by jodi Gibson
‘What?’ she finally managed.
‘Gemma!’ Stella yelled. ‘That isn’t true! That’s not what happened.’
‘I heard you say it!’ Gemma yelled back. ‘That’s why she ran away. That’s why she left me here.’ Gemma was crying now as she looked at Laura. ‘You were like my big sister,’ she said, her voice now almost a whisper. ‘I looked up to you. And then you …’ Her voice trailed off.
Laura felt like she was out of her body, floating above the kitchen, witnessing a movie scene in a movie. She was trying to speak, but she was unable to make a sound; the noise in her head was too loud. She blinked, trying to focus, but everything began whirling around then faded to black.
Chapter 36
‘Laura? Laura?’
Laura opened her eyes to see Stella’s face close to hers. Her head was cold, and she reached up to feel a wet towel across her forehead, a dull ache knocking behind her eyes.
‘Ah, there you are. You fainted, love. You’re okay,’ Stella said, adjusting the knitted throw across Laura’s chest. Laura’s eyes began to focus, and she realized she was in Stella’s living room, lying on the couch. She could hear a few hushed voices in the room. And then she remembered what Gemma had said.
‘I didn’t kill Ryan!’ Laura said, sitting up, panic thickening her throat.
‘Shh. I know. I know. Of course you didn’t. It was an accident. A tragic accident.’ Stella gently eased her back down.
‘But it wasn’t an accident. He, he killed himself. I read his journal. Gemma read part of it too. Why? Why would she say I killed him? Why would she say it, Stella?’ Nothing was making sense to Laura, and her head began pounding louder. She squeezed her eyes to try and stop it.
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s all okay,’ Stella was saying.
‘But it’s not okay!’ Laura demanded. Why wasn’t Stella listening to her?!
‘Lauz, it’s all right.’ Tom appeared beside her, stroking her arm.
‘Tom?’ Laura said. ‘What happened? Tell me.’ Laura’s eyes glanced around. Rachel and Shea were sitting beside each other on the couch, their faces pale, while Gemma sat cross-legged on the floor, picking at the carpet.
‘I’m so sorry about everything, Laura,’ Tom said.
‘I didn’t know any of it either,’ Rachel said. ‘If I had, if we had,’ she looked at Tom, ‘we would have never let you turn away from us. You needed us.’
Laura sat up. Now she was angry. Her head throbbed, but it was nothing compared to the confusion that clouded her mind. ‘What are you all talking about?’
‘You still don’t remember, do you?’ Stella said gently.
‘Remember what?’
Stella shook her head. ‘It was such a shock. Your mum, she didn’t know what to do. She thought sending you away to your aunt’s would be for the best. You refused to go to the doctor, then refused the counseling. You shut yourself off, and that’s how you dealt with it. A type of dissociative amnesia, I think Judy said the doctor thought it could have been. It was hard to know without a proper diagnosis, but that’s what was most likely.’
Laura knew what that term meant. ‘What? Me?’
‘From … from that night, love.’
‘But I remember everything that happened that night. I remember the next morning. Mum telling me about Ryan. Running out to the train tracks. Telling Mum I wanted to go away. It was my idea to go to Melbourne, not hers.’
‘Our memories play tricks on us, love. Especially when things are too painful. The only way your brain knew how to deal with such a shocking thing was to forget the painful details. Make new memories, even,’ Stella was saying.
Laura’s shoulders felt heavy, her head like it was on fire. ‘I don’t under—’ and then suddenly, mid-sentence, she stopped. A memory flashed out of nowhere. Ryan. Sticky, congealed blood matted the hair on the side of his head. He was standing outside her bedroom window.
Laura threw her hands up to her face and began shaking her head. ‘No … no.’
‘Laura?’ Tom knelt and put his hand on her knee. ‘I had no idea, Lauz. Neither did Rachel.’
‘I'm so sorry, Laura. I have nightmares. I can't …’ Rachel’s voice began to crack.
‘No, that's not right. It can't be right,’ Laura said, squeezing her eyes tight, trying desperately to bring the faded memory back to life.
Laura opened her eyes and looked at Stella, her brows knitted and eyes as large as dinner plates. ‘No? Oh my god.’ Then Laura froze as the memory came fully into focus.
‘Neither of you were the last to see Ryan alive,’ she whispered. ‘I saw him! I saw it happen!’ Her hand flew to her mouth.
‘Laura, it’s okay.’ Stella sat next to her, trying to pull her into her arms, but Laura jumped to her feet, the wet towel slapping on the floor.
Laura was pacing now as the memory picked up speed. ‘It must have been after you saw him, Rachel, because his head,’ she put her hand to her own forehead, ‘was all bloody. The blood. It ran down the side of his face. He was there at my window. I remember.’ Nausea filled Laura’s stomach.
Rachel's face paled.
‘I remember,’ Laura said.
Laura sat down in the middle of the couch as the memory now fully formed replayed to her as clear as day. ‘He knocked on my window. I wasn't asleep.’ Laura shook her head. ‘It wasn’t long after I'd got into bed. I remember hearing the train whistle, and then a few minutes later, I heard my window rattle.’
Laura looked at pale-faced Tom. He was on his feet now, beads of sweat forming on his brow.
‘Laura, don’t. It doesn’t matter. It won’t change anything.’ He turned toward her.
She shrugged him away.
‘Let her go on, Tom,’ Stella added. ‘Remembering might be the best thing for her.’
Laura squeezed her eyes closed, watching the memory as if it were an old black-and-white movie. ‘I opened the window and saw the blood and asked him what happened. He said he couldn't remember. I wanted to get Mum, but he didn't want me to. He said he'd have to go to hospital and that he didn't want to upset his gran. Then … then I told him to go away. That I didn't want to see him.’ Laura gasped, trembling. ‘I was angry with him. I wanted him to leave me alone.’
‘You didn't let him in?’ Rachel said slowly.
‘No, but he kept tapping on the window and I, I …’ She began to sob. She continued recalling the memory.
‘Go away, Ryan. Please. I don’t want to see you,’ Laura cried, pressing her hands over her ears. Her stomach churned with acid. And then her mum knocked on the door and entered in her dressing gown. ‘Laura? What is it?’
Ryan tapped on the window again.
‘Who’s there?’ Judy said, entering the room and peeking out from behind the blind.
‘No. Mum. Don’t,’ Laura cried, trying to pull her mum’s arm. Tears were streaming down her face now. She didn’t want her mum to know.
‘Oh my god! Ryan!’
Laura chased after her mum as she ran down the hall, out the front door, and around the side of the house. Ryan had already started clambering over the front fence.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Murphy. I’m going. I’m going.’
‘Mum! Let him go!’ Laura screamed, pulling at her sleeve. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Laura. Stop it! He’s hurt.’
‘I’m okay, really,’ Ryan said as he climbed over the knee-high wire gate. ‘I’m going to make things right, Laura. I promise.’
‘Ryan! Come back here. You’re hurt. You need a doctor,’ Judy said, standing in the middle of the path. ‘What on earth happened?’ she called before she turned to Laura and grabbed her by the arm. ‘What happened? Are you okay?’
Laura shrugged, watching as Ryan stumbled down the middle of the road. ‘I’m fine, Mum. Ryan’s fine. It’s nothing. Please, please. I just want to go to sleep,’ Laura cried, pulling at her mum.
‘I’m going to ring the ambulance.’
‘Mum! No!’ Laura looked
toward Ryan as his dark figure began to disappear toward the railway line. Then she heard the screen door slam as her mum went inside.
Laura panicked. She had to get Ryan back here and make him tell her mum he was okay. Otherwise everyone would know. Everyone would know he cheated on her. That she wasn’t a good girlfriend. She ran down the road toward Ryan.
‘Ryan! Wait! Please,’ she screamed at him, but he didn’t stop. He’d reached the railway line, but instead of going under the pedestrian tunnel, he climbed up the embankment.
‘Ryan! Please come back,’ she yelled in a hushed voice, trying not to disturb any of the sleeping houses.
He turned toward her, and she saw his white teeth catch in the streetlamp. He was smiling. Laura reached the ridge, her breathing heavy. ‘Ryan, just come back. Tell Mum you’re okay,’ she panted. ‘Please. She’s going to call an ambulance.’
‘It’s okay, Laura. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m not going to be like my father. I have to be a man. I have to be a father now. I’ll marry Rachel. I’ll make it okay. I can’t fix us. I broke us. I know it now. I know it was my fault. But I won’t fuck up anymore. I promise. I’ll make you proud. I’ll be there for Rachel. For our child. I don’t care if we’re too young. We’ll make it work. Everything will work out.’ He let out a laugh as he almost lost his footing on the loose stones, stumbling back to his feet. ‘We’ll look back on this in ten years and laugh about it. We will.’
Laura rubbed her face with her hands. He was crazy. He’d gone mad. He did need a doctor. ‘Ryan, what are you talking about? Come back!’
Laura heard the whistle first, not the rumble. She was used to the rumble of the train, but the whistle caught her off guard, so close, so piercing. A light grew closer, shining off the rails of the track. Ryan continued down the middle of the tracks, the light shining on his back. ‘I’m okay, Laura. I’m going to find Rachel. Tell her it’s all going to be okay.’
Laura’s heart stopped. The train. It was going too fast. Ryan wasn’t looking. He hadn’t seen. How did he not see it? Not hear it?
‘Ryan! Get off!’ Laura’s throat hurt with the strain of her scream.
At the last moment, Ryan turned his head toward the train. The screeching of the brakes cut through Laura’s own scream. She ran toward the track, but the gust of wind from the train pushed her back. ‘Ryan!’ she screamed. Then another voice from behind her, her mum’s voice. ‘Ryan! Oh my god, Laura.’ The last thing Laura felt was the biting of the asphalt into her knees as she fell to the ground and into her mother’s arms.
Laura sat on the couch dazed after telling the story, the tick of Stella’s grandfather clock the only sound in the room. Tom, Rachel, Shea, Stella, and Gemma sat silently.
‘It was an accident,’ Laura whispered, all the energy knocked out of her.
The grandfather clock chimed out and echoed around the room, but it took a moment for anyone to move, as if the truth had frozen them in time as they processed it.
Tom was the first to move.
‘Lauz, I …’ he began, slumping next to her on the couch.
Laura nodded. She felt herself shaking. Shivering. It was an accident. Ryan didn’t kill himself. It was an accident. An unfortunate series of events no one could have ever foreseen. Laura thought back to Ryan's diary. His darkest thoughts, harrowing, filled with utter hopelessness. He masked himself so well. Kept everything so well hidden while Laura carried on blissfully with her rose-colored glasses. Laura's thoughts ducked and wove around each other, tangling themselves in knots. There were no clear answers. No one was to blame. Just an indecipherable, black inkblot that had permanently stained her—stained all of them—forever.
Chapter 37
The florescent light over Stella’s kitchen table flickered. After Tom, Rachel, and Shea had left, Stella insisted Laura stay and had promptly sat her down at the kitchen table with a bowl of leftover spaghetti. ‘You need to eat, Laura. I know it’s all a shock, but you need to eat,’ she’d said. Laura sat pushing spaghetti around the bowl, her appetite nonexistent.
Despite all the revelations and regaining her memory, Laura felt surprisingly numb. Almost at peace.
‘I’m sorry I blurted it out before. Sometimes I don’t think before I speak.’ Laura looked up to see Gemma standing in the doorway, picking off the black polish on her fingernails.
‘It’s okay, Gem,’ Laura said. ‘I guess you helped me remember.’
‘I s’pose. I was just angry. I didn’t mean you killed him. Well, I thought that’s what happened until you remembered it.’
‘Why were you angry? At me?’
‘I dunno. I just thought you were mocking me. Telling me I was like Ryan, when all along you were to blame for it, at least I thought. I guess I just felt like I was getting all the bad attention and you got off again.’
‘I’m sorry, Gem, I wasn’t trying to interfere. I truly just wanted to help you.’
Gemma shrugged, and Laura pushed herself from the table.
‘I do see a lot of Ryan in you. But only in that I think you feel like you’ve got nowhere to turn. Like Ryan.’
‘I don’t need to be saved, you know.’
Laura looked at Gemma. Behind her scowl, beyond the black eye makeup, Laura could see her determination, but also her fear. Fear of needing someone. Fear of not knowing what choices to make. Fearing she’d make, or already had made, the wrong ones. Laura bit her lip, contemplating what to say next without upsetting her.
‘I know you don’t, Gem. I can see how strong you are. So much stronger than me. You know, I always wanted a sister. Someone to count on, someone to fight with.’ She smiled and saw Gemma’s mouth twitch as well. ‘I let you down, running away like that. But if you let me, I’m here for you now. I know I’m a bit messed up, but maybe we could work through stuff together.’
Laura watched as Gemma shifted on her feet, considering what Laura had said. No eye rolls. Not yet anyway. Gemma tilted her head. ‘You’re not going home to the city?’
The back door creaked open, and Stella maneuvered a large load of dry washing through the space, pausing to pick up a sock that fell off the stack. ‘You two okay?’ she asked, plonking the basket on the table.
Laura took a deep breath. ‘I was just telling Gemma I’m planning on sticking around.’
Stella’s eyes rose, the lines on her forehead thickening. ‘Good news, hey, Gem?’ It was more of a statement than a question.
Gemma smiled.
Laura waited on the front porch for Tom and Rachel to arrive. They’d arranged to meet and say goodbye to Ryan. All three of them together. And although Laura’s stomach flipped with apprehension, she knew it was the right—the only—thing to do.
Tom and Rachel arrived within minutes of each other, Rachel holding a gorgeous bouquet of purple and white orchids. Laura grabbed her own bunch of white lilies off the front verandah and stood up, sucking in a deep breath of courage.
Rachel leaned in and wrapped her arms around her, the brokenness between them slowly knitting their friendship back together. Laura inhaled the soft, vanilla scent of Rachel, remembering what a kind and beautiful person she still was. One teenage mistake couldn't change that. Laura saw how Ryan could have opened up to her. Mitchell was lucky.
‘You sure about this?’ Tom asked, his hands shoved deep in his blue jean pockets.
Laura nodded, ‘Yep.’ She exhaled. ‘Phones off, everyone. This is just for us.’
They walked silently toward the railway line. A couple of teens on bikes screeched by, and an elderly couple walking their Jack Russell nodded politely as they passed. Once they’d reached the walkway under the tracks, they turned off and made their way through the scraggly bush.
Not long after Ryan's death, the track was lined with a ten-foot chain fence, stretching fifty meters on either side of the walkway. A deterrent, a protective barrier.
Approaching the tracks, Laura wondered what went through Ryan’s mind the moment he turned into the train. Did
he really not see it? How was that possible? Was he really planning on making things right? Being there for Rachel? As much as Laura wanted to understand the hopelessness and the frustration that crippled Ryan, she wanted to know how it manifested inside and built into something bigger, something that seemed unsurmountable.
She smiled. Hindsight brought such clarity. As much as she thought she loved Ryan, she loved the idea of Ryan more. The teenage vision of perfect, young love. Handsome, vibrant, exciting, and full of anticipation. It ignited a current through her that made her feel more alive than she ever had. Real love, on the other hand; real love was plain and simple. It may not always spark adrenaline or passion, yet it was deep under many layers of meaning. Real love was often right there in front of you, overlooked for the shiny gem of young love sparkling in the sunlight. It was only now she realized that.
As the sun slowly sank in the distance, the sky changed to a deep midnight blue. The shadows of houses and trees darkened and lengthened. The low-lying clouds offset by the twilight were a perfect backdrop to say goodbye to Ryan. A shiver ran up Laura's spine as they stepped out onto the tracks, checking up and down to make sure no one was there and nothing was coming. Laura had checked the timetable, and the next train wasn't due until 8:45. They had half an hour.
Tom encased Laura's hand, helping her to balance on the sharp blue rocks shifting under her feet. Rachel hung her head, face glistening with silent tears. Laura took hold of Rachel's hand and they stood, heads down, the gentle hum of life surrounding them but the finality of death uniting them.
Laura could feel the emotion building. It raced through her veins, grabbed at her chest, and clawed at her throat. When she finally let out a gasp of sobs, the relief of letting go overwhelmed her. Tom stared silently, his eyes heavy, mouth tight. Rachel squeezed Laura’s hand. Laura wanted to say something, but the emotion-filled silence said it more eloquently than any words could.
Bending down, Laura placed the lilies at the side of the rail, her fingers lingering on the smooth iron, as if she were once again touching Ryan's soft, tanned skin. Rachel placed her flowers beside them and gulped back her own tears. Tom squatted down and pulled out his phone to play the song they had chosen. The haunting introduction of INXS's 'Never Tear Us Apart’ settled in the air as Michael's velvet voice filled the void. Laura's tears fell fast, washing away the grief and hurt and bringing forgiveness in its wake. Goose bumps pricked at her arms, making her shiver as she thought of Ryan, of the four of them in simpler times. She allowed the good memories she’d hidden to flow into her consciousness. The love, the fun, the freedom of their youth. It may have been only for a few months, but she remembered those moments with a full heart, no longer allowing them to be tainted by the loss of innocence from the event that had torn them apart. For a brief moment, the four were reunited.
