A Little Lost (9 page)

              “Hey” I whisper.

              “It’s going to be okay now Lou, I’ve got you” he smiles at me.

              He lowers us both down so we’re led on a bed and wraps his arms around me, pulling me in close.

              “I don’t want to be lost anymore Kyle”

              “You’re not lost babe, I’ve got you. We’ll find the way together okay” he smooth’s my hair back from my head.

              “It hurts” I pull back so I can look at him “It hurts so bad .. and it never stops”

              “Shhh... I’ll make it better” he whispers.

              My eyes start feeling heavy again “I don’t think you can. It hurts but there’s nothing there anymore” I pull his hand up to my chest over my heart “Can you feel it?”

              “Feel what honey?”

              “Nothing ... it’s empty. It hurts because there’s nothing left anymore” A sob works it way up my throat “What am I going to do? There’s nothing left. Why am I still here? Why can’t I go too?”

              “Go where?”

              I feel the tears running down my cheeks “Wherever my mom and dad are. I don’t want to be left here on my own anymore, it’s so lonely. They should have taken me with them. If they loved me they would let me go too”

              “Lou, babe you’re scaring me now” he wipes away some tears away with him thumbs.

              “I tried, I hoped that if I drank enough I’d pass out and just fade away” I admit.

              “You can’t go, not yet. People need you here”

              “No one needs me” I yawn.

              “I need you”

              “You don’t need me. I wish I was strong like you Kyle. You know what you want and you get it. I can’t do this anymore”

              “Shhh ... sleep now. We’ll talk in the morning”

              My eyes close slowly and I feel the light brush of his lips against my own.

              “You’re wrong, if I got what I wanted, I’d have you” I think I hear him say but sleep takes over before it fully registers.

1

BOOK TITLE

              When I wake up I’m in my old bed. I wince when I lift my head off the pillow and pain shoots through it.

              “Shit” I say to my room and make my way downstairs. I can hear someone speaking in my front from so I pause at the stairs listening.

              “I don’t know” I Kyle’s voices drifts up to me. “I just need some time … I told you I don’t know, I need to be here … She needs me … I’m sorry … I can’t,  I don’t know anymore”

              I continue my path down the stairs and try to make as much noise as I can so he knows he’s not alone anymore. I can smell coffee so I follow the scent into the kitchen. I’m surprised to see that someone had cleaned and apparently restocked the kitchen judging from the bowl of fresh fruit on the table and the full jug of coffee in the machine. I practically run over to the machine and pour myself a cup not bothering to wait for it to cool down before I take a sip.

              “Shit, shit, shit” I mutter with my tongue poking out so it comes out like ‘phit’ and bend so I can run my tongue under the cold water. Once it has gone numb I pull it away and turn to the fridge to get the cream. Kyle is stood in the doorway watching me with an amused, knowing look on his face.

              “Whatever” I grumble and pull a mug down for him.

              “How’d you take it?” I ask looking up at him but when he just raises and eye brow at me I make it like I used to. Cream one sugar, same as me.

              “How are you feeling?” He asks taking his drink and sitting at the table.

              “Well there’s a loaded question” I tell the cupboards on my search for some aspirin. “Let’s just say that I’m tempted to add something to my coffee to ease the pain in my head” I sigh happily when I find the pills and settle into the chair opposite him.

              “And that would be why you have the headache in the first place”

              “True” I nod at him taking the pills “But it also makes the other stuff go away. I’d rather have another headache than risk feeling real pain again”

              “Tell me about it”

              “Tell you about what?”

              “Tell me what that feeling is that you’re hiding from” he says it as if he just asking me to read the scores out to him.

              “Why?” I ask frowning at him.

              “Because I want to understand” he shrugs watching me over his mug just like his dad does sometimes.

              I take a deep breath and look at him, really look at him. Could he handle it? I bet he’d be stronger than me. He’d handle this better than I am.

              “It’s … Have you ever had your heart broken?” I ask not sure how to put it into words, he nods at me and continues watching me “Well imagine that pain but a hundred times worse. When someone breaks your heart it’s still there and there’s always a chance that someone different can come along and put it back together for you. Or you just get by and bit by bit you put it back together yourself. But when someone who you love unconditionally dies, you’re heart doesn’t break into a hundred pieces, it breaks into two, one big, one small and one of those parts that person takes with them. You’re never going to get it back because you will never get them back and you know this, so not only have you lost a vital part of you. You loose something a person never should, you loose hope. How can you carry on and pull yourself back together when there is no hope that you’re going to come through at the end” I pause to take a drink of my coffee and shake my head still not satisfied that I’ve explained it properly “I can’t tell you how it feels, but I know you can see it. Every time I walk passed a mirror I can see it in my eyes. There’s nothing left, when you loose hope you loose everything. That’s what I’m hiding from”

              “So you’re just giving up?” He asks shaking his head sadly I just shrug. “No you just think you’re giving up”

              “What do you mean?”

              “You haven’t lost hope Lou, can’t you see that? Okay so you looked in a few mirrors and didn’t like what was staring back at you, but what did you do? Did you walk away not caring anymore? No, you know what you did? You broke that mirror. You know what that tells me? It tells me that you’re fighting it, you’re not giving up yet, you broke those mirrors to get rid of that picture you refuse to believe is you. You don’t want to give up and just fade away. You want to find that light again” 

              “I can’t it’s too late” I don’t want to believe him, I can’t.

              “What would you say to Cat if it was her father that died and she was wandering around with no purpose?” he asks taking on that determined expression that I used to be so familiar with.

              “I would tell her that if he could see her now he’d be telling her to get her act together. I’d tell her that she has a husband who loves her and its killing him to see her like this. I’d tell her to take that love that her dad no longer needs and give it someone else” I sigh knowing where this is going.

              “And what do you think you’re dad would say to you if he could see you now?” he asks smiling when I roll my eyes.

              “He wouldn’t speak to me for starters”

              “Any whys that?” he’s smirking now.

              I clear my throat and adopt my dad’s voice and accent “If you’re not going to act like my daughter then you aren’t her so get out of my sight and don’t come back until you’ve found my baby girl Loulou”

              “And what would you say to him?”

              “But daddy it is me, I’m just a little bit different now and if you don’t like it then get out of my sight until you learn to live with it” I laugh back into my voice now.

              “You were just as stubborn as each other” he laughs with me.

              “I know but he always had the last word, even when he was dying he had the last word, don’t tell me you missed that?” I shake my head smiling as I remember it.

              “Yeah he was even smiling, probably knew what he was doing”

              “Couldn’t let me have the last word just once. We used to argue all the time after my mum died. He never wanted to do anything. Wouldn’t even leave the house, I had to drag him out. I’d wait until the middle of the night and sneak outside” I laugh when the memories flash through my mind like it was yesterday “I’d go out the back so I was outside his bedroom window and scream, I’d scream so loud. He would come running out in his old pajamas and I’d run away from him screaming for him to come see. When he’d finally get down to the beach I’d be led in the sand. He’d ask what was wrong and I’d turn to him and smile then say ‘look daddy, the stars still come out, one of them is mum and she wants to say hello’ The look on his face when he’d look at me and then up at the stars, that was the most amazing thing in the world, to see that peace on his face and the raw show of love. That’s what life is all about. Of course when we got back to the house he’d shout at me for about an hour about me giving him a heart attack. I did it every night for two weeks and then on that fifteenth night I heard the door open and watched him walk down the beach on his own. He sat there for the longest time just looking the stars and talking to my mum. I stayed far back where he couldn’t see me watching him. The next day he was back to being my daddy again”

              If I close my eyes I can still see the moment it all changed for him, when that peace settled over him and that light came back on in his eyes. “I’m scared” I whisper keeping my eyes closed “I helped him with that but I’m scared because I want to be able to do it on my own but I know I can’t”

              “Sweetie we all need saving at some point. You just have to let someone try” he clasps my hand with his own across the table and squeezes so I open my eyes.

              “That’s what I’m afraid of; I don’t want to be that vulnerable again”

              His phone rings and he leaves the room to answer it, when I hear one of the bedroom doors close upstairs I leave the kitchen. My dad found his way at the beach, so when I walk out of the house and down to the beach I’m hoping to find that light for myself.

              I’m not sure what time it is, only that it’s early morning. There are a few people walking their dogs but none of them really pay any attention to me. I always took the fact that my parents lived in a beach house for granted when I was growing up. There’s a certain tranquility about the calmness of the ocean being right there on your door step. I ignore the looks I’m getting from a few early risers as I make my way to the waters edge. Turning my back to everyone I drop my robe and walk in the water. A few wolf whistles follow in the water but the early sunlight washes over me and soon I’m in up to my waist, I spread my arms and let them drift back and forth with the waves. The seagulls above me are signing and I bend my head up to watch them circling the water. For the first time in a week I smile. Not because someone has said something funny or kind, not because I have remembered something about one of my parents but I smile because right now in this moment with nothing but water and nature surrounding me I want to smile. If my father could see me now he would have a fit. The thought of him shouting at me and threats about how I could get arrested for this make me laugh.

              “Louise? Is that you? What are you doing?” I turn my head back to the beach still laughing and when I see Mason and Kyle stood on the shore line Mason looking worried and Kyle smiling I cover my breast with one of my arms and turn to the side waving at them.

              “I’m going for a swim, wanna join me?” I call back to him.

              Mason looks up at Kyle horrified and Kyle just laughs harder shaking his head at his dad, when Mason looks back at me with his jaw dropped open I shrug my shoulders at him “Your loss” I call and turn back to go for my swim.

              When I walked on to the beach in nothing but a bath robe and then removed that so I could go for my swim, I didn’t take into account how I was going to get back out of the water. I swim as close as I can towards the shore where Mason and Kyle are sat in the sand watching me.

              Mason looks ready to lecture me just like my father would but Kyle still looks amused.

              “Something wrong?” Kyle calls to me smirking.

              “Guess I didn’t really think this through” I laugh when Mason looks about ready to ‘pop a top’

              “You might have to stay in there until it gets dark” Kyle laughs at me.

              “Or one of you could just bring me my robe and then I can get out. I had plans for today” I shrug as if it doesn’t really matter.

              Mason looks up at my announcement “What were your plans?” he asks hopefully.

              “It doesn’t matter I can’t do them anyway” I say sadly and try my hardest not to laugh when Kyle rolls his eyes at me.

              “Well we could help you, if you promise not to do this again” Mason says handing Kyle my robe.

              I watch amused for a few seconds as they pass my only item of clothing between the pair of them. When they can’t seem to come to a decision I sweep my eyes across the beach and decide that I can probably get away with it without too many heads turning. Using my hands to cover as much of myself as I can I run out of the water and grab my robe from them on my way passed, using that to shield myself. I get to the house about ten minutes before them.

              In that time I phone Anne and ask her to come over and I get dressed. I’m sat in the kitchen with a notebook and pen in front of me and two mugs of coffee are on the table waiting for them when they arrive.

              “You could give an old man a heart attack” Mason scolds taking his seat at the table and diving for his coffee.

              “You wouldn’t help me, I had to do what I had to do” I shrug my shoulders at him.

              “We would have helped if you would have waited” Kyle says joining us slightly out of breath.

              “I can’t wait around forever; I’m not getting any younger”

              “What the hell were you thinking going skinny dipping in broad daylight?” Mason asks getting into lecture mode. Not wanting Anne to know about my morning escapades I decide to deal with him the only way I know how. It used to work with my father so let’s see if I still got it.

              I turn my expression sad and let my eyes fill up “I was just trying to feel alive again” I say quietly.

              They both start laughing. “What?” I demand slipping out of my act.

              “Honey, I’ve seen real tears from you. That won’t work on me” Mason says chuckling.

              “Fine, I just wanted to feel like me again” I mutter.

              “Babe, you were naked” Kyle laughs.

              “Yeah well it worked so get over it” I shrug.

              “I don’t think that’s something I’m going to forget in a while” Mason cried scrubbing his eyes.