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“Fuck you, you spoilt little bitch, Yoba I want to pummel your prissy little face in you-“
Alex didn’t really have memories, anymore.
“You think she can save you? Huh? You’re mine too you know, mine too you dog”
Only impressions of things long passed.
Glass smashing, The acrid stench of beer. Screams and sobs, alternating. His own? His own? Hi-
It often got claustrophobic in this small town.
Crying, sweet. So sweet, the lilies, so sweet, her voice, her laugh, so sweet. It sounded resigned.
Yoba, he couldn’t sleep.
He got up and slipped out, his grandparents (saints, bless them), knocked out and half-deaf anyway, and started running.
He never really knew where he was going, except he did because it was always the same, gravel giving way to sand, crickets giving way to the waves that lapped the shore. It comforted him, somehow, the vast expanse of blue that promised him more than a tiny town and sleepless nights. Something beyond the silence of the night and the whispers of his mind.
He didn’t really have memories, not anymore, and his mum had become an impression of sunlight, spring, freckles, and the sterile silence of a hospital.
Sometimes he wondered which he grieved more, her or her stories, or the fact they’d been tainted with a heavy brush, leaving streaks of black and blue all over Alex’s mind.
That bastard.
But pale dawn had begun to creep up over the horizon, and Alex knew Willy liked to come out early to fish, and Evelyn would be waking up soon anyway, and he couldn’t grieve what he didn’t know, so he got up and jogged back.
On his way he saw Haley, and without missing a beat yelled out “Looking good blondie!”. Instantly, she flipped him off and rolled her eyes, so he grinned and carried on running, right to his door, where he slipped back into bed as if he’d always been there.
He’d forgotten (obviously) how long it had been since this pantomime had started, but he kept going through the motions, get up, play gridball, feed Dusty, work out until he was so bone-deep tired he couldn’t think anymore, pass out, wake up at 2AM via a semi-real, half-forgotten thing your father said 16 years ago, run, run, run, run.
Wink at Haley, grin at the new farmer, wave to Sam, avoid Shane. Strut around town like a peacock, varsity jacket gleaming in the sun, because you could own this place if you wanted to, but you can do better so you won’t bother.
Stare blankly at the ceiling for two hours because you can’t remember your mum’s laugh.
***
“What’s up nerds?” Alex declared, as he marched into the library, where he saw Sebastian, Abigail, Sam, Emily and Haley all congregated at one of the tables. All of them balked a little at seeing him there, his bright green jacket and self-assured smirk out of place in the muted wood and quiet. Because yeah, Alex may not have been the sharpest, but he wasn’t stupid, and maybe it was easier to pretend that books were below him rather than above him, that he chose not to read because he was just that cool, rather than the fact that every time he opened a book, words swam in front of his eyes and an ugly current of shame would rise up which could only be matched by sixteen year old memories. Yet he couldn’t forget Evelyn’s gentle words (so gentle, bless her),
“You’re going to be a great gridball player sweetheart, of course you are, but isn’t it better to have a backup plan, just in case?”
There was no force on this Earth, shame or otherwise, that could make him ignore Evelyn. So here he was, at the library, looking at books confidently whilst trying to figure out what the hell they were saying.
“What the hell is he doing here?” he heard Sebastian murmur. A rustle of fabric, maybe someone shrugged.
“Doesn’t he have some field to be working out in? Why does he have to come in here and bother us? Can’t we have one space to ourselves, at least?”
“Maybe he just wants a book Seb, there’s no need to be so dramatic over it.” Sam’s cool but firm voice replied.
“Him, a book? Remember in school when he’d never do the readings and half-ass some bullshit and get full marks anyway ‘cos he was varsity? And we looked like the losers cos we’d actually try?”
More fabric rustling, though it was getting harder to hear over the roaring in his ears.
“Oh don’t be such a bitch Seb, that was years ago. I was insufferable back then yet I’m here now, aren’t I?” Haley replied, and Alex felt a warm rush of gratitude towards her.
“It’s not just that though,” Abigail intervened, “It was the way he acted, like he was a god on Earth blessing us with his presence, but if you tried to talk to him you’d see he had the personality of a brick and was twice as dense.”
“His ego was way too overblown, the way he constantly went on about being the best gridball player or about how he got all the girls he wanted, I don’t know. I always thought he needed some humbling.”
With a start, Alex realised he’d been staring at the same book for the past 5 minutes, and was no closer to figuring it out, so he grabbed it and headed home before any of them could say anything else about him. Humiliatingly, he felt his eyes start to glaze over with the tell-tale film of tears, and he kept his head ducked down as he headed north, to the silence of the mountains.
“Crying? I thought I had a son, what’s this whiny little bitch doing here, Yoba if you don’t shut u-“
He tossed the book on the ground, Dealing with Loss, of course it was, what a joke. He slumped down and tried to picture something happy, his mother’s face, or her warm hugs. He looked nothing like her, with her pale skin and deep brown eyes, but apparently they shared the same smile, beaming and sunny. He didn’t like to think about where he got his sharp green eyes from, or the freckles that littered his tan arms, any more than he liked to think about shattered glass and shadowy bruises. He screwed his face up and hit his fist against the dirt, letting out a strangled cry.
16 years since that fucker had finally walked out, and taken all of Alex’s childhood with him, yet here he was, on the floor gathering dust, living out every single condemnation from those like Sebastian and Abigail, a washed-up, washed-out failed athlete, proving them all right. Proving him right.
That fucker.
A thump. He turned and saw Haley, decked out in a baby-pink coat, sitting down next to him. It can’t have been any earlier than midnight, and he had vague recollections of her whining about beauty sleep. Still, here she was. Pretty and pink and looking at him with something inscrutable in her eyes. He couldn’t bear to meet her gaze, so he looked at the floor again.
“Mind if I sit here?” She asked innocently, which seemed rather stupid to Alex because she was already sat down, but he shrugged regardless.
“It’s strange,” she laughed, “Normally by now you’d be trying to flirt with me using your horrible pick-up lines.” He didn’t reply.
“Normally you never shut up, I’ve never seen you this quiet before, Beep boop, who are you and what have you done with Alex?” She tried again, but he still didn’t meet her gaze. Part of him, the part more influenced by decades-old cruelty than he’d care to admit, wanted to rise up and snark back, see, he could be a normal, well-adjusted, cool, social jock! See!
But something about the mountains, the way they towered over him and reminded him of his insignificance, stopped him.
“Hey, are you okay?” Haley finally asked, in a tone gentler than he’d ever heard her use. That’s what made him look up and meet her sky-blue eyes.
“It’s funny,” he muttered, his voice hoarse, “how I can’t remember the past, yet it still haunts me.”
She seemed rather taken aback at that, no-one ever expects a jock to have any profound insights on life.
“You ever wonder,” he continued, “why I live with my grandparents?”
She looked somewhere in between guilty and curious as she nodded.
“My dad, wasn’t great. He would get mad and shit? You know?” The understatement of the century, but words seemed to escape him, and besides how do you describe the clusterfuck that was his life to a girl you barely know without either of you breaking down into tears.
He paused, took a breath. She didn’t press, but he tried again.
“He…he ruined my life. He was only in it ‘til I was like 7 and yet, somehow, he managed to fuck it all up for me. I couldn’t tell you any specific instances, but I’ve always felt worthless, stupid, wrong, and I know it’s because of him.” He was gathering speed now, voicing things that had only ever lived in the darkest corners of his mind, but something about the crisp air and night sky emboldened him.
“It’s like a shadow I can’t see, but I know it follows me. I hear screams, I don’t know from who or when, but I know he caused them. I’ve got a scar, bright pink, can’t remember how I got it, whenever I think about it it’s just crashing, screaming, blood, but it’s there either way. I’ll always be out of place. And maybe-“
He stopped. They were venturing into dangerous territory here. He could just call it a bad day and go home, and they would never have to think of this again. But she was the only one who cared enough to notice something was wrong, and seek him out to check, even high up here, and he knew he couldn’t throw away this olive branch. She deserved an explanation, and maybe he did too.
“He made me feel small. So small. A speck of dust, a worm…when he finally left, I swore I’d never feel that powerless again. So I filled, this, this void, with gridball and bro jokes, and friends who didn’t know anything about me, and girls (he had the decency to blush a bit here) and everything he thought made a real man, just to prove him wrong.”
He sighed. “It didn’t work, it just changed form. That powerlessness just drowned me when I tried to read, or when I saw Sebastian and Abigail snickering at me, even though I wasn’t supposed to care because they were the nerds, and I was the cool jock. It still hurt, I just had more to lose by showing it.”
The curiosity had changed to horror, and fuck, this was exactly the opposite direction he wanted it to go in.
“Don’t try and feel pity, I hate pity it-“ Pity doesn’t make men, it makes babies who can’t just suck shit up, and they get nowhere in life
That fucking bastard.
“I would never pity you, Alex.” She said softly instead. “I think you’re stronger than you know, and not just ‘cos you hit far in gridball.” Her expression changed.
“But you can’t find happiness playing by someone else’s rules, especially not a deranged psycho like your dad.” Her gaze hardened now, “trust me, I know.”
“In highschool, back when I was a total bitch, that’s what I’d do. I’d play along with their rules, ‘cos I thought that’s what I had to be. Blonde and pretty, I could be nothing but popular and airheaded, or I’d never make it. I was utterly miserable.”
His mouth dropped open unwillingly, because the thought of Haley, the Haley, miserable, was unthinkable to him.
She smirked. “Surprising I know. But it’s true. I didn’t have the courage to break out, or risk losing my popular girl privileges, but maybe I’d have been happier if I did. As it was, I was insecure and filled with self-doubt, and I thought the only way I could overcome it was by playing to people’s expectations of me.”
She sighed. “But do you know how exhausting it was, keeping up the façade, meeting up with people looking for emotional connection only for them to treat you like a fresh hunk of meat, looking for someone to share your passions with, only to be laughed at by those you know, and shunned at by the “nerds” who do have that passion because of your reputation.”
She dropped her gaze. “In the end all I was looking for was to be loved, and I didn’t find it in the cliques or the queen bees.”
“Then my parents dropped that bombshell on us, and I had to pack everything up and start again, and whilst that transition…wasn’t smooth” she said with a wince, “I did find the love I was looking for. It was with a camera, in the quiet of the forest by the rushing of the river. On my own terms.”
She met his eyes and smiled. And Alex, who for the last twelve years had had his memories of his mum slowly slip away through his fingers like water, felt one cling to the cracks in his hand; a lily filled summer, bursting with promise and pollen.
“I love you, darling. If all I’ve been good for in this world is making you happy, it will have been worth it. You’re going to write your name on the world someday, and I can’t wait to watch.”
He steeled his gaze. He didn’t really have memories, not anymore, but he did have promises to keep.
He said as such to Haley.
“My mum believed in me, and maybe that’s all that counts. Maybe I don’t need her face, or her hair, as long as I have the hope she gave me. Maybe that’s what matters.”
“Your mum sounded wonderful.” She said gently.
“Yeah.” He agreed. “She was. I wish I could’ve shown it to her more whilst she was here, but I’ve got the rest of my life now to make it count.”
“And for what it’s worth,” Haley added quietly, “I believe in you too.”
He grinned, and it for the first time in years it was genuine. He couldn’t remember another time he had felt so at peace with it all.
“You wanna know something else about my mum, she absolutely loved lillies, one time-“
It must’ve been 3AM by the time Alex got home, and for the first time in years, he fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.