by Anna Edwards
“You’re not an arsehole.”
“I feel like one. A lot. And I really hate that guy.”
The truth was pouring out of me like she’d found the tap to my emotions, turned it on, and now neither one of us were prepared for the spillage. Kellie glanced from side to side to see who was around us. I was focused on her and her alone, desperate to cling on to the little bit of lightness she made me feel.
“If you think you can handle this,” I gestured to my body, shaking my head and rolling my eyes at myself, “then let me pick you up tonight at seven.”
“Where will we go?”
“My place.”
“Will you ask me to squat with you?” She grinned.
“If you’re lucky.”
“I think I’d love that more than anything.”
It had only taken me four years to lose the most basic of skills. I’d spent so long feeling guilty for surviving, trapped in the trauma of the past, that I now had no idea how to do all the things I was once, by all accounts, good at.
Like dating.
Or cooking a meal for a nice girl.
The flashbacks almost seemed tame compared to the five minutes spent panicking before arriving to pick Kellie up from the address she’d given me. Driving through central London was a nightmare—an expensive one at that, but the thought of public transport in any sense had my heart almost giving in, so driving or riding a push bike were the only options left to me. I couldn’t even let a cab driver take control. It was one of the many reasons I barely drank alcohol anymore, although I was definitely planning on drinking that night.
Kellie got in the car with her usual smile in place, tucking her chestnut bob behind her ear so she could eye me as she put her seatbelt in place.
“Hi,” she offered.
“Hi,” I said gruffly, my eyes trailing down to the bare skin of her legs she was revealing with her short, leather skirt on.
“Keep looking at me like that, and we won’t make it back to your place.”
“Shit,” I hissed, looking forward and swallowing my desire away. “Sorry.”
Her breezy laughter came freely, and Kellie reached over to place a hand on my thigh. “Relax. I’m not saying I’m going to beat you to a pulp. I’m saying that look you gave me just made my skin tingle and it felt good, Sonny.”
Turning to look at her through cautious eyes, I studied her face. There was a light dusting of makeup, but nothing that overshadowed her natural beauty and effortless spark. Sure, Kellie was beautiful, but it was the way she made me feel about myself and everything around me that was the most addictive thing about her.
A spark of the old me flickered in my soul, offering a different kind of flashback.
One of the young man I was before July 7th, 2005.
One of the cocky, shaggy-haired lothario who knew how to treat women right and look like an irresistible bad boy while doing it.
One of the guy with his whole future ahead of him—one without doubts, guilt, fear, constant reminders of death.
I wanted to be him for Kellie.
I wanted to be him for me.
Facing forward, I gripped the steering wheel tightly, white-knuckling the shit out of it when I twitched in my jeans.
She was going to be the death of me… the most recent, sedated version, anyway.
“Feel free to tell me if I come on too strong,” she whispered. “My filter is broken and playing it cool isn’t a trick I know how to pull off.”
“You’re fine,” I squeaked, quickly clearing my throat to pull out into the road. Concentrating on driving gave me something to focus on, and that something was mechanical. Mechanical I could do. There were no complexities in those motions. No thoughts attached.
Have a little faith, a small voice whispered to me.
“What?” I asked Kellie, glancing her way before looking back out onto the road.
“What?”
“You just said something.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Oh.” I frowned; my arms tense the entire ride back to my place. Not tonight, I thought. Don’t let me fuck this up.
Lucky for me, Kellie didn’t allow for awkward silences, and just when I thought this whole thing was going to shit before it had even really begun, she slipped on her comfort slippers and filled the air with idle chitchat until we walked through the front door of my apartment together.
It was warm, so she didn’t have a coat for me to take, which left me shutting the door behind us, tossing my keys on the shelf beside it, and then…
Standing there.
Like a lemon.
With my hands buried in the pockets of my jeans as Kellie looked all around her, taking in every nook and cranny of the corridor we were standing in.
It was confusing at first. I had no idea what could make her smile so pure as she closed her eyes and then spun around, her arms hanging by her sides before she ran a hand over the pale grey walls and began to walk towards the kitchen.
“Something smells good,” she said, and I watched as she sashayed down the hall without a care in the world, and the way her plum-coloured, long-sleeved cotton cropped top revealed a slither of skin around her stomach, teasing me the way it had at the gym.
I tried my hardest to remember what it felt like to be like her, back when everything was simple, so easy and light.
When she reached the doorway that led into the kitchen, Kellie glanced over her shoulder and looked right at me. “Am I doing this date alone or are you coming with me?”
“With you,” I said quietly, swallowing hard and forcing my feet to move.
My place was the safest space for us to be. If tonight went well, maybe I’d build up to trying to take a girl to a restaurant, but for now, I didn’t want to have any more awkward goodbyes like the one I’d had with Tara or the two women before her.
Kellie was standing over the stove when I walked in, her dark clothes and dark hair a perfect contrast against the bright white, sleek cupboards of my kitchen. She shone, this ball of optimism with a smile that could light up any scary corner of the world. I could have stood there for days just watching her move and take it all in.
How hadn’t I seen you before?
“You’re making meatballs,” she stated proudly.
“Well done.” I smirked with a tip of my head.
She raised a single brow and tilted her hips. “Not my first time examining—”
“Oh, don’t go there,” I interrupted on a laugh. She joined in, holding her hands in the air in surrender before she came to the edge of the breakfast bar and slipped out of her heels to go barefoot.
“Hate those things,” she told me.
“Then why wear them?”
“Because they make my arse look good in leather.”
“Can’t argue with that.” I sucked in a breath through my teeth, knowing this was going to be a night to remember already.
When Kellie turned to look at the table I’d set up for her, her smile grew, and she trailed her fingers over the linen my mother had left behind for me one Christmas, not so long ago. She made sure to touch almost everything, especially the small vase that contained a single yellow rose inside it.
“Don’t yellow roses indicate friendship?” she asked curiously.
“No idea. They’d run out of red at the local Sainsbury’s so I cut that one out of next door’s garden without them knowing.”
“Sneaky.” She giggled, and then she pulled out a chair and sat herself down, making sure she felt at home. Before the incident four years before, I’d have seen a girl like Kellie as a little overconfident, a little too forward, and a lot to handle, but as I stared at her beaming face, I knew that she was exactly the kind of woman I needed in my life right now, being the changed man I was.
“Can I get you a drink?” I asked, finally moving and making my way to the fridge to pull out a bottle of wine.
“Got any beers?” she asked, making my hand freeze over the wine, only to push it back and
reach for two beers instead.
“Coming right up.”
“Hurry. I only have a few hours to get to know you, and I want to make every second count.”
I glanced over my shoulder, offering her a questioning, amused look, and she shrugged in response, placing her chin on her joined hands as she stared back at me.
“You know… before you decide this isn’t for you and try to run from any kind of happiness.”
Three hours, two plates full of food, and several beers later, there was nowhere else on Earth I wanted to be. The conversation flowed, even when I wasn’t a part of it, the best part being how effortless everything felt in Kellie’s company. My shoulders were soft—no tension there holding me upright. My smile was starting to ache, and I definitely hadn’t laughed as much as I’d laughed with her for years.
For so long, I’d felt like a freak compared to everyone else around me.
With Kellie, I became alive again.
Her eyes were on me as she took a sip of her beer, and an unusual silence lingered as I watched her watching me, waiting for her to segue into the next topic of conversation.
When she dropped her bottle back to the table, though, the playfulness was gone, and she slid her hands into the middle of the table, waiting for me to take them.
“What are you doing?” I grinned.
“Wanting to hold your hand.”
“Why?”
“When was the last time someone reached out to hold you, Sonny?”
“I…” couldn’t remember. Fuck. My parents lived in Ireland, my friends more often than not too cautious to get close anymore, and the women… well… there was no need for me to expand on that.
“Just hold one.” She wiggled her fingers, and her cheeky face made me want to throw everything off the damn table and kiss her as she looked up at me through her long, dark eyelashes. “It won’t bite.”
I smiled and rolled my eyes, sliding a hand closer to hers so the tips of our fingers brushed together.
“I guess that’s better than nothing,” she quipped. “Something about that glint in your eye tells me the old you would have had me naked on his sofa by now, though.”
My body froze, and my smile fell as I held her gaze.
“And just like that, it’s so easy to lose you,” she whispered.
My eyes searched hers wildly, a sense of panic creeping in, but Kellie was having none of it, and she slid her hand on top of mine, curling her fingers around it and letting the warmth of her skin reassure me that everything was going to be okay. It felt okay around her. I became someone else.
“The trick you have to master now is making it just as easy to allow someone to bring you back.”
“Like who?”
“Maybe me.”
My jaw tensed, the muscles there twitching as I fought to stay in control.
“Lee told me what happened.”
“He shouldn’t have,” I breathed back at her, a gigantic lump stuck in my throat.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s in the past.”
“And in your present every single day, Sonny.”
I swallowed that lump, feeling the sharp edges of it scratch at my guilt. During the last four years, I’d been unable to watch the news for fear that day would be mentioned again. Any papers that had it on their front page became papers I refused to pick up ever again. I couldn’t bear to listen to radio stations in case it was brought up without warning. I’d gotten myself locked up so tight in my own routine, I’d never even contemplated talking to anyone about any of it, yet there I was, a little broken and a lot confused, wanting to tell a girl I barely knew about it all.
“You’re special, you know that?” she said softly. I couldn’t look away from her. “This doesn’t have to define you. It will, if you let it, but you’re so much more than that day. We all are.”
I frowned, watching her as she held my gaze, a look of understanding washing over.
“Were you... there?” I dared myself to ask.
“My father was on the circle line between Edgware Road and Paddington.”
Suddenly all my issues turned to nothing, and I slowly turned her hand over in mine as I leaned closer.
“Shit, Kellie. Did he…?”
“He made it.”
“Fuck,” I hissed. “Thank God.”
“So, believe me when I say I’ve seen that look in your eyes already, Sonny, and it doesn’t frighten me. I admire it. I admire you.”
“Where the hell did you come from?” I whispered.
Her sad smile grew, and then the words were set free.
The two of us shared stories about that day, as well as the nights and weeks that followed. She told me of the crippling fear she’d felt when the sound and sight of sirens lit up the air around her, and the emotions that brought her to her knees when she realised what had really happened in our great city, knowing where her father would be on his way to work that morning, too. She told me how she’d rushed to the nearest ambulance she could find, and how she, a girl of no more than five-feet-four, had lugged injured bodies onto the back of that ambulance, one after another, making sure her actions counted for something rather than nothing.
Her story was one of those of the brave. The ones people loved to hear of, showing how humanity was capable of displaying kindness in adversity, and how we can all come together in a time of crisis. She was one of the heroes.
“You’re magnificent,” I whispered over at her.
She shook her head. “I never saw the darkness like you and my dad did. I stayed out in the light, and that was terrifying enough.”
Kellie glanced down at our joined hands. Our beers were either finished or warm, the need for conversation having taken over. For the first time in four years, I wanted to talk. I just didn’t know how. For her, I was going to at least try.
“Some mornings, I wake up and don’t even make it to three seconds before the guilt of being alive slams into me,” I confessed in a rush. I expected her to flinch, or maybe scowl in disgust, but Kellie simply held my gaze and ran her thumbs over the back of my knuckles, waiting for me to speak when it suited me.
I took a deep breath, feeling the weight of that day sitting in my chest before I released it and told her my story.
I told her about the woman and child who’d taken my place, only to lose their lives, and how their faces will never leave my mind.
I told her about the darkness after the explosion, and the utter, flesh-piercing panic I felt knowing those two girls were dead.
I told her about the violent need I had to get back on that carriage and search through the wreckage, only to be pulled back by strangers who cared enough about me to stop me from seeing things I’d never recover from.
I told her about the stray limbs I saw hanging out of open windows as I gave in and passed the carriage, my head falling to my hands with overwhelming grief for people I’d never met.
I told her about the injured men and women I found along the way, and my need to save them. I told her about the ones I threw over my shoulder, the ones I carried in my arms, the people I guided out onto the streets, covered in soot and blood with their former lives stripped from their hearts forever.
I told her how, once I’d saved as many as possible, I sat on the edge of the pavement until darkness fell over the city, doing nothing more than staring up at the flashing lights around me with soot over my face while passersby constantly stopped to ask me if I was okay.
I told her how I forgot to call my parents and tell them I was safe, and how they feared the worst for nearly fourteen hours before they heard my broken voice again.
I told her how I went to Francis and Faith’s family, begging for their forgiveness only to receive their unwavering love and support, which made the guilt I carried with me even heavier.
I told her how I was given the honour of carrying little Faith’s coffin into the church with her broken father.
How I cried for Francis and all she cou
ld have been.
How I cried for every face I saw that morning.
I told her so many things—things I’d never even recited to myself. When it was over, and the words had freed themselves from the cage I’d held them inside of for far too long, I realised that tears had fallen along the way. My tears. They ran tracks down my cheeks and burned my eyes until they were sore, and even through the misty-eyed pain, Kellie still smiled at me like I was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen.
“Fuck.” I sniffed up, running an arm under my nose and blinking away the emotion. “Fuck, sorry.”
“Sorry?” She scowled for the first time all night.
“Yeah.” I gasped. “This is meant to be a date. You didn’t come here for a shitty therapy session. You—”
“I came here for this,” she whispered, cutting me off and squeezing my hand tight.
I exhaled heavily, my shoulders feeling somewhat lighter as I stared into the eyes of this woman who had barged her way into my life with unimaginable force. Like she knew I needed her before I would ever have been able to know it myself.
“I don’t want to be a fuck up,” I told her, wearing my heart on my sleeve, the floodgates officially opened. “I don’t want to be this guy.”
“But you are that guy, Sonny,” she said softly. “Nothing can change that now, and I don’t know why you’d ever want to be anyone else.”
“I wasn’t made from stuff that can handle the aftermath of something like that.”
“Is anyone?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Someone else might have saved them. Someone else might have saved that little girl, and I just can’t get it out of my goddamn head that things would have been so different if I’d refused to let her have my seat.”
“You’re right. It could have been all three of you dead.”
I blinked hard and stared at her, my face falling as I took in what she said.
“You think she would have gone to the end of the carriage like you did? That little girl was staying put whether you let her sit there or not. My guess is she’d have been standing right there until the very end anyway, just to make you feel uncomfortable for daring to take her seat.”