Losing Me Finding You (6 page)

28th February 1992

Fifteen years old

“Think it’s going to happen?” Ben asks, his hand sliding into mine.

I look up at him sitting beside me on his bed. I’m not supposed to be here, but of course I have to be. How could I be anywhere else tonight?

I nod, my fingers tightening in his as I say, “Yeah, I do.”

“Can you feel it?” he asks, sliding closer to me.

I look down at our joined hands, now resting on Ben’s thigh, which is pressed against mine. Neither of our parents knows I am here. I snuck out about thirty minutes ago when Ben came over and threw rocks at my window again. He told me he didn’t want to miss his last chance to see me tonight. He wanted to be with me when it happened this time, that maybe we could somehow stop it if he was.

“Maybe if you have something to hang on to, you won’t go,” he’d said, grabbing hold of my hand.

It had almost made me cry.

If only he knew that he is the one thing I try desperately to hang on to every time this happens. That for as long as I can remember, it’s Ben, the thought of Ben and me, that’s been trying to keep me here. Even if neither of us realised it at the time, I certainly do now.

I’m starting to understand how this all works. Now, the feeling of emptiness, the connection to Ben and the sense that I’m about to lose something important to me, now it all makes sense. He
is
what I’m trying to hang on to. He always has been.

“Evie?” Ben asks and I realise I haven’t answered his question.

I look up and find him watching me, a look of concern on his face as he tries to work out what I’m thinking. “I can feel it,” I eventually say, taking a deep breath. “I know it’s coming.”

Ben leans back against the wall and puts his arm around my shoulder as he pulls me back against him. “Tell me what it feels like,” he says.

I lean my head on his shoulder, the warm weight of his arm around me only intensifying the very thing I’m trying to describe to him. “Heavy,” is the first word I can come up with. “It feels like a heavy ache, all throughout my body,” I say, glancing up at him.

Ben looks down at me, leans in to kiss the end of my nose. “Heavy like you can’t move?” he asks.

I shake my head, still staring up at him. “Heavy like a blanket of sadness,” I say. “A sadness that only seems to get heavier and heavier with every minute closer to midnight.”

“Oh,” is all Ben says.

“There’s something else too,” I add on, knowing I can say this to him now. When I first recognised it, I didn’t know what it meant, but now, with everything that’s happened between us, it’s so much clearer.

“What?”

I take a deep breath. “Longing,” I say. “An intense longing, as though I’m about to lose something that’s very important to me. It’s what makes the sadness I think, and it all just gets stronger and stronger the closer I get.”

Ben’s fingers tighten at my shoulder as he says, “What are you about to lose, do you think? I mean apart from this life, I guess.”

I shake my head, my eyes on my fingers now, which are tracing random patterns into the jeans on Ben’s thigh. “It’s not that,” I tell him. “I know what it is I’m losing.”

“What?” Ben asks.

I stare at my fingers, as I whisper, “You.”

“What?” Ben repeats, his fingers sliding under my chin and tilting my face up so I’m looking at him. “Evie, what did you say?”

I take a deep breath. “You, Ben. I know that I’m losing
you
,” I tell him, staring up into deep blue eyes that I wish I could remember when I wake up tomorrow. “This feeling doesn’t just get heavier and more intense at midnight. It gets stronger and stronger whenever I’m with you. It’s you that I don’t want to lose, Ben. You.”

“Evie,” Ben murmurs before brushing his lips softly against mine. “You won’t lose me, baby.”

It’s the first time Ben has ever called me that and it makes my heart ache even more. “But I will,” I whisper against his lips. “I’ll wake up tomorrow and I won’t remember you and I will have lost you.”

Ben pulls back and I open my eyes, watch as he tucks my hair behind my ears. “I’ll be here waiting for you,” he says, his eyes never leaving mine. “You just have to come find me, Evie.”

I smile sadly up at him as the beep of my watch starts, letting us both know that it’s time. “I will,” I whisper, leaning up to kiss him one more time. “I promise I will.”

And then I blink and when I open my eyes, he’s gone.

Sixteen years old

The sun shines into my room and today I turn sixteen years old.

Before I even open my eyes, I feel it. An overwhelming sense of sadness and loss, a feeling of missing something. It’s something that feels very important to me, but I can’t make any more sense of it. I can’t explain why I’m feeling like this, only that I am.

Then I hear yelling and my eyes open and I immediately know, all these feelings, this room I’m in, something is different, wrong. This isn’t where I fell asleep last night, I’m sure of it. And I know I’m not in a good place right now.

This is the first time I’ve woken up feeling afraid.

The screaming gets louder, a man and a woman’s voice and it’s hard to tell who’s winning this argument. All I know is they are getting closer and closer to my room and I’m not entirely sure I want to find out what happens when they reach it.

Suddenly the bedroom door flies open, hitting the wall and bouncing off it. I notice a dent in the plaster and wonder how many times this has happened to make that mark.

“Still in bed, are you?” a woman who I assume is my mother, yells at me.

I don’t say anything, wondering what the right answer could possibly be. She looks crazy. Her hair is greasy and stringy, her eyes bloodshot and she’s holding a beer bottle in one hand. I glance at the clock and see it’s eight-fifteen in the morning.

The next thing I know, I’m being yanked out of bed. This woman’s hand is wrapped around my arm, her fingers digging in as she drags me on to the floor.

“Get up you lazy cow,” she yells at me, her hand shaking so much some of her beer sloshes out of the bottle and all over me.

I scramble away from her, pulling my arm from her grasp as I back up against the bed. She’s standing over me, staring down at me with glazed over eyes that have me wondering if alcohol isn’t the chaser to something else running through her system.

From the corner of my eye I see a man now standing in my doorway, his enormous body filling in my only means of escape. Fear curls in my stomach as he walks towards us both and I’m standing up, wondering if I can possibly get past him and out the door before he does anything. Without a single word or any kind of warning, this man, who I’m guessing is either her pimp, my father, or both, smacks the woman across the face, sending her flying onto my bed. I flinch as her head hits the wall and it’s only when she groans that I exhale, grateful she’s still conscious. Turning to me, he grabs me around the upper arm, right where she was just holding me. His fingers twist and dig in, causing me to cry out in pain as he leers at me, his breath reeking of alcohol.

“Get up you lazy bitch,” he says, spit flying out of his mouth. “Go and get me some cigarettes, now.”

I’m nodding, desperate for any excuse to get out of this house and when he lets go of me, I immediately run out of the room, down the stairs and out the front door, not even caring that I’m still in my pajamas.

“Shit,” I say, my hands on my head as I now stand in our snow-covered front yard, with no shoes on, freezing my arse off. Looking around at the neighbourhood I live in, I see that our house is one of many run-down houses on this street. Nearly all of them have boarded up windows, broken fences, and parts of the front porch or house are broken or missing. The house across the street even has a burnt out car in its front yard.

As the tears start to fall silently down my cheeks, I realise not only have my parents failed to notice today is my birthday, but this feels like the worst thing I’ve ever woken up to.

Have I always lived here?

“Evie?” I hear a girl say.

As I look up, I see the front door of a house across the street close and a girl about my age standing there.

“What the hell are you doing, Evie, it’s bloody freezing!” she says, standing on her front step in jeans, a hoodie, and a coat. I shrug, not sure how much she knows or I’m prepared to explain right now. “Your mum and dad again?” she asks and I sag in relief, glad she seems to know the whole story.

“Yeah,” I say, wrapping my arms around me as I notice for the first time just how cold I am. I only have socks on my feet, which are now soaking wet and turning numb.

“Come on,” she says, gesturing for me to cross the street and come inside her house. “You can borrow some of my clothes.”

I smile, grateful for what appears to be a friend. I cross the street and jog up her front path and when I step inside her house, I see it’s actually not that much different to mine. Except there’s no yelling here.

“Mum,” this girl suddenly calls out, causing me to flinch. “Where’d you put my black boots?”

Foot steps sound from the back of the house and then there is a woman standing in front of us. She’s smiling and looks friendly, but today I’m not taking any chances.

“Sarah, they are where you left them, please don’t tell me you’ve lost them because I can’t afford to get you a new pair,” she says and I’m guessing Sarah is my friend and this woman in front of us is her mum. “Hello, Evie,” she adds on, smiling at me now. “You alright?”

I nod, not really sure how to answer as I try smiling back at her.

“And where did I leave them then?” Sarah asks, grabbing a coat off the hook by the front door and handing it to me. “Here, you can borrow Mum’s,” she says to me.

“What are you doing outside in your pajamas, Evie?” Sarah’s mum asks me as though she’s only just realised what I’m wearing.

I shrug. Sarah might know about my parents, but it doesn’t mean her mum does.

“Her stupid arsehole parents,” Sarah says. Okay, apparently everybody knows about them.

“Oh, shit,” her mum says, taking a step closer. I step backwards, not sure what she’s going to do. “It’s okay, Evie,” she says, holding her hands up as if to show me she isn’t going to do anything. “You poor thing, do you want a cup of tea?”

I nod, needing something to warm me up.

Sarah’s mum smiles at me now and it looks so genuine and kind, it almost makes me want to cry. “Come on then, let’s get you one,” she says, turning and walking down the hall to what I guess is the kitchen at the back. “And get her some socks too, Sarah,” she calls back as I silently follow after her.

“Hey, Evie,” Sarah says, grabbing some socks from the basket of laundry that sits at the bottom of stairs before falling in step beside me. “Happy birthday.”

And now it takes everything I have in me not to cry. Because even though I’ve found a friend, a friend who might turn out to be the only good thing I have right now, I can’t help feeling like it’s not quite enough.

10th May 1992

Sixteen years old

I’ve been home from school for two hours and there’s still no sign of my parents. I haven’t eaten all day and my stomach rumbles as if to remind me. I search through the kitchen cupboards, knowing full well that food of any description will not have materialised since the last time I looked. I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t go looking for some money instead.

Although there’s fat chance any of that will be lying around. Any money that miraculously finds its way into this house is immediately shot into veins, poured down throats, or set on fire and smoked. It’s a wonder I’ve managed to survive this long, because there sure as shit isn’t ever any food in this house. The one meal a day I get at school is currently my only diet. But today, I didn’t even have that.

A knock at the door surprises me. I’m not expecting anyone, but when I open it, I see Sarah standing on the other side.

“Hey,” she says, smiling as she glances behind me. “You home alone?”

I nod. “Yeah, haven’t seen them since yesterday,” I tell her. “I’ve got no idea where they are.”

“Fuck, are you okay?” she asks, stepping inside.

I shrug. “I’m okay,” I tell her, even though I’m not. Being home alone today is more than just being alone. There’s an ache of loneliness that’s settled over me. A feeling of missing something, something so important that I can’t even begin to describe what it feels like. All I know is that it’s more than just having absent, uncaring parents.

“You want to go do something?” Sarah asks, following me into the laughable kitchen.

“Like what?”

“Dunno,” she says, hopping up on the kitchen counter. “We could go over to Jason’s, I think he’s having some people over tonight.”

Jason is Sarah’s sometime boyfriend. I say sometime because it’s really only when it suits him. He’s a nice guy and he and Sarah are good together, but he has commitment issues and there are times when I wish she’d just drop him for good and find someone who actually deserves her.

“I’m sure there will be food there too,” Sarah says, and when I glance up, she’s looking around the empty kitchen. “Come on, Evie,” she says, her voice softer now. “I know you must be starving.”

I bite my lip; try to stop myself from crying. I am starving, but it’s so much more than that because it’s not just food I’m starving for. As much as Sarah is a friend, a really good friend, I still can’t explain to her, let alone understand, where all these feelings are coming from.

I’m starving for something, but I have no idea what it is.

“Evie?” she says, jumping off the counter and walking towards me. I shrug, trying to act like none of this matters. I don’t want sympathy; I just want to understand why I feel so lost. “Do you want to go?” she asks.

I shake my head, knowing I don’t want to be surrounded by other people tonight. Crowds don’t ease the loneliness, they only make it worse. To be surrounded by people who don’t understand, who barely even notice enough to care, only makes me feel even more alone than I already am.

“Want to come to my house instead?” she asks, sliding her arm through mine. Sarah somehow gets it though and when I nod, she smiles and says, “Come on, I think Mum’s made her famous spaghetti.”