4 Coffees, 12 Months

5: Sebastian and the Bruised Jaw

Sebastian, February week 2

        Hollie managed a full two weeks before she broke again, her strength pinging like an elastic band and resulting in a late night phone call. I had replayed our conversation so many times in my head already that the quality had become patchy and wobbly, like an overused VCR, the tape beginning to loosen. I sat in my tiny kitchen, the smell of tinned chicken curry almost overpowering, my hands still shaking as I wrapped them around my tea mug. I’d left the teabag in a full three minutes tonight - or, technically, this morning - and it stung soothingly as I took a gulp, that familiar taste washing down my throat and marginally calming my insides. 

        The clock on the wall clicked with every second, drumming another nail into my numb head. Her words kept chasing each other back and forth in my mind, stumbling and morphing and stabbing as they fell. Those two weeks had really taken their toll on her.

        She looked horrific when I arrived, with black moons under eyes swimming with tears, and her bones frighteningly sharp in her face. She looked like a broken doll; her hair was like ironed sunlight, pale gold and thin, and her lips were cracked. I tried not to stare at her as I made us both a cup of tea, settling it in front of her after a few moments.

        There was no rain tonight, but the wind spat against the door leading to her garden, as though hemming us in and forcing us together. My watch ticked to the tune of one in the morning - a new low for Hollie. I sipped from my mug silently, waiting for her to speak.

“I’m such a shit friend,” she finally whispered, closing her eyes and burying her face in her hands, steam curling up to her fingers. “I’m so sorry, Seb. I… I…” she dissolved into tears, those pooling eyes suddenly brimming over.

        Each salty sob felt like a slap, and I desperately wanted to wrap my arms around her, to try and push all her broken pieces back together and hold the tears in. But I shouldn't. And I couldn't.

        This Hollie wasn’t the dazzling and heart-breaking girl of the daylight hours. She was the bare and heart-broken girl of the night-time, the girl who was more like a broken jigsaw than a polished princess. She was the messed-up Hollie. The broken one. The real one.

        I was scared to speak, afraid to snap her elastic-band control any further. My throat felt tight and my heart ached just looking at her, and I couldn’t tell her that.

        After a while, she stopped crying, the tearstains on her face drying and branding her skin with emotion. It took another few minutes for her breathing to return to normal, but I sat and waited, calmly drinking my tea, gripping onto her hand fiercely to keep her afloat. She seemed to fall into a stupor, staring out of that window into the darkness. I wondered what she could see there that entranced her so much.

“My Mum was crying today,” she said robotically, although her fingers squeezed mine painfully. “Turns out she saw Dad on the train. She was sick when she got home. See, that’s what he did to us. Never really goes away, does it? Apparently, he’s having counselling. To deal with the alcoholism, that is. Not much they can do about the fact that he’s a fucking evil bastard.”

        I tried not to flinch at the venom dripping from her voice. I knew why she was angry; I remembered the bruises as well as she did. It only took for her father to hit her once for her mother to make him leave. It had been awful for both of them, and I knew there was a part of Hollie that, whilst she could never forgive him, could never stop loving him.  I remembered the nights she would come and stay at my house, when my parents would make us both soup and we’d sit in a den of duvets in the living room, watching movies. Of course, this was when my Dad was home, too. This was about eight years ago, before time had stripped her of her love for the world. This was before she had to become hard and cruel.