Lottie Loves

by Samie Sands

  “We’re having a barbecue this weekend to celebrate Marie’s birthday anyway,” she continued with that weird-looking smile playing on her lips. “So you’re gonna have to get it together by then no matter what.”

  My heart sunk at the prospect of our families hanging out together in an intimate social setting like that. Especially for Joe’s sister’s birthday. I knew her okay, but we hadn’t exactly been friends since we were kids…or, well ever, and I really didn’t feel comfortable being around any of his family at that time. But I knew I didn’t have any choice, so I nodded quickly and made my escape so I could suffer my inner turmoil alone.

  I already knew there was no way out of it—which was obviously the idea—and I was pretty sure we would be under scrutinising eyes the entire time. I spent the days leading up to it getting myself so worked up about what it was going to be like, that I caused my face to break out in more spots than it had ever done before…I was a mess!

  By the time the day actually came around, I actually felt sick. In fact, I was pretty sure I was going to throw up at any given moment, but there was still nothing I could do. I had to face it, tackle it head on and simply do my best to survive it. I actually trembled as I pulled on my skinny jeans and Converse. I shivered as if I was in a cold sweat as I pulled my band t-shirt over my head. My eyes swam as I pulled my hair back and let it hang loose over and over again, unable to decide which looked best—in the end I left it down, hoping I would be able to hide behind it if it really came down to it. I felt like I might need a curtain at some point, and my red wavy hair was as good as anything else.

  Mum made me feel about a million times worse, scurrying around me as if I was off to the Oscars or something equally over the top. It was as if she didn’t think I could see what she was up to, that I didn’t know she was blatantly trying to patch up a seriously struggling friendship. I wasn’t sure if she was just blind to what was going on with her own daughter, or if she didn’t like it, but it seemed she was determined to go through with her plan regardless of my feelings on the subject.

  My heart thundered painfully against my ribcage as we walked into the garden. My emotions flew violently around my body, and it took all I had just to keep myself composed on the outside. I needed to act like a swan—all poised externally on top of the water, keeping the freaking out bit hidden beneath where no one could see it.

  And then I saw him, that face, smiling at me as if absolutely nothing was wrong. Inside, I absolutely fell apart. My heart was crushed and my windpipe sucked in so hard I could barely breathe. I forced my feet to keep on walking, despite the fact it felt more like they were floating and it wasn’t long before I was by his side once more.

  “All right, Lotts?” He chuckled lightly as he spoke. “How’s it going? You okay?”

  “Yeah…okay,” I muttered, wishing the ground would swallow me up whole. “You?”

  At first the entire thing was incredibly awkward, I felt uncomfortable, Marie clearly didn’t want to be there, and our parents were acting strange. In fact the only one who seemed totally unfased by everything was Joe. He continued chatting away as if nothing had ever happened, and eventually, just to give myself something to do, I started to respond.

  The funny thing was as soon as I opened myself up just that little bit more, I felt the icy exterior around me, the one that was there to protect my heart, thaw a little. I couldn’t seem to help myself around him. Despite everything he’d put me through, there was something about him that made me feel so familiar and safe. All my promises to myself simply flew out of the window as I found myself falling once more. His rays of sunshine managed to warm me up, and before I could even tell myself to stop, the puppy love was flowing through my veins, the teenage hormones were going crazy with lust, and I was pretty certain my eyes were shining with love.

  We talked, we laughed, we joked, we made a whole lot of fun out of the afternoon, and eventually everyone peeled away, leaving only us, alone and chatting. We didn’t talk about anything specific, and we made sure to stay away from the dangerous subject of why we hadn’t been in touch for so long, and of course that meant it wasn’t long before the hurt ebbed away, and all I was left with was a happy feeling that I finally had my Joe back for good.

  And that was when the real trouble began…

  Chapter Ten

  All those thoughts about how Joe wormed has way back into my life once before had me worried as that page loaded. Would it be the same if I invited him back into my life now? Would I be so willing to forgive him as easily again? I’d like to think I was stronger now, that I’d matured over the years and that the young, naïve girl I once was, was nowhere to be seen, but the childish way I seemed to be acting when it came to the current events in my life didn’t support that theory one bit.

  Maybe I’d been masking the true me the entire time under a façade of growing up. Maybe I would never be able to get past the sixteen-year-old who simply didn’t know any better.

  As something began to show on my computer screen, my heart thundered painfully in my chest—a sensation that felt out of place and over the top, considering. I was supposed to be a woman in a happy, long-term relationship, there shouldn’t be this neediness, this desperation racing through my body. Of course if I was happy, if I hadn’t just discovered the man I thought I was in love with had been cheating on me for God knows how long, I wouldn’t have been doing this. I don’t think I would have ever taken that step if he hadn’t stormed over the line first. I knew where this would lead, and I was certain it would be dangerous, so it was only something I could do because I wasn’t the first to betray what I had…what I’d thought I had.

  And there he was.

  Almost as if the last five years simply melted away, I found myself looking upon him once more—except it was the profile picture of his Facebook page under the name Joe Davies—rather than the real him. The wine flew through my veins as my fingers inadvertently reached out to stroke his cheek. I felt like I was in a daze, like time had frozen at that moment, so I took that time to carefully study the image of him, drinking in the man he’d become.

  The photograph was a simple one—him, kneeling down next to a Border Collie. It didn’t suggest anything in particular about his life, but for some reason I felt the worries I’d harboured about him simply melt away. Surely, if he was on drugs or something, I would be able to see it. I assumed that if he was in a committed relationship, or if he was married with children, they would be reflected somewhere in the image. Okay, so I didn’t have Danny in my profile picture, I chose one of me and Cici instead, but that was down to who he was. I did my best to remain out of the limelight, and that was simply another part of that.

  He looked a little different these days, more…grown up from the boy I remembered. His face was older, wiser, had a few more lines, and his body had broadened over the years—but in a really good way. I touched my own face for a second, wondering how I’d changed, questioning how I might have looked different to him, had he ever looked me up. Maybe he had, but he’d been too wary of all that had happened to hit that ‘friend request’ button, or maybe he hadn’t for the same reason as me. Maybe he’s wanted to keep everything in the past.

  I hovered the mouse over that button for a couple of seconds, wondering if the time had finally arrived to put an end to that. Maybe it was time to overcome the past in a different way, by fully delving in and dealing with it like an adult. Deep down, I knew I was just trying to find excuses for doing something I really wanted to, but I really shouldn’t, so in the end I forced my hand away. Was this really something I wanted to tackle now, when my emotions were a mess and my head was all over the place? Not to mention the alcohol buzzing through my system. Maybe it would be better to wait until I was at a more rational place before delving in with such a crazy step?

  Yet as I did my best to follow my very rational advice, I found I couldn’t. There was something screaming inside of me, something fixing me firmly in place. Something that wanted
me to just do something. Maybe it was a deep-seated, unhealthy desire for revenge on the man who was pictured all over the Internet with another woman, or maybe I couldn’t lock that box up now that it was open.

  Instead, with the intense need to know more about what had happened to the boy who had once been my lifeline, I clicked onto another option, giving me a small way in. A message.

  I typed quickly, firing off the first thing that came into my mind, not wanting to give myself even a split second to talk myself out of it. I felt that now the choice was made, I needed to just follow it through.

  Hi Joe,

  Long time, no see. How are you these days? Hope things are going well for you!

  Lotts x

  There, innocuous and breezy, what could be wrong with that? As I hit the ‘send’ button, I felt content with what I’d done, happy to have made that positive step in what I considered the right direction. My emotions buzzed inside of me, the anticipation bubbling in my stomach, excitement pounding in my brain…

  But then I read it again, and all of a sudden I didn’t feel so good.

  “Oh crap,” I muttered, noticing that I’d used his nickname for me, and that I’d included a kiss at the end. If that wasn’t desperate and needy, then I didn’t know what was.

  I stood up, shoving my chair violently backwards, and I raced into the kitchen to pour myself another drink, needing to steady the nerves that were slowly starting to consume me. I felt sick to my stomach, seriously ill, and I knew for a fact there were only two solutions to that—sleep, or drowning my sorrows just that little bit more, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I would be able to switch off the nasty thoughts that were going through my brain…

  ***

  An hour or so later, another bottle was gone, and my brain was finally drunk enough to get some much-needed rest. Only, stupidly, that wasn’t what I did. Instead of dragging my sorry ass to bed like a smart person, I found myself drawn back to the computer, as if I was compelled to see if I’d had a reply from Joe. Maybe if he’d written back to me, I wouldn’t have to face the night with so much self-doubt infecting my every thought…

  But of course he hadn’t, which was easily understandable considering it was nearly two a.m. If he had been up, trawling Facebook for messages at this time of night, I might have had to question what the hell he was up to.

  However, despite knowing all of that, I didn’t feel satisfied. There was still a massive part of me that wanted my online search to bring me something solid, something instantaneous, so with the booze as my main driving factor, I typed in another name, Martin Pierce. That name might not have meant anything to the rest of the world—it was quite a common name, after all—but to me, it belonged to the one person I never thought I would ever get the courage to research ever again. I mean, looking up Joe was one thing, this was something else entirely.

  As I waited yet again for the page to load in a moment that had a real déjà vu feeling to it, I couldn’t help but notice there were no nerves inside of me at all. If anything I was quite cold and kind of numb—totally different to last time. It was almost as if my body had no idea how to feel, so it simply decided on nothing.

  I didn’t even know why I wanted to look at my dad’s face again, it certainly wasn’t because I wanted to meet him, not after the way he’d so cruelly abandoned me and my mum, but there was still something that, something I wanted to know. I guess a part of it was that I wanted desperately to understand what sort of man could just leave his own family, then start another without even thinking of the consequences. Why was there never any guilt? Any attempt to speak to me afterwards? Even now. He could have easily found out more about me, especially when you consider Jax.

  Plus, there was that magical fairly recent invention of social media, which he could have used whenever to try and speak to me now, and he never had. Not even once. When I first signed up to Facebook, I kept expecting a message. I figured that if my mum had been keeping him away from me for whatever reason, that wouldn’t matter now. I was an adult, old enough to make my own decisions. But the longer it went without me receiving anything, the quicker I started to lose hope.

  As his photo filled my screen, I quickly found myself unable to even look at him, so instead I focused on his page instead. I scanned through the posts on his profile, just for something to do, in the hope it would give me a little clue to the man he had become. There was nothing in particular, nothing to grab my attention or strike me as special, but I kept on going regardless, something deep inside telling me that it was exactly what I needed.

  And I didn’t stop until something caught my eye.

  ‘Looking forward to seeing you Saturday Dad, love you xxx’

  Dad.

  On a post by a woman who looked slightly younger than me, with the name Tegan Paige on her profile. My heart screamed and vomit swirled around my stomach as I realised that she had to be one of the twins, my sister. Someone who was biologically linked to me, but who probably didn’t know I existed. Someone who clearly still saw my dad enough to tell him she loved him and that she would be seeing him soon…

  Why her and not me?

  Why never me?

  I raced to the toilet, unable to keep anything inside anymore, and I simply gave up and allowed the tears to stream down my face as hot sick splashed from my mouth into the toilet bowl below. I could feel myself closing up inside, slowly giving up. How the hell could I carry on being strong when everything was piling up on my shoulders? Where could I go from here? What was I supposed to do?

  Chapter Eleven

  I woke up groggily sometime later, almost gagging on the dryness of my throat. I had no idea how long I’d been throwing up for, but judging by the way my head and heart were pounding loudly and simultaneously, I had to assume I really didn’t want to know.

  I blinked painfully, trying to block out some of the bright white light that threatened to burn my retinas until I couldn’t see anymore, and I did my best to force my aching body into a sitting position. What the hell was wrong with me? Why did I deal with my issues in such a shitty, over the top fashion? Why couldn’t I just…talk things through like a normal person?

  Luckily, at some point in the night, I managed to get my head together for long enough to sort out a pint of now-warm water, which I grabbed and gulped down gratefully, hoping it might cool down my body for long enough for me to figure out exactly what I’d done. Unfortunately, it only resulted in making me feel even sicker, so in the end I abandoned that idea and I grabbed hold of my phone instead. I needed to know the time, to figure out how long I’d been asleep for, but what I found myself faced with was a ridiculous number of missed calls from Danny, bringing it all flooding back to the surface…

  The heartache from seeing those pictures.

  The stupid message I sent to Joe, unleashing something that had been locked up for years.

  My dad…him and one of his other children.

  Oh God, what the hell was I supposed to do with any of that?

  Almost as if Danny could sense me touching my phone, it started ringing again with his number plastered across the screen. I didn’t want to answer it, I was nowhere near ready to deal with him again, but at the same time I needed to shut that damn noise up before it burst my aching skull in two. Of course, I could have achieved that by simply cutting him off, but my foggy brain wasn’t thinking straight enough to be able to work that out.

  “Hello?” I croaked into the phone, slamming my head back down into my hot, sweaty pillow. I shut my eyes, trying to block the rest of the world out, but unfortunately all that left me with was his voice. At any other time in my life, that would have been a very welcome thing, but right now it grated on every single one of my organs, creating an itch I really couldn’t scratch.

  “Oh my God, Lottie…thank goodness you answered. Are you okay?” he gushed in a thick-sounding voice. I’d only heard that tone before when he hadn’t slept all night—and considering all the calls I’d had, it felt like may
be that could be the case.

  “Erm, yeah,” I replied, not really knowing what he expected me to say to that one. Of course I wasn’t okay, how the hell could he even ask me that? He’d probably worked himself up into such a frenzy he didn’t even know anymore.

  “Look, I just want you to give me the chance to explain,” he pleaded desperately. “I need you to hear me out before you jump to all kinds of crazy conclusions…”

  Urgh, I wasn’t anywhere near in the right frame of mind to hear any kind of excuse for being caught with some other woman, especially not over the phone. If he was going to deny it to the death, forcing me to get the truth out of him, then I couldn’t do that now, and if he was going to admit it, to tell me all about his long list of affairs, effectively finishing things with me, then I needed to hear it face-to-face. It might damn near kill me, but I felt like I at least deserved that much.

  “I don’t want to talk about it now,” I told him wearily. “I’m not feeling great. When are you coming home?” I asked this as a formality, feeling certain he would already be making his way to me. After all, there was no way we would be able to deal with any of this from opposite ends of the country.

  “Oh, erm…about that…” he started, an uncertainty to his voice that sickened me. Was he being serious? Was he actually picking his life in the band over me? Even if he didn’t want to be with me anymore, that was completely disrespectful.

  “What?” I shrieked angrily, and much louder than I expected to. My own voice shot painfully into my brain, sending that headache radiating even hotter through me. “What the fuck are you saying?”

  “It’s just this tour…the management is really pissed off with me. They’re basically telling me I can’t come home because I’m contracted to do this, and the ticket sales have been amazing…I guess I can’t let anyone down now.”