Beth
Beth
One year after
She sees Rosa from across the canteen. It takes her a few seconds before she’s sure it’s really her, and not some conjure of her own cruel mind. But then it’s undeniable. It’s definitely Rosa, because the girl she’s staring at looks at Beth and then turns, very obviously and very deliberately, the other way.
Beth stands up, abandoning the rest of her sandwich. She practically breaks into a run in order to catch up with Rosa.
‘Hey,’ she says, pulling on Rosa’s arm. ‘Rosa, please! Hang on a second.’
The background noise is loud; the echoes of a hundred student conversations being carried out over Coke cans and plates of chips.
‘Hi,’ Rosa says, but despite the clatter, Beth can hear the reluctance in her voice.
Beth waits for an apology; for the usual excuse: I didn’t see you there! But it doesn’t come. Rosa’s not even trying to hide how she feels.
Her expression is stony.
‘I… I sent you a few messages. On the university email,’ Beth says. ‘You didn’t reply.’
Rosa doesn’t come up with an excuse for that either. She just shrugs.
‘It’s just… well, it’s tomorrow.’ Beth squeezes her fist. ‘The anniversary. I didn’t know if you wanted to… I don’t know. Do something.’
She wants to cry. But Rosa says nothing, gives her nothing, cruelly leaves her hanging there like an idiot. Beth feels a wave of self-pity – the kind she’s taught herself to shrug off over the years – wash over her.
‘I’d prefer not to think about it,’ Rosa says.
‘But please…’ Beth is desperate now. ‘We’re the only ones here… shouldn’t we, I don’t know? Pay tribute to her, or something.’
Rosa’s eyes narrow.
‘What do you want to do? Go and sing a hymn by the building site?’
Beth is speechless.
And then, finally, Rosa’s face softens.
‘I’m sorry, I’m just not dealing with it very well,’ Rosa says. Her voice is low, as though she’s ashamed.
Beth’s heart sinks for Rosa, but at the same time she feels a surge of something that feels like joy but obviously can’t be joy because that would be totally messed up. But whatever it is, it makes her feel less alone.
They can get through this together.
‘Me neither,’ Beth says, taking a step forwards. ‘That’s why I wanted to… I don’t know, I thought we could help each other through it. Maybe? It’s a lot…’
‘I’m sorry,’ Rosa says, the hardness in her eyes returning. ‘But I really don’t want to think about it at all.’
She pauses, her lip twitching.
‘She was my best friend, Beth. You hardly knew her.’
Beth feels as though she’s been slapped.
An uncomfortable memory arises: Beth and Nick holding each other in the union after the fire, and from the corner of her eye, Beth thinking she could see Rosa watching them. But when she pulled away from Nick to check, the girl she thought was Rosa had vanished.
Had Rosa seen them together after all? Did she know?
‘I’m… I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘We didn’t…’
But Rosa has walked away before Beth finishes her sentence.
‘We didn’t do anything wrong.’
*
It’s hard to believe it’s nearly been a year. A year since her world shrank down to this: a drudge of endless days. Days to be borne, rather than to enjoy.
A year without Nick.
A week after the fire, they’d all been placed in hotel rooms. Beth’s was basic but clean, with black-out blinds that really did black out all the light. It was quiet, too. Too quiet. No thump thump thump of music, punctuating her dreams. She hadn’t realised how noisy the Asylum was, but now the silence felt worse, somehow.
Beth and Nick had a room each, on the same floor, but she had slept in his room every night. She couldn’t bear to be away from him, not even for one second. But every night she woke up to find that he wasn’t in the bed. He was either in the small en suite bathroom or on the floor next to the window. Sitting, staring into space.
He didn’t cry. She might have found that easier to deal with. Instead, he withdrew. She held him but he was stiff, cold. It was as though he wasn’t really there.
It reminded her of her father.
She shared Nick’s bed in the hotel, but they never slept together. It was agony; to want someone so much, to know that they wanted you too, but to feel so distant from them.
She’d hoped he might come back to her, but one Sunday, she woke up and she could tell that something had changed. And not for the better.
He was sitting at the end of the bed, his head in his hands.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said, pushing her hair away from her face. ‘What time is it?’
‘Just past nine,’ he replied. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’
He hadn’t needed to add that. She knew that he couldn’t sleep, that he hadn’t been sleeping at all since they came to the hotel.
‘Are you OK?’
Her voice was feeble in the dim light of the hotel room. Of course he wasn’t OK. Neither of them were.
She thought of how determined she’d been, just a few weeks ago, to not let her heart be broken when she came to university. To avoid getting into a relationship, anything that might distract her from her studies. To avoid the pain and heartache that would inevitably follow.
To avoid this.
‘I’ve made a decision. Though it’s not really a decision. I have to go home,’ he said, but he didn’t look at her. ‘I’m sorry, Beth.’
She swallowed, sitting up in the bed and pushing off the duvet cover. She sat beside him, feeling exposed in her nightdress. It was too short; she would never have chosen it.
They had lost everything in the fire. People had been so generous, donating clothes, food, toiletries. But none of it felt like it truly belonged to her. None of it felt real. She found it hard to believe that in a few days she wouldn’t get a call to say they could move back into the Asylum, and everything would be just as she left it.
‘I have to leave,’ he said.
‘Right.’
He turned to look at her. His face was drawn. He looked exhausted. She thought of the Nick she met that first day, the spark in his eyes and the cheek on his tongue, and her heart broke all over again for what was lost and would never be regained.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I wish I could…’
‘It’s fine.’ She wanted to be a grown-up. She wanted to be strong, for him. ‘I understand.’
‘Ever since… I can’t sleep. Every time I do drift off, I wake up just a few minutes later and it’s like I’m there again, reliving it.’
She nodded. Of course, she understood that.
Lots of the students had gone home afterwards. Even the ones who hadn’t known Anna. Parents had been outraged, understandably. There was talk of them suing the university. She’d tried to avoid all the noise. She wanted to focus on the future. On their future.
Her parents couldn’t understand why she wanted to stay. But the thought of being parted from Nick was unbearable. The thought of being back in her parents’ house while everyone fussed over her, like they had done all summer while she was ill, was unbearable. She’d almost rather have died herself.
And after all, she was infected by this love for him now. It was incurable. She couldn’t be free of him, even if she tried.
But now, he was leaving her.
There was so much she wanted to say, but none of the words would come out. She didn’t have the language for it. She didn’t know how to express how desperately she needed him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, again. ‘It’s just…’
She reached out and took his hand. He turned to face her, and they kissed. She wanted to stay in that moment for the rest of her life, but before she was ready for the kiss to end, he pulled away from her, shaking his head.
They were out of sync.
She put a hand against his cheek.
‘I love you, Nick Parker,’ she said. It was the first time she’d said it, although she had felt it from the very beginning. It had always been there: a strange certainty, like a religious faith. ‘I will always love you.’
He didn’t say it back.
An hour later, they were standing outside his car. He’d put the little belongings he’d accumulated into the boot. She folded her arms into her chest and stared at him.
‘I’ll call you when I get back,’ he said, but he wouldn’t meet her eye. ‘I need to be with my mum. It’s always been just us, you know. And I worry about her. All the time. She’s got no one there, no one to look after her. And my head’s wrecked, I can’t… I can’t function like this.’ He paused. ‘I can’t function… here.’
She pulled her top lip in. She wouldn’t cry. She refused to.
‘Goodbye, Nick,’ she said, and then she turned and marched away from his car, through the lobby of the hotel and up the stairs, without looking back.