Rope

One month later

Here I am, lying on my loft bed at home, drawing butterflies on my ceiling. It’s the first time I’m allowed to use a ladder since the ‘accident’. That’s what mom calls it. She thinks I went up to practice and there was a fault with the parachute. She never found the note. Sis did. She hasn’t told mom and she hasn’t said a word to me since.

The doctors said that strong winds must’ve blown me off course so I crash landed. They showed me the x-rays. They were definitely not the injuries from the fall so no wonder they thought differently. When I had woken up in hospital all I had were a couple of fractures in my legs, arms and wrists and they healed very quickly. The doctors said it was a miracle. It felt more like a living hell to me. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I was supposed to have died from the fall, my last thrill on earth. The fact that I’m still alive just doesn’t make sense. I’ve been to the crash site a couple times, but there’s nothing there. No crater or hole, not even skid marks. It’s like I dreamed the whole thing up. Especially as I haven’t seen him since.

To my left is my sketchpad. I always draw to try and clear my head. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t; right now it’s not really helping me. It’s open to the drawing I made of him. If you go back a few pages there are more pictures that I drew of him. I bet if he ever saw this he’d find it a little creepy. But none of them are actually finished. I’m usually pretty good at drawing from memory but there’s just one feature I can’t quite get right. His eyes. I just can’t get that same spark, the storm, their murkiness, I just can’t recreate it. It’s too alive.

“Becca, Angel, I’m leaving,” mom called. She started working nights at the corner store to help make ends meet after our dad died. This was going to be her first night working since the accident. It was obvious that she didn’t want to leave me alone, but she’d have to eventually.

“Bye,” I replied.

Sis didn’t say anything.

“Don’t stay up too late both of you, good night,” she called again.

“Yeah, good night,” I answered. Nothing from Angel. Then I heard the door slam shut; finally she was gone.

Just then my phone vibrated. It was a text from Katie, my best friend from across the road. It said:

Jst sw cuckoo fly coupe, meet @ J park 10min? x

I let out a weary laugh and sighed. We used to call our parents cuckoos and crows when we were younger, part of our secret language. Johnson Park was only a two minute walk down the back alley next to my house; it’s where we used to hang out after school before it became notorious for its drug dealers and underage drinking and bonfires etc. and now it’s always full of cops so we stopped going.

I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to go. All that would happen was that I’d tell the same story that my mom had told the school, skydiving accident, faulty parachute, strong winds, and then I’d have to sit there and listen to them all talk about their lives which was fine, I loved to listen to other people, it just always left me feeling a little sad and got me thinking about other things, past things, and I’m just so sick of that feeling that I get, that I try not to have to feel at all now.

But staring at that text tugs at my heart a little; I haven’t seen Katie for over a month and she’ll be waiting for me. I couldn’t let her down. Reluctantly, I texted her back ‘be there in 5’ and then slowly crawled down from the loft bed.

I grabbed my keys and jacket before heading down the stairs and slipping on my wellies. Knowing Katie, she’d have invited other people for a little reunion, but also knowing Katie, we’d eventually split from the group and go on a very long walk and it had been raining heavily this morning.

“Angel, I’m going for a walk, be back later,” I called and then slipped out of the front door.

It was chilly outside and the air smelt like fresh rain. The pavement was wet and once I reached the alleyway, the dirt path was muddy, slugs everywhere. It was hard to walk without squishing them especially with the hedges and weeds overgrown. Also the sun was setting; what little sky that I could see through the overhanging tree leaves was a hazy orange and dimming.

It wasn’t long before the weeds thinned and the path widened and I reached the bridge. The path cut underneath a railway line and it was there that most of the gangs hung out, but checking my watch, it was only after 7. They usually came out around nine.

I couldn’t hear anything at first because there was the blaring horn and screeching noise of a freight train slowing as it went over the curved bridge. I wasn’t even looking where I was going I was so distracted by the train going past, counting the cars out of habit. But when the train finally passed, I lowered my gaze to find two pairs of eyes staring at me, one stone cold and empty, the other that familiar muddy brown and very much alive.