Maybe it’s possible to vanish from one’s life. To just up and leave. I remember once walking from my father’s house after my mother had passed, and just walking. It wasn’t so hard - one foot in front of the other. Endless days and steps. I wonder if you can walk the distance of the earth, stopping in places to steal food and water. That isn’t the hard part. Of course, you’d have to steal shoes and maybe clothes sometimes. I have never tried those. How long would it take? Would you need to come back?
I could walk. Just get out of bed, get dressed and leave. I could leave this endless charade of nothing. Nothing…that’s all. Except the silent whisper, like a beaten puppy that no longer protests, but just lies there with weak acceptance of its fate, not even wishing for death. Just hoping that one day the sun might come up and, for a moment, it could forget itself.
I don’t think Joanne even notices when we are in bed. I wear my mask well. It is well-versed. Only sometimes does it slip, when I am tired, but that can easily be covered by giving in to her desires.
For two weeks, I have not been home. Two weeks since I dropped Will at his mother’s so that I could go out. Two weeks I am late meeting Scott, and probably Neil. The thought makes me smile a little, but I hold in my laugh. It would take one hell of an apology, that’s for certain.
Joanne is sleeping next to me. The soft rise of her chest and gentle breaths let me know that she is lucky. Lucky to be taken from the world of darkness, where reality sits at the door, and sorrow hides just below. In dreams, sometimes, there are nightmares. Usually of him. They wake me in the night, startle me from my sleep and, for moments, I am not sure where I am or how old. Usually I can feel him there, like a presence standing by my bed, watching and waiting. He needs me to just move, and then he can grab for me like he did so many times before.
Staying asleep keeps me safe somehow. He liked me to be awake. He liked me to scream and fight. But sleep was the time he could sneak into my room and stand waiting and watching.
I feel like I somehow walked out of my life two weeks ago. I didn’t even know I was doing it. I have seen Will sometimes. I have dropped into his mother’s to check on him, give him clean clothes, or take him to the park. He seems happy enough there.
Our home is like a wasteland. There’s an echoey hollowness when I walk in the door - the same kind you get when someone has died, except here they haven’t. They’ve just gone away and the life has gone from the flat. It’s like our absence gave room for emptiness to move in. I wonder when it did. I don’t like to go there - it’s like a cold, dark fog clings to my skin with clammy hands when I am there. Everything is just the same, though. Except for the clothes. I go there to exchange them - dirty for clean.
I don’t really know if I’ll go back there, or if I can. It doesn’t feel like home. It feels violated.
Coming out of my thoughts, I glance at the clock which sits on top of Joanne’s television. It glows red in the dark, but it isn’t even late. We have been in bed for hours. I need a shower. My skin feels sticky and dirty. I don’t like to use the one here, though. It is shared and the water is cold.
Every minute ticks by in a painful tick tock, as if time itself has become fatigued. I roll onto my side and close my eyes, desperate for some kind of solace, but sleep doesn’t come. It evades me at every corner and I sigh in frustration.
“What time is it?” Joanne mumbles, her voice still thick with sleep. Her eyes are still closed and even in the dark, her face is perfect - flawless. Her long, honey-coloured hair fans out behind her on her pillow.
“Just after seven,” I murmur.
She rubs her eyes, yawns and then sits up. “We should be getting up to go out.” She leans down and kisses me and then smiles. Before I can respond, she throws back the blanket and gets out of bed. I hear her moments later unlocking the door to her bedsit and then the door to the shared bathroom.
I lie still for a second, not moving until I hear her coming back. We are going out. To her friend’s house. I have never met them, but she says we’re going around for dinner and the evening. Maz and Froggy, she told me their names were, although I am sure neither one of them has parents so cruel. They don’t live that far away. I will pop in to see Will on the way.
“I need a shower,” I say when Joanne comes back into the room. She flicks the light on, momentarily blinding me. She is standing there in one of my t-shirts and nothing else.
“Me too,” she says. “We can get one at Maz’s place.” Obviously the look I give her lets her know what I am thinking because she quickly adds, “It doesn’t matter. I shower there many times. Maz doesn’t care, you’ll see.”
That doesn’t matter to me; I am still wary about it. Maybe I can go home in the morning and take a bath there.
It doesn’t take that long to get ready. I just throw on the same clothes that we had discarded hours ago, before getting into bed. Joanne does the same. She fixes up her make-up, though, and runs a brush through her hair until it is shining and soft.
It’s one of those days where I don’t even know who I am. The me that existed a fortnight ago seems to be off into the past somewhere, and the me that is here now doesn’t quite fit. It’s like the shadow of my former self is fighting to come out again, but I don’t let it. I push it away and plaster a fake smile on my face.
Even after we have seen Will and then walked to Maz’s flat, the smile is still firmly in place. Joanne knocks and I stand just a small distance behind her. When the door opens, a woman comes out. She flings her arms around Joanne’s neck and pulls her into an embrace. When she lets her go, Joanne introduces us. “This is Maz,” she says to me.
I am about to reply hi, but Maz has none of that. Just as she did with Joanne, she throws her arms around me, standing on her tiptoes for her arms to reach my neck. Oddly enough, I find myself hugging her back. She holds me tight to her and I do the same. She smells like incense and soap. She kisses my cheek and lowers herself again so that she can stare at me. But it is not like other stares. I don’t turn away, don’t avert my eyes, that she might see the shame that hides behind them.
She is about my age, maybe a little older, and while I would normally think of someone as a girl, when I look at Maz, I see that she is not that. She is a woman, and I don’t know what it is about her that makes me think of her that way, but she has this air that makes it so. She has light, brown hair that falls in waves to her shoulders, and her face is…all I can say is beautiful, but I dont think that would even suffice.
It is only when she talks that I realise what it is that has taken my breath away. She wears the same face as I do. Her eyes hold the same thoughts and, in those mere seconds, I saw behind the mask. And maybe she saw through mine.
