. I picked up his hand in both of mine and was instantly shocked at how cool his skin was. I felt my face contort momentarily as my brain picked up on the clues, but I shoved away the nagging feeling, and pulled back the covers, slipping his hand underneath them to warm it up.
“Dad?” I swallowed but my swallow got stuck. My throat was too dry to let it pass and I screwed my eyes tight as I tried to force it down. My bottom lip trembled, and I pressed it tight against my top one, my chin wobbling and my nostrils flaring.
“Dad?” Swiping at my face, I stood and crawled onto the bed, leaning over him to rest my hand on his heart, and it was then I realised what was different.
His chest was still.
There was no breathing today.
The hiss of the oxygen tank had disappeared.
There was no noise coming from behind the mask, so I ripped it from his face and gave him a shake.
“Daddy.”
Nothing. Not a flicker of his eyelashes nor a twitch of his lips.
I shook him harder and his head slid to the side away from me.
Every muscle in my body squeezed together in an attempt to block the pain in my heart and my stomach, and my face crumpled as reality tried to crush the life from my hopes and prayers.
I fought against it.
I wouldn’t let it squeeze any tighter.
My voice became strangled and desperate as I battled to control this uncontrollable situation—this irreversible change to my young life.
“Daddy, please!” My words cracked in half as I tried to keep myself together for him. “Daddy, you need to wake up so we can watch Whistle Down the Wind when I get home.” I climbed over him, straddling his chest and taking his cheeks in my hands as I searched desperately for something that would tell me he was stil
l with me.
His lips were blue. His skin was grey and cold.
He wasn’t moving. Nothing was moving.
A gust of cold wind blasted through the window and I dropped to the floor angrily.
Angry at the wind.
Angry at winter.
Angry at the stupid green stairs that had led me to him.
I leaned out of the window to grab the latch, watching the fishing boats bob up and down together along the harbour as they always did, as if everything was normal with the world. Like it was an ordinary day. A flock of gulls squawked and squabbled in the sky as one of them out-flew the others with a huge chunk of battered fish in its beak. The majority of those in pursuit soon gave up though and the victor landed on top of one of the wooden groyne poles before wolfing down his catch.
I stepped back and began to pull the window closed but stopped suddenly, pushing it open further and making sure the curtains were wide open. I invited all the fresh air in the whole goddamned world to come into my father’s bedroom that morning, and then I lay down beside him in my school uniform—a sob escaping my chest as I buried my face into his neck, my tears soaking into his pyjama top and pillow.
I sang songs to him and told him all of the wishes I hadn’t yet whispered to the shooting stars.
I didn’t go to school that day and woke as the sun was setting.
I heard her sobs and pretended not to.
I felt her stroke my hair but pretended not to.
I shoved her away, and I shut down.
They tried to pull me from him, but I kicked and I screamed.
My dad was gone and there was nothing I could do to control it.
I’d been too late.
Syra
Goldfish by Until The Ribbon Breaks
Back Around by Harry Strange
I WOKE UP in the middle of the night to a tear soaked pillow, my hair stuck to my face and my throat dry and scratchy. The need for a drink dragged me out of bed and down the stairs to the kitchen where I filled a glass of water by the light of the moon. On turning the tap off, movement from the corner of the room had my whole body startled and my head spinning around to see Jack sitting at the table in the dark.
“Jesus Christ.” I closed my eyes and blew out a lungful of air to steady the racing of my heart. “Are you trying to kill me?”
He didn’t move. His arms remained stretched out across the top of the table, his fingers twisting a mug and his eyes glinting each time he blinked. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
He looked defeated—different to how I usually saw him—and I eyed him with caution. The furrow of his brow was no doubt to do with what I’d walked in on that evening, and curiosity got the better of my tongue. “So what happened?” I leaned back on the kitchen counter and watched him over the rim of my glass.
“Don’t want to talk about it to be honest.”
“Why?” I closed my eyes, my prying words hanging in the air between us as he smirked and shook his head.
“Why? Because you don’t need to know. And I don’t want to talk to you about it.”
It hurt.
I’d hoped he would open up to me, but I couldn’t blame him really could I. But for some reason, the questions in my head took charge of the situation and made it worse. A lot worse. “Why don’t I need to know? I walked into my house and there were two cops. Surely I deserve some sort of explanation.”
I expected some kind of reaction so wasn’t too startled when he kicked his head up to look at me, irritation glaring at me from his sea green eyes.
“Deserve? Deserve? ”
He was different.
My movements slowed as I realised something was wrong, and leaning on the counter, dropping my eyes to my glass, I asked the question I most hated being asked. “You okay?”
He didn’t move at first, still twisting, still staring, but then he moved like a mighty wind, pushing the chair back hard and standing to his feet with force, causing me to flinch and blink rapidly. He moved towards me, dropping his mug in the sink. “I’m fine.”
“You’re clearly not.” The words were out fast, rushed, urgent and careless.
He spun to face me. “You’d know all about that I guess.”
Frowning, I put my glass down and folded my arms across my chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head and began to walk out of the kitchen.
“Is this mood you’re in to do with getting caught tonight?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I shouldn’t have pushed, but I did because I was a hypocrite. I wouldn’t let him near my head, but I wanted inside his.
And so I kept questioning him.
Push.
Push.
Push.
“Why won’t you talk to me about it?”
He stopped in the doorway, his head bowed between his broad shoulders, and I swallowed. I could feel the storm in him rise, something I’d never seen before, and I was not ready. When he turned, the ocean crashed in his eyes before clouding over with darkness. His words were measured—calm, but deadly—and I knew thunder was around the corner.
“You’re kidding me, right?” The tick of his jaw was on repeat as he glared at me. “How dare you even ask? How dare you push me on this.”
“I care about you.”
Shut up, Syra.
“You care about me.” An incredulous burst of laughter erupted from his chest and his tongue tucked into the well of his cheek. His head shook with disbelief. “This—” He wagged his finger between us. “This is not a one way fucking street.” He took a step towards me. “Are you okay? ‘Cause I care about you, and I want to know all about your day and how messed up it was. So tell me. Tell me what happened in your life today, Syra.”
“Jack, I—”
“No.” Another step closer. “You don’t get to do this to me anymore. Get it? You don’t get to be my ‘best friend’ when you think I need it and a stranger in the dark when it suits you. You don’t get to choose when our friendship extends past merely sharing a joke and the state of global fucking warming.”
“I’m not trying to choose.”
He was seething, yet I still didn’t drop it.
“I just—” I shook my head and turned to refill my glass. “I walked in on something that looked dangerous, and I wish you wouldn’t pu—”
“Wow. Really? You’re going there now? You’re giving me a lecture about my job because you think it’s dangerous?”
It was my turn to swing around, angry now because I was pissed at myself, pissed that he wouldn’t let me in, and pissed that I expected him to. “It’s more than dangerous. It’s stupid, Jack. You could get put away! You could get killed! I don’t want that for you!”
“And what you do to yourself is a stroll in the fucking meadow, huh? You want that shit for yourself?”
I watched as his chest rose and fell with heavy breaths and then said the most stupid words I’d ever spoken out loud. “My situation is different.”
“Sorry, what? Speak up, Syra, because I didn’t quite hear the bullshit falling out of your mouth.”
My reply came out as a high-pitched scream. “You have no fucking idea about my life, Jack. Do not compare me to you.”
“You’re damn right I don’t, and you know what? Fuck it. Fuck all of this shit because I’m sick and tired of reaching out only for you to take and then run away.”
I swiped at the tears that had begun to fall, once again in front of him. “What do you mean? What are you saying?”
He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets before dropping his arms to his side. He turned his head, looking out at the darkness of the alleyway and shook his head. “I’m saying I can’t do this anymore. I’m done.” He moved towards me slowly, causing my breath to hitch and falter before it reached my lungs, and pressed his lips to the top of my head. “I’ll see you around.”
&n
bsp; ***
As I stood at his bedroom window and watched Jack walk away from me with his bags packed the next night, The Release was the furthest thing from my mind, yet two hours later, I was propping up the bar, watching and waiting for my life to start making sense.
I wasn’t a drinker—I never had been—but the rum and the gin that swished around my bloodstream gave me a whole new perspective on things. It was blurry, not so harsh, and I slumped onto a barstool to enjoy it for a while.
“Princess!”
My head moved lazily to the side to see Doug striding confidently towards me, his dazzling smile and sharp suit a spotlight on his position as owner of the club. No one could deny this man had charisma. He was in his forties, tall, dark hair and bright blue eyes. He wasn’t unattractive at all and quite obviously hid a well-toned body underneath his clothes.
I brushed off those thoughts quickly.
He sat down on the stool next to mine and lifted his chin to the barman indicating he wanted a drink. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
I looked at him for a few moments and then knocked back my drink, wiping the heel of my hand across my mouth before shrugging. “Just needed a release I guess.”
The smile that grew slowly and across his face was laced with an understanding, a spark of victory, and even though it pained me to admit it, right then, he had me where he wanted me, I was sure of it. He had grabbed my attention with The Release a few weeks ago, and now? Well now I wanted more of it, because, fuck, I had nothing else left.
He cocked his head to the side, stood to his feet and held his hand out. “Come with me.”
Too Good Girl Page 8