by Jade Wright
“Shouldn't have had so much to drink,” I hiccup.
“We all need an outlet every so often,” he says.
“I miss her,” I admit, starting to cry.
Tears stream down my cheeks and land onto his shoulders when he pulls me in for a hug.
He doesn't say anything.
He doesn't tell me it's all going to be OK. He can't. He doesn't know that.
Instead he holds me tightly.
“We all miss her,” he sighs.
When I've somewhat collected myself Cody walks me to the front door. I'm gripping his forearm to balance myself.
It feels like I'm walking on clouds.
He's not an attractive man, but I look up at him with gratefulness. The world spins.
I don't see it coming when I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him drunkenly on the lips.
He's rigid for a moment, unsure of what to do but soon he eases up.
He melts into my lips, his hands snaking around my waist.
I'm up against the door, his musty scent rubbing onto my skin.
He feels good.
For just a moment, I close my eyes and pretend it's Michael, that I'm back in his arms and kissing him again.
I snap back into reality when he lets out a slight moan.
I start laughing, pulling away from him.
“Thank you for looking after me,” I slur through giggles.
He looks so taken-aback and struggles to find his voice.
I close the door on him after a small smile.
What the fuck did I just do?
*
I check on River once I'm back inside, still feeling Cody's wet lips against mine.
Her bandages are seeping but she's fast asleep, snoring softly, so I leave her sleeping in the kitchen.
I drunkenly kick off my shoes and fall into bed, still fully dressed. Being in the room without River feels cold and lonely.
I touch the empty side of the bed, thinking back to when I shared it with Michael... with anyone, really.
It hits me just how alone I am now.
I clamp my eyes tightly shut and let out a sigh.
“Goodnight River...” I whisper, curling over onto my side.
“Goodnight... Piper,” someone's voice coming from everywhere and no where all at once fills the room.
I jump up in a blind panic.
“What the fuck!?” I bellow, flying from the bed and slapping my hand down on the light switch across the room.
I look around wildly. There's no one here.
Confused, I rip open the bedroom door and look around. I'm riddled with nerves.
The house is silent. I am alone.
Am I going mad?
The voice was loud enough for me to still make out every word spoken, loud and clear. This unfamiliar voice is echoing in my head.
It was real. It had to be!
“Hello?” I call out, gripping the door for support.
I wait anxiously for a response.
Nothing.
Tears roll down my cheeks.
What is happening to me?
I think about messaging Cody and asking him to come back.
I don't want to be alone any more.
Walking slowly back across the room, I pick up my phone and start punching in his number but stop myself.
I'm not ready.
I can't fall back into old patterns.
I need to get over Michael.
Alone.
I get back into bed and wrap the blankets around me, leaving the main light on.
I let out a tiny laugh. The irony.
I'm afraid of the dark.
It's like I'm nine years old all over again.
I close my eyes, starting to let sleep envelope me when suddenly the voice reverberates throughout the room again.
This time it isn't words, but a chuckle I hear.
My eyes grow huge in terror.
This time I know that it was real. I wasn't imagining it.
I'm petrified something is under the bed. What if they grab my ankles if I try to run out of the room?
I need River in here to protect me, but right now I need to protect her.
What if someone has come back to finish off the job with her?
I dial the number for the police and hurtle out of the room, bracing myself for an attack that doesn't come.
“Don't forget what I told you, Piper. Stop. Searching!”
It's a voice I've never heard before. It doesn't sound real.
It sounds distorted. Fake. Menacing.
“Please. Please help me. There's someone in my house!” I scream over the voice all around me when the woman on the other end of the line picks up.
Hurriedly, I try my best to get River up and out of the house. Despite the pain she's in she knows that something is wrong and starts barking frantically.
I give the woman my sisters address and huddle into River on the side-walk, shivering and shaking in the cold night.
Every rustle in the bushes frightens me senseless as I wait.
It feels like the sirens take hours to come blaring up the driveway, but it must have only been a couple of minutes.
Two big, sturdy officers equipped with handguns shake my hand in turn.
Detective Engelbrecht and Officer Jensen.
One of them is the one who came to my house to fingerprint things when I'd found River in the shed.
He eyes me warily.
I tell them the story, my words slightly slurred.
Detective Engelbrecht stays with me on the side-walk when I beg not to be left alone, Officer Jensen heads inside to investigate.
“How much have you had to drink tonight Ms. Brady?” Engelbrecht asks me.
His question feels invasive. Judgemental.
“Not enough,” I hiccup, instantly regretting my lame attempt at a joke. He shoots me a dirty look.
“Look, I know what I heard. There was someone inside that house!”
River is panting, her eyes darting around in distress.
“Ms. Brady, I hope you don't mind me offering you a bit of advice. I know you've been through something quite traumatic with your dog – but try lay off the booze. It doesn't help much. Trust me, I know!” he chuckles, slapping his belly heartily.
“But it could have been whoever did this to her coming back to do more, couldn't it?!” I gesture desperately at River, needing them to understand me.
I'm not crazy, I want to say.
He shrugs his bulky shoulders and we sit in silence while we wait for Jensen to reappear. When he does, he asks us to follow him back inside.
“Did you say this was your sister's place, ma'am?” he asks me, his arms folded.
I nod quickly.
“Were you aware that she has Alexa Echo with dots in every room in the place?” his eyebrow cocks up.
He's looking at me like I'm an idiot.
I frown, shaking my head dumbly.
I've never been one for all this modern technology. I've never even heard of Alexa Echo.
Michael used to always talk to our television and say, 'OK Google,” and I always thought it was bizarre.
He sighs, leading me to the bedroom and producing a small grey speaker I've never noticed before.
I look at it, puzzled.
“It seems that the broadcasting setting was on tonight,” he speaks slowly, as though talking to a child.
I don't know if it's because he thinks I'm stupid or just drunk.
I can smell the alcohol on myself, so I assume the latter.
“I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying?” I say.
“Your Bluetooth must have been switched on. My guess is a neighbour hacked into the system and tried to prank you.”
There's a slight smirk on his lips.
He thinks this is funny.
I close my eyes, trying to process what he's saying.
I want to tell them about what was actually said.
About the note I fo
und pinned to the shed. The warning to stop searching. Hearing those words spoken out loud tonight.
It has to be whoever did this to my dog.
I am not safe! I want to scream it at them; but I can't.
I stop myself and swallow my words.
Instead, I steady myself and whisper, “so, what do I do now?”
I'm scared.
“I'll deactivate all of the dots throughout the house. The only other thing I can suggest is encrypting your WiFi. It makes it trickier to hack,” he winks.
“But the voice – it didn't sound real! It was like some sort of voice modulator. Is it not illegal for someone to hack in anyway?! Isn't there something else you can do?”
I'm rambling now, panic rising knowing that they're about to leave me alone again.
“I've looked in every room and every nook and cranny. There's no one here, Piper. Get some sleep now.”
I feel useless as I walk them to the front door after they've deactivated the dots.
I don't know what to do.
They clamber back into their police car and as they drive away I can see them shaking their heads at one another.
I don't want to go back inside but I have no choice.
I race into the bedroom, grabbing the speaker and storm out to chuck it in the bin outside.
No matter how hard I try, it's impossible to get to sleep and I'm too scared to take sleeping tablets.
I am instantly sobered and on high alert until the sun starts to rise.
CHAPTER 8
On Sunday I hide under my blankets with River, nursing my hangover with a turmeric root tea, watching Criminal Minds.
I'm trying to distract myself.
There's been no more voices coming to me but I'm so shaken up and still can't sleep.
How far is this person going to go to scare me? I wish the police had done more.
My throat feels raw from alcohol, smoke and screaming.
I'm thankful I don't need to leave the cottage today. Too scared to face the world.
My memory from last night is foggy but I remember what I did.
I remember the look on Cody's face.
I remember how surprisingly soft his lips were. Not like the hardness and eagerness of Luke's kisses.
It was only a few seconds, if that, but it changed everything.
I'm not attracted to him at all but I like the way he makes me feel. Listened to. Safe. Protected. Valued.
I find myself wanting to tell him about Luke and about the voice from last night. I want to tell him the truth about River.
At the bar I'd told him she'd been run over and had to get her leg amputated. My collection of lies and secrets just keeps growing. I don't know if I can keep up with all of them anymore.
Maybe Cody could help me. Maybe he'll know what to do.
I rub my temple, knowing it's a bad idea.
He's sent me two text messages. One last night after he left, thanking me for the evening.
Wow. That was... unexpected. Thank you for tonight. I hope you don't feel too bad tomorrow. C.
I hadn't replied.
I don't even recall opening his message last night.
There had been too much adrenalin coursing through my body after the cops had left – I just saw it this morning when I woke up face down in bed, drooling onto my pillow.
He messaged again an hour ago, asking me how I am.
Hope you slept well! Can I bring you anything? Coffee, croissant, some pain meds? C.
I don't know what to say to him. I feel suffocated.
This is unexpected.
His eagerness pushes me away. I'm not used to it.
In my past relationship I always had to work so hard for attention.
I had never known what Michael was thinking or feeling.
It had eaten away at me like a cancer and I'd festered with it, always over-thinking every little thing.
'What are you thinking?'
'How are you feeling?'
Those were questions I'd found myself asking him more times in a day than I could count in an attempt to fill up the silence between us.
The evening we got back from the hospital after I'd pushed our dead baby out, neither of us had words.
Now that I think about it, perhaps that's where the silence began. The uncertainty.
Then the second time, it never even got to a stage of needing to push the baby out of my system.
It was too early for that.
I'd gone in to see the doctor with pain in my pelvis.
I'd thought he'd tell me I just needed bed rest. Tell me to take it easy. Relax. Keep my baby safe.
I never imagined I'd leave knowing that there was no possible way to save our baby.
'It will come out in it's own time,' the doctor had told us as he'd explained how it had started to grow in the fallopian tubes.
He'd called it a 'tubal pregnancy.'
I didn't understand my body, it's unwillingness to let me have a child.
I was so angry and alone – and that's when the depression had flared up again.
I had to go through it all alone. I had to see what would have been my child seeping onto sanitary pads and sliding down into the toilet bowl every time I went to the bathroom.
It was never far enough along to find out the sex, but I'd always wondered.
I'd envision myself with a boy and a girl, in the end. Two perfect, healthy little human beings.
Michael would be pushing them on swings, their sweet chortles filling up our home as I planted kisses on their little button noses.
I imagined taking them for walks with River attached to the pram, laying out a picnic blanket by the creek and watching them discovering the world.
It's what I've wanted for so long but after Michael broke up with me I told myself I would never have that.
How could I, with anyone else other than him?
Cody is pandering to my every need after just one kiss and I wish I could accept it but I can't stand it.
He's too much too soon.
I want to wipe every trace of him from my lips and mind.
I start to type him a message back, just to be polite.
All good. See you in class. P.
I hit send, knowing how deflated he will be when he reads my message but I have too many other things on my mind to worry about that.
My heart aches. Deep down all I want is to be loved and looked after, to be happy.
Why do I always push people away?
I've pushed away all my other bridesmaids.
It's not like they haven't tried to reach out.
I pushed away Beatrix and Michael when they tried to tell me how sorry they were.
I've pushed away Cody who really only wants to help.
I even pushed Robyn away. I didn't open up to her and tell her about what happened.
Why do I do this?
For so many years I was happy to explore the world, be alone. Then I met Michael and I got a taste for what life would be like with someone by my side. It was all-consuming. Addictive.
It was cut short. When that dream was ripped away from me, I lost it.
I've become so desperate to find my place in the world but I'm too scared to actually accept it when it comes close now.
Every time I open up Facebook I see people's lives moving forward when mine is standing still.
I see old school friends announcing their pregnancies and job promotions.
I see couples getting engaged, married, buying their first house.
It makes me feel angry. At them. At me. At life.
When did it all get like this? What age did everyone switch from updating their status to mindless crap like what they cooked for dinner to suddenly bragging about this perfect life they seem to have and the perfect family?
There was a stage where I knew everyone was jealous of me, of my adventures and experiences.
I knew people were looking at me with envy as they worked their boring nine to five job
s and drove through the same streets day in, day out.
We were worlds apart – but now, they have everything I want. Maybe they regret not taking the time to explore the world and experience everything it has to offer.
Maybe deep down they wish they had done what I was able to do, but they always look so content when I see them.
They're all so proud of the lives they have created for themselves. I know people only show you what they want you to see, so perhaps they are struggling with the way their lives have played out. But now I'm in my thirties and I have nothing to show for it.
I have no money, no address, no friends, children or real career.
I don't have a relationship or someone to fall back on.
I don't have my twin sister.
The loneliness is whittling me down to nothing.
I remember a conversation Robyn and I had once, the last time I'd come down to visit.
We'd been sitting out on her porch watching the sun go down.
“Maybe the way you are and the way you choose to live your life, maybe you don't need someone in your life,” Robyn had said to me.
The way she said it made it sound like a fact.
Part of me had thought she was right at the time, but I had an overwhelming urge to prove her wrong.
I found Michael and I thought I'd done it. I was going to have my happily-ever-after, too.
I was going to catch up to everyone else. It was so close that I could actually taste it!
Now, I clench my hands into fists. I dig my nails deep into my palms until I pierce the skin. I watch as I bleed.
Maybe there's a part of me I didn't realise was there that actually finds solace in my loneliness.
I take my pills.
It isn't good when I get in my head like this.
I spiral out of control.
I help River to the front door and while she finds a spot in the garden to pee, I put a cigarette between my lips.
I know I need to make an appointment with a psychologist.
I need to talk to someone, make sure I don't lose it again.
I make a mental note to look up the doctors in the area later that day.
Smoke stings the back of my throat as I inhale. My fingernails are turning yellow. I wish smoking didn't feel so God-damned good.
In the distance I can see a few fishing boats bobbing up and down on the lagoon.
