Gone (23 page)

“Josh,” she gasps into my ear and I feel her lift up against me, her back rigid and her arms tight around my back as she spasms against me, and that it, that’s me
done. A huge surge takes me over, and for a moment there is darkness all about me, all I can feel is Bex tight in my arms.

Seconds of silence tick by as we lay in complete stillness. I breathe through my mouth a little to clear my head and kiss my lips along her throat to her mouth. It’s a tame kiss, considering. I feel oddly shy, unsure how she is going to react, but her lips kiss mine hungrily which gives me the confidence to open my eyes and look into the ambers which are shining at me. I bite my lip a little and try to think of something to say other than “Sorry I took advantage of you on a beach.”

“Are you shy?” she asks.

“No.”

Bex giggles.

“Well I guess that was a first for the beach,” I smile at her and plant a kiss on her mouth.

“That was a first for me full stop,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“That was just a first. I’ve never done that before.”

“What on a beach?”

“No, ever. Well not with someone else.” Bex gives a nervous sounding giggle with her words.

I start to grin and pull her tight into my arms. I know I need to go and wash off in the sea, but I also need to lie quietly on the sand with the girl made of sun locked in my arms, from which I never want to let her go.

SIX DAYS TO GO

Bridge Cottage

St Agnes

Cornwall

21st August 2013

Dear E,

I told him. I told him all about those girl and what they did to Emily and in turn what I did to them.

He didn’t look shocked, he didn’t look disgusted, he looked sad. Then he kissed me and it felt like he was trying to kiss the real me. The girl who’s made mistakes, the girl who never meant to do the things she did but lives with them every day.

I wanted to tell him about you. I wanted to tell him that one night you and I went out but only one of us came back. I couldn’t though. I wasn’t sure if he would be still able to accept me if he knew that I lost you in the way that I did.

I’m not ready to lose him yet.

Miss you as always

B.

xx

Rebecca

Breakfast

The first thing I notice when I wake up is the absence of Joshua’s arms. Last night after our day out he parked Daisy on the curb and kissed me goodnight. I came in eager to go to bed after the exhausting day of revealing secrets and dry-humping on the beach.

At half two I glanced at the clock by the side of the bed when I felt his arms wrap tight around my waist. He smelt strongly of turps or whatever it is that painters use with oil paints. I breathed in his smell of mint, sea, paint and chemicals until I fell back asleep. Just as I was slipping into a dream I felt him move forward, his lips low to my ear and he opened his mouth to whisper something.

“Don’t say it, Joshua,” I said.

So he didn’t. He just hugged me tighter instead.

The second thing I notice is the smell of bacon creeping up through the floorboards. Crispy bacon. My stomach gives an almighty grumble as it registers the aroma. It’s official, a girl can’t survive on sausage rolls, Cornish pasties and snogging alone. I am down the stairs in three minutes trooping into the kitchen where the Munch Bunch are all sitting scoffing bacon.

“You could have called me for breakfast,” I grumble as I pull out my seat. Mum is standing at the cooker but I see her glance up at the clock on the kitchen wall. I squint my eyes at it a little. That can’t be right can it?

“It’
s seven fifteen.” Dad confirms lowering his daily paper.

Well that’s a bit of a shocker. I am up before nine for no reason whatsoever.

“Shit.”

“Language,” Dad crinkles his forehead ever so slightly in my direction, now this is the family time I am used to.

“So, Rebecca, what are you doing today?”

I take my eyes from the plate of crispy bacon mum has slid onto the table in front of me to answer her question. “I thought we were going shopping for stuff?” This was the plan we made yesterday when mum gently reminded me that I needed to interrupt my two weeks paradise with Joshua to get stuff for Uni.

“Sure, are you not seeing Joshua though?”

“S’don’t know,” I say with a mouthful of bacon. “Where can we go shopping?”

“Truro?” Mum suggests.

I groan automatically. “I went there yesterday.”

“You know they have a University there.” It’s Emily that speaks but she does not glance at me with her words. She keeps her eyes studiously intent on her toast which she is covering with marmite.

I stare at her until she raises her eyes to mine, her blonde hair shining like a halo in the light from the kitchen door.

“It’s not happening.”

“Why?”

“You know why?”

“It could be different here?”

“Em, you know it won’t, drop it okay?”

“Rebecca,” Mum reaches a hand for me and it hovers between us, just the same way it has for months. “Your sister is just trying to say she would like you to stay. In truth we all would.”

I turn and find Dad. “Does Dad want me to stay too?”

Dad gives a sigh and slides his hand along the fold in his paper. “Rebecca it’s not about wanting or not wanting. It’s about trying to make you happy. You haven’t been happy for months.”

I stare at him open eyed. “Are you kidding me? You know why I can’t be happy.”

“No, Rebecca, we know why you think you should be unhappy. That’s a completely different thing.”

“No,” I shout as loud as I can. “Unhappy is what I make all of you, and it’s all I deserve.”

I get up from the table, scraping my chair back along the tiles. I can feel this really annoying lump in my throat and I hate it. I want to pull it out. All this sea air is making me weak. What happened to the girl who stomped about in big boots and inappropriate outfits? I march my way out of the kitchen and head back up the stairs to my room, the room that I never thought I would call mine, determined to find her again.

I can hear them muttering as I walk up the stairs. Mum is saying something about, “A step in the right direction.”

I can tell them there is only one direction I am taking and it is away from here.

An hour later I have a classic Rebecca Walters outfit on. I’m not sure why but it feels all wrong, constraining, confining, the exact opposite of free. I march back down the stairs making sure to allow my boots echo on very step.

I can hear Mum flip-flop her way out of the kitchen just as I reach the bottom step. “Are you ready to go shopping?”

“Nah, I’ve changed my mind.”

“Why?”

“I’ll just make do, and I don’t want to owe you and Dad for anything else.”

“Rebecca, for goodness sake don’t be so dramatic.”

I turn and give her one of my smiles, the smile that I know she never knows how to read. “I’m not being dramatic, I am just being me.” And with that I swing out of the front door and down the path. I know she will be standing there watching me, wondering what has happened and the truth is I feel like a bitch. I am starting to resent myself for being the way I am with people. It’s not normal is it? But at the same time I know that I can’t be normal, at least not until I am away from my family and all the memories that come with them. I want to switch off this new humanity streak that is coursing through me. I don’t want to feel bad for leaving my mum standing in the hallway with her mouth hanging open. I want to feel the same way I have for months. I want to feel dead on the inside so that I simply don’t feel anything anymore. As I pace away from the cottage I can hear my bangles jingling, it’s the first time in days I have been aware of them. The bangles have almost faded into insignificance like I have forgotten why they are there in the first place, but I know I can’t forget and whilst I know I can’t forget about them I know I need to stay away from the person who is stopping me from concentrating on my sins.

Joshua.

I need to stay away from Josh if I have any chance of leaving this town like I always intended. 

Six days to go.

Joshua

Blank Canvases

It’s so damn annoying. I just feel this burn all the time in my limbs pulling me back to Bex. Last night I was just going to drop her off and go back to Aunt May’s to sleep. Sleep, I can’t even remember what that is. When I am with her I am watching her or touching her, memorizing her so that I won’t ever be able to forget. When I am not with her I am just engulfed in fire, wanting to be next to her.

Last night I ended up in the studio, which I paced like I was trapped in a cage, until I turned on the painting of Bex still on the easel in the centre of the room and ripped it to shreds. Then I started to paint again, a different view, a different interpretation, a different Bex but still Bex all the same.

This Bex is as pure as the snow, with no taint on her soul. The Bex that I see, but she doesn’t believe exists.

I kept thinking of all the secrets that she spilt to me on the beach and it made me feel this deep desire to tell her some of mine. I wish I could. I wish I could find the words.

After three hours of covering the canvas in swathes of white and silver with the faintest tint of the gold of a setting sun I knew I was not going to be able to stay away from her. So I didn’t. I ran all the way up the lane until I reached the drain pipe next to her window which I scaled until I was in her room and sliding myself alongside her. Her body fit tight into mine and as I wrapped my arms around her in a grip which I never would have thought I could release, I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell her how I felt in that very moment, and that even though I never thought I would feel anything like it again, because of her I feel alive. I wanted to give her a little bit of myself, tell her just a fraction of the loss that I feel on the inside, so she knows she is not the only one to lose something. Difference being she lost herself.

“Don’t say it, Joshua,” she whispered. I didn’t. I held it tight inside me until I felt like my lungs were going to burst with the strain of holding it in, like my arms were burning with holding her so damn tight.

When the morning rays started to lighten the furthest corners of her attic room I snuck back out forcing myself not to look back at her. I came straight back to the studio where I have been staring at my new work of art ever since.

I am just working on spreading the lightest bronze tone I can blend into her hair when the door bangs downstairs. Cursing to myself I take my time to place my paint brush back onto my palette before heading down to open it. The deep knot in the pit of my stomach makes me know that I want it to be the girl made of the sun.

It’s not.

Faye is leaning against the door, her dark hair swinging in her eyes and a laugh turning her lips into a smile. “And here I was thinking you were going to ignore me the full two weeks.”

“I’m not ignoring you.”

“Yeah I know, can I come up?”

I want to say yes but at the same time I don’t want to show her the image of Bex. I feel like it will reveal far more of me than it does of the picture’s subject.

“Nah, I am all done. Shall we go for a surf?”

“Ah, there is my Joshy Woshy,”

“Fuck, Faye, how many times have I told you not to call me that?”

“At least a million.”

“So how many more times are you going to say it?”

“At least a million.”

I pull the door closed behind us and nudge my oldest friend hard out of the way so I can double lock the door.

“Have you eaten?” Faye is eyeing me up and down with her critical shit detector.

“Nope.”

“Slept?”

“Nope.”

“Washed?”

“Nope.”

“How delightful, quite frankly, Josh you stink.” She crinkles her nose and leans in a little closer to give me a small sniff.

“Well don’t stand so damn close then.”

“I’m guessing Bex doesn’t mind if you stink.”

I start to grin. Goddam it I can’t stop. “Guess she doesn’t.”

“Joshy loves Bexy.”

“Do not.”

“You keep telling yourself that, loser.”

I nudge her hard in the ribs which makes her give an “Ouch.” In response. “You know,” she continues, “I was just about to tell you how nice it is to have my best mate Josh around again, but now you can stick it.”

Faye links her arm through mine and we turn around the back o
f the building to the small outdoor space where I park Daisy. It doesn’t take us long to unload the boards and walk our way down to the lane to the beach. The sun is so hot and intense I can feel it burning on the back of my neck as we negotiate the sands and head towards the rock by the sea. At first I think there is a holiday maker sat there on the rock, as still as a statue, but the gleam of red gives away the stranger’s identity and I feel my steps falter a little bit, my board wobbling unbalanced beneath my arm. I keep thinking of the words I wanted to say to her last night and how she wouldn’t let me say them and I don’t really know what to do with that.