This War Paint

Jane


My sister was acting very strangely.

At first I thought nothing of it. Helen was a different species entirely to me. We may have shared the same blood and what seemed like forever ago I had been fifteen too, but we were so different it was sometimes difficult to see our connection. For both of us it was nigh on impossible.

But something was definitely strange with her. It was all in the way she couldn’t sit still at dinner, and how her eyes continuously darted to the window above the sink, and as soon as her fork was down she was gone. She did the impossible – she managed to disappear within a house the size of a shoe box.

“Leave her be Jane,” Dad waved off when I asked him if he knew what the matter was. “It’s probably that good-for-nothing boyfriend of hers.”

He took a very peculiar stand when it came to Helen’s boyfriends, one which skimmed overprotective and went straight to being careless. Dad didn’t mind how much Helen’s heart broke because of a boy. He didn’t mind that she’d come home crying once because of the way she’d been dumped. To him this only meant that she was one step further away from settling down and moving away. It meant she was just that bit closer to being like me – detached and solo – the kind of girl who would rather stay inside reading than go out on dates.

I didn’t tell him that Helen would never learn this particular lesson no matter how many times her heart was broken or her soul crushed. She was the dreamer in the family. She was the one who would leave this tiny town and make all of those dreams come true one day. I was glad for her because I didn’t even know how to dream about leaving. To me, Florence was the world and this house would always be my home.

I whittled away the remaining hours of daylight upstairs in my mother’s room. I perched on the edge of her bed, replaying all that had happened today in the boys’ bathroom. I told her about the fight and about how noble Fraser had been throughout it all. I told her that this boy had stood up for her daughter and had got nothing but a detention for it. I told her about the feelings I had felt just metres away from him and how confused they made me.

She smiled at me sadly, petting my hand lightly from where it lay resting on top of her bed sheets. I grabbed her fragile fingers lightly in mine and pretended for a whole second that she had heard anything I had just told her. Her ghost of a smile lit up the whole room in a way only Remy could. And it all came crumbling down too soon after I had managed to trick myself.

“I’ve been waiting for you to visit for so long, Tessa,” she murmured as her misty eyes unseeingly swept over my face.

But then, I hadn’t been able to really trick myself that she was okay for years.

“Goodnight Remy,” I breathed softly, bending forward to kiss her grey cheek.

“Come home soon.”

I nodded as if this made any sense, as if I wasn’t home right where I was, as if I would ever leave. It was easier to pretend, though, than it was to tell the truth. I would rather go along with whatever beautiful fantasy my mother had spun around herself than sit there and tell her that she was crazy. She wasn’t crazy. She was mentally ill. She was losing her memory, not her mind.

Feeling even higher strung, I yelled out a goodnight to my father before I dissolved into my nightly routine. Then I was in bed, wrapped up in my covers, trying to just will the bed to swallow me whole.

Tomorrow, I knew, wouldn’t be easy. David was obviously out to get me and, after today, he’d want more than just my reputation. He’d be after blood. The thought of him anywhere near me with his clammy hands and demanding eyes had my body suddenly fighting with the enclosing sheets. I knew that just five minutes alone with no Fraser or principal or Lolly he’d have me begging for him to stop. Wasn’t that always how we left things now? Only with no interruptions that wouldn’t be the end of it.

I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat, wishing for sleep, wishing for anything that would distract me. Peering over at my sister’s bed, I tried to make out her sleeping figure. Surely she should be here even if she had vanished earlier. She normally always nursed a broken heart in her bed surrounded by mountains of tissues while chewing on some chocolate.

She wasn’t there, though. That became apparent as I squinted through the darkness to see nothing but her upturned sheets.

This wasn’t like Helen. We were different, sure, but she would never leave the house at night, especially without anybody knowing. Helen was a good girl at heart; she just tried to hide it behind the guard she held up to the whole world. I was her sister though, and I saw straight through it. I saw the little girl she still was under all of the makeup and hair accessories. Under all of the teenage angst.

I lay there for only a minute longer because my baby sister was missing and I was freaking out.

I collected myself when I was at the top of the stairs, hesitating for a split second, listening as hard as I could for my father’s light footfalls. There were none. The only sounds in my dead house were coming from the sleepy street outside, passing cars’ heavy engines rolling by open windows. I was a rebellious teenager in that moment, realising that in all of my eighteen years I had never learned to properly keep track of where my parents were. Helen was a pro at this. You couldn’t sneeze in the house without her knowing.

Swallowing something akin to nervousness, I started down the stairs, wondering how I had ever made this journey silently. Every step I took seemed to cry out like an injured baby, every time I dared cringe back an even sharper wail tore through the hallway. At last making it safely to the bottom, my joints were locked up with tension. My father was about to catch me, or my mother was about to wake up, or my sister was about to jump out of the darkness.

Nobody emerged but I was still on edge. I wasn’t doing anything wrong – if confronted I could have just lied, said I was going to the bathroom – but there was adrenaline pounding through me as if I was hiding from something. As if I was running from something. As if I already knew I couldn’t get away.

I saw her before I heard her. Helen was bent over, half obscured by the open fridge door, rummaging around with hands skilled at keeping quiet. A heavy sense of relief sat itself smoothly down in my stomach, pushing out the anxiety which had been eating away at my insides. Of course she was alright. Of course she was just in the kitchen probably stealing a midnight snack.

I never wanted my sister to know about the darker side of Florence, the side which meant David could do whatever he pleased and Fraser would always get punished for it. I wanted her to look at the place as I had used to – with the fondness someone can only hold for their happy childhood home. David had shattered that for me but I’d be damned if anyone was going to ruin anything for Helen. I would do everything I could to protect her.

“What are you looking for?” I asked into her careful silence, watching as she straightened up so quickly pieces of her blonde fringe blended into her eyes. She was beside herself for a moment, terrified I was Dad, poised to bolt for a hiding place. But then Helen saw it was just me and her body relaxed into a counter.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

She cocked her fair head to a side, those azure eyes piercing right into mine. There was a challenge there. And I knew if she wanted to she could win, she would win. And like all games with winners there were losers too.

“Just tell me what you’re doing down here Helen,” I cut off whatever retort she was about to utter.

“I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“I was worried about you. I haven’t seen you since dinner.”

“Oh God,” she moaned, rolling her eyes “give it a rest Jane. There’s nobody around to impress.”

I frowned, trying to figure her out, trying to dismiss the obvious bitterness flooding out of her very pores.

“What are you doing out of bed at this time of night anyway? Don’t tell me that worry was just eating you up?” Helen smiled sarcastically. “Or maybe my older sister’s discovered how much more fun it is to walk on the wild side.”

“Why don’t we both just get back to bed before Dad hears us?” I reasoned, too tired to have this fight with her.

“You’re the one with the reputation to protect here, not me.”

I should have just listened to her, gone back to bed and pretended that I hadn’t ever been worried about her. Or at the very least that I hadn’t seen her. I may have done, too, if I hadn’t heard the moan coming from our small living room just feet behind Helen. She heard it too, her body freezing all over again, those mirror-image eyes of ours reflecting the same emotion for a split second.

Fear.

They were for different reasons though. She was just scared that she had been caught.

I took a step towards the archway to our lounge as Helen put up her hands in some kind of surrender. I could imagine her wringing those hands, dusting them clean of any responsibility about to fall onto her shoulders. Not this time. Not if I was about to find what I was sure Helen had brought home.

“Really? Your boyfriend? That’s what all this sneaking around is about? You know Dad would kill you if he realised James was in our house at this time of night without even his knowledge, let alone permission,” I hissed, feeling betrayed for him.

“Look Jane,” her hands were still up in a sign of peace “I was just helping the guy out. Believe it or not, I was being a good person.”

“Helping him out?” I scoffed. “You’re right, I don’t believe that.”

“Just keep your voice down,” she pleaded, trying out my own beauty against me now.

I shook my head, ashamed that I had ever been worried for her. My sister was a creature all unto herself, completely independent. She didn’t need a soul because she was just fine by herself, always protecting herself. If that meant shoving Mom away because she wasn’t ready to accept that she was unwell, if that meant being playing the spoilt teenager to prove that she was nothing like her sister, if that meant bringing her boyfriend over at ridiculous hours of the night, then that was all fine. For her, that was perfectly acceptable.

“Grow up, Helen. If I want to tell Dad about all of this then you’re not going to stop me,” I said, angrier than I had been in a long time.

“You can’t Jane!” she cried, exasperated enough to not realise her own voice was rising.

I gave her the coldest look I could muster, shouldering past to see her crime scene all for myself. To see what was worth risking being locked up in this house all summer for. If I had stopped for a moment, if I had been able to think clearly without being angry, I may have been jealous at how romantic it was. The sneaking around and the need to see each other even so late at night. I didn’t know that kind of love. The only love I knew was the one which kept me tied to this house and this town and this family.

I squinted into the darkness, noticing that the curtains had been drawn so the moonlight couldn’t quite reach in. My small couch was situated next to the smaller television. All of it squished into a room never meant for more than a small study, never meant for more than a person all by themselves.

The hulking figure on top of the couch just made the room even smaller and made it suddenly very hard for me to drag in a breath. I knew who it was instantly. I don’t even really know how I knew. It could have been his size, or the sliver of a tattoo I could just make out on his upturned wrist, or maybe his earthy smell which always had me nervous at the promise of him only a few seconds away. Of course, though, all at once realising who it was my sister had snuck into our house, I was dealt a crushing blow.

“Fraser,” I wheezed out, my breathlessness making me dizzy.

The boy moaned again, the dim light from the kitchen reflecting his charcoal eyes. He could see me. He was watching me as my body moved closer to him. I watched him too, his broad chest rising and falling in quick, short breaths, the way his eyelids drooped lowly over his eyes so they were half open.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked, feeling as if someone had just thrown cold water all over me. He was ill. He wasn’t right. If he had been okay then there would have been an awkward joke made already, or he would have sat up straight at the sight of me and given me his lazy Fraser smile. His lips were quivering slightly as I rested a gentle fingertip over them.

“I don’t know. I think he overdosed. I found him like this, you see, in his car out on the street and brought him inside after Dad went to bed. I didn’t know what to do Jane. I panicked. I can’t drive him to the hospital and when I said about ringing an ambulance he made it more than clear that he didn’t want one. He had passed out when I left him; I was trying to find some drink or food to try to get him to... I don’t know. To flush it out of his system?”

Helen’s eyes were wide with fright, her entire strong facade simply broken in two. She was a little girl trying to make this stranger well again, playing doctor, only the stakes were so much higher than she could ever realise.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, willing myself to keep it together. Of course the idiot had overdosed, I’d seen him high before, although that was nothing like this. With this boy practically convulsing on my tiny couch. But he wasn’t just a boy. He wasn’t just a stranger to me.

My shaking palm moved to cup his clammy cheek, our eyes connected, and I couldn’t break away. My brain was still functioning though.

“How did you get him in here Helen?”

“If pushed he can just about walk, but he made so much noise! I was sure that we’d woken Dad up,” she let out the words in some conjoined rush.

“Alright,” I said more to myself than anyone else. “Alright, we need to get him to the hospital. Right now.”

When neither Fraser or Helen or even my body moved I found myself suddenly blinking back frustrated tears.

“We need to get you to the hospital right now Fraser or you might not be okay,” I said hoarsely. “Please let me take you.”

He looked up at me, defenceless for the first time. I could have broken him completely then but I never wanted to do that, not to him or anyone else, but God, especially not him. And there was a horrible voice in the back of my head wondering why he had overdosed. If it had been a mistake or if he had done it deliberately. My heart shuddered at the thought. It would break if he was successful, I knew that for sure.

With stiff, forced movements Fraser sat slowly up. My hands were there too, guiding him, helping him. It was a blur after that. We got him into my father’s car even though every time his face screwed up with pain and exhaustion something deep in my chest ached with him. It was a miracle that I had made it there, let alone Fraser.

“Don’t tell Dad,” I called out to Helen just as I set the car into motion. She nodded, blonde hair cascading around her willowy figure, and watched us until we disappeared around the corner.