Chapter Text
Just off the coast of a small, bleak town in England, there’s a beach. It’s always cold there, like a frosty winters morning, just without the hot coco and warm blankets to cuddle into when you’re feeling cold and alone. The beach lies on a bed of rocks and pebbles, there’s no sand that’s hot to the touch or a place where you can put a towel and just lie down to escape the world. It’s just a plain, boring old beach in a rural place, but it’s the one place that makes me feel safe.
I was 10 when my mom scraped enough money together to pay for flights out of Vegas to the town by the sea, my dad was a drunk and she had had to hide the money in pots and pans around the house so he wouldn’t find it. She had bought me a suitcase and told me to put all of my clothes in there for our big ‘family holiday’. I just packed my notebook and we had to buy new things there. The trip wasn’t anything special when I think about it, we walked around the shops trying to avoid the relentless fall of the rain and all we ate were the soggy fish and chips that mom would bring back to the hotel room, but it was enough.
Every year I would beg to go back and get away from my everyday life. My dads drinking got worse and the kids at school would make fun of the way my stomach curved in on my small frame, but that one trip a year made it all seem fine. That one trip was the time where my parents didn’t argue, and my dad didn’t touch any alcohol, my mom was happy and I couldn’t ask for more. I was satisfied.
When I was 16 my mom passed away, she was ill but she knew it would tear us apart so she tried to keep it a secret but ended up sprawled across out bathroom floor coughing up her lungs with blood and traces of her own spit falling down her chin for me to see. The funeral wasn’t much, a few close family friends with the kid next door by my side, I miss her, there’s no resurrection or way to bring her back and I know it, it just hurts sometimes.
Two years later I moved out, the kid from next door coming with me on my blind adventure. My plans were to move to the beach town, live along the colourful houses with my troubles put behind me, but together we barely had enough money for the apartment and flights we ended up getting that weren’t even close to my dreams.
The kids name was Spencer. He was nice enough.
I got a call yesterday. I heard the phone ring from my place on the sofa but I didn’t have an incentive to answer it. We didn’t get calls often, me and Spence, and when we did they were always for him, who was going to call me anyway? Either way I flung myself up onto my feet and picked up the phone to press the cool end of the receiver against my ear.
The guy on the other end hung up too soon, telling me what he needed then leaving me to stand in shock with shaking hands. My dad was dead, he had been in the hospital for days but no one had thought to tell me until the day he finally did it, the day he finally managed to drink himself to death.
I don’t think I’m sad. He was my dad but it wasn’t as though we were close, I had spent too many nights hiding in my closet and trying to avoid the smell of alcohol on his breath to care about him anymore. I don’t plan on going to the funeral I know that, I just need to get away.
I need to go somewhere where it’s quiet and I can’t think of my worries because the wind is whistling in my ear, dancing with the waves rhythmically.
I stub the end of my cigarette on the ash tray, watching the sparks all flicker before the smoke drifts up in pretty little swirls. There’s a record playing in the corner, occasionally faltering when the bent needle hits the vinyl for the first few spins. My breath smells like cigarettes and coffee, I’ve heard some people think that’s a good smell, but for me it just makes me seem old, like I’m stale and ready to just fade away, with unspoken words lingering on my lips.
An empty bottle of alcohol lies on the table, I’ll clear it off later I tell myself, but I know I won’t, I’ll be too busy drowning in my own sorrows and erasing the same line of the poem I’m writing over and over again. I look at the cigarette in my hand, tapping the edge lightly to shake off the ash. I’ve never really liked them but they give me something to do.
“You should go back to the beach then,” Spencer says in his parental like tone, “I could give you money for that hotel you used to stay at.”
I shake my head quickly. “I don’t need pity.”
“It’s not pity,” Spencer says, he’s brushing away the tears that aren’t really there with his thumb, his other hand resting on the small of my back protectively. “You feel safe there, all I want is for you to have that again.”
He tucks the little bag of money into my hands with a smile, “You can take the car.”
Spencer’s nice, I don’t know how long it will last but he’s still nice.
I stand up, pulling him in for a brief hug and our cheeks brush when we pull apart. “One week.” He says finally. “Go, clear your mind then come back in one piece okay?”
He smiles shortly, eyes twinkling up at me for a moment too long before I think to even answer. I mumble my thanks, watching intently as he goes to pack my bags because god knows I can’t. The record’s stopped playing, the silence filled with my own thoughts and I throw the cigarette down onto the tray with a huff.
It doesn’t take long to pack, then I’m putting my bag in the car and pressing my foot down on the pedal slowly, remembering to drive along the left side of the road a fraction too late.
I just hope that little beach town remembers me.