Collateral Damage

E P I L O G U E

Play - ‘BLUE - Billie Eilish’

Thanks for the rideeeeee!” Kacey hangs off my arm like a dead body as she waves to the handsome chauffeur. She is adamant he is a taxi driver but she is too drunk to comprehend that we did not, in fact, get into the back of a taxi to get home.

She didn’t drink as much as usual, but her tolerance is clearly gone because she can barely walk on a few vodkas that I also had and I caught myself wanting a bottle of corona which made me smile for a moment before I had to hold back the waterworks. It was a good birthday and I made sure I did what she wanted. I went out like normal girls do for their 21st with a few other girls I’ve made friends with.

Friends . It’s still such a foreign concept to me but it has been nice to have girly company. Girlhood is definitely something now that I can actually experience it. Besides being hit on by every Tom Dick and Harry. I’m not interested. My phones always blowing up with messages but I leave them on read.

“Come on, you cripple, let's get you inside.”

She groans with disapproval as I drag her through her overly large door, greeted by her mom who patiently waited for us to get home safely before she went to bed. In many ways I see so much of my mom in her that my loss was never completely lost. She lives on through her and it's been nice to have a mother figure in my life again. Her father is just as kind and has done nothing but make life as easy as possible. They offered for me to stay with them permanently after my trial and I accepted. I was not sure at first and spent many weeks telling myself it was the wrong decision, that I knew where I wanted to be, but logistically it was not feasible, so I stayed and I am happy I did. It's been easier to get through the past two years but not easy enough.

“I see you ladies had a good evening! Happy birthday Alo. I didn’t catch you in time to say it before I left for work this morning!” Her mom gawks at us as I yank Kacey’s dead weight into the front door, smiling with amusement as she helps her off me.

“Thats ok! I had a good time, besides babysitting .”

I was angry at her for a while after settling in. I couldn’t let go of her behaviour and I was in no mood for her company but since the trial, she became less , bitchy ? More laid back. She stopped going out as much and being reckless, spending more time with me doing things I wanted to do like helping me with my writing journey. She even apologised for the way she treated me and it took a while but I slowly let her back in. It was hypocritical for me to preach about second chances that day and not give her a chance to show me she saw me as more than just an ego boost but it's been two years and we’ve never been closer. She even dyed her hair brown! I barely recognise her but I adore this new, compassionate version of her. She no longer judges or pushes me or belittles me. She's become a sister I never had and truthfully, if it was not for her and the Calloway’s, I don’t think I would have made it.

“I’ll take her off your hand’s sweetie. I’m sure you’re exhausted!” Her mom takes her from my hip, placing her grumbly butt on the couch as I move to ascend the stairs.“Oh! Alora, this came in the post for you. I’m not exactly sure who it's from, I wasn’t aware anyone knew of your new address.”

She grabs a brown envelope from the side table sat beside the door, almost running for it so I don’t run upstairs before she can give it to me and holds it out for me to take.

“That's strange?” I murmur. I have had no contact with my family? And my address has stayed extremely confidential for security reasons since my books been published. Sharing my story with the world is good and all but it doesn’t keep the weirdos away.

“Goodnight darling.”

I glare at the delicate paper, feeling worn down and grainy against my fingertips as I run them over my name, handwritten but almost faded with my address stickered against the envelope.

“Goodnight Mrs. Calloway.” I say, still staring down at the anonymous parcel.

“Please. Call me Selene . We are family now, ok?” Family . Yeah, I guess we are. They treat me as if I was their own daughter and it's been so healing. For part of me anyway.

“Goodnight Selene!” I say chirpily, as I bound up the stairs nearly drifting as she shouts up to me.

“Don’t forget your meds! And there are some snacks on your bed in case you get peckish! Drunk munchies are the best.”

I wouldn’t exactly say I was drunk, not even tipsy. I learnt my lesson and just thinking about it consumes me. I couldn’t let anything distract me tonight so drinking was not exactly on my agenda, and I guess you could say I am still slightly level-headed. Alcohol and medication aren’t exactly the best combination.

We exchange a polite smile before I make my way to my bedroom, placing the envelope upright on my bedside table in front of a fresh vase of sunflowers, smiling as I run the soft petals through my fingertips.

“Hey baby… ” I sigh softly, turning to look at my best friend. “Hey boy.”

Shep is laying on the bed being the goodest boy not eating my snacks but everything in his face is pleading I let him have a nibble as I sit beside him, running my fingers through the scruff of his neck as he attempts to lick my face and I suddenly feel so guilty but he’ll be ok. He has the Calloway’s.

“I miss her too…” I whisper against his fluffy ear and it’s like he can feel my pain as he attempts to lick away my tears. I glare at the letter but whoever it is, they can wait. If I can even be bothered to open it. I can’t be arsed to hear from some relative that is clearly only interested in my wellbeing now that I have made a name for myself. And an interesting one at that. But I’ve achieved a hell of a lot in the last two years. I made it my goal to achieve as much as I possibly could before my 21st and my name has been nothing short of quiet, almost everywhere. I’ve had almost everything, but the best one has to be The ghost girl. I ache to be a ghost. I ache to be with her. I’ve written almost every single day since, beside the last week because apparently birthdays are a huge deal in this family. But it helps me to let out my feelings. Maybe someone can turn this into a book too when they find it.

I waste no time jumping into comfy clothes, removing the snacks she left me from the bed onto the floor as I grab my journal and a pen.

Play - ‘Still Mine – Ashley Singh’

Day 58902 14-2012

I made it. I got to 21. And I can assure you, you didn’t miss much turning 21. I definitely couldn’t picture you clubbing but I imagined it anyway to make me giggle.

Shep is still ok and safe by my side. For months he was practically lifeless, crying for you every night by the bedroom door until he realised you were never coming back and those months were restless. We both cried so hard that I don’t understand how I still have tears left but two years in and it doesn’t hurt any less. He got me through it and I think I pumped some life back into him but he's not the same and I don’t think he ever will be. The way I never will be.

I carried your end of the deal, but I never carried mine. So today I am going to do just that. I am going to be with you soon. I told you that when your heart stopped beating so would mine, and I’ve tried so hard to live a hollow shell of a life without you and it doesn’t matter what I fill it with, a part of me is still empty. A part of me I will never get back. A part of me that belongs in that grave with you.

I passed my driving test last week. I know you’d be so proud of me but even the simplest things like driving become a pill I cannot swallow when I remember you are not in the passenger seat next to me. You’re not in my bed. You’re not in the shower with me, you’re not inside me. You’re not even three hours away. You’re just. Gone . An absence so consuming that even in a room full of people. I see no one.

I thought this pain would eventually subside. That it would become easier. That waking up every day would feel lighter the more the sun rose a new day but it’s only seemed to have gotten harder. Knowing that I will never be able to live a fulfilled life. I’ve tried. I’ve done it all and It’s still not enough to fill this hole you left me. I published our story. It’s called Collateral Damage . I thought it was only fitting considering how many times you liked to throw it in my face until you suddenly became the very thing that was meant for me. We were both Collateral Damage in a broken system I have tried to mend, for you.

60% of its earnings goes to foster homes or charity for children's programs and the crime rates for child abuse has skyrocketed. I guess my voice was finally heard and I thought this is what I'd want. This accomplishment should make me feel better but I’m finding it harder to breathe. This pressure is suffocating me. And peace is calling to me from the shore. Freedom is no longer fun when you’re not here to experience it with me. My laughter, my smile, my happiness all resides inside of you.

Your mom forgot to mention a vital part in her story. How do you find happiness when you’d already found it in somebody and now it’s gone. I try to move on, to let myself feel something other than grievance but anytime I catch myself smiling, I picture you smiling back at me and suddenly there's a noose around my throat, calling for me to take that leap. You’re right there but I can’t touch you. I can’t hear you. I can only cling to this apparition of you that greets me in my dreams if I’m lucky and I now seek comfort through sleeping my consciousness away hoping that one day I won’t wake up.

I’m not afraid of dying anymore. I’m afraid of living an unfulfilled life without you in it, where I still see you in the walls, in the current of shallow waters, in the ripples against the basin of the shower. In my bed on a stormy night. I can smell you everywhere. Every time I fill up petrol or get in the car. And every time, another fraction of me dies.

I want to be with you. I want to hold you; I want to hear you tell me you Love me again. I didn’t understand it at first. Why you were so selfish. Why you left me on my own but then I finally came to the realisation, that the only time we would truly ever be at peace together, is 6ft under. We were doomed from the start and the older I get the more I realise that. I’m not over you and I never will be. I don’t want to settle down and move on. I don’t want to date. I just want to be with you.

This guilt I carry, this blame I hold everyday knowing that if I’d of just listened to you, if I had just let you go, you might still be alive. Behind a glass box maybe but you’d be here so I could see you. Instead, my own stupidity got you killed, and I will never forgive myself for that. I don’t deserve to be here, and I hope that once I get to the other side, you’ll forgive me?

So just know that when I do this. I lived as fully as I could. And I went willingly. That this was my decision and this time, you can’t save my life .

I have nothing left.

I Love You Hayley.X x x

I exhale a worn sigh, glaring at the blob of transparent liquid where my tears are bleeding onto the page, like I’m trying to reach her through my words and I close it. I glare at the bathroom door for a moment before looking back at Shep. I kiss him deeply on his nose, smothering him in all the love as I cuddle him, feeling his warm embrace so I can share it with her once I get there.

“I’m sorry boy…” I walk to the bedroom door and let him out so he can run for the garden like our usual routine and smile gently at him before heading for the bathroom and making my way inside to grab my medication and a glass of water. I peer into the glass as I hold it in the shaky mould of my hand to fill it before placing it on the side of the sink, glaring at all this medication I'm on as I spill it across the basin. I never liked medication. The pills create a seabed of stones against the white china, feeling a strangely comforting relief wash over me. Living every day in a world you no longer feel welcome in is the hardest burden to bear but it will all stop soon. I’ll be able to drift off and feel her warm embrace as she cradles me in her arms and tells me how silly I am for giving up so soon. But I think I'm ok with that.

I glare at the capsules, reminding me that they are to aid me. And aid me they will as they lead me to their biggest accomplishment. They are about to save my life as I roll one against my fingertips ready to rest the first on my tongue when a gentle noise makes itself known by my left. I turn my head slowly to find the envelope by the bathroom door near Sheps paw, clawing at it like he too wants answers, whining in distress that causes my brows to knit as he manages to pick it up in his mouth and drops it at my feet. I peer at it for a good minute. Trying to understand who the hell I would get a letter from but at least it distracts me for a minute, dragging my feet to pick it up as I go to sit back on the bed, glaring at my name before opening it gently, watching it tear at the smallest of movement, frail and stale as I slide it out from its blanket and my eyes lock, almost immediately pooling with uncontrollable tears.

Play – ‘Would’ve been you - Sombr’

My Little Dreamer,

If you are reading this, it means I was unfortunately not here to say this to you in person. And for that I am so sorry. But I needed you to know all the things I never had the nerve to tell you in person if I haven’t said them already and I know wherever I am right now I am kicking myself for not saying them to you sooner.

I hope you had an epic 21st birthday Puppet but God I hope you were sensible with your alcohol. Wouldn’t want you falling asleep in someone else's arms now. That place is only reserved for me and I wish I was there with you, to tell you how beautiful you look tonight and kiss you at midnight but I’m not, so I can only write it on paper.

You look beautiful Alora.

I can’t predict the future, but If I’m gonna take a wild guess, I probably didn’t make it to that cell did I?

I hope you are taking good care of my boy. I knew as soon as he met you that I’d lost him to you but I was ok with that. He loves you so much, maybe more than me and that’s saying something. He's a good boy and I hope he’s keeping out of trouble.

I really was ready to risk it all for you. I knew it had to be done, the only way we could have worked was if I tried to right my wrongs, even if death was inevitable, and I’m assuming it didn’t quite go to plan but that is ok. Because that means you have all the more reason to get your ass to Spain. With or without me. Got it?

Call me old fashioned but I put everything I own in your name. I don’t exactly have anyone else to leave anything to, so this is your birthday present from me. I instructed for you to receive this letter on your birthday and my spare key is in the little pouch to my pile of junk. If I don’t end up giving you this letter, knowing you it would be painted and smothered in plants by now and I’m totally ok with that. Just don’t put them in my garage.

But if not, I understand if you don’t want any of it. Sell it, burn it. It’s totally up to you.

I just want you to know, I don’t regret a damn fucking second with you. Even when you were trying to rip my head off, when you pushed me to find my worth again. At the beginning I resented it. I didn’t understand why you were fighting so hard for something broken. Until you showed me what being loved by someone truly felt like. Never giving up on me. Never letting me sink when I felt like I was drowning. But most importantly, I got to be loved by you. So I guess my luck wasn’t so bad after all. I found my light I’d happily let take my life. You took my life by storm baby. I’d happily let you end me. But most importantly, I’d live for you. I want to spend the rest of my broken little life with you by my side and it means I’ll probably have to spend the next ten years of my life in a box but it doesn’t seem so daunting when you have something to fight for. Like I want you to fight for me now. You better have published that book! I’m still mad you never let me read anything you wrote, so I may have been sneaky and took a look while you were sleeping.

And I. Love. You. Too. Alora. I Love You so fucking much my heart physically swells at the thought of you. I wish I let you in sooner. I wish I let you Love me like you wanted to. I wish I wasn’t so frightened to love you in fear I’d fail you or hurt you further. I was a sinking ship.

The truth is, I knew I loved you the day you wore that silly little dress. I just didn’t understand it. I didn’t know I was capable of adoring someone so deeply I’d fish for the light lost inside my darkness in hopes you’d chase it like a moth. The same light I saw in you. That glimmer of momentary happiness I’d been searching for my whole life. I wasn’t sure if you’d chase it but you did more than chase it. You gave me yours and since you walked into my life, I saw colours clearer.

What I’m trying to say is. You are so fucking special, and I hope you never waste that. You light up a room just by standing in it. So I want you to stand in as many damn rooms as you can.

I hope this clarified just how crazy I am about you. And how I’m beginning to see why people search for Love.

It’s not a disease. It’s a cure. It’s not painful, it’s healing. It’s not punishable. It’s a reward.

So don’t you dare let mine go to waste. You will fucking live for me. You will do everything you set out to do and I will be right here with you. You hear me? Or I may just have to haunt you in your nightmares, although I’m sure you’d like that.

This is not goodbye, Little Dreamer. We will see each other again, I promise. Maybe it’s a good job I’m dead. I may of just popped it from second hand embarrassment. You know this is not my thing and I hope you’re crying happy tears at how silly I sound as I bleed on paper for you. If you even remember me. Maybe you have moved on and now I’m just a stranger.

But you, Alora D’arcy Blackthorne.

You were my beginning. And you will be my end. I’d fucking die for you. And If you’re reading this, it probably isn't far from the truth. I can’t wait to tell you the very reason my ‘ never’ came true and I hope I get to by the time you read this, and I know you said you’d wait for me, but ‘ never’ is a very long time to wait for a love that may falter when it was doomed from the start. So I need you to do something for me. Ok?

I need you to let me go. I need you to know it’s ok to move on. I want you to bloom, my Little Sunflower.

And I know that right now, whatever happened, you’re blaming yourself for it. I know you’re saying sorry but don’t. I don’t want you to blame yourself for something that was inevitable. I deserved this. I owed this to you. My life was an apology to you and I should have gone a long time ago. It would have saved you so much pain so please, do not feel guilty for my surrender. I’m at peace now. I finally did the right thing. For You.

Don’t ever stop searching for that happiness Innocence. It’s out there. It may just look different.

I’m right here. You just have to listen to the whistling in the trees and the way the leaves dance in the wind, the ripples in the sea and the voices in your beating heart.

Until we meet again baby. In another life. I’ll be waiting. But right now, it’s not your time. Ok?Don’t wait for me, live for me. Live like every day may be your last so you have thousands of stories to tell when I get to kiss you again.

Then never, I’ll wait.

Hayley.

I can barely see the paper in front of me through my sea of tears, as the pouch with the key falls into my lap, reading it over and over and over again until I memorise every word, wishing she was here to say this all to me in person and I could kiss her until our lips were sore and my eyes dried up. I stare at it for what feels like hours, imagining her sitting in front of me and I think this closure is what I needed. It’s like she’s suddenly still here beside me, undeniably present through her words even though she is no longer physically with me and I clutch at the paper trying to fuse myself into the parts of her she finally let me see. Being vulnerable and kind. I was never sure how she really felt and I know I said it never bothered me but this, this is what I needed to hear all along. I just wish it was not through paper. But her words of encouragement are working as I beam a smile I cannot control and I wet my pyjama top with my rivers suddenly feeling an emotion so overwhelming it stuns me and my cheeks begin to hurt from grinning so wide. A genuine smile. Not a fake image people want to see to make themselves feel better. I’ve spent my entire life smiling my way through this numbness that seems to take a hold of me. I’ve not smiled in so long this is giving me jaw ache.

Hope.

For the first time in two years, I can feel it, brewing inside me like boiling oil. I know what I want to do. I know what I need. My life is not over yet.