The Lives We Touch

by Eva Woods

  What had she told him? She couldn’t remember that either.

  ‘We were friends,’ Rosie said, poleaxed by the memories. ‘Best friends, maybe, for a while. He came to me for advice about Ella, because I was his friend.’

  ‘Yes. You were.’

  Were. Past tense. She knew he was not her friend now, because her family hadn’t heard of him. (Why? Had she kept it a secret from everyone, hidden how close they were getting? Had he done the same? Pretending all the while it was innocent, knowing deep down it wasn’t? Seeing each other when Ella was at work, a daytime secret for the two of them?)

  ‘So … what happened?’ Rosie knew she wasn’t ready to see it, not yet. The last day of her and Luke, whenever that had been. ‘Did I tell him to work on it with her, or what? Did I tell him … I loved him?’

  ‘I don’t know, dear. But you were … something. You and him. Anyone can see that.’

  Rosie was crying again. They had been something, something special. But whatever had happened between them, they weren’t anything at all now.

  Daisy

  ‘Hey, it’s you again.’ Adam’s smile was as warm as the air in his café, coffee-scented, the windows steamed up against the dreary day. It almost made Daisy cry. Comfort, she realised, was a very underrated thing. Gary would not understand that. He believed in cold showers and bracing walks and healthy, low-GI food. What she needed now was a long lie-down in a feather bed, with blankets and hot-water bottles, and tea and cake. Lots of cake.

  ‘Yeah. I just … needed a break.’ She’d been running round all day, talking to people, puzzling things out, and still she was no closer to the truth. Rosie was unconscious, it was dark outside already, and she might never wake up again.

  He nodded in sympathy, as his quick hands stacked clean glasses. ‘It happens. Can I get you something? Another latte?’

  ‘Oh, no, thank you. I’ll never sleep again if I do.’ Not that she’d slept much the past few nights, lying awake worrying. The labyrinth of secrets Daisy was following her sister through. ‘Do you ever get time off?’ she said to Adam, watching him buzz about. She wasn’t sure what made her ask the question. Did it sound like she was asking him out? She blushed, spinning her engagement ring on her finger. She should call Gary. They needed to talk. Just … she couldn’t face it right now. The fight with him seemed to have opened an abyss in her head. Maybe I never loved him. Maybe I just wanted security, like Rosie said. ‘I mean, you always seem to be here.’

  ‘Boss runs a pretty tight ship. Anyway, it’s nice here. Talking to people, being around cakes, what’s not to like?’

  She surveyed the cakes on the counter, the swirls of raspberry and soft cracked icing and plump, generous sponge, like a pillow after a long day. ‘Good point. I’ll take a cake, please. In fact, I’ll take two.’

  He didn’t judge. She’d known he wouldn’t. ‘Sugar is good for shock. Very wise.’

  Daisy sat in the table by the window and, taking a deep breath, opened her laptop again. She felt a bit like a detective, piecing together her sister’s last movements. Rosie had called Angie, and Caz, and Daisy herself, and her parents. She’d made a list of people that – what, she’d wronged in some way? She needed to make amends with? She’d discovered that two of them were dead. She’d left messages apologising to the rest. But Ella – who was Ella? And who was Luke?

  ‘Everything OK?’ Adam set down her cakes, along with a hot chocolate he’d made without being asked, drawing a leaf pattern on top. Imagine all that effort, just for something that would be destroyed in seconds. Making something nice, just for the sake of it.

  Suddenly, she really needed to tell someone. ‘Oh, it’s just … I’m trying to find out what was going through my sister’s mind before the accident. I found this list of names in her flat. Names. I thought it might … mean something. But there’s a few of them I can’t trace on her Facebook or phone or email. I even looked at her search history but there’s nothing.’

  ‘Have you tried the Facebook search bar?’ He unfolded a napkin for her. ‘If the names are people she looked at, it’ll likely autofill to tell you who they are.’

  ‘I never thought of that. God, you’re brilliant. You should be a spy!’

  ‘How do you know I’m not?’ He spread his arms wide. ‘This whole café thing could just be an elaborate cover.’

  ‘Nah, you wouldn’t be that good at making cakes if it was a cover.’

  ‘See, that’s how good I am. I trained as an actual pastry chef to cover my spying.’

  Daisy laughed. She actually laughed, in the middle of all this pain and confusion. Immediately guilt descended, her face puckering into frowns, and she bit her lip. What was she doing, chatting to a nice man, laughing, making jokes, when Rosie was in a coma and she’d told Gary to fuck off? ‘I … I’ll try that then. Thanks.’

  As he moved off, efficiently wiping tables, Daisy opened Facebook on Rosie’s phone and typed in the name Ella. Her heart began to hammer as the app auto-filled it. Ella Marchant. A pretty name, a smart name. And Rosie had been searching for her. In the professional shot she looked glamorous and capable – full lips, dark glossy hair. The kind of person who, Daisy knew, Rosie would feel intimidated by. But she couldn’t find any connections between them. They hadn’t gone to the same university or worked in the same industry or anything like that. They had no mutual Facebook friends. How did Rosie know this woman? Why had she been looking at her profile page, if they weren’t friends?

  An idea was forming in Daisy’s stomach. She was trying to squash it down, because it wasn’t a good one, but somehow, she just knew. She clicked on Ella’s profile, scanning the public information, and there it was.

  Married to Luke Marchant.

  Luke. At last. In his profile shot, he was handsome, broad-shouldered, a bit beardy and hippyish the way Rosie liked. A radiance about him, his fair hair and tanned skin. Ella, the woman on Rosie’s list, the glamorous beautiful woman, was married to the man whose name had been on her sister’s lips as she clung to life. Luke was married.

  Oh, Rosie. What have you done?

  Rosie

  Something different was happening. When she surfaced from her memories, it was only for a few seconds each time. Faces around her bed, voices calling urgently. But she couldn’t stay, and she couldn’t wake up. She just floated in the grey, the halfway, the in-between. The real world seemed to fade from her, as she clung until her fingers went white to these memories, these past days when she and Luke had been together.

  10 October 2017 (Two weeks ago)

  Another memory. She saw her past self walking up to the door of a small red-brick house, with a navy-blue front door and red roses growing round the windows. Past Rosie – only weeks ago – was standing there, as if psyching herself up to knock. She’d dressed up, in heeled boots and her hair pulled into a bun, make-up failing to mask the fact her face was white and her hands were shaking. As Rosie watched, her past self, trembling, knocked very quietly on the door, poised as if to run away.

  ‘What am I …? Oh.’ The door had been opened, and Rosie remembered: this was Luke. It was Luke’s house. He and Ella must have moved out of London as planned, bought a proper house. Behind him, she could see the bright green of a child’s bike, with stabilisers and a bell. Of course. He was a dad. So what was she doing here, two years after she’d slept with him in that hotel?

  She began to twist away, turn her back. ‘Is anyone there? I don’t want to see this, I don’t want to relive this one.’

  No answer. Was she alone in this memory?

  ‘Hello? Are you there? Fine. I can wake up! I’m waking up now.’ Rosie seized her left arm and pinched. Nothing. She was still in this dream, this memory, whatever it was, the dark crevice of her brain this had been hidden in. ‘I … Oh God.’ It was happening.

  Luke’s face went through various different emotions when he saw her on his doorstep, standing on the ironic mat that read: You Again? ‘Rosie! What the hell …?’


  ‘I’m sorry!’ Past Rosie was very close to tears. ‘I … I just need to talk to you.’

  ‘But … you said you didn’t want to hear from me! You just disappeared!’

  ‘I know, but …’ Rosie remembered now. After the incident in the hotel, she’d felt so terrible, overwhelmed with guilt. She had tried to stay away, deleting his emails and phone number. Because she knew the truth by then. She and Luke could pretend they were friends as much as they wanted, and carry on meeting for coffee, or a drink, just to talk, but things would always escalate. She could not be around him without wanting to touch him, put her hands on his chest and feel the beat of his heart. Even in this memory, standing shivering on his doorstep, she had been desperate to press her face against his, feel the rasp of his golden stubble under her hand, press her nose to his neck and breathe him in. ‘I just … I’m in a really bad way, Luke, and I couldn’t think who else to go to. There is no one else. I’ve … I’ve ruined it all. My entire life. I needed to see you …’ So Luke and Ella were still together? Whatever he’d been upset about, in that memory of her and him in the hotel bar, they must have got past it.

  ‘So you just … showed up?’

  ‘I … I didn’t know what else to do. I knew she’d be at work.’

  ‘Fucking hell, Rosie! I’ve been wanting to talk to you for two years, and now you just appear at my door? Come inside.’ He seized her elbow, drawing her into the lovely house. Briefly she noted the photos in shabby-chic frames, the tasteful ornaments and knick-knacks which she remembered from the night of the dinner party in their old flat, when he’d taken her to hospital and held her hand. That memory was there too, bright and thrilling and cut through with shame.

  Luke stood in his living room, running his hands through his fair hair. He wore grey tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, and she could see a line of golden skin in the gap where they didn’t quite meet. She wanted to touch it so badly. He didn’t offer her coffee or tea. ‘Rosie, I know it’s hard, but you can’t be here. It’s not fair to Ella. Things aren’t … well, never mind that. I know you and I need to talk – God knows we do – but this isn’t the way. I need to tell you …’

  Ella. The name was like a knife in Rosie, even now. ‘I had no choice, Luke! I … I need you.’ And just like that, Rosie remembered why she’d come. About the weeks alone in her flat, sleeping only for snatched minutes here and there, only to dream about the past again, her mother shouting at her, her sister turning away. You stupid, stupid girl. She’d lost her job and her friends and failed at acting. A succession of deadbeat men dragged back to her flat, summoned by clicking and swiping at her phone, each one an attempt to stop the slow leak of loneliness in her life, and each one making it worse. She’d lost Luke. She’d lost everything. She was in a bad way. And so, desperate, she’d found her feet carrying her here to his door, without thinking of the consequences if Ella saw her there. Oh God. She began to back away again, her shoulders pressing against the wall, except she wasn’t really there, and the wall wasn’t really there and this was all in the past, too late to do anything about.

  Then, the key in the lock. Rosie’s blood freezing in her veins – she remembered it exactly – and Luke freezing too with his hands on his head, and slowly, slowly, the door opening. Ella was beautiful. Even with the cold she’d come home from work nursing, her hair was shiny and glossy, her lips full. The little boy she was leading by the hand was also beautiful, with solemn eyes under a dark fringe. Charlie. Ella frowned. ‘Rosie? What are you doing here?’

  The little boy said, ‘Daddy?’

  Past Rosie was speechless. It could have been possible. They could have explained it away – she’d just popped round (miles away from where she lived) to ask Luke something or borrow something, they were friends after all, but neither she nor Luke was very good at lying. They weren’t very good at affairs either, it seemed, if you could even call it that, the one time that they’d been together, both wracked with guilt and shame the whole time.

  Luke’s Adam’s apple was working hard in his throat. ‘Er … El … she just …’

  Ella was not stupid. She slowly lowered the hand that was holding her keys, and looked between them, and Rosie then and Rosie now could see on her face that she knew.

  Rosie ran. Her previous self sprinted for the door, barrelling past Ella and her son, Luke’s son, sobs caught in her throat, and her dream self was following, down the road, eyes already blind with tears. She was tearing towards the train station. The heel of her boot was worn down at the back. She wasn’t looking, she was upset, she was going too fast. The road was uneven.

  Present Rosie, helpless to stop any of these memories or change them, had to stand and watch as she tripped, tried to right herself and failed, and fell heavily into a heap on the road, weeping, the knees of both jeans torn open and the skin bleeding. She turned away, tears in her eyes, and felt a ghostly hand on her arm. ‘Sorry, mate.’

  ‘Darryl. You’re here. This is … this is the last time I saw him, right? Luke?’

  She remembered it now. Luke had not come after her – arguing with Ella, no doubt, confessing it all, having it out with her. Despite what he’d done, he was not a liar. The betrayal had killed him. Rosie had lain on the ground for a few moments, dazed, then pulled herself slowly to her feet, wincing at the pain in her bruised knees and scraped palms. There was something deeply upsetting about having no one to help you up when you fell. She went on to the station, hobbling like an old woman, determined to get out of there as fast as possible. And she’d sat on the train, her face wet with tears, and gone back to her horrible flat and locked the door and begun to think about her life. All the people she’d let down. All the lives she’d ruined – and now Ella, and little Charlie too, had been hurt by her stupidity and selfishness. Luke was not hers, had never been hers. Why couldn’t she just let him go, instead of clinging uselessly to things when there was no hope? He’d chosen Ella, clearly. Ella and Charlie. His son. They’d worked things out. Sometimes she lied to herself, told herself he’d wanted to get in touch but didn’t know her new number. When really she knew he had stayed with the life he already had, the nice house and beautiful wife and cute kid. Because that’s what people did.

  Darryl’s ghostly hand was on her back. ‘I’m sorry, mate. This is pretty heavy stuff.’

  ‘Yeah. Well. My life is heavy stuff. I’m just getting to see the consequences of it.’

  ‘Shall we go back?’

  She nodded stiffly. Her current life – comatose in a hospital bed with her pee draining into a bag – was better than this, the shame, the pain. What would that do to a person? Would you get to the point, eventually, when going under a bus might seem preferable?

  Rosie

  Back in herself, her broken, useless body. Her fractured, functional mind. Trapped in her own memories, forced to see all the mistakes she’d made. Maybe this was hell. There were people in the room – her parents, the doctors – but they seemed so insubstantial. More like ghosts than the ghosts who visited her.

  ‘Dude, what’s up?’

  Oh God. She wasn’t in the mood for Melissa right now. Melissa belonged to a simpler time, where the worst thing Rosie had ever done was sneak an extra biscuit from the tin before dinner. Before all these many failures and mistakes.

  ‘Mel, no one says dude any more. It’s not 1993, OK? It’s … things are very different now.’

  Melissa, still in her crumpled school uniform, looked crestfallen. ‘I know it’s not been easy, Ro-Ro.’

  ‘Er, that’s an understatement. I’ve alienated all my family and friends, I’m unemployed, I’ve slept with a married man, oh, and I’ve been shagging any awful guy who showed me a crumb of affection, for years now.’ She felt weird saying this to a teenager, even though she knew the teenager was just a figment of her imagination (or a ghost or … who knew). ‘That’s another thing, Mel. How come I see you like this? In my mind you should be ten, since that’s the last time I saw you. And how come I know you
’re …’

  ‘Dead?’ she said cheerfully. ‘You don’t remember, I guess.’

  ‘Remember what?’

  ‘The list you made. People you wanted to contact to say sorry. I was on there. But you Googled me and found out I’d died. I guess you don’t remember how either?’

  ‘I … didn’t like to ask.’

  Melissa looked slightly sad for a moment. ‘It was the bullying, you see.’

  A cold feeling was rising up in Rosie’s legs. That was interesting in itself, as she hadn’t felt her legs since the accident, but right now all she could think about was this. ‘You didn’t …’

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe I didn’t mean to. Maybe I just wanted to go away for a while, sleep, make it all be over. I was so lonely, so unhappy. I had no friends. My mum had these pills left over from when my dad died, so I just … yeah.’

  Rosie felt sobs choke her throat. ‘Oh God, Mel. I’m so sorry. I knew all this?’

  ‘It was in the article you found. You knew I’d died and how it happened. Not why. You can never really know why. No one can.’ Melissa glanced at the door. ‘Your family, you know, they’re wondering the same thing right now. If you stepped in front of that bus on purpose or it was just an accident. They want to believe you didn’t mean it. But there’s the list, you see.’

  ‘Why did I write it?’

  Melissa shrugged again. It was a uniquely teenage gesture, artless and careless, and it made Rosie’s heart ache for her long-lost friend. If only she’d stayed in touch, could she have prevented this? Or was that the wrong way to think about it? Was everyone walking their own path through the wilderness, and all you could do was try to touch them as you passed? ‘You know why, Rosie. Only you can know.’

  ‘But I can’t remember! Was I trying to make amends, or was I … saying goodbye?’

  She could imagine that all too well. Alone in her sad flat, not speaking to her family or friends, the ache inside her from everything she’d lost – she could feel it now, gnawing at her – and the loss of Luke. She could see herself picking up a pen, writing down names, holding their faces in her mind, knowing she’d hurt them. Looking them up, finding out Melissa was dead. Probably she’d done the same with Mr Malcolm. The raw sting of guilt, of grief, of knowing it was too late.