Chapter Twenty-Two
Scarlett
“I forgot for a reason”
“You have an inability to show emotion,” she said.
“You loathe vulnerability. It’s common for people who have experienced such traumatic events.
Resisting, running… you will eventually burn out, slow pace.
Remember your inner child, the one stacked with responsibilities.
You don’t want that outcome for her anymore, do you?
Don’t make life harder than it needs to be, little Scarlett. We’re all just kids…”
***
I hear it everywhere, you know.
The bells.
It was my first exposure to sound.
Sinead and Flack, ringing their twin bells, calling me into their room like a servant child.
“Yeah, Vi, the fucking orange bottle you useless good-for-nothing –”
“Flack, she ain’t gonna grab us what we need if you talk to her like a pig. ”
“Vi, give me my damn pills.”
Call me whatever the fuck you want.
A coward, unstable, I don’t care.
(What happened to the big bad Scarlett Emory-Blake?)
SHUT UP!
I locked those memories away.
Every day, every single day, I forget for a reason.
Ryden’s an artist, I was bound to see it coming.
That’s what they do.
They write, they sing, they draw – that’s their outlet.
Mine was hurting things.
Hurting people.
Hurting myself.
I was rude, abrasive. My hobbies included boxing and ripping down the freeway twenty over at night on my Ducati.
Sometimes no helmet.
I needed to feel the rush of death, danger. Craving the edge of life at all times, it made me immune to pain.
There were far things greater to look out for.
My therapist, Sue, she’d been telling me I had problems going on that didn’t even break the surface. But how can you battle an invisible demon? How do you know what wards to put up when you don’t know what you’re up against?
But this feeling… hearing Ryden singing our song.
Because that’s – that’s exactly what it was…
Those demons just broke through my wards.
And I couldn’t fucking breathe.
***
Block it out, block it out.
My foot weighed on the gas like an anvil as I weaved through traffic, the lone soldier in my head focusing on the only place I could scream and no one would hear me.
I forgot for a reason. I forgot for a reason. I forgot for a reason.
It was only until the siren lights filled up my rearview that I stepped off the pedal, shaking my head, cursing the world – this fucking place and all the people in it.
“Miss,” he said to me. How the hell did he get here so fast? “Miss,” and knocked on the glass.
This close, I was this close to socking a cop in the face.
Smiling sweetly, I rolled down the window. “Officer.”
He had a square jaw, great big beautiful dark eyes. My type, if I had one anymore.
Everyone reminded me of Ryden.
Everyone I despised, everyone I adored, everyone.
He was my heart.
Whether I liked it or not.
“Hi,” he smiled. “Going a little fast there.”
“Was I?” Charm, on. “God, these heels officer” – I scanned his nametag – “Ricky, these heels have so much weight to them I can hardly regulate the pressure.”
He tapped my hood, eyes never leaving my face. “You have a speedometer.”
I clicked a bunch of buttons, red nails flying over my Aston’s touchscreen. “These new cars, so complicated.”
He chuckled, leaning forward. “You were going thirty-eight over limit,” then pushed off my door, “I’ve got to write you up, no matter how pretty you are.”
And this.
This is why I hated men.
Couldn’t grab a good one to save your life.
Except Ryden. But fuck Ryden.
Charm, off. “Alright Ricks, give me the damn ticket so I can be on my way.”
I handed over my license, he jotted some bullshit down on a yellow notepad and ripped off the fine. One-twenty, huh, took it easy on me. I’d charge it to the label anyway. Small blessings.
“Hey,” he tapped my window as I revved the engine, “You could give me your number.”
You could.
I could?
They all start it that way.
You could do me a favour.
You could fuck me for change.
You could fuck me for a room.
You could fuck me TO SAVE YOUR LIFE.
I smiled so bitterly I could taste the poison in my breath. “I’d rather rot in prison.”
And I shifted into sport mode, flying faster than before, all the way to WakeWood Cemetery.
I’d rather rot in prison, God.
I have.
Day in, day out.
And I fucking survived.
… Barely.
***
I slept in a graveyard shed for two weeks before Sinead found me.
It was before we moved to Slater street, well before Ryden and I met.
Flack left rusty nails all over the house (this was before he couldn’t hold down a job) and I stepped on one, got an infection, and they couldn’t pay the medical bills.
I limped all the way to the cemetery, convinced I would die there. I was eight. I was petrified by the world.
If I were to go out by tetanus then so be it.
My life expectancy wasn’t high.
My parents were.
Thus resulting in me stepping on a rusty nail that should’ve never been there.
His name was George, the graveyard keeper. Much older than I was at the time, probably in his late sixties. He saw me, said no words, and came back out of his shed with plaster, disinfectant and water. It was raining that day, so he held my foot to the sky and I almost choked on raindrops –
But I was alive.
He didn’t say anything to me.
Not when he held my skin between his fingers, pinching bone, tracing scars, bruises, burns.
Every day I came back.
Every day he said nothing.
Until one day, I came back and he wasn’t there anymore.
All that was left was a note, a stack of twenties, and some chewing gum.
The note had one word on it:
Live.
Opening the cemetery gates now, I rolled up the back of my sleeve.
The tattoo, black as night due to my regular touch ups, shone like a beacon against the bleakness.
Live.
His writing.
His memory.
His kindness.
And I dropped towards the only tombstone that mattered, flipping over my other forearm that held a tattoo of a phoenix.
I touched it tenderly, fighting back the tears.
But they always came when I read her name.
I wasn’t strong here.
I didn’t have to be.
“I could really use your company right now,” I whispered, touching the engravement. “Emory.”