15. Blesk
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
blesk
I turn my phone back on and—
Missed call.
Missed call.
Text. Text. Text.
Incoming call from Erik. Sighing hard, my body fatigued and confused, I pick up.
“Where are you?” Erik is breathing heavily into the phone, each word coming out tight and forced.
But I can’t speak. My mouth opens and closes and opens again. I swallow tears.
It’s been seven hours. Traffic. Running. His face, but younger, flashing over and over in the blur of bus windows. Seven hours throughout the night, running towards the very thing I should be afraid of.
But there is comfort here, too.
There is connection and—
I don’t know…
Now I’m walking, like my life depends on me being here as if I need to find him, save him. My feet sink into soft ground. Water seeps through my shoes. The daisies bend under me and spring back as I climb.
The hill I hate; I’m back on the hill I hate.
I squint at the sun. I’d forgotten how bright it is up here—how it cuts in low and sharp, like it’s trying to carve a piece of you out.
My skin tingles with heat, but my teeth chatter.
My body can’t decide how it feels. Neither can I.
The hill rolls out in every direction, sloping downward, beautiful and unconcerned, the same as it has always been. I am not the same, though.
I get to the top. The view knocks the air from me.
Daisies everywhere, left, right, down, wild and white against the green hill.
I was told back then, back when I called this land home, that daisies are just weeds.
That they were to be ploughed under to make way for things that mattered, things like crops.
I watched them do it. The daisies always came back. I was secretly proud of them for that.
“I’m home,” I manage to say to Erik when I remember I’m on the phone. “I caught a bus. A train. Another bus. I went home.” I didn’t really think it through… Oh, God.
“That home?” His tone drops dangerously.
“Yes.” I wheeze for a few seconds as my body forgets how to breathe and how to swallow as I kneel on the spot—the spot that marks the entrance to a place only a few people could ever find... or have ever been.
“Just stay where you are,” Erik says, pain twisting through his voice. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I lower the phone from my ear. It’s a long drive, Erik. The ground tilts. My ears ring. I stare at the patch of grass below my feet—the hatch, the stairs, the dark—and the memory of a boy and a girl pulls me towards it like a wave dragging screaming people out to sea.
“Blesk!” he yells.
I lift the handset to my ear, dazed. “Yes?”
“Don’t go in, Bebe.” He hangs up.
I hate that Erik is coming back here. I know what seeing this place will do to him.
I was nine years old when he first came here. He was thirteen. Our parents brought us to this hill, and we spent the day picking daisies, laying them by Liz’s favourite tree. By my favourite tree. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. It was also, I think, the kindest thing.
The months before that had felt like a perpetual nightmare.
No one could make it stop. I kept having the same nightmare—throwing bones at a boy dressed like a dog.
This image mixed with the same distorted memory of me watching the television when suddenly a face appeared.
His face. People cried. A mother cried. And then I knew, at once and all along, that the boy in the basement wasn’t my brother, or my dog, and he wasn’t supposed to be there.
I would wake up screaming.
Erik was there when I woke up, almost every time.
He caught me between the nightmare and awake, held me until I understood where I was.
Held me as I realised what I had done to that boy.
Held me as I cried and cried. He whispered, ‘it’s over.
Over. Over. For good.’ That I could let go.
The boy was safe. I was safe. I was his now.
Then Erik would curl up beside me, rocking me back and forth and hushing me tenderly as if it was his purpose in life.
I could feel his heart racing; he was only a child himself.
It was so unfair on him. Before me, the Bellamys lived easy and normal and wonderfully predictable lives.
After me, my mother couldn’t sleep, my father couldn’t sleep, and my brother wouldn’t sleep—I was to blame for their misery.
And that’s why we did it.
That's why we had to say goodbye to Liz.
Leaving her behind meant I'd have to leave him behind, too, and everything he and Liz were together, but I tried. I try still—to forget about him. Because in the end, I needed my new family's suffering to end.
We each wrote a letter to Liz and read them aloud. We buried them below the roots of her tree. We were never coming back. That was the whole point—leaving those words with her so that we could be free forever.
Today I broke that promise. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn’t thinking. I told myself on the train that I was coming back for him…
This is where I left him.
This is where I left Liz.
I hold my breath as I brush the leaves off the hatch I’m sitting beside. I stand, lean forward, and wrench it open. The door swings back, releasing a decade of cold dark air that hits my face and makes me recoil.
I stand at the edge and look down. I know what going down these steps will do to me. I have known since the train. Since the bus. Since before that, probably.
I have to duck my head at the threshold, which surprises me.
It’s quiet. Windowless. I take a few steps and sit in the middle of the stairwell, looking down on the room.
On the big cage in the corner. Everything else is gone.
I sit very still, and then my phone rings, and I don’t move for a few more seconds before I answer it.
Pulling it out, I answer, “Elise?” My own voice comes back to me like a stranger’s.
“Oh. My. God. Blesk! You turned your phone back on. Where are you? I couldn’t track you.
What is the point of having a stalker app if you don’t let me stalk you!
Everyone is so worried. Jaxon and Konnor have been all over campus looking for you and then when you didn’t come home...
It’s 5:30 a.m. Where did you sleep last night? ”
I didn’t. “On the train.” I press the phone hard against my ear, but her voice barely reaches me, the reception is poor and her voice crackles.
“On a train? What do you mean? Where are you?”
“Um.” I watch a beetle cross the bottom step. How did you get down here? “Konnor was looking for me?”
“Oh my God, Blesk, seriously? Of course he was looking for you. He lost it. You just ran off. He looked for you everywhere. He got really drunk and ended up knocking himself out when he fell over. Why did you turn off your phone?”
God, it’s been hours…
I press my palm flat against the cold concrete step. Konnor, passed out on the floor somewhere. Because of me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Elise’s voice pitches up. “We don’t care about that. Please just tell me you’re safe. When will you be home?”
“Erik is coming to get me.”
“Okay. I’ll tell Jaxon.” A long pause. I can hear her breathing. She can hear mine. “Blesk?”
“Yes.”
“What’s going on? You walked away with Konnor and then just—ran. Did he do something? Did he hurt you?”
The beetle has reached the ground level. I watch it disappear into the cage. “Konnor didn’t do anything.” I close my eyes. “It’s not something I can get into right now.”
“So it’s something bad, hey? Okay, I’m not gonna pressure you to tell me anything. I will be here for you, though. Whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with me.”
I don’t say anything for a moment. The beetle is gone. “That sounds really good, Elise.”
“I’m small,” she adds, “but I’m scrappy. I’ll kick Konnor’s arse if he hurt you!”
“It wasn’t anything Konnor did.”
“When will I see you?”
The cold comes up through the concrete and into my palms. “I don’t know. Maybe tomorrow?”
“Seriously? Don’t shut me out. I know I’m a new friend, but I don’t care. I want to be there for you.”
“Tomorrow. I promise, tomorrow.”
Elise sighs, and then, in her Yoda voice says, “Best friend Elise has now. Stuck with her Blesk is.”
“Glad Blesk is.” I hang up. I set the phone down on the step beside me and hug my knees to my chest, my eyes growing heavy from lack of sleep.