by Anna Bloom
Dan declared that she was an easy 7.5 with the possibility of an eight, if she stood up and they could confirm her body was as hot as they assumed it would be.
My friends are such charmers. It is a complete miracle that they don’t have girlfriends. Out of the six of us I’m the only one that really ever has, but she is gone now and I am still dealing with losing her. Dan along with the others, and even Andrew to a degree make use of the holiday makers. That’s not really my style. They have a six week shag fest, where they hike it out to Newquay every night to mingle with the wasted teenagers all enjoying a ‘surfing’ holiday. A surfing holiday that normally only involves one type of exercise on the sand. Sex.
I did one summer, and I’m still trying to forget about it. Now, I sit back and laugh waiting for one of the gang to panic because he may have caught an STD, or worse, got a girl pregnant because the sandy condom ripped. Or because they were too drunk to even use one.
This morning I had to do a shift at Aunt May’s shop. So let’s just rephrase that to, ‘this morning I had to spend three hours counting pencils.’ It never used to be like that. I started working there two years ago to earn some money, but really I spent all my time using up Aunt May’s stock, as I painted my way through a wall full of canvasses. She stopped paying me in the end. I can’t really blame her. Oil paints are really expensive.
I don’t paint anymore though, so I guess I should ask for some form of financial reimbursement for my pencil counting.
I’m supposed to be going to Art College in a few weeks, but I can’t see the point of it. Does an artist who can’t draw anymore, unless it is doodles in the sand, deserve a place at an Art College? I don’t think so. I’m never going to be a huge success. I’m gonna have to come up with something else to do.
Even thinking about it is enough to make a guy depressed. I throw my stick in the sand and jump up, brushing the sand from my legs as I turn to get my wet suit.
The holiday maker is leaning up on her elbows staring at me. Her gaze is steady and intent like she may be contemplating something, and it makes me hesitate. The moment of hesitation allows me to inspect her closer. Her colour is like none I have ever seen. All gold like the sun.
For a split-second I get caught off guard and my brain goes into some crazy free-fall where I find myself thinking of what oil colours I would need to blend to get that depth of gold. But then I remember that it really doesn’t matter because I don’t paint anymore. Even if I did, holiday makers just come and go, leaving a carnage of destruction in their wake. I won’t need to worry about not being able to blend the perfect oils to make that iridescent gold, because I won’t see her again. And if I had to be honest I don’t want to see her again. Anyone or anything that makes me think about painting is not welcome on my beach, or my village for that matter. Technically I know it’s not mine, it’s probably the opposite. The village owns me, and that’s why I will never leave. I can’t leave the ghosts that haunt me behind. I know I have to stay here and live my life with them.
It’s only as I’m sitting on my board out on the waves that I see her get up from her spot on the sand. After struggling into a pair of what look from the distance like biker boots, she stretches up, and curves her back into a graceful arc, her long limbs stretching for the heavens. The sun glints off her hair and I find myself momentarily side tracked. A massive wave smacks into me, nearly wiping me out. I can hear Dan laughing in the distance. “Josh, you are such a dick,” but I concentrate on keeping the board straight and not going over. I have just righted myself and stabilised the board when I find her on the beach again. Relaxing her pose, she runs her fingertips under the string of her bikini, removing some grains of sand. Something about the actions makes a flicker of recognition spark to life inside me. What is that?
Dan has completely underrated her. She is at least a nine. I watch the sun bounce off her red hair as she stomps back off towards the car park. She oozes attitude. I find myself smiling a little, I kind of like it. Although it’s just as well she is a holiday maker. That attitude shit does not go down well around here. Believe me I should know.
THIRTEEN DAYS TO GO
Bridge Cottage
St Agnes
Cornwall
14th August 2014
Dear E,
Please note the address! Not Scotland! The absolute other end of the country. It’s the smallest village I’ve ever seen. No joke. You know when I promised Mum and Dad that I would behave for two weeks. I think basically they decided to limit the chances of me getting into trouble by moving two hundred and fifty miles to nowhere. I’ve been allocated the room in the attic – the furthest room from the rest of the family. . . No surprise!
You’d love it! I’ve got my own shower, although the pipes make the whole place vibrate when you turn the taps and the hot water only lasts ten minutes.
While everyone else unpacked I snuck off to the beach. I’m not going to lie, it was very pretty, but that just made me hate it even more. I didn’t want anyone to see me, or know that we had moved here. I’m pretty sure it won’t take long for the rumours to follow me. Things were pretty bad back at home before we left. I’m not worried about what people think about me. I just want Emily to have a fresh start here. Mum and Dad should have left me behind when they moved, that way they would never have to be associated with me in their new home. I tried to tell them, but they weren’t having it.
We are still having ‘Family Healing Time’ like that mental Counsellor told us to do, you know, after you left. It still results in a full out screaming match. Last night they asked me if I couldn’t leave my bangles at the old home! How rude! I just screamed that they should have left me behind instead. Mum’s worried my clothes are going to offend the locals. Personally I think my outfit is the last thing they are going to be interested in.
I also told Mum and Dad that Emily would end up a crack whore in a town this small. I’m sure someone once told us that drugs were rifer in seaside towns than in London. Maybe I made that up. It had an effect anyway. I got sent to my room!
Anyway! Oh God, that’s what I was trying to tell you . . . when I was at the beach, there was a whole gang of surfers. You would have screamed the place down if you’d seen them. Remember that summer you decided to learn at the pool because you fancied the lifeguard? I thought of that yesterday. It still made me laugh.
One of the “Surfer Dudes,” had dreadlocks. Can you believe it?! How cliché is that?! What a loser. They didn’t look too bad though. And he had a tattoo. I couldn’t get close enough to see, well not without it being really obvious. I would have had to crawl down there on my tummy trying to hide behind the sand dunes. Ha! Can you imagine that?
Anyway, gotta go.
I’ll write tomorrow.
Miss you
B.
xx
Rebecca
A Breakfast of Kissing Arse
It has to be done. I’m bloody starving.
Last night I was plagued by the nightmares. I woke screaming to the usual voice in my head.
“Rebecca, will you just learn to behave and get in the damn car.”
I took a moment to lock the voice back deep inside me and waited for the sweat to cool on my skin. No one came up to check on me. Actually, no one has been up to the naughty area of the house to see me at all. Even Emily hasn’t been up to see me. This has made me realise that my crack-whore comment may have been unnecessary. I don’t know why my family are surprised by my outspoken outburst. It’s not like I’m not known to do really stupid things at really stupid times. But the truth is I feel kind of bad. It’s not Emily’s fault that she is perfect and all things a daughter should be and I, well, I’m not. Not even close.
Emily is thirteen, with silver blonde hair that bounces around like a halo. She is small and petite, and one of those girls that always gets chosen to be the Arch Angel in the Christmas Nativity – the one whose head strangers pat as they pass by saying “Isn’t she a beautiful girl.”
It’s how all my troubles began. Two years ago when she started High School. That’s when I effectively stopped being Rebecca Walters and instead became Bad Rebecca Walters. That’s when I first flipped the switch and let the rage inside me take control. It led to the first of my many labels.
Rebecca Walters the dangerous girl.
It was during the emergence of Bad Rebecca that our fractious sibling relationship started. I would protect her from anything and anyone at any cost, but at the same time I began to resent her for it. I used to be normal, okay, tall, freckly with bright red hair, but relatively normal. But everything changed for me. I became known as the girl that would kick the shit out of anyone. I got invited out with the wrong crowd and sometimes even now I look in the mirror and wonder just where the girl with freckles and the red haystack went. All I see is labels.
Deep down inside me I know the only way I can truly protect Emily is to leave and let her live a normal life. A life without drama, a life without emergency visits to the A&E, a life without the police knocking on doors telling my family that terrible things have happened. A life without people hurting her because of who her sister is.
Her sister the dangerous girl.
I wander down the stairs, trying very hard not to stomp my feet, and find my family all sitting around the table. I should call them the Munch Bunch.
No one looks at me or speaks. They just sit there eating in silence as the clock on the wall behind me ticks at a deafening level.
“Hey,” I say.
They all look at me.
“Is there any food?”
They all look at me.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” I sigh. “I know I shouldn’t have walked off for all those hours. I realise you’d have been worried. I also know I shouldn’t have said those things, I’m just, you know, trying to … adjust?” I end with a questioning lilt to my voice, because to be honest I am just trying to find the words to stop them glaring at me. Mum and I stopped communicating about six months ago when my second label affixed itself to me. Dad and I about two weeks ago when the third and final label stuck itself to my soul with superglue. Now we don’t talk at all, we just shout during “Family Healing” time.
Mum is watching me. It looks like she wants to say something. Silently I will her to speak. “Come on, Mum, talk to me, I’m your daughter, I’m standing right here in front of you. Hello! Tell me what to do to make all this better!”
She doesn’t say anything, her eyes slip away from me and the moment passes. Just like it always does.
I turn my head towards Emily who is watching me with her big sparkly blue eyes. “Emily, I’m really sorry about yesterday. Would you like to do something with me today?”
She offers me a tentative smile. “Sure.”
That’s Em – always so quick to forgive me. Even two years ago when this nightmare started, she was the one who crept into my bed in our shared bedroom and slung her skinny arms around me. She always made me feel like it didn’t matter what I did, that I would never scare her. She still looks at me with the same frank blue gaze, despite everything that’s happened.
Dad offers an interrupting cough. It’s one of those annoying grown up interruptions telling me he hasn’t finished with me. “So we won’t hear you speak like that again Rebecca?”
I frown at his tone. Did he not just hear my apology? Come on!
“No, Dad. I mean yes, Dad. Uh no, Dad.” Smooth.
“Bex?” Emily is the only person in the world allowed to call me that. Anyone else gets a black eye. She slides a plate toward me and I grab a pancake off a stack in the centre of the table. Mum is still eying me cautiously. Her worry lined face scrunches ever so slightly as she sweeps her eyes over my outfit. I notice Mum glance over at Dad. The look is normal. It’s the worried parental glance they share when I go out dressed all in black looking like I may harm small kittens. I never would. I’m rather fond of cats.
It’s my armour. I hardly ever go out, it’s kind of hard when people shout at you in the street. A few months back I burnt all my old clothes and decided to give people what they want. They all think I am fucked up. So be it.
It’s that switch. I can’t control it.
Today, I’ve got my usual fifty-three bangled statement of guilt on my wrists and I’m wearing fishnet tights, my extra short cut-offs and a vest top that is too large and showing rather a lot of bra. I figured if we ended up going into town I may as well give the locals a show. I also put all my make-up on, this was after I spent some time staring at myself in the mirror looking for the old me, the one before the labels. She wasn’t there.
Ignoring Mum’s worried glance I turn my attention to Emily.
“Shall we go town?” she asks.
Like I hadn’t guessed that was coming. “That will take two minutes. What shall we do with the rest of the day?” I can already confirm there is nothing to do in this town.
“Paint?” Emily offers optimistically.
I pull a face. Boring. As well as being blessed with angelic looks Emily can also paint. It’s damn annoying. I can read. It just doesn’t have the same ring to it. I did use to have other talents, but what’s the point of having a talent if you haven’t got anyone to show it too?
“Okay you paint. I will find something else to do.” I shove a whole pancake in my mouth.
“No drinking,” Dad warns.
Mum just frowns further. My mouth is still full but it doesn’t stop me from answering. “No drinking, I promised.” It sounds more like, “Oo unking why omished.” Yep, that clears that up.
I push back from the table and swallow my mouthful. “Ready, Shrimp?”
“Ready, Amazonian?”
We are walking for the door when Mum calls me back. “Rebecca, there is a key on the dresser.”
The sound of her voice calling my name stops me abruptly, it’s rare for her to address me directly. I turn to face her as I register her words. The evil daughter is allowed a key? I’m not going to risk saying anything other than, “Thanks, Mum.”
“You’re welcome, Rebecca.” Then she does something I haven’t seen in about six months. She smiles at me. For a moment I just stop and stare, did she really just smile at me? I just don’t know what to do with that, so I sort of shrug instead and give a little wave.
“Oh, Rebecca,” she calls again.
There is going to be a catch to the key. A curfew or something equally ridiculous. Like I need one? Then I remember the events two weeks ago and wonder if my parents had given me a curfew a year ago I would be in the position I am in now.
No. I am to blame, not them.
“Take a tenner so you girls can get something while you’re out.”
Emily has her mouth open. So do I. My Mum hasn’t given me any cash since she found out I was spending it on fags and vodka.
“Uh, thanks.” It’s not the most gracious thanks I have ever given, but right now I’m in too much shock to say much at all.
Outside we walk down the path to the gate which is covered in insect attracting flowers. Once we are out on the sunlit path I stop and look at Emily. She also looks a little confused.
“Did Mum just give me money?”
Em sniggers a little. “Just be grateful they didn’t give you fifty pence to spend on sweeties instead.”
Joshua
Death by a Million Degrees of Boredom
I’ve walked to the graveyard and stood there in silence as normal. I’ve jogged to the beach, with my board. No mean feat by any man’s standard. I’ve surfed. I’ve lied to Dan, telling him that I can’t possibly go out tonight because my Aunt is having a root canal. Aunt May no longer has any roots left to canal. I have jogged back from the beach, with said board and now . . . well now I am staring out of the window of the shop.
T
his is my day:
Graveyard
Surf
Lie
Stare
Surf
Sleep
Every single day is exactly the same.
My days never used to be so monotonous. My life used to be in colour. I used to see colour everywhere I went. And I used to want to paint it all. Now I see nothing. It’s not so much that I don’t see it, but rather that I don’t want to. So I never look too closely. My friends ask me out every single day and every single day I think of an excuse, not necessarily a believable one to say no. Before I never had to think of an excuse. The conversation used to go something like this:
“Hey, Josh, fancy coming for a pint later?”
“No.”
“Okay then, maybe tomorrow.”
And that was it.
Now it goes like this:
“Hey, Josh, fancy coming for a pint later?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because. . .” And then I have to think of some excuse why I don’t. Some excuse other than, “Why don’t you all just fuck off and leave me to brood in peace. Then one day, probably in a very, very long time, I may decide to come for a pint. Don’t worry though, I will make sure the story runs on the front page of the local paper when I change my mind so you all know.”
It’s not that I am moody or anything, but you know. I’m dealing with shit. My girlfriend is dead. If that’s not shit and a reason to be left in peace then I don’t know what is. I just wish everyone would go do one and stop asking me stuff. When you going to paint again, Josh? When you going to go to Art College, Josh? When you next going to go to Newquay, Josh? When you gonna date again, Josh? When do you think you will ever be back to normal, Josh? When you? When you? When you?
I’ll tell them when. Bloody never. And that’s it.
Faye will be in shortly to make sure I haven’t topped myself by sniffing all the paints. I wish. They are all chemical free. I’ve checked.
