by Natalie Ward
"Ash, are you okay?" he asks me again, his voice urgent, concerned now.
I don’t say anything, only nod.
"You’re sure?" he asks, his eyes drawn, worry and something else now, all over his face. "Ash, please, talk to me, are you sure you’re okay?"
"Thank you Luke," is all I can say, lowering my eyes so I don’t have to look at him before quickly turning and walking out of the kitchen.
I can’t let this happen.
I hear him call out, "Ash?" but I don’t turn around. I keep walking and go back to work, determined to finish my shift and forget what I saw just then. This can’t be happening.
About five minutes later, Luke comes out, a staff beer from the stash we keep in the cold room in his hand. He silently hands it to me, his eyes watching my face as he does. As soon as I meet his stare, I look away. I still can’t look at him, especially now. "Thank you," I say quietly, taking the bottle from his hand, our fingers brushing before I quickly turn and walk away.
I don’t speak to or look at Luke for the rest of my shift. Liam and I avoid each other too, but that’s easy because I’m only angry at him. With Luke it’s something far different.
Thankfully Luke doesn’t try and talk to me again, but I do hear him on the phone, talking to someone, his voice slightly raised although I can’t make out what he’s saying. When he’s about to leave a few minutes later, Luke comes over to me first.
"Ash, do you want to go and get a drink or something?" he asks.
I look up at him, his face full of concern and so much more. But all I can see is everything that I can and will destroy. Everything that I could find and then lose. I can’t do this again. I just can’t go through it all again.
"Just a drink?" he continues. "Nothing more, we don’t have to talk about anything that happened earlier."
I look down at the counter. See my hands as they clench the now empty beer bottle, my fingers turning white. I shake my head. "No," I say, my voice flat. "I can’t, I just can’t Luke," before turning and walking away.
I hear him call out my name again, but I don’t look back. He follows me into the staff room out the back, where there is no one else but us.
"Ash," he says to me, softly this time.
I’m reaching into my locker for my bag and don’t turn around. "Please go Luke. Please." My voice sounds strange, flat.
"Are you sure?" he asks quietly. "Are you sure you’re okay Ash?"
I turn to him now, keeping my eyes on his feet, unable to look at him. "Please, not now. Just go. Please just go. Please Luke, please." My voice betrays me, I’m afraid and I know he can hear it.
I feel him watching me for what feels like forever. I’m about to explode, and I’m not going to be able to stop myself, stop the words that are going to spew from my mouth, the anger I can feel surging through me. This isn’t right, this can’t be happening.
"Ash," he finally says his voice quiet. "It’s okay you know. If you want to talk, ever want to…well I’m here if you do."
I still don’t say anything. I don’t look at him and I don’t move. He says nothing more, just exhales loudly before thankfully turning and walking out.
When the door closes, I collapse to my knees on the floor. Angry tears fall from my eyes and I can do nothing to stop them. I don’t want this life anymore, I can’t keep doing this. It’s killing me.
The grief and the guilt I carry, are consuming me. The grief and the guilt that I carry are slowly suffocating me. I feel buried alive, like every breath I’m forced to take is a huge effort. Sometimes I wonder if it would just be easier to stop breathing.
I feel trapped. Time, my sanity, everything, it all feels like it’s somehow running out. The will to keep going, the will to even wake up every day, it’s all slowly disappearing and I don’t know if I can keep doing this much longer.
But it’s the anger that’s really killing me.
The anger I feel for all of the people I love, who’ve died on me, who’ve gone and left me all alone.
The anger I feel for anyone who just tries to be nice to me. The ones I have to constantly push away to protect.
The anger I have for Sam for knowing the truth about me and dying anyway.
But most of all, the anger I have for myself.
The anger at being the way I am, the anger at having caused all of this and more than anything, the anger at being unable to do a fucking thing about it all.
I’m full of anger and that’s what’s really killing me.
I don’t know how long I stay on the floor, but I know I have to leave. I have to get out of here and go home where I can hide from everyone, where I can suffocate alone. When I stand up to go, I notice the bottle still in my hand and as I walk out the door I throw it at the trash can where it smashes into a million tiny pieces. I don’t stop and I don’t look back. I hear Sarah call out my name as I leave, but I ignore her. I don’t see Luke at all and I just keep walking out the door.
I can’t. I just can’t do this anymore.
∞
Somehow, Dad had managed to get himself lost trying to drive home from Boston. It should have been straight forward, just head for the I-95 south and keep going. It takes you all the way back to Providence. Only my Dad was crap with directions and refused to use a GPS. He’d tried calling me that night when he’d evidently ended up somewhere else, but I was at the party and didn’t hear my phone.
Of course, I was also the one who’d asked, in fact begged him to drive up to see us. So of course it was completely my fault he was even driving at all.
Sam and I had been living in our apartment for a while by then, but I hadn’t really been back to Providence. I hadn’t taken much stuff with me when I first left, because I didn’t think I would just leave and never go back. But when we got our own place, I decided I should probably get the rest of my stuff. Really make this place my home.
So I finally asked Dad to drive up to see us, packing the car with the last of my things.
He only came up for the day. He got there mid-morning and after we unpacked the car and tried to find some space for everything, Dad said to me, "Ok kiddo, now you’ve officially moved out, how about I buy you some lunch? That way I know you’re going to get one decent meal this week."
I laughed and joked, "What you think I can’t cook?"
Dad just laughed and said "No, I know you can’t Ash, grilled cheese is not a proper meal you know."
"Come on, you know it is Dad," I said smiling at him.
Dad faked a look of surprise, as though his previous statement had been wrong, before pulling me into a hug. "I’m gonna miss you kiddo, you know that right?"
"I already miss you Dad, really."
He kissed the top of my head and said, "Come on then, let’s go eat."
So we went out, finding a place and having a great afternoon together. Sam didn’t come that day, instead letting me have some time alone with Dad. We didn’t do anything exciting, just hung out for the afternoon, and spent most of it wandering the streets of Boston.
"Next time, we should try and get tickets to a game," Dad said as we walked past Fenway Park.
"Definitely," I said. "Sam’s mad on the Red Sox, even though he comes from Seattle. I’m sure he can sort something out."
"Sounds good Ash," Dad said, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and pulling me close to him.
"I’ll get him to look into it," I replied, putting my arm around Dad’s waist.
We walked along in silence for a while until eventually Dad said, "So you’re pretty serious about this guy then huh?"
I looked up at him, smiling as I said, "Yeah I am Dad, I really am."
Dad kissed the top of my head again. "It’s good to see you so happy Ash and as long as he’s taking good care of you, then I’m happy. Because if he doesn’t, he’ll have me to deal with!" he replied.
I laughed, squeezing my arm tighter around him as I said, "He does Dad. Sam really does take good care of me."
We contin
ued walking until the realisation of actually having left home and moved out, finally struck me. Faced with a sudden fear, I turned to Dad and said, "Promise you’ll come up right? I mean, promise you’ll visit regularly? Just because I left home, doesn’t mean I never want to see you Dad."
I was incredibly close to my Dad, always had been and leaving home to be with Sam had been difficult for only that reason. Plus by then Seth was long gone and I worried about my Dad being at home alone.
Pressing a kiss to my temple, Dad simply said, "Anytime you want me to Ash, anytime at all kiddo."
I wish I’d known this trip would be the last time ever.
Around five that night Dad decided he’d head home. We were going to this party and he didn’t want to get in our way. So we made plans for him to come up again, I wrote down the directions for him, told him to call me if he got lost and we went our separate ways.
Somehow he missed the turn-off onto the I-95.
He ended up in Dorchester and when he stopped to ask for directions, instead got car jacked.
They had a baseball bat apparently.
They took his car, his wallet, his phone and watch.
Defensive bruises indicated my Dad had fought back. I would have expected him to, but you can’t compete with a baseball bat. You can’t compete with aggressive violence or a drug-fucked gang of kids who have nothing to lose. Nobody even tried to stop them apparently, nobody did anything.
They left him lying there on the side of the road. Slowly bleeding to death from the bashing he’d received. I don’t know who called the police in the end, maybe they just drove by and found him, but in that neighbourhood nobody had even tried to stop it.
But it was me who’d begged him to drive to Boston. It was me who’d let him drive home that night. I’d written the directions for him. I’d missed his call when he got lost.
I’d killed him.
Seth came home for the funeral, so did his fiancée Lara. They arranged everything. It was the first time I’d been back to Providence in ages. I remember lying on Dad’s bed, looking at all of his things; the photo of him and Mom beside his bed, a pile of his clothes which were still on the floor, waiting to be washed. A picture of Dad, me and Seth by the window. I remember lying there looking at all of these things and wishing I’d never asked him to come to Boston to see me. Wishing I could’ve just come back to get my own stuff like a grown up. There was even a part of me wishing I’d never left at all.
"Ash smash, you need to get up," Seth said quietly as he walked into Dad’s room.
I didn’t say anything.
"Smash?" he asked as he climbed onto the bed and lay down beside me. I rolled over into his arms and he wrapped them around me and held me as I cried and cried. I cried as my big brother tried to comfort me, tried to tell me that everything would be okay.
"It was my fault Seth, my fault this happened." I choked out through my tears.
Seth pulled me up and made me look at him. "No Ash, this was not your fault."
I wished he could understand. I wished I could make him understand. I’d never told him this before. Never told him how I knew I was responsible for all of this.
"I begged him to come to Boston Seth," I cried. "Begged him to drive up and see us. If he hadn’t done that, he never would have gotten lost, never would have been killed. It was my fault Seth, all my fucking fault."
Seth pulled me into a hug again, quietly telling me, "This was no one’s fault but the men who did this Ash, you know that."
But I knew better.
The funeral was excruciating. I spent the whole time being held up by Sam. He kept his arms wrapped around me and didn’t once let go. I don’t know what he was thinking, but he never let me go. I didn’t talk to anyone because I couldn’t find anything to say. The only thing I wanted was to beg for my Dad to come back.
Afterwards Sam and Lara helped me clean out the house. Seth stayed for as long as possible, but after a week he needed to leave, the military doing him no favours despite our loss. Even after he and then Lara left, Sam stayed on and helped me.
Together we cleaned out my Dad’s house, packing up all of his things, packing up his whole life. We put the house up for sale shortly afterwards, Seth and I splitting everything, but it was Sam who helped me sort it all out. We stayed in Providence for five more days after the funeral and it was the longest I’d been back since I’d left to be with Sam.
I was very angry about everything during that time and Sam tried desperately to talk to me about it. But I couldn’t, didn’t want to and it’s probably the longest and most uncomfortable period of time Sam and I ever endured together. On the last day we were there though, Sam came over to give me something.
"What?" I asked him, barely able to look him in the eye.
Sam’s fingers gently tilted my chin up so I had to look at him. "Ash, I’m sorry," he said quietly.
"For what?" I asked, surprised.
Sam’s face was a mixture of sadness and regret as he said, "For our fight, for your Dad, for everything babe, for everything. I’m really sorry."
"Sam..." was all I could say, pulling him into a hug. "You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s me who’s sorry, sorry I’ve been such a bitch to you these last few days. I’m really sorry Sam."
Sam stood with his arms wrapped around me as he spoke into my hair. "You don’t have anything to be sorry for either babe, but I don’t ever want to fight like that again. I don’t ever want to fight about anything, okay?"
"Me neither Sam, me neither," I whispered.
Sam pulled back a little, brushing my hair back from my face. "I’m sorry about that night babe. I’m sorry I was such an ass to you, and I won’t ever pressure you to try with people again okay, I promise."
I smiled sadly at him, knowing he still didn’t believe any of this was my fault, but this was his concession to me. I don’t know if he felt guilty about our fight that night, but I hoped he didn’t think I blamed him for what happened. I really didn’t, none of it was his fault. Eventually Sam lowered his head as he took my hand and gently placed something in it. When I opened it to see what it was, all of my anger finally melted away.
"Where did you find this?" I asked him.
"Seth did," Sam explained. "He thought maybe you’d want it as a memory of your Dad. Something for you to keep."
I was crying again now as I slipped the silver wedding ring that used to belong to my Dad, but which he hardly ever wore, onto the thumb of my right hand.
"Thank you Sam," I said through my tears. "Thank you."
"Anything for you babe, you know that," Sam answered pulling me into another hug. "Anything for you."
When we finally left Providence and went back home to Boston, Sam and I were in a much better place. I didn’t ever want to go back there again and after that day, Sam and I never did fight like we had that night. And just like he promised, Sam never tried to get me to make friends again. It still didn’t change anything that’d happened though, how could it? But deep down I’m pretty sure Sam knew, knew what I was thinking. Deep down he knew I blamed myself and part of that blame came from our fight. He never said anything more, but he was always there for me, and now, I needed him more than ever.
∞
I’m so angry when I get home.
So fucking angry.
I flick on some music. The same CD is still in there. The sound of Luke’s voice and music comes through the speakers and I’m briefly reminded of the way it made me feel when I saw them weeks ago. I wish I could go back to that feeling, to that one night of feeling nothing but pure happiness and escape. The feeling of drowning in his music and his voice.
But tonight I can’t.
Tonight all I feel is anger. Anger at everything I’ve lost and everything I’m forced to push away. Anger at whatever it was that made me this way, anger for just being me.
I walk to the fridge and take out a beer. I drink the first one standing there with the fridge door open, so I grab a second a
nd just keep going. It’s only when I’m on my third that I stop and shut the door. I should eat something but I can’t be bothered, so I just keep drinking. Slowly the alcohol starts to make a dent. Slowly I stop feeling the raw pain of today as it gets pushed to the side, drowned in the alcohol that’s now flooding my system. Slowly the gentle numbness of drunken oblivion starts to have an effect.
Slowly I start to feel less of anything. Slowly I start to feel nothing at all.
I’m really drunk when I finally turn on my computer. I know this is a stupid idea. Even in my current condition, I know that. There are five emails from Luke but I don’t bother opening any of them. I barely even remember sending this to him, the message sent notice I see on the screen the next morning, the only clue to what I’ve done.
But sure enough when I go searching through my sent box later on, this is what I find.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: [NONE]
I’m sorry.
Sorry for acting like that, like this. Sorry for being so pissed today.
Sorry for taking it out on you.
Sorry for all of it.
I can’t explain it. I fuck up everything. It’s better if you just stay away from me.
God, I really am fucking pathetic.
Extrasensory perception, commonly known as a sixth sense
∞
Playlist:
1. A modern myth – 30 Seconds to Mars
2. Fall at your feet – Boy & Bear
3. Infinite arms – Band of Horses
∞
Being alone is now a fact of life for me. When I was a kid, back when the teasing was really bad, all I ever wanted was to just be left alone. All I ever wanted was to be able to run and hide from everyone. Live in make believe worlds where I could escape the reality of the one I lived in. A place where everyone was nice to me, where I didn’t have to worry about being shy, where I didn’t have to worry about anything, especially people dying.
Of course now I’ve been forced into some kind of exile, I wish for the opposite. I crave human interaction and I crave human touch.