Stories from the Back of His Motorcycle

The closest death had ever come to me was in the form of my Grandfather. I was five when he passed away – too young to understand that death meant goodbye and too young to realise that he wasn’t really floating somewhere on white fluffy clouds, surveying my every action with a constant sense of pride. I had grown into a practical girl who believed what she saw and the idea of heaven just didn’t fit in with my reality. My Grandfather had been a good man, had died, had been buried and that was that. He hadn’t gone to heaven and wasn’t swapping sob stories with God.

Hearing Vaughn’s confession, though, made me look upon the whole thing with newly biased eyes. I realised I wanted heaven to exist. And I wanted those who died to still be watching us, never truly apart even when they weren’t still on earth. Having Vaughn the invincible lose his title made me rethink where I stood. It was as if the world I had seen for the past eighteen years was actually something completely different, skewed by my very own pessimism.

When the real state of shock had passed through my body, I was alone in my room. Vaughn had since dropped off my numb body home after our long embrace. No more words were exchanged, everything sounding either desperately empty or pathetically morose after the news. After his news.

I fought the lump in my throat, staring blandly at my white walls and feeling suddenly like a prisoner. If I had known earlier would I still be anywhere near Vaughn? If I had known earlier would I have kissed him back, let him take me away from everything? I wanted to believe I’d have let myself feel everything for Vaughn that was pumping through my veins now, but I knew better. If I had had the choice, I would have snubbed whatever we had out before it could burst into anything substantial.

I was treading dangerous water and was out of my depth. Any wrong move and I could drown, be swept so far under that light wouldn’t even piece the water. I never knew that information could be so entrapping, that simple words could leave me so desolate.

But questioning heaven and regretting my decisions weren’t the worst things. It didn’t matter so much that my beliefs were shaken, or that in the back of my head I regretted letting Vaughn enter my life. The worst part of it all was the obliterating sadness – the breathtaking hopelessness which had consumed my body. Because Vaughn was dying. He was and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it.

My hair fell into my eyes as I rested back on my bed. The window beside me overlooked the mild afternoon, clouds rolling in over clear blue sky. It was such a beautiful day, so temperamental and unsure. I found myself frowning and wishing for rain. The world around shouldn’t be allowed to be so wonderful when Vaughn was suffering. It should have to suffer along with him, everyone should have to. Because it just wasn’t fair that someone such as Vaughn could be dying.

The mobile lying beside me on the bed vibrated, pulling my mind back into my body. I read the text from the very boy I couldn’t stop thinking about and bit my bottom lip so hard it drew blood.

‘I’m sorry.’

Did I forgive him? He had befriended me, made me feel something towards him, all the while knowing this terrible truth. Surely that was selfish. He didn’t have to pull me into his world of pain or tighten strings between us so I couldn’t break free. He should have sat next to me in the English classroom silently, or at the very least played the part of the jerk I had always assumed he was.

But he had to be amazing. He had to be beautiful.

And I wasn’t angry at him for being what he was because I had grown fond of Vaughn Hart. Fond in ways I didn’t want to acknowledge or accept, too fond for my own good. He had become everything that I wanted, or maybe he had always been that and I had just never seen it.

I let my tinted purple hand grip the phone and type back my response. He needed to know that I didn’t blame him for anything, that I truly did accept him, even if it was a lie. Vaughn deserved that and I couldn’t stop my normally quiet heart from beating loudly.

‘Please, don’t be.’

With that I dropped the mobile back onto my bed and tucked it carefully under my pillow. I didn’t want to read his response; I didn’t want to know if he even had responded. I wanted to fall into dreams and never wake up – live life in its simplest form. I hadn’t asked for anything abnormal to happen.

While still drowning in my misery, I heard the definite beginning of a song I knew well. The guitar strings echoed the music around my room, around my head. I felt a smile assert itself on my lips without any permission from my sombre brain. The melody had been lost somewhere in the back of my mind after so many years, lying dormant until it would be remembered again.

I had to move towards it and heave myself from the pity party I’d been throwing. I had to get out of that room, away from the white white walls and the never ending scenarios playing out before my eyes. My hands fumbled unseeingly out in front of me as if those scenarios were blinding me. Vaughn was ill and the very ground could be shaking for all the foundations it had ruined.

But the music was still lulling me forward, towards the ajar door just down the hall. My footsteps were soundless and all I could think about was the last time I’d heard those cords struck together. When Dad had hit Mom so hard it drew blood – when the image of his upturned hand burnt through my eyelids, scorching my eyes. I’d never thought they’d go away.

I pushed the door open and took in the sight of Nick poised with his guitar. Just one glance at him was nostalgic enough and the melody kept flying from his careful hands. He didn’t acknowledge me as I moved over to his unkempt bed. I wondered if he understood the position we were in was the same as it had been years previous. Only then I would vent about Mom and Dad, about how Ross was overprotective, about how Joseph stole my favourite teddy. And Nick would listen and play me the tune with a gift he would later pursue.

I watched him for a few moments, not feeling so oppressively alone. It was nice to just be with someone else after weeks of eating dinner alone and pretending that was okay. It was nice to just sit with Nick while he played me something connecting us both to a past both beautiful and horrifying.

And then I was crying. About Vaughn, about Nick, about everything. I bit my lip, cast eyes up to the ceiling and let thick tears roll down my cheeks. I didn’t feel foolish for bawling, I felt protected and safe. My brother was here. My brother was listening to the words I couldn’t say. My brother was making us relive times exactly like this. It didn’t matter that everything had changed because, in those moments, nothing had.

“What am I going to do?” I asked nobody in particular “what am I supposed to do?”

He didn’t say anything but I hadn’t expected him to. There was only the music and my repressed sobs making my chest heave painfully.

“I’ve got no control over anything Nick. Things happen unbeknownst to me, without my permission, and then just worsen. And they don’t love me no matter how many times they said it. Vaughn’s just going to leave me behind like everyone else, like I don’t even matter.”

My hands rose to clutch my head. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”

But then what did I expect? Love didn’t exist, not even within families. Falling into a relationship with Vaughn Hart was never going to bring anything other than drama and misery. Sure, he’d shown me a few pretty things, made me experience a few pretty things, but it felt false now that he was fading. Only he’d always been fading, I could just see it now.

“Hey,” the bed shifted under someone’s weight.

I’d been so caught up within my own thoughts that I’d not noticed the melody abruptly end. Nick threw a warm arm around my shoulders to bring me closer. I buried my face in his chest and let the room shake with my tears. He smelt familiar – of home and my past – and I found my arms wind around him like a child. In his arms, I felt like a child.

“It’s going to get better,” he said softly.

“It’s not though, that’s the worst part – Vaughn’s only going to get worse.”

He didn’t know what I meant but he held me anyway. And I remembered what I’d been missing for the last four years.

“You left me,” I choked out “everyone leaves me.”

He remained silent. He didn’t deny it, he didn’t support it but we both knew the facts. I’d seen the door close behind them one after the other. Vaughn was the one person I’d believed would change my mind about everything – help me see how cynical my views had been and how I could be beautiful and loved. Now his departure would be the most painful of all.

“I don’t want to do this anymore.”

He shushed me and let me cry until there wasn’t anything left. When I finally untangled my arms from around him, it was dark and Nick’s eyes were drooping. I smiled weakly at nobody in particular as I let my brother lie down, slipping under the already upturned sheets.

I went to my own room quietly and stared back at the walls. My hand slipped under the pillow to retrieve the phone I had earlier hidden away. I read the text Vaughn had sent, instantly feeling tears prick once again.

‘Please don’t leave me.’

And I couldn’t, I could never. It was someone else’s turn to need me and I would prove to the world just how different I was from those who had abandoned me. Vaughn meant too much, I meant too much to him, for my fear to override everything.

I was scared but so was he. Vaughn Hart needed me and I knew I’d be there. For reasons both unacknowledged and secretly understood, I wouldn’t leave him.