“Sounds healthy.”
“Maybe so.” She chinked cocoa cups with me. “To a good old cry, cheers!”
I smiled slightly as I sipped the drink. I wanted to tell her. I breathed deeply as I struggled to think how to begin.
“I had told you before she had died, didn’t I?” I asked eventually, picking up another biscuit.
“Yes, but not how.” She munched on her own biscuit.
“My dad…” I breathed deeply again. “He used to own a pub. We had a house next door. Rosie was sixteen, I was twelve. It was a busy night for the pub. Lots of parties. Mum and dad had Rosie working as a waitress. The first time I came down the stairs, I could see she wasn’t herself.”
“In what way?”
“She kept… tipping,” I inclined my head to the side to illustrate. “I didn’t realise she was drunk.”
“Drunk? At sixteen?”
“Mum and dad didn’t realise either. They were both too pre-occupied with running the pub.” I bit into the chocolate bourbon, chewing slowly. “I pointed it out to mum, not realising at the time that it was alcohol that was the problem. Mum brushed it off, said one of the customers had bought her a drink. That was all. Wouldn’t happen again. ‘Go up to bed, Ivy.’ So I did.” I scrunched the remainder of the bourbon in my hand. When it crumbled, Leonora offered me a tissue to pick up the pieces. “I came back a little bit later and things had changed.
“The pub was still very busy, but Rosie was on the stairwell. She had been deposited there. She was hanging her head in her hands, swaying backwards and forwards. She wouldn’t talk to me. She just kept clutching at the hair on her head. I went into the pub to tell mum and dad, but they wouldn’t listen. They were arguing. They wanted to know who had bought Rosie all the alcohol. No one knew. She had never tried alcohol before. We think everyone just kept buying her stuff while my parents’ backs were turned, just enjoying the tipsy teenager. I remember pulling on my mum’s shirt, trying to tell her about Rosie, but she brushed me off. Told me to go back to bed. She had a lot to deal with.
“I didn’t. I went back to Rosie. She was laid out cold.” I stopped for a second, trying to breathe. Leonora found my biscuit-crumb-covered hand and squeezed it tightly. “There was a little bit of vomit on the floor, but not much. They said, she hadn’t been able to vomit properly. If she’d been sick sooner, and not had so much alcohol at once. Ahh… She was convulsing. I called an ambulance.” I sipped the cocoa again; aware how dry my mouth was. I hadn’t told anyone this. Never in such detail.
“My mum and dad were confused when the ambulance showed up. The paramedics burst in, all in a hurry from what I had described. They took me away from her as they worked. Then, they put her in the ambulance.” I shook my head, remembering how long it had taken us to get in the car to follow. “Dad closed up the pub, kicked everyone out, and we followed them to the hospital.”
I remembered sitting in the waiting room. Just sitting, my converse shoes wrapped around the stool legs as I stared at the floor.
“Have you ever noticed how white hospital waiting rooms are?” I asked suddenly, turning to look at Leonora.
“No,” she shook her head sadly.
“I did that day. Too white. No colour. We waited for hours, just staring into white nothing.” I looked back down at the cocoa in my hand. “She slipped away as the sun came up. Alcohol poisoning, they called it. I grimaced at the term. All that meant is she drank too much. People kept buying her drinks. She had no experience of it and didn’t know when to stop. I don’t blame my parents, but they were too busy to notice. Horrible accident it was called.”
“How did your parents react?”
“Shock. Mostly. Soon they started arguing. Worse than before.” I looked up to the white ceiling.
“How did you react?”
“I cried,” I tried to stop the tears from coming again as my eyes welled up with water. “I cried for so many hours. I thought I could never cry again. Dried up like old toast.” She smiled slightly at my analogy. “Until tonight.”
“That’s a long time not to cry.”
“I was doing alright though,” I complained. “I was coping. Then mum announced the divorce.” I squeezed her hand again, like it was a lifeline, a way to climb out of the black hole. “Since January, it’s been all those feelings again.”
“That’s when drawing the ladybugs started.” Leonora nodded, as if it all made sense.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” I looked at her with amazement. “What is wrong with me?”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Yes, there is. Any mention of the divorce and I start drawing ladybugs.” I huffed, sipping the cocoa. “Leonora, what if I’m losing my marbles?”
“Ha,” she laughed slightly, “you’re not losing your marbles, but I do have a theory if you’d like to hear it?”
“Yes please.”
She rearranged herself, gathering thoughts for a moment.
“Since the announcement of the divorce, do you feel that Rosie is disappearing for good?” Her voice was very gentle, as though I were a startled mouse that would run and hide in the corner of her room at any second.
“I do. I really do. It’s almost as if… they’re forgetting about her.”
“Ivy, no one’s forgetting about her. They’re just dealing with it all in their own way.”
“By not talking about her? It’s horrible. I won’t let her disappear. I miss her.”
“Ivy, I think this,” she gestured at my hand. “Is your way of keeping her alive. Draw ladybugs, Rosie is still here.” I kept my gaze on my knuckles and the white bandage.
“My way of carrying her with me, you mean?”
“Perhaps, yes,” she offered me another biscuit which I gladly put down my cocoa to take. “Also, just a way that you can almost feel she’s still there. I think… you’re grieving again.”
“Grieving?” I didn’t like the word. It didn’t sound nice or feel nice to say.
“Perhaps the announcement of the divorce has brought up the pain you stamped down on before.” She smiled slightly, trying to reassure me like this was a good thing. “I think you should cry, Ivy. As much as you want to. Wail at the heavens, get angry if you want. Tell your mum and dad that this is causing you pain. They’re not the only people suffering, you’re allowed to as well. I think you should grieve properly. Don’t stamp down on it and ignore it.”
“Grieve,” I said more firmly, the word feeling not quite as horrible as another tear slipped down my cheek.
“Distraction is good. It’s great, it helps us all cope with the bad things in life. Yet sometimes, perhaps it’s better to acknowledge the problem than sweep it under the rug. Acknowledge it for what it is. You look like you need to grieve to me. I’ll be here. All the time. Don’t be afraid to look to us for support.” She smiled, truly meaning her words.
“You sound so wise,” I tried to laugh her off and wipe away the tears at the same time. “How do you do it?”
“Forced to grow up quick I guess,” her smile turned sad, reminding us both of her own sad tale.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said eventually, munching on another cookie. “There’s just one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s messed up,” I looked away from her, knowing she wasn’t going to like this bit.
“Try me.”
“You know Kyle. You remember I said we knew each other from back home before he moved away?” I turned back to her.
“Yeah.”
“Well, he was dating Rosie when she died.” My words could have been a stone dropped in water, creating a huge splash.
“What?!” She tipped the box of biscuits over.
“Please don’t be angry –”
“I’m not, it’s just…” she was frantic, searching for the right word. “It’s so messed up!”
“I’ve been going for the word errgghh.” I shivered to emphasise the point. “He was at her funeral. H
e looked like he was a puppy that had been trodden on.”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” she was an awful lot more animated now. “Let me understand this perfectly. Kyle when he was sixteen was seeing your sister, but she died.”
“Yep,” I nodded. “Only been seeing each other for a few months. She said they hadn’t quite gone all the way, but they had definitely been… exploring at that age. I didn’t want to think of Kyle’s creepiness as a real threat because he was always so sweet with Rosie, but there was something he said when I first saw him back at the party.”
“What was that?”
“He said I looked like her.”
“Ewww!” She jumped up off the bed and hopped around the room. “This just went from creepy to oh-my-jumping-god weird!”
“You don’t think he’s being all creepy with me because he wants to know what…” I couldn’t say the words and decided to stuff another cookie in my mouth instead.
“Because you’re the closest thing he can ever get to sleeping with Rosie?”
“Yuck, did you have to say it?”
“Call a spade a spade, call a fucking weirdo a –”
“Yes I get it!” I laughed slightly at that one, holding up my hand.
“Oh my god…” She had her hands on her forehead, thoughts running through her mind. “You’re the closest he can get to her.”
“He wouldn’t actually do anything though, would he?” I shook my head, not wanting to believe it. “I haven’t seen him since I kicked him in the nuts.”
“I really don’t know, hun.” Leonora shook her head. “Whoa – this is seriously messed up. That’s it, we’re signing up to every self-defence class I can find.”
“In Exeter?”
“In the country!”
Chapter 18
As Cara and Ellie arrived back, Leonora made me tell them. I was torn about whether to do it or not. Telling one person was hard enough, but Leonora threatened me if I didn’t. Playfully, but I still believed her capable of it.
What followed, I hadn’t been expecting. The four of us stayed in my room for hours while I showed them pictures of Rosie from my wall of photographs. I told them all about her – all those memories. In a way, it was nice.
It was painful as well. I cried a lot and Cara frequently went to buy chocolate, promising not even to steal any of it. Yet it felt truly special to be able to talk about her. To my heart’s content they let me waffle on about her.
When my dad called, I stuffed the phone back in my handbag, but Ellie fished it out and put it in my hand. She was very kind, practically talked me through what words to say.
I told him I was angry at him. Especially that he clearly hadn’t laid any flowers on Rosie’s grave. He didn’t argue, he just listened. He tried to apologise, but I didn’t want to hear it. We moved on to talking about uni, attempting some semblance of normality, and promised to meet up when he was back from Scotland. I was going to come up to Salisbury for the day and we’d go to the churchyard together.
My mum I didn’t want to disturb on her holiday, she really needed that time, but I arranged another dinner with her for when she got back. That was going to be my opportunity to tell her all.
I had never loved my three friends as much as I did over those few days. They periodically switched between asking me about Rosie, encouraging me to talk then distracting me with something more fun. We watched films, played games, as well as doing the occasional piece of coursework and revision.
We were laid out on the grass outside the coffee shop in a star position, our heads all next to each other as we looked up at the blue sky when I finally turned the conversation to something else that I needed their help with.
“What do I do about Tye?” I played with some of the blades of grass between my fingers. I had kept my hand clean, just as I’d promised to Leonora, but you could still see the grazes across my skin.
I had revealed the scale of my catastrophic mess up with Tye a few days earlier.
“I don’t know, I mean, it was pretty bad,” Cara teased in her usual way. I reached round and poked her side as I heard Ellie laugh. “Ow!”
“I know it was – that was not my question. My question was, do you think I can fix it or not?” I folded my arms across my chest, enjoying the warmth from the sun.
“Well, I know a few things about how to catch a man…” Ellie paused for effect.
“No, you don’t say! Knock me down with a feather.” Cara laughed.
“Such an evil pixie.” Ellie shook her head, her short black curls wandered among the grass. “How about a nice short dress?”
“Or a low neckline,” Leonora offered with her chirpy voice. “That black and white dress of yours is a killer.”
“Turn up at his door wearing nothing underneath it?”
“Ellie!” I gasped in pretend shock.
“What? I think he might like that.” She rolled from her back onto her front to look at me, so I did the same.
“I don’t want to catch him for one night,” I spoke firmly, shaking my head at her. “I want to keep him.”
“Finally! Some juice.” Cara rolled onto her front too from the side of me. “So you’re admitting that you don’t just quite like the guy, but you like him enough that you would really like him to stick around and be in a relationship? You know, cuddly evenings watching films with popcorn as well as the passionate nights of sex?”
“I’m always fond of how straight to the point you are,” I rolled my eyes.
“But yes?”
“Yes.” I frowned at her.
Leonora shielded her gaze from the sun as she turned her head on the ground to look at me.
“You know what you’ve got to do.” She said simply with a smile.
“No I don’t.”
“You do!”
“Can you stop being so wise?” I complained, digging my hands into the grass.
“No can do, it’s a gift from god himself,” she held out her hands to the sun above her dramatically. “Ivy, you have to tell him. Everything. Only then can he understand exactly what you were dealing with that night. It wasn’t just his shit on your mind, but yours too.”
“He’s also not an idiot from what you’ve said,” Cara reached over to a box of chocolates we had between us, eagerly unwrapping one. “You acted out of the best of intentions in what was a catastrophic moment. You were trying to protect his sister. He will know that. If he hasn’t already, he’ll realise it at some point after he’s done being too blindsided by shock.”
“In short,” Ellie rested her chin in her hands. “Apologise and pour your heart out.”
“You make it sound so simple,” I beat the earth with one of my hands.
“So you got your heart broken, happens to us all,” Cara said with good cheer. “Piece it back together with masking tape and get back to life.”
“Masking tape? Can we not find anything better?” I thought the best plan was to change the topic. “Speaking of which, how’s your broken heart?” As I had been so honest with everyone, I didn’t see the harm in making Cara be honest too.
“Broken heart?” Ellie repeated with surprise.
“Who broke yours?” Leonora snapped her head round on the floor.
“I hate you sometimes,” Cara threw the chocolate wrapper at me.
“I love you too.” I smiled.
“How come you didn’t tell us?” Ellie was looking truly hurt at this new piece of information.
“Alright, fine!” She found a few other spare chocolate wrappers and threw them all at my face. “I kind of had a little crush on someone… Fortunately it is passing, but when it started someone else got him first.”
“Who was this?” Leonora tilted down her sunglasses to see Cara properly. “Tell me so we can go beat the man-thief up.”
“There’s something quite brilliant about you asking it like that,” I laughed, pointedly looking at her, but even her usual perceptiveness couldn’t quite pick up on the hint. “You.”
Cara winced, scratching her neck uncomfortably.
“Benji.” She said eventually.
Leonora scurried forward on her knees and grabbed Cara’s shoulders, shaking her roughly.
“How could you not tell me?!” Her voice was shrill and panicked. Even Cara was laughing at being so treated. “I could hit you with one of your gorgeous red stilettos.” She made a grab for Cara’s foot, but she wriggled away and hid behind me.
“You were too quick – you and your swooping skills, you had picked the guy up before I had chance to tell you.” She peered over my shoulder, affecting her mastered look of innocence. Leonora was knelt in front of me with her hands on her hips, absolutely furious at herself.
“I’m so horrible!”
“No you’re not.” Cara reached across my shoulder, waving a hand at her to be calm, but not yet brave enough to come out from hiding. “Besides, it’s mostly passed. Now I just think he’s good looking.”
“He’s not good enough for you anyway,” Leonora said miserably, folding her arms in a huff.
“Aww, you think so?”
“I know so.” Leonora turned her eyes on Ellie who was now hitting the earth as she laughed. “What’s so funny to you?”
“Oh,” she struggled to laugh, swiping her black curls from her eyes. “I was just thinking what kind of friends we are. I went after the guy Ivy liked and you went after the one Cara liked. At least I didn’t bed Tye!” She started laughing again, just as Leonora launched an attack on her.
“While they destroy each other, here,” Cara passed me my phone. “Text him.”
As we collected frappuccinos from the shop, I did text him.
CAN WE TALK? I x
Yet there was no reply. Not for hours. Then for days. As the next Sunday came round, Leonora had definitely had enough of my moping.
“Right, no more! Can’t stand this,” she reached into my wardrobe and collected my black ankle boots.
Distracted By You: Book 1 in The Exeter Running Girls Series Page 16