The Meant to Be Collection

by Claire Highton-Stevenson

  She was jolted from her thoughts as Nicole spoke to her again. “What was she like?” Nicole asked, the question taking Lucy aback as she stared into the eyes that searched her own.

  “What was who like?” She was aware of who Nicole was asking about, and she was stalling, her brain scrambling to keep her emotions under control.

  “The woman you loved…I mean I’m assuming it was the woman in the photograph,” she said, looking towards the fireplace where Nicky’s picture sat proudly in its frame. “She is very pretty.”

  Lucy sat silently for a moment. Did she want to share Nicky with this woman, with anyone? Maybe it was time. Maybe she needed to be a little more like Storm and say enough is enough.

  “She was vibrant.” Lucy spoke gently, but with pride. “She was alive and living life in the moment, we all were.” She paused as she remembered and smiled. “She was simply everything to me.”

  “Come on Luce, we’re going to miss it!” Nicky shouted out as she ran towards the bridge. It was New Year’s Eve and they were in the middle of Paris. It was minutes to midnight. Onlookers and partying people clogged the streets, all waiting to see the fireworks that would go off announcing 2001 had arrived. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the lyrics of Prince’s song “1999.” Lucy grinned and chased after her, dodging through the crowd until finally they were both on the bridge and she grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her closer.

  “Happy New Year!” she said, leaning in to kiss her just as the first firework exploded above their heads. Loud whooshes and bright colours soared above them. They broke apart and stared upwards. “That’s you,” Lucy whispered in her ear.

  “What is?” Nicky asked, turning in her arms.

  “You, you’re like a firework. Loud and bright and vibrant, soaring above everyone.”

  “I love you, Lucy Owen.” Their lips crashed together once more.

  “What happened?” Nicole asked, knowing she might be pushing too far, but she had a feeling tonight was going to be cathartic for all of them, including Lucy.

  There it was, the million-dollar question. Lucy rubbed her hands over her face and poured another glass of wine. She didn’t drink wine often, it was a drink to be drunk with others, not by herself, alone. She was enjoying it, maybe a little too much, and it had loosened her tongue, shaken her thoughts.

  “I don’t talk about her,” Lucy said honestly, taking a long swallow of the sweet liquid.

  “Okay, but maybe you should?”

  “Why?” she answered sadly. “It’s not going to change the outcome.”

  “Maybe it’s just time, Lucy? Time to let it go and accept it?” she said softly.

  “I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to let it go, and I accepted it a long time ago; she isn’t coming back, I know that, but I can’t let it…her go.” She found herself staring off into the distance, her mind swimming with images of the bus crumpled around her. Nicky’s smiling face just moments before the impact. Waking up alone and confused in a bright hospital room surrounded by flowers and cards from people she had never met, all offering their condolences and best wishes.

  “Relationships break up all the time,” she heard Nicole say. The fugue of her brain cleared in an instant as she registered the assumption.

  “We didn’t break up. We would never have broken up, she was my life and I was hers. We were kids, but we adored each other.”

  “I don’t understand then.” Nicole was truly perplexed. She looked over at the photograph and then back to Lucy.

  Lucy stood, paced the room a few times, and then walked hastily over to the photograph. She picked it up and brought it back to her seat, sitting closer to Nicole than before. They were touching, thigh to thigh, though she didn’t notice. Her thoughts were only on Nicky and the truth. She handed her the photograph. Nicky deserved the truth.

  “Her name was Nicola, Nicky, to everyone other than her parents. They didn’t like her name to be shortened,” she explained quietly as a small smile ghosted her lips for just a second before she added, “And she died.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  She had finally said it out loud to another person. Her heart banged in her chest, and she felt like she might pass out. The walls of the cabin were pressing in on her. Breathe, just breathe, she told herself.

  “Oh God, I’m so sorry, I just…well I don’t know what I thought,” Nicole rambled, feeling overwhelmingly out of her depth. She cringed internally as she remembered the accusation that Lucy had no idea what it was like to lose everything.

  “It was an accident of course, but, it was my fault. If I had just listened to her instead of forcing her to do what I wanted to do then she would be alive today,” Lucy continued, unable to stop now that she had started; it was like someone had twisted a faucet and everything was beginning to pour out.

  “You can’t know that, I mean maybe it was fate, like, we don’t get a say in those kinds of things.”

  “But I’ll never know because she is gone.” She spoke to the ceiling, afraid that if she looked at her, if she looked into those dark, smoky eyes of Nicole’s, then she would fall apart.

  “And you’ve been alone ever since?” Nicole probed gently.

  “Yes, pretty much. I tried to find my way again, meet new people, but all I did was end up hurting them. Nobody measured up to her. I compared everyone to her, and so I just stopped trying.”

  “How long?”

  “Have I been by myself?” She watched as Nicole nodded. “The last time I tried to date someone was probably…ten years or more.”

  “That’s just so incredibly sad.”

  Lucy studied her then, the way she was looking at her; there was no pity, just a sadness in her eyes. “Is it? Maybe it’s all I deserve.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  It was now or never. Nicole was probably leaving tomorrow, so what would it hurt? She could just tell her and it wouldn’t matter after tomorrow. Then she could go back to being the weird Lucy that rarely spoke to anyone. Nobody would ever need to know she had bared her soul.

  She went to her bedroom and came back with another photograph which she held out for Nicole to take: heavy silver-framed image of a group of people all smiling, professionally taken.

  “You probably don’t know who they are,” she said as Nicole studied the photo some more.

  “Solar Flare,” she said, smiling at a memory. “I had their album.”

  Lucy blushed and laughed ironically. Of course she would have.

  “What?” Nicole said, laughing now along with Lucy. “They were good.”

  “Look closer,” she said, nodding at the photograph.

  “What am I looking at?” And then she remembered something, something in the far reaches of her teenage memory. Solar Flare broke up because of a horrific traffic accident. The band were travelling together, on their way to the airport for a tour of the States, and several of them were killed when their coach overturned.

  I was in an accident.

  “Oh my God!” Nicole gasped, looking more closely now at the lead singer and pointing. “That’s you, you were the lead singer in Solar Flare?” she stated, looking up at her and then back at the photograph. Her hair was blonde back then, not the mousey brown colour it was now, but there was no mistaking that it was Lucy.

  “Yes,” she said as a rush of air left her lungs. She hadn’t told a soul since leaving England all those years ago.

  “You were in that accident?” Nicole wanted to clarify.

  “Yes.”

  “Lucy, I…” She was lost for words; what did you say to someone who had lost their lover and friends like that? Lucy really had lost everything. Now everything about her made sense. She sat back, the photo resting easily on her lap, and listened as Lucy told her story.

  “Mike, Sarah, Ben…and Nicky were killed instantly. Scott died 3 days later in hospital,” Lucy explained, pointing each one out in the photograph. Her eyes glistened with tears that had remained unshed.

&
nbsp; “What about you?” Smoky eyes watered as they focused solely on Lucy.

  “I was in a coma for a week and sedated for another two. I had multiple injuries. Jenna and Chris had broken bones and Sasha walked away without a scratch, the only one of us that had a seatbelt on. Rob needed surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain, but he never recovered fully.” Her voice tailed off to almost a whisper.

  “Jesus,” Nicole said. It was unbelievable, and yet she recalled the accident being in the news. She had been sad about it; they were a good band and she was hoping to get tickets to see them.

  Needing to change the subject, Lucy asked about Nicole’s marriage. “How did you meet him?”

  Nicole smiled, accepting the change of subject as a bargaining tool. Give a little, take a little was how this conversation was going to go, and she could live with that. She took a swig of her wine. It had been so long since she had shared a bottle of wine with someone and enjoyed it, been allowed to enjoy it.

  He gripped her arm so tightly that she knew there and then there would be a bruise. Pulling her along with him, he smiled and joked with one of his friends as they passed each other in the hallway. He pushed her through the door and into the kitchen. She prayed there would be someone, anyone in there, but she wasn’t that lucky. “What do you think you are doing?” he hissed, grabbing the glass from her hand and slamming it down on the worktop. The wine sloshed over the edge and formed a dark red puddle. “I didn’t marry a drunken slut.”

  “It’s just one—” His hand moved so fast, she didn’t see it coming, though she always expected it now. His palm making sharp contact with her face. His fingers clamped roughly around her jaw, his fingers and thumb pressing into her cheeks. “Don’t lie to me, I know what you’re doing! I see you throwing yourself all over them. You’re mine, remember that!” He released his hold on her. She was filled with terror as he turned to walk away only to spin around on his toes and put his face in hers. “Don’t make me deal with you.”

  “I used to be a model, nothing fancy, just local stuff really, but I did okay.” She blushed.

  “I can see how you could be,” Lucy remarked, admiring her. She noted the slight blush that rose on Nicole’s neck and cheeks, and felt a slight blush of her own at that admission. Nicole laughed, and Lucy found herself wanting to make that happen again when the time was more suitable.

  “Well, he apparently saw a poster campaign for an underwear range that I did and decided he just had to meet me. Being the star football player that he was, he was able to get himself invited to places he thought I might be, and eventually that paid off. We met at a charity auction. I was the prize, dinner with me!”

  “And he bid for you?”

  “Yeah, and that was that. We started dating. He was all charm and sophistication. He lavished me with compliments and gifts, took me places I had never been. It was hard not to fall for him. He was the good-looking all-American hero, and I was worth $2500.”

  They simultaneously sipped their drinks and observed each other for a moment, each of them finding it strange that until now they had never spoken about their pasts with anyone else, but they found a comfort in each other that allowed them to just open up. Just speaking out loud released some kind of valve that had been holding it all in.

  “What happened after the…after the crash?” Nicole asked, deeming it a fair point in the conversation to switch it back.

  Lucy sighed. “I was in the hospital for about eight weeks,” she explained. “Broken bones and various other injuries. I was out of it for the first 3 of those. I missed all of the funerals.” She spoke quietly, staring at the couch as she said that last part. It was the hardest part, the part that hurt the most.

  “Including?”

  “Yes, including hers. They couldn’t hold on forever, nobody knew how long I would be in the hospital for, and so they had to go ahead.” She wiped away a solitary tear.

  “That must have been very hard for you,” Nicole sympathised. She wanted to reach out and touch Lucy, hold her hand or just pull her into her arms and hold her, but she didn’t dare move.

  “I doubt it would have been any easier if I had been able to go,” Lucy admitted for the first time, clasping her hands together. As if reading Nicole’s mind, she sat back in her seat, putting distance between them. “Our relationship wasn’t something her parents approved of, and the media would have turned it into a spectacle.”

  “No, I guess not, but it’s closure isn’t it…you didn’t get to have that.”

  Lucy considered that for a moment, and it was true, she had never had ‘closure’ as the Americans liked to put it. How did you ever have closure with something that lived with you day in, day out?

  “So when did he change?” Lucy asked, switching subjects once more.

  “Once we were married it was a different story, but by then he had isolated me from my friends, moved us back to his hometown and taken away my independence. No wife of his was going to flaunt their body for other men,” she said, imitating him. “Then I was pregnant with Storm, and suddenly he was nice to me again; all the time I was pregnant he never laid a finger on me.”

  “Why didn’t you leave him before?”

  “He convinced me that I had nowhere to go, I had no money of my own anymore. He used it all to gamble with. I wasn’t working and I didn’t know anyone unless they were his friends. I guess he wore me down. Constant comments about how ugly I was or how fat I’d gotten.” She looked away with tears threatening to fall. It seemed to be the night for it.

  “You don’t still believe that, do you?” Lucy asked tentatively.

  Nicole nodded her head as the tears streamed down her cheeks. She hadn’t thought about this for weeks. She had been pushing these memories and thoughts from her mind as she concentrated on her girls and their new life. But now, as she looked up and into such empathy staring back at her, she couldn’t hold it in. An emotional dam burst.

  “Oh, you are so wrong, trust me. I am a lesbian, I notice these things,” Lucy joked, trying to smile. “And you are far from ugly, and as for fat? Seriously, you’re gorgeous.” She said it sincerely, albeit rambling as she finally reached out and took Nicole’s hand in her own.

  “Ha, yeah right, I’ve got a black eye and a split lip and you want me to believe you think I’m gorgeous??” she laughed. Lucy surveyed her until she stopped laughing and returned the gaze, staring back at her and then down at her hands. At their hands, linked together so naturally.

  “Yeah, because you are.” The air stilled around them as they both continued to stare into each other’s eyes for just an instant longer than was necessary. Lucy was the first to look away as she reached for her glass. It was empty, and so she then reached for the bottle, but that too was empty.

  With the bottle of wine finished, Lucy announced it was probably time for bed, and Nicole agreed. It was pretty late, and both had had an emotional night. She needed to try and get as much sleep as she could so she could be up early and ready to leave. As they stood, Nicole thanked Lucy once more for all she had done before doing something that Lucy hadn’t expected: she hugged her. Two warm arms wrapped around her, the warmth of a cheek brushing her own as Nicole whispered good night in her ear. A shiver ran through her and she brought her own arms up and slowly hugged her back. It was the first time she had held another woman in a very long time, and she had to admit, she didn’t dislike it.

  ~E&F~

  Lucy wasn’t sure at first what the noise was that woke her, but Lucy was very aware that someone in the house was in distress. Someone was crying out, pleading for help, and now that she was awake, she knew that it could only be one person. She got up and grabbed her robe and was still tying it around her waist as she left her own room in search of the turmoil. She found Storm standing outside the door of the room her mother was sleeping in.

  “Hey Stormy, what are you doing up?”

  “I heard Mom shouting, is she having a bad dream again?” she asked sadly, and Lucy consi
dered just how often this must happen.

  “Yeah, I think she is, I’m going to go in and check on her, okay? You go back to bed, she will be fine. I promise I’ll look after her.” She smiled and tried to look as confident as possible so that the eight-year-old would stop worrying and be able to go back to sleep. It wasn’t something a kid should be concerned with at such a young age. Lucy felt her heart tug at the sight of her.

  The little one seemed to consider it for a second before nodding. Then she turned and went back to the room she was sharing with her sisters, leaving Lucy to come through on her promise.

  Her hand raised, and she hesitated just a moment before knocking lightly on the hard wood. Her palm wrapped around the handle, and slowly she pushed the door open. It took a moment to become accustomed to the darkness, and she waited for Nicole to tell her she was okay, or to get the hell out. But with no response from the brunette, she quietly made her way further into the room.

  She could make out the sleeping form of Nicole as she tossed one way and then the next, the sheets tangling around her as she fought an invisible monster. Incoherently she mumbled, but the words ‘no’, ‘help,’ and ‘don’t’ were quite clear, and it tugged at Lucy’s heart to see her in such distress. Lucy wasn’t sure what she should do for the best, but she couldn’t just stand there, watching and doing nothing, so gingerly she made her way closer to the bed and knelt down beside it. She was sure she had read somewhere that you shouldn’t wake people up when they were in the middle of a bad dream, or was it sleepwalking? She wasn’t sure, but she had to do something, so she began to carefully stroke Nicole’s hair in the hope it would soothe her. It was something Nicky had always done to her when she was in a foul or upset mood, and it usually worked. Gently she pulled the raven locks through her fingers and then began again, over and over. Gradually she could feel the woman begin to relax under her touch, her pleas becoming no more than whimpers. When she was confident that Nicole was going to be okay, she removed her hand, but as she stood and was about to turn to leave, she felt her hand being grasped.