Gone (5 page)

“So do you have a name girl with the bangles?” I’m trying to remember what the young girl who was with her in the shop called her yesterday. Becca? Something like that?”

Turning to me with a frown on her face she bites her lower lip. Jeez, I only asked her name.

The frown and the angry glare instantly make me recall her name. “Bex.” I answer for her. The frown deepens.

“No one calls me that, only my sister.”

“Well I don’t know what else to call you?” I prompt. Her feistiness is rather amusing, it’s actually doing a good job of distracting me from the usual shit I try to keep out of my head.

Her top lip curls a little in distaste at my goading. She really doesn’t want to tell me her name. Who doesn’t want people to know their name? My eyes flick over her with a little more interest. She is rather pretty. Hot, Dan would call it. But I would go with pretty. Pretty is a more delicate sounding word, easy to pair with the freckles and flame hair.

Oh good god. I’ve realized what I am doing? I’m looking at another girl. I try and turn myself away from her a little. She mu
st register my movement because she speaks, her voice low like she is sharing a secret.

“Rebecca.” She clears her throat. “My name is Rebecca.”

Something about her low tone makes me cast my eyes back over her. Well not exactly willingly, my eyes just won’t damn behave themselves and head straight back to the smooth sunlit skin.

She looks nervous, her fingers brushing over her overload of bangles.

“Does Rebecca have a second name?” My feet do this bizarre thing where they scoot over the sand towards her toes.

“No.”

“What no surname? So you are Rebecca No Name?”

She scowls further. “Yes. I am Rebecca No Name.”

Her tone and the death stare she lays on me make me do something I am not expecting in the least. I laugh. Fucking loud. I laugh like I never stopped.

“Well Rebecca No Name. I am Joshua Adams, it’s a pleasure to meet you and your bangles.”

I lean forward and shake her hand my fingers grazing against hers, sand rolls between our connected skin.

Rebecca No Name digs her toes into the sand, burying them deep. “Walters. It’s Rebecca Walters.”

“Bex Walters, now that has a nice ring to it.”

“It’s Rebecca Walters.” She spits her name out like it burns her lips to say it.

“Okay, okay.”

“So Rebecca Walters where are you on holiday from?”

“Nowhere.”

Seriously. It’s like talking to a wall. I don’t even know why I am still sitting here. This makes an evening with Aunt May look like a social highlight.

I get up and start to brush the sand from my legs.

The girl with attitude stares up at me from the ground and I hesitate. “London. I come from London, and I’m not on holiday. My family have moved into Bridge Cottage.”

Just like that the air gushes out of my lungs. The girl with the attitude and the wrong clothes and the frown lives in the house that I was fully expecting to move into one day. The cottage I expected to grow old in.

I sit back on the sand with a bump.

“I am leaving though, in two weeks.” Her gaze is on the sea as she speaks. “Two weeks. I’ve just got to get through two weeks.” She repeats almost to herself.

Two weeks of what?

“Who are you running from?”

Rebecca, Bex, the girl with the attitude turns to me, her eyes hidden in the shadows of the dipping sun. “Myself.”

And that I just don’t know how to answer, so I don’t. I pick my stick back up and start to draw some more.

TWELVE DAYS TO GO

Bridge Cottage

St Agnes

Cornwall

15th August 2014

Dear E,

Yesterday I had to suffer the pain of taking Em around the shops. Painful. Everyone stared at me. I mean I knew they would, but the whole damn street practically came to a halt to look at me. Haven’t they seen fishnets before? Em was completely oblivious, but the experience only reaffirmed what I already knew. I need to leave ASAP. I don’t know what Mum and Dad were thinking bringing me to a place this small. If I stood out like a sore thumb in London, what the hell am I going to do here? I was expecting someone to shout “Tramp” at me. I even regretted burning all my normal clothes after you left. I do still have my skinny jeans but it was way too hot for them. I would have melted into a puddle.

We went to the art shop, Em’s idea of course. Guess who was in there? The dreadlock guy! Oh my god he was so rude! You would have had a few sarky comments to make back to him. I just stood there bright red under his death stare before running away. I’ve never met anyone quite that rude before, which is saying something!

I had another row with Mum and Dad during, ‘Family Healing Time’. Apparently it’s not acceptable for me to accuse the locals of being inbreds. I tried to explain about the obnoxious guy at the shop but they just looked at me like I must have started it in the first place. Which for once I didn’t. I promise.

Dad wanted to talk about you. He seemed to think that the change of scene should help me let go. Wait for this! He suggested that I should try and leave a few bangles off ... just to see if it helps me forget. Like I could forget you. Like I would even want to.

So I stormed out again. It was either that or go and sit in the naughty corner in the attic by myself.

I went back to the beach and sat there willing the next thirteen days to speed up. Then the rude guy with the dreads just rocked up and sat down on the sand next to me! Uh hello? Who does that? According to him it’s his rock. I think I may not be the only crazy in this town! Somehow he managed to wrangle my name out of me. I didn’t want to tell him. But I did.

He actually seemed quite nice. Weird but nice. I won’t be telling him anything else about myself though. It’s enough that he knows my name. 

Miss you as always.

B.

xx

Rebecca

Kissing Arse

I stare in the mirror and perform my daily label attachment as I slide on my bangles. For every one I remember I have fifty-three reasons why I need to go.

Glancing at the black shadows under my eyes I can’t help but think of my deep slumber last night. The deepest sleep I’ve had in weeks. Last night when the nightmares came it felt different. I wasn’t dragged into the black hole of my self-conscious. Instead I lingered in a shady area of grey and silver and the voice shouting in my head was kinder, more reproachful than cross.

“Rebecca, will you just learn to behave and get in the damn car.”

It must be the sea air making me get all soft. Sitting on the beach last night must have re-wired the nightmare programme in my brain.

It’s making it very tempting to sit on the beach all night every night, regardless of whether I have company or not.

I make my way down from the naughty corner and head into the kitchen. “Hey.”

The Munch Bunch are sitting around the table. Instead of pancakes like yesterday, today we have healthy muesli and berries. I cast my mind back and try to remember Mum having breakfast like this on the table in London. I don’t remember it once. But then we rarely all used to be together. Dad always worked and Mum spent her time running around making sure that Emily got to the right places on time and in one piece. I, well I used to spend my time hanging out in the wrong places with people who I was assured were wrong for me too. I realise that after the situation I found myself in the other wee
k, the one that necessitated our move to the country, that Mum and Dad may have been right. Maybe I was hanging out with the wrong people all the time. But I guess I always felt that it was best to hang with anyone then no one. I was wrong. 

Now after our speedy move to the country Dad is freelancing his design work and the Munch Bunch get to sit around having breakfast together.

“What time did you get home?” Mum pours me a coffee and manages to avoid all eye contact with me as she slides it across the table towards me.
Look at me.

“Not late.” I shrug. No one has mentioned me being grounded yet, or having my tuition fees taken away. Maybe I will be forgiven for slamming out of the front door last night after “Family Healing.” I hope so. I have plans today.

“Well I stayed up until ten thirty waiting for you,” she says.

Of course you did.
“I got home at ten thirty five.”

“Did you find your way home okay in the dark?” Emily looks at me with big frightened eyes. Emily is not a huge fan of the dark.

“Uh, yeah I guess.”

I am not disposed to tell them I was escorted home in the dark by a dreadlock swinging surfer.

I did clearly state that I didn’t need help getting home. I got the help regardless. I start to smile a little thinking about the, “I don’t need help getting home,” “But you are getting help walking home,” conversation but quickly wipe the smile off my face when I catch Mum frowning at me.

“We are going into Newquay today, would you like to come? I believe that town will be big enough for you.” Dad rustles the paper he is hiding behind. Dad has not made eye contact with me in two weeks.

I’m about to answer when I hear a car rumbling outside the open kitchen window. I glance up at the flowery clock on the wall. This makes me stop for a moment. We have been here two days and I have not yet noticed how incredibly kitch the kitchen is. It’s all sky blue walls and yellow cupboards. Seriously, what were my parents thinking?
Oh yeah. I remember what they were thinking.

My moment of hesitation checking out the kitchen décor has delayed me from dashing out the door before the owner of the car knocks on it.

Too late.

Dad sighs and puts his paper down. “I’ll get it.”

Shit.

I take a sip of my coffee and wait for the arrival of my new ‘reason to be given a bollocking.’

I can hear him chatting at the door but Emily distracts me from earwigging by asking, “Bex. Are you wearing flip flops?”

I glance at my feet. Yes I am.
I don’t get a chance to answer.

“Bex needs them surfing, you can’
t surf in big boots,” a voice calls from the door. I turn to face the door and bite down on my lip to stop from smiling.

It’s Joshua. Joshua who managed to coax my name out of me in the first five minutes of sitting next to me on the sand, even though it was the one thing I never wanted to tell anyone here.  It’s Joshua whose skin shines in the dark like he is made from the moon.

Joshua. The worst sales person in the world. His name sounds funny in my head. Joshua. Joshua.

“Joshua,” he says when he walks into the room and shakes my mum’s hand. He stops and glances around the kitchen, his eyes flicking over the cupboards like he knows the things that are kept behind the doors. Even I don’t know what’s kept behind them. His shoulders which I can’t help but notice are raised and tight start to relax as he looks at all our belongings scattered about. Finally he rests his eyes on me and for the moment I am rooted to the spot as I scan over his face trying to read what he sees when he looks at me.
What is there to see?

Joshua, is wearing a dark green T-shirt paired with black board shorts and flip flops. I have my mouth open.

“We haven’t got around to decorating yet,” Mum explains waving her hands at the clutter and general living debris around the room. I kind of thought Mum would be a bit hostile to the dreadlocked stranger.

Joshua offers a half smile. “It’s cool, you haven’t been here long. I didn’t realise the place had been sold.”

Dad gives one of his coughs as he walks back into the kitchen “Well it was a bit of a rush.”

“I see.” Josh turns his appraising glance towards me again and I stand rooted to the spot. Does he see? Does he realise I am the reason we had to move with just a few days notice? Does he realise I am the reason my family had to move two hundred and fifty miles? Does he see the labels?

“Hey Bex.” Joshua doesn’t smile at me. In fact it feels like he is not even sure why he is here.

“
Rebecca.”

“Bex.”

“So are we going surfing or not?” I ask with a resigned sigh.

A grin switches on, flickering to life and it’s as if his whole face lights up. It’s beautiful and I know I definitely have my mouth open. Then he ruins it by speaking again. “Yes, Bex we are.”

I let a deep sigh burst from my lips before turning to my parents catching them watching me with a strange look on their face. What is that? Worry? Concern? Shock?

“Nice to meet you,” Joshua leans forward and shakes both of my parent’s hands again. “I’ll have her back this afternoon if that’s okay?”

I automatically tut out loud and scrunch my face into a scowl. It gives me the raving hump when people talk about me like I am a piece of property that needs to be cared for or returned after use. Call me over sensitive. I don’t know why he’s asking anyway. We may have spoken for hours last night, but I didn’t in any way tell him anything important about myself. Admittedly we did have a weird conversation where I decided to blurt out that he shouldn’t try and look for me on Facebook or Twitter. He absolutely wet himself laughing and then turned to me, his arms spread wide, and said “Do I look like the type of guy on Facebook or Twitter?”