Fragments

“You’re free to leave now,” a pinch-faced nurse told Lee, staring at a large spiral-bound book. “All that’s really wrong with you are cuts and bruises. Superficial wounds. They’ll be completely gone within a couple of months, though there may be slight scarring with some of the deeper wounds.”

Lee nodded, silent screams shattering through her head. They’d been in her head ever since the horrible crash. Oh, god…Lee shuddered. She would not, could not remember that night, with all its awful happenings. But how could she stay away from those memories when all of it was etched into her skin in the form of half-healed scabs?

Slowly, she meandered out of the hospital and into the late afternoon air, easily finding her way to the train station.

Soon, Lee was looking up at the small house facing out to a busy road, cars shrieking behind her. The deepest cut across her cheek was stinging as she pulled out a key. Fear and anxiety trembled through her veins; it had taken all of her will to get here and now she had to pack up and leave as fast as she could. Silently, she stepped into the house that had been hers for the past few years, a house that held the echoes of a blonde-haired girl’s laughter who was nowhere to be seen at this moment in time.

Lee cast her eyes downwards, despairing at her own choice, struggling to walk into the bedroom she shared with one other. Quickly, she yanked open drawers, chucking clothes into a suitcase that had been hiding under the bed just seconds ago. She was running automatically: pack, breathe, pack, breathe. Within half an hour, her essential belongings were jammed into that ratty old suitcase, reeking of memories and love that now tasted sour.

Before she could change her mind, she snatched up an abandoned pen and scrawled a note in the notebook lying innocently upon the bedside table. Courtney, she wrote, I have gone to find my mother, Grace Larne. For a brief moment, she closed her eyes, breathing the scent of both bitterness and regret on her tongue, after which she confessed a small I love you onto the paper. She didn’t think she’d be coming back, at least not for a while; the thought of pressing the memory of that night onto Courtney weighed down on her. Lee couldn’t bear the thought of Courtney hurt and crying – maybe if she disappeared, so could the truth.

After all, who else was there to tell but herself? Toby was too damaged by the truth. What if Courtney broke down like that over it? It would be unthinkable, unbearable.

Slowly, Lee stumbled down the hall to the front door, the house – no, her home waiting for her to leave behind the only thing she’d known for years.

But before she managed to make it to the door, it swung open. Courtney stood there, hair tangled in ugly knots, face twisted with fatigue, stress and pain. Her eyes creased as she glanced at Lee, swaying uncertainly in the hallway, caught like a deer in the approaching headlights. “Lee,” she whispered through dry, cracked lips as she closed the door behind her. Her face crumpled as she started to sob, tears running down pale cheeks like rain on the windows when it was gloomy outside. “I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know what I did to make you want to leave and Elena hang on the edge of death and, oh, I don’t understand what’s happening anymore!” The words tumbled out of her mouth in a wail.

Before she could stop herself, Lee lurched forwards, dropping her bags, and wrapped her arms tight around the broken girl who held her love. “Don’t cry, honey,” she murmured in Courtney’s round ear. “It’s not you, it’s-”

“Don’t.” She laughed dryly, voice cracked, as she freed herself from those comforting arms. “If you’re going to leave, just leave. I don’t care anymore.” Courtney’s sentences cut through the air, a frost spiking under her skin.

“Fine.” Lee’s lower lip trembled but she would not cry, would not break. “But I’m only leaving to find my mother. I’ll come back for you.”

Courtney stared, the lines of her eyes already glaring with red, betrayal only partially hidden beneath an indifferent mask. “Why now?” she burst out, arms spread wide. “Why do you have to leave when I most need you?”

Because it’s my own fault, Lee responded silently and sadly. My fault your life is disintegrating. I caused the crash. Without giving a verbal answer, she picked up her bags and left the house, abandoning her love behind her.

It was the first time Lee had ever lied to Courtney – she wasn’t coming back, not until she stopped ruining lives with silly mistakes.

Back in the house, Courtney sunk to the ground, her hands curled into fists and her eyes squeezed shut against more approaching tears. Her heart crumbled inside her. How could Lee just abandon her when everything was already falling apart?

With a heartbroken sigh, she rose from the floor and rubbed her tired, sore eyes. Her feet were aching; she felt wired from lack of sleep; her heart had been carved out of her chest with a spoon. Somehow, she managed to make her way into the kitchen. Her hands immediately set out to make a cup of coffee – boil the jug, one teaspoon coffee, quarter cup of milk. It was a ritual she followed every morning to wake her up and every moment in the day when she felt stressed, depressed or just plain tired. She drank coffee like water.

Halfway through pouring the milk, the telephone rang, absurdly loud in the audibly silent house. Courtney closed her eyes for a second, begging it to be good news about Elena or perhaps an explanation from Lee – but when she answered, her crazy aunt’s babbling crowded her head.

“I had a dream about Elena’s little friend,” she shrieked down the line. “She was calling out for help and you have to save her, you have to find her. Don’t let the bad man find her like he found me – oh god, oh god, oh god. It didn’t happen, it didn’t happen, it-”

“Aunt Liza!” Courtney said loudly, unsurprised by the usual insane behaviour. “Calm down. It was just a dream. There is no bad man.”

“There is, there is, he’s chasing her, find her, Aly, find her!”

Courtney sighed and stirred her coffee. “We’ll find her, don’t worry, Auntie. She’ll be safe from the bad man. Now, you should go and find yourself a good book to read and calm-”

“She doesn’t know where she is,” Liza whispered. “Find her.” And the beeping started up as she realised Liza had hung up.

She wrapped her hands around her coffee, leaving the phone on the bench, as she frowned into its brown depths. Something about Aunt Liza’s phone call stirred up her thoughts and gave her an uneasy edge. It reminded her of something…

The mug shattered on the wooden floor, burning liquid splashed across the kitchen. Her chin trembled as she dialled her aunt’s number. Find her, she mouthed, eyes wide and scared.