by Amanda Dick
“I think I’m going crazy,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She looked up at me, fresh tears brimming in her eyes.
“What?”
She shook her head, as if she was afraid to say it again. I couldn’t just sit there and let her cry. She let me take her into my arms, and she grabbed fistfuls of my shirt, holding on tight. Then the sobbing started. Great, wracking sobs that shook her whole body.
I held her tight. I had no idea what was going on, no idea what to say that would help. I tried not to panic. I was there with her, she was safe. If that was all I could offer, then that would have to be enough for now.
We sat like that, locked together on the floor, for the longest time.
“What’s happening to me?” she finally whispered into my shirt.
I wish I knew.
“Come on,” I said gently, pulling away and getting to my feet. I reached down for her hand. “Let’s go into the living room.”
No good ever came from sitting on the floor, crying. Especially in that room. I knew that better than anyone.
We walked through to the living room and she sank down onto the couch. She made herself into a small, impenetrable fortress, pulling her knees up, wrapping her arms around them and bowing her head. It felt like she was shutting me out again, but I didn’t know if it was intentional or just a self-preservation thing.
Henry’s voice popped into my head from out of nowhere. Alcohol. She needed a short, sharp shock to her system to bring her round. Maybe then I could find out what the hell was going on.
I walked through into the kitchen and pulled two glasses out of the cupboard, along with a bottle of whisky. I poured a shot into each glass and immediately downed one myself, breathing through the burn as the whisky slid down my throat.
I took her glass back to the couch, hoping that one taste might bring her back to her senses. She had raised her head at least, but she was staring at nothing, her eyes red and swollen. When I sat down and laid a hand on her arm, I could feel her still trembling.
“Do you think you can drink this?”
She blinked, slowly, as if everything was too much of an effort. I stroked her hair and she closed her eyes, leaning into my hand.
“Come on,” I said gently. “Drink up. It might make you feel a bit better.”
She opened her eyes, and it took a few moments for them to find me. I could see the raw desperation shining out of her, begging me for help. It was so obvious, she might as well have screamed at me.
I handed her the glass and she took it. She took a small sip, screwing up her face and coughing violently.
“It’s whisky,” I said.
She handed it back to me, still coughing. Not knowing what else to do, I took it and set it down on the coffee table.
“What’s going on?” I asked carefully. “Talk to me, because I’m getting a really bad feeling here.”
Her eyes slid from mine to the floor. She sat there, huddled in a ball, staring at the floor until I couldn’t bare it any longer.
“Come on, Maia. Please?”
Every second that passed made her seem more and more unreachable. Then, when I was beginning to think I should just give up and leave her alone for a while, she looked over at me. Fresh tears gathered in her eyes.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
Her voice was so heartbreakingly small, I found myself holding my breath. I tried to call on the sensible gene, the one I supposedly had and Vinnie had supposedly missed out on. We couldn’t both drown here. One of us needed to stay focused.
“What do you mean?”
A tear slid down her cheek, followed closely by another. She wasn’t sobbing, not this time. These tears were the silent kind. I honestly didn’t know which was worse.
“I think I’m going crazy,” she whispered, as if sharing a secret with me. One she wasn’t sure she should be sharing.
I was overcome with a blinding case of knight-in-shining-armour-complex. I wanted to fight off whatever was hurting her – to grab a sword and stab it, killing it and burying it so it would never hurt her again. Vinnie would’ve had a field day if he knew.
“What makes you think that?”
She sniffed, wiping away the tears that had fallen with the back of her hand. She looked like she was hanging onto a ledge by her fingertips. I was scared to move, to say the wrong thing in case I sent her toppling over.
“Remember when I told you about the near-death experience, or whatever, at the beach the other day?” she asked. “It happened again.”
My heart raced. I had no idea what to do with that. Had I missed something?
The last threads of self-control tightened, then snapped. Her face dissolved, contorted with sheer agony. That was the final straw. I scooted forward, reaching for her as she dropped her knees and crawled into my arms.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but we’ll figure it out,” I mumbled, thinking aloud.
She nodded into my shoulder, holding on tight. Then the sobbing started. It was silent, but her whole body shook with the intensity of it. My brain whirled as I tried to work out what could possibly be happening here. It wasn’t just seeing Em’s things in the wardrobe, that much was clear.
God, I used to hate it when Em cried. It always made me feel so useless. All I could do was hold her and hope like hell it was enough.
I felt just as helpless then, with Maia in my arms.
After a while, she sniffed, pulling away from me. I let her, smoothing the damp hair away from her face. Her cheeks were flushed and wet.
“Talk to me,” I said. “And let’s see if we can work it out together.”
She took a shuddering breath and sat back. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she sniffed and stared blankly at the floor. I didn’t want to rush her, but whatever this was, I was keen to get to the bottom of it.
“I wish I knew,” she said quietly. “When it happened at the beach, I thought it was a one-off. Some kind of near-death thing. It freaked me out, but I could live with it. But this time… “
“What happened this time?”
Despite my curiosity, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to that.
She looked up at me, losing about ten years in the process. “I opened the wardrobe, and I saw all of her things in there. I saw the box and I just… I opened it. I was looking at the photos when it happened again.”
A near-death experience, when she wasn’t near death? A chill crawled up my spine. There had to be a rational explanation, surely. I wished Bridget were here. She was better at this stuff.
“Tell me what happened.”
She sighed, anxiously rubbing the knuckles of one hand with the fingers of the other. They were both shaking.
“I was just sitting there, looking through the photos. Then it was like… I don’t know. The room disappeared, and I saw us – at least, I think it was us. It could’ve been you and her, I’m not sure, I couldn’t tell. It was really quick, like lightning quick.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
“It happened so fast, I can’t really remember now. Maybe it was more like a feeling I got, rather than what I actually saw.”
My brain whirled in circles as I tried to hang on and keep up. “Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”
She stared at her hands. “Not that I can remember.”
I sighed. A leaden sigh, one that hurt my lungs. What the hell was going on here?
“Do you think this had something to do with Em’s stuff, in the wardrobe?” I asked. “I’m sorry it was still there. I should’ve shifted it when you moved in, that’s my fault. I’ll get rid of it all, move it down into the basement or something.”
“It’s not that,” she said irritably, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “And I’m sorry I was snooping, but I opened the wardrobe to put my things in there, and it was all just… and then I saw the box, and when I opened it… ” She groaned, leaning forward and burying her face
in her hands. “God, I feel like I’m losing it. I can’t sleep, I can’t think straight – it’s all just… I don’t know.”
I latched onto the one thing she said that made any sense here.
“You can’t sleep?”
She sighed, her hands dropping back into her lap as she looked at me. “I can’t sleep. That’s why I get up early. I can’t seem to relax, I feel like I’m on edge all the time. When I had that migraine the other day, I managed to get about an hour’s sleep. I think that was the most I’ve had in days, maybe even weeks. I feel like I’m wading through sand.”
She got up off the couch and walked over to the French doors, staring out over the balcony. I was familiar with the feeling. For the first year after Em disappeared, it had been my new normal.
“Sleep deprivation,” I said. “I bet that’s what this is. It causes hallucinations and all sorts of other stuff. Maybe that’s what we’re dealing with here?”
I stood up and walked over to her, gently turning her around to face me. “You know how dangerous that is, right? They used to use it as a torture method. It makes you see things, makes you think you’re going mad.”
She looked up at me, hope in her eyes, wanting so desperately to believe me.
“We need to make sure you get some sleep. Maybe we need to get you to a doctor?”
She shuddered. “No doctors. I hate doctors.”
“Well, we can try some other stuff first. Relaxation techniques. I actually have sleeping pills somewhere.”
She frowned up at me. “Sleeping pills?”
God, that felt like forever ago. It was a shitty time, a time I wasn’t keen to rehash, so I gave her the condensed version instead. The version that didn’t make me sound like the complete basket-case I was back then.
“I was in a pretty bad way myself for a while there,” I shrugged, trying to keep it light. “A couple of years ago. It kinda snuck up on me. Vinnie took me to the docs, and she gave me some relaxation exercises, some anti-depressants and a few sleeping pills. I didn’t use them all, I still have some.”
She stared up at me, fear easing slightly, replaced by empathy. “Because of Emily?”
“Yeah. Amongst other things,” I said. “Look, the point is, I can help. I’ll teach you the relaxation methods I learnt then, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll try the sleeping pills. Just promise me that, if we try this stuff and it doesn’t work, you’ll let me take you to the doctors. Do we have a deal?”
She screwed up her face.
“Maia? Come on. Deal?”
She sighed. “Yeah. Okay.”
I smiled. “Good. See? We have a plan now. Plans are good.”
I drew her closer, rubbing her back gently. My heart rate was beginning to slow as the fear diminished. That sensible gene was worth its weight in gold, especially if it made her feel a little better.
“Thank you,” she mumbled into my shirt, her arms tight around my back.
I eased her away from me so that I could look into her eyes. For the first time, I began to see what she was talking about. She looked tired. Living in her car, travelling around the country, almost drowning, staying up late with me – it’s only natural she was feeling overwhelmed. She needed TLC, and lots of it. And I was going to give it to her, in spades.
“Ever since the day I met you, everything’s been different,” I said, unable to keep it inside any longer. “I’ve been treading water for so long, it felt normal. Now you’re here, and I feel like you saved me. I can breathe again. I can look forward, into the future, because I was too scared to do that before. We make sense, somehow. I don’t know how, but we do.”
I saw the light return to her eyes, to her face. “You saved me, too.”
My heart was a balloon, filled with all the love I had for her, the hope I had for us, and it was lifting my feet off the ground.
“I just want you, here, with me, and happy. And I’ll do whatever I can to make that happen.”
Her body relaxed beneath my hands, and I smiled. I smiled because I couldn’t help it. I smiled because she filled me with joy. I smiled because I loved her.
She smiled back, which was all the sign I needed. I leaned down and kissed her, softly, carefully. She tasted of salty whisky and I was suddenly hungry for more of it. As the kiss deepened, my phone trilled loudly. I groaned, pulling away from her.
“Bloody hell,” I fished it out of my pocket. “Talk about shitty timing.”
Bridget’s name stared at me from the screen. Now what? I glanced at my watch. It was a little after nine. It wasn’t like Bridget to phone this late unless it was urgent.
“It’s Bridget,” I said. “I should probably get this.”
Maia nodded, stepping away to give me some privacy as I swiped the screen.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”
“I need you to come over, love – right now.”
Alarm bells went off inside my head. She sounded frightened, and there was yelling in the background.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Alex. He’s lost it. I’ve taken his car keys, but he won’t listen to me anymore – I’m scared of what he might do.”
“I’ll be right over, okay? Just stay there. I’m on my way.”
I tucked my phone back into my pocket, my heart racing. Not again. His timing was immaculate, as usual.
“What is it?”
“I’ve gotta go. Some kind of drama at her place.”
Maia wiped her eyes. “I’m coming with you.”
Bridget, Alex and I had been here before, and I wanted her as far away from Alex as possible.
I took her by the shoulders and kissed her, on the forehead this time. “It’s okay, I can handle it. I’d rather you stayed here and tried to get some rest.”
She drew herself upright. “I’m fine. I want to come, I want to make sure Bridget’s alright.”
She was stronger than she looked and twice as determined. I had the feeling that arguing with her now would be pointless.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT made me more anxious. Bridget’s phone call or the fact that Maia was coming with me.
She would not be dissuaded, no matter what I said. It both frustrated and impressed me. She may look fragile, but she had a will of iron. I wrote that down on the mental, if short, list of things I knew about her.
“I’ve never met Alex,” she said, staring out the window at the twinkling streetlights reflected in the water as we crossed the bridge into town.
She may not have met him, but he clearly knew all about her, if his drunken tirade at the pub was any indication. This had the potential to get very, very ugly. As with any situation involving Alex, it was almost a foregone conclusion.
“Are they close?”
That was a loaded question. Yes. And no, not anymore, a fact that I knew was breaking Bridget’s heart. Alex was pushing her away, along with everyone else. When Em disappeared, Alex changed. He became obsessed with every little detail of her case. He was desperate, volunteering for every search, every march. He was everywhere, plastering photos up in shop windows, on websites, walking the streets. He second-guessed the cops’ every move. He was prone to wild accusations – that they weren’t doing their job properly, that they’d missed things – even that they’d been hiding things from us.
But as time marched on and no answers were forthcoming, he slipped into a deep rage. And, along with the police, I was the focus of that rage. He targeted me relentlessly, to the point where I wouldn’t answer the door anymore and withdrew from the outside world for fear of running into him. It took Vinnie threatening him with legal action to get him to back off a bit. He went about tearing apart everything around him, every relationship he had, including the formerly close bond he had with both Bridget and Henry.
“They used to be, before he started drinking.” I rolled my shoulders, keeping my eyes on the road. I wanted to shield her from as much of this shit as possible. “He’s a bit of a handful. He’s older than Em, we were in the
same class together at school. We used to be friends, once upon a time.”
She was quiet for a few moments, and I hoped that would be the end of it. I was wrong.
“I saw him hit you, at the beach that morning.”
My heart felt like it weighed a tonne. I had hoped she’d forgotten about that. I was sure as hell trying to.
“Yeah, well. Let’s just say we’re not close anymore. These days, he drinks too much and makes a pain in the ass of himself.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He’s so bloody angry all the time. I stay out of his way as much as possible. Like I said, he’s a pain in the ass when he’s drunk, and lately he’s almost permanently drunk. Stupid bastard. One of these days I’m just going to clock him and be done with it. I’m sick of all the bloody accusations.”
“What accusations?”
I kept my eyes on the road. “He blames me, for what happened to Em.”
“What? Why?”
Because I was the last one to see her alive. Because I didn’t care enough to do anything at the time. Because I didn’t deserve her. Take your pick.
“It’s… complicated,” I said instead.
We fell into an uneasy silence. I didn’t like hiding this from her, but it wasn’t something I was proud of. We were still finding our feet. I didn’t want her to think badly of me. I didn’t want her to look at me that way. I didn’t want to lose her.
“What do you think’s going on?” she asked a few minutes later, as we drove through town.
“I have no idea, but I could hear him shouting in the background. Might have to call the cops again if he gets out of hand.”
“Again? Does this happen a lot?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her looking at me. “Now and again.”
We pulled up outside Bridget’s place a few minutes later.
“Is this it?” Maia asked, leaning forward to get a better look. “Wow. This isn’t at all what I expected.”
I followed her gaze, trying to see it through her eyes. It was difficult, taking that step backwards. Bridget’s place was like my second home.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I really thought her house would be a riot of colour – something like the café, all rustic and arty. I didn’t see her as the white picket fence type at all.”
