Stories from the Back of His Motorcycle

If there was one person who noticed the change with Vaughn and I it was Delia. It wasn’t just that I had ditched her to take a ride home from Vaughn, or that I hadn’t showed up to school much, or that she would catch the looks we secretly exchanged during English. Delia was positively fuming because I hadn’t listened to her warnings and she was sure I was going to suffer because of it. Or she was sure she was going to make me suffer because of it.

I tried to avoid her. I would disappear in the hallways quickly before she had the chance to catch up. I would deliberately avoid eye contact when she shot me meaningful glances. I knew I was being a bad friend but I just couldn’t face her after all that had happened. After Vaughn had told me about his illness I didn’t have the time to waste with her. With Vaughn, time was running out whereas I’d already spent far too much of it with Delia, I knew she would never be the one to ask if I was okay or if I needed a hug. With Vaughn I didn’t have to be the supportive one all the time.

So when I finally dredged the courage up from somewhere to call Delia and tell her I wasn’t going to go car-hunting with her the coming weekend, I wasn’t surprised to find her tone sharp.

“Hello there stranger,” she said, hardly missing a beat.

“Hi Delia.” I could feel the stare she was focusing on her bedroom wall, three streets worth of life between us and I could feel it. Her eyebrows would be sloped together, an angry knit, the collection of wrinkles sketched into her normally smooth forehead. I swallowed the obtrusive lump suddenly sitting in my throat and tried to remember where that courage had been mustered from.

“So what is it you’re going to tell me? That you don’t want to spend even more time with me because, no doubt, Vaughn needs you?”

That was exactly what I had meant to tell her, in softer words, but I couldn’t anymore, not since she’d called me out before I’d even said anything. That was no doubt the cursed wavelength we both orbited around working against me, making sure Delia knew what crossed my mind. It seemed in the most crucial moments we were so desperately far away and yet when I wanted to hide from her more than anything we collided back together. She knew more about me than anybody else and my mind was unreeling. Her fingers pulling through it like files in a cabinet.

At my silence she sighed heavily and I could hear the bed springs moan as she no doubt sat down. “What the hell are you trying to pull Alice? You’ve been avoiding me. Avoiding me!Me! Your best fucking friend! Just what has that boy done to you, to make you so inconsiderate and mean?”

“You’ve had boyfriends before,” I muttered.

“Yeah, and I didn’t ditch you completely for them. Unlike you I don’t feel the need to pick one or the other; unlike you I have the capacity to have two people in my life at once.”

I scowled at her words, feeling them linger too close to something trapped deep inside of me. Something built up by my brothers leaving, by my parents leaving, by the knowledge that Vaughn would eventually leave me. Delia didn’t understand that the fewer people I had then the less I’d have to watch the door close behind them.

“God Alice, this is so not like you at all. The girl I knew would never just throw everything out the window and hop on the back of Vaughn Hart’s motorcycle without a care in the world. She’d blush at even the thought of doing something so reckless. Do you see yourself anymore? You even look different. There’s something off about you Alice, like your eyes are bluer or your hair is darker but it’s not that simple. You look almost like a different person and it scares me,” she whispered the last part.

Instantly, the familiar need to protect her rose. I was transported back to moments holding her in her car as she wept about a boyfriend, standing in front of her defensively as Jake Longhorn made fun of her height, making way for her in hallways and slipping a comforting hand in her petite one. But this time it was me upsetting Delia and I wasn’t sure I could protect her from myself.

“I haven’t really changed,” I objected weakly “I’m still that blushing Alice Thornberry.”

“No!” I could see her shaking her head violently. “You’re not.”

And then I was angry because I was allowed to change. Who was Delia to keep me strapped to my old life, the one I felt like I’d finally broken free of? I was my own person capable of alternating myself. I was seventeen years old. I wasn’t a baby.

“There’s nothing wrong with changing anyway Delia. So I don’t wither my life away, I focus slightly less at school and spend more time with a boy rather than you. I wasn’t always going to be that same girl, change is inevitable.”

“I don’t care about any of that Alice. I just fucking care than the person you’ve become would so easily toss their best friend aside for, not only a boy, but a boy you can’t even love!”

Delia’s voice was wobbling. Her lip undoubtedly jutting out and fingers trailing nervously with the pillow close by.

I remembered telling her clearly that I didn’t love Vaughn – that I didn’t even believe in love. So she’d remembered that too. For some reason, listening to my words spoken back to me felt hollow. For some reason they sounded like desperate words pulled forward by a scared little girl as a defence mechanism. Something of pure fear, something for pure protection.

“Don’t,” I was surprised at how strong I sounded. It didn’t matter that Delia couldn’t see my trembling lip or shaky hands. With every passing moment I seemed to be falling back into the person Delia wanted me to be and it made me mad with frustration because to return there would mean to lose Vaughn. And so I fought against that old Alice with every inch of me, managing to lessen the quiver around my body.

“Don’t what? Don’t tell you the truth?”

“The truth?” my composure was crumbling, raw anger taking its place. “The fucking truth, Delia, I think I’m quite acquainted with that.”

“So it should come as no surprise to you that everyone thinks you’re a whore and that Vaughn’s just using you!”

I barely even heard her.

“What do you know about truth, Delia?” I redirected this conversation, hoping that the heat from the spotlight would melt into her.

“Wh-what?”

“What do you know about truth?” I asked again, my teeth gritted together in hope to restrain the onslaught of terrible words burning my tongue.

“I don’t understand what you-.”

“-You don’t ever fucking understand Delia.” I cut across her feeble slurs “that's the whole point. You think I don’t have bad days too? Bad days which make yours look like a party. Maybe the fact that I’ve changed has less to do with a boy and more to do with the fact that I wasn’t happy being that Alice Thornberry. Did you even think of that, Delia, when you started flinging all these accusations around? Did you even contemplate for one second that I wasn’t as ‘okay’ as I said, or that sometimes when you left the bathroom before me I’d go into a stall and cry? I was miserable and you didn’t care enough to notice. So don’t lecture me on truth when you’re the one who’s been oblivious for so long.”

I didn’t hang around to listen to her pathetic protests or maybe a total breakdown. It wasn’t fair that, even in my final moment of confession, she’d be the one to cry. So I pulled the phone away from me and finished the call which had ended so disastrously.

There was still a tingling sensation crawling across my skin, feeling Delia’s eyes as they focused unseeingly on her bedroom walls. I wondered if she could feel my stare. I wondered if she had the capacity to notice.

Delia had been my undisputed best friend for more than six years. I knew she wasn’t perfect even when we were still in pigtails and thought princesses were cool. I loved Delia. I think she was the first person I had loved. My parents had always been too caught up in their arguments; my brothers had been too quick to abandon me. Delia was the constant. Delia was the unchanging quality.

To know that we weren’t friends anymore – not really – was very odd. Similar to the feeling your child self encounters when they are finally let in on the secret of Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy. Something that you’ve always believed in and relied upon turns out to be unstable and false. But, unlike those times, this was with someone I loved. And it hurt a lot more than finding out your parents had been the ones placing presents under the Christmas tree for years.

But wasn’t that what I had wanted all along? For her to realise just how I felt sometimes? I could feel her crying in my bones, I could taste her tears on my tongue. And I was guilty for them because I had never meant to hurt little Delia with anything, that was partly the reason why my ‘I’m fine’s had been so necessary. If she knew what had happened then would she be able to take it onto her tiny shoulders?

The phone still lay hot in my hand, daring me to use it again, daring me to fling it across the room. I shivered and realised the window was still open despite it being late at night. Distant noises of life drifted in, cars occasionally whizzed by, people occasionally shouted out. I wondered bleakly what Vaughn was doing and how long it would take to get there. But I couldn’t drag him into yet another imperfect aspect of me. I hadn’t even told him about Mom being gone; Delia would just have to wait in the recesses of my mind for another time.

So I climbed into bed after shutting off all lights. The darkness wasn’t as comforting as I wanted but it lessened the suddenly throbbing headache and soothed my suddenly heavy eyes. Heartlessly, I slept perfectly that night. Not even my worrying over Vaughn, my fretting over Delia, my awareness of the bills that still needed to be paid could keep me awake.

As soon as I saw Vaughn early next morning, I covered his lips with mine and pulled him hastily into the house. I wanted to hide away again, to forget exactly how imperfect I was.

“You love me, right Vaughn?” I asked him as we both fell into the living room.

He pulled away from me so sharply that I almost collapsed back at the motion. His eyes raked over me, trying to find exactly what compelled me to ask such a question and exactly what was inhabiting me making me kiss him with such abandon. I didn’t like the scrutiny. I just needed reassurance.

“I thought you didn’t believe in love Alice.”

I was disappointed with his answer and pulled completely out of his warm arms. I didn’t know what to believe anymore, I was just desperate for someone to tell me they loved me. Even if it was a fictional emotion I could know that I had tricked at least one person into imagining it. I wanted to capture a shred of power back and my heart hummed within my chest at his rejection.

“Hey hey hey” he cooed as I slumped myself down on the couch, not caring how immature I was acting. “What do you want me to say?”

“I’m not going to tell you that Vaughn.”

“All I know,” he rested himself smoothly down beside me, our knees bumping together “is that you told me once not to say that word. I know how hard it’s been for you and how love seems impossible, I don’t want to say anything to scare you away.”

I rolled my eyes. He still treated me like a shy animal. He still stretched his palm out carefully, worried I’d balk, and murmured sweet words into my ear instead of just telling me the straight truth.

My hands moved across him and got lost in the mess of dark waves which made up his hair. I smoothed it down and watched as it just jumped back stubbornly after ever caress. I wondered how many times it would take to fix it right, how many times I’d have to tell him that I wasn’t going anywhere before he learned to relax completely.

“I’m sorry,” I sighed finally “I’m just in a fight with Delia.”

He nodded in understanding even if he didn’t know the half of it. “Are you two going to work it out?”

“I don’t know,” I replied quietly and had to rapidly blink back the emotion overwhelming me.
“Why not just speak to her, talk it out?”

I shook my head and let him wrap an arm around my shoulders, feeling his tee-shirt brush against my neck. He couldn’t understand that there wasn’t anything left to speak about, that I had waited far too long for her to realise what I’d been silently communicating for years. I didn’t want to hold out any longer.

“Well you’ve got me sweetheart. You have me,” he whispered into my ear like it was a secret. I swallowed and closed my eyes, fighting to be content with that. There was no questioning that what I felt for Vaughn was strong and unwavering, that was exactly what made part of his statement so painful. It was in the present, there was no always or forever, it held no promise of a tomorrow.

I’d thrashed myself into a dangerous web and I didn’t know how to even contemplate escaping it. I was scared and even in Vaughn’s arms I felt alone.

“Say it Vaughn,” I pleaded “just say it.”

A hand gently traced a warm path along my arm, over my shoulder, up my neck until it cupped my cheek. I opened my eyes to stare into his, only just realising he was hunched close to me. We stared at each other for a long moment and I saw it in the fire burning through his gaze. I saw it plain, on his face, his mask finally cracked to reveal what I’d always been terrified of. He didn’t even need to say it but his lips still formed the words.

“I’m in love with you, Alice.”