Glitch (The Write Awards 2013 Winner)

Glitch - Chapter 9

“I’m really sorry.” Freya’s words resonated with the scratching mumble of a body craving sleep and respite from the insisting pain of a morning-after headache. It felt as if her mind had become too heavy with thoughts to comfortably hold aloft her head, but at the same time her exhaustion dispelled any significant amount of thought. 

“Don’t apologise, there is really no need.”  Wren’s point could have easily been forced into the empty irrelevance of inaccuracy with a very simple line of argument.  The attack battered against the wall of Freya’s closed mouth; fighting to break free with the driving force of a strengthened confidence in their own correctness. But they were denied entry into the quiet hush of the room.

Wren’s words had no interest in being proved right or wrong. They defied any notion of black and white. They were simply an offering of wiping the slate clean, an extension of the olive branch and it would have been wrong to refuse the simplicity that their existence requested. Freya swallowed her apology, but not the thought that it was needed. The debt she owed had not disappeared. It was to be saved for a more convenient time.

Last night it had been Wren who held back her hair as the sting of whisky resurfaced with the added burn of acid scraping along her throat. It had been Wren who talked with her until the walls melted back into a motionless still. She had tucked Freya into bed and cleared away all the evidence of the incident before morning. And then she had neatly tied up her kindness with a ribbon of consideration; Wren had made sure the room was shrouded in a dark isolation when Freya woke. The brewing headache festering in her mind had been instantly thwarted from reaching a crest of pain by the shade.

“I left the bucket underneath your bed. Just in case you still aren’t feeling well,” Wren said while gesturing somewhere beneath where Freya had swathed herself in sheets.

“You seem to be awfully prepared.” It took her a few moments to mumble the reply. As Wren had predicted the illness had not fully subsided. Freya had to pause a few moments to swallow down a swell of acidic burn.

“We’ve all been there.” Wren said with a tight smile. She handed Freya a glass of water and then settled herself on the opposite end of the bed. Freya found herself hindered with words once more; this time with shock as the culprit.

“Mat?” she spluttered. Without permission Freya’s mind lurched to create an imagining of Wren and Mat together. Mercifully it was left lacking in any clear picture of a romantic event. There had been no clue of any trail of past attachment between them; no bitter grimaces, no lingering remnants of affection or forced civility. Nothing. Before she could dwell on the unsettling topic another moment she caught the reflection of her mistake across Wren’s features. Caught between amusement and repulsion; wrinkles of distaste etched across her brow and a fluttering upturn of her lips took occupation.

“No!” The outburst came with a hiccup of giggles. She shook her head so violently that the small strands of hair splayed outwards before falling neatly into place once the movement had ended. Her emotions had evidently settled on amusement. Wren's face had crinkled into laughter; like cracks through porcelain. It added a charm that the unsettling perfection of her straight face lacked. Freya found herself smiling at her own mistake to mirror the magic of fragmented perfection.

“Whisky?” she rectified her suggestion.

“Closer, my vice was excessive amounts of wine.” With a simple sentence Wren had torn down every preconception Freya had built around her. Until that moment she had treated Wren as a pristine stretch of white paper and every action around her was another tear, another blot and another blemish. Freya imagined her to be shaken by the smallest of shivers; knocked back by the rolling tumble of a light summer’s breeze. She had been wrong. Through fragmented perfection shone a hidden strength.