Your Inaccessible Light

By the time we arrive at Ronnie’s house, my emotions are all over the place. The sadness and the longing have started to kick in, and I’m thankful that Ronnie is letting me stay. God knows how much of a mess I’d be right now without him.

“Are you sure it’s okay to stay here tonight?” I ask. As soon as I speak the words, I feel a couple of tears escape my eyes. This doesn’t go unnoticed by Ronnie who pulls me into a hug.

“Of course sweetie, that’s fine,” he soothes, stroking my hair as we sit down on the couch. We remain silent for a while because Ronnie knows not to push me into sharing my feelings, which furthermore proves my theory that he knows me better than I know myself. I hear a noise at the front door and look up to see a drunken man stumbling in. I’ve never met him before but I know it must be Ronnie’s older brother Anthony. His hair is short unlike Ronnie’s, but it’s scruffy and all over the place. His eyes are bloodshot and I know that he must be high on some sort of drug. I can’t deal with this right now. Is it too much to ask to not be surrounded by fucking drug addicts?

“So this is that girl you’ve been on about?” Anthony slurs, eyeing me up and down. I look down at the ground, losing the tiny amount of confidence I have left. Ronnie tenses up beside me, instinctively on guard.

“Anthony, just go upstairs.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” he hisses, grabbing Ronnie by the collar and yanking him up.

“Fuck off okay?” Ronnie yells, shoving his brother away from him. Anthony smirks and turns his attention back to me, crouching down to my level. He places his hand roughly on the side of my face, stroking my cheek with his calloused hands. His breath stinks of alcohol and god knows what else, and I’m frozen in fear. I glance up at Ronnie who is standing behind me, searching his eyes for some sort of instruction of what to do, but I can tell he’s as scared as I am, he’s just better at hiding it than me.

“You’re a pretty girl,” Anthony chuckles to himself, “Why are you wasting your time with this fuck-up?”

“Don’t fucking touch her,” Ronnie orders, shoving Anthony’s hand away from my face.

“Is she staying here tonight?”

“If that’s okay,” Ronnie says, suddenly lacking confidence.

“Sure, you seem like you have a lot of…aggression you need to let out, as long as you keep the noise down,” Anthony chuckles to himself again.

“Fuck you,” Ronnie mutters, shaking his head. Ronnie’s scared. I’ve never seen him scared before. Anthony shrugs, once again coming over to me and leaning down so his face is just millimetres from mine. “You’re a pretty girl,” he says again, smirking before turning and stumbling upstairs.

“I’m sorry,” Ronnie sighs, staring down at the ground. He looks sad. I don’t blame him. He looks exactly how I felt when I saw Austin in that state, or Ronnie himself for that matter. Maybe Ronnie and I aren’t so different after all. For the first time, I see an almost vulnerable side to him. I’ve always known it existed – he takes drugs to hide it, after all – but I’ve never seen it. I need to stay strong for him. I need to pull myself together.

“It’s not your fault,” I tell him, reaching for his hand. He nods and leads me upstairs to his room, but he’s still quiet. I know he’s upset and I wish I knew how to help him but I don’t. He sits down on the bed, leaning against the wall and I sit next to him, both of us being suffocated by our thoughts.

“Noelle, you can talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking. You know I won’t tell anyone,” he soothes, stroking my hair softly.

“I can’t tell you Ronnie. I can’t tell anyone,” I cry. I can tell him some things, more than I can tell anyone else, but I can’t tell him that thing; the thing that’s bothering me most. Austin wouldn’t want anyone to know. I have to do what Austin wants.

“Listen to me,” Ronnie orders, pressing his right hand to my cheek and wiping my tears with his thumb, “You’re keeping everything inside. That’s not good for you sweetie. You’ll feel a hundred times better just for letting it all out. Now I know it’s hard because you never know who you can trust in this shit hole of a town, and the only person you’ve every trusted is gone, but I swear to you, you can trust me. You can tell me anything. I’m not gonna leave you, okay?” More tears spring to my eyes as Ronnie speaks the words I’ve been longing to hear for so long. He’s so wise and I wonder how someone who appears not to care about anything can care so much about this. And then it hits me.

“What about you Ronnie?” I ask, “You’re hurting too. I know you are. You use the drugs to block out whatever shit is going on in your life, just like Austin did, so tell me.” Ronnie exhales sharply and looks down at the ground, visibly caught off-guard. I see what I think is a look of nervousness cross his face. It is gone before I can be sure it was even there.

“I don’t talk about my problems. I don’t like to talk about that stuff,” Ronnie mutters.

“And neither do I, but it’s better to let it all out, right?”

“Right,” he finally agrees, although he doesn’t seem convinced.

“Okay. Both of us take it in turns to say something that’s playing on our mind, something that we’ve never talked about to anyone. Whatever is said does not go outside these walls.”

“You start,” he tells me, still looking down at the ground.

“Okay. My parents are never around and I feel like they don’t care about me,” I begin.

“My brother is a mess.”

“My family never speak of Austin, as though he never existed.”

“My mum left me.” I reach out and take Ronnie’s hand in my own, trying to reassure both him and myself.

“You remind me of Austin in so many ways and I’m scared I’ll lose you like I lost him.”

“I’m scared people will think I’m weak.”

“Me too I guess.” We both sit in silence for the next couple of minutes, side by side on his bed, still gripping each other’s hand. It’s difficult to take it all in. I suspected all of the things he said, but it’s different now he’s actually said them out loud. Maybe he’s thinking the same thing about me. We both know how hard it was to admit those things to each other. I still haven’t told him the other thing about Austin and I doubt I ever will. I push it to the back of my mind, trying to focus on anything but that.

“Why do your parents never speak about your brother?” Ronnie asks after what seems like an eternity. I relax a little, because this is a straight-forward question.

“They care too much about what everyone thinks. They want us to be seen as this perfect happy family. I’m sure a part of them is upset but it’s as though they think avoiding the problem makes it go away. Does your mum leaving you make you feel like you’re not good enough?”

“Yep. Do you think they miss your brother?”

“I think a part of them does. Even though they were never around and they never tried to help, they must have loved him. Do you wish your mum would come back?”

“Sometimes. Were you the only person that knew how bad Austin’s addiction was?”

“People that claimed to be his friends knew, but if they were really his friends, they would have helped. I was the only one that knew certain things. Do you think people will think you’re weak because of your mum?”

“Among other things. Why do you feel like you have to hide it from me when you’re upset about Austin…or anything for that matter?”

“I guess I’ve never really had anyone to talk to, besides Austin and now he’s gone. You remind me of him so much and I don’t want to lose you. Do you take drugs to fill the gap your mum left?”

“Yes.” We stop with the questions and go back to sitting in silence before Ronnie pulls me into his arms. He lies down on his back and I lay next to him, facing in to him. His arm is wrapped around me and my hand is tucked across his chest. We don’t speak, partly because we don’t know what to say, but also because we’ve never spoke like that to anyone, and it’s both physically and mentally draining. I rest my head on his chest and fall asleep to the sound of his beating heart, for the first time in a long time, feeling like a weight has been lifted.