No Problem

Chapter 15

                 

I watched as the lorry came charging down the road like a bull. My dad's red mini rolled back, out of the driveway, the whole car seemed to drift like the red piece of fabric wavering in front of the bull.

They collided. Unlike a bull and its fighter's red sheet, it was horrific. The windows shattered so easily, it was hard to believe they'd lasted for so many years. The whole side of the car was bent in as if it were made of rubber.

I screamed.

*****

The tapping of heels going down the corridor kept me on edge, as the beep of the heart monitor stayed at a steady pace and I crept into the room as mum had asked. I sat in the seat beside him - not sure what to say. I wasn't even sure if he could hear me: he was unconscious. I fumbled around with the edge of my top, muttering something about how it was all going to be okay, and that this was probably all a dream.

The heart monitor suddenly screamed at me. The sound so loud and high pitched. I knew what it meant. But I didn't know what to do. My head spun around the room. I scrunched my face up in pain of the sound and did the only thing I knew how to do.

I ran.

I ran out of the room, out of the hospital, out of the entire area - the sound still piercing my head and ringing in my ears as I ran along the sea front. I went to the only place that I knew how to get to that wasn't home: Miss Poppet's Little Caff.

The second part of the memory was caught on repeat. A rerun: like that sitcom that's on TV everyday and you always seem to catch the same episode.

Accept this sitcom wasn't funny.

Even the soothing sound of the sea lapping up and down the shore on the island couldn't pull the memory out of my head.

I had sat in the same spot Jay was at yesterday: it gave me the chance to admire the beauty of the beach, without tourists seeing the tears that wouldn't stop running. The shadows like a mask hiding my face.

I had never thought about what had happened so deeply or seriously. It was always there, in the back of my mind: my hands scrunching into nervous fists whenever I saw a lorry, and I would wince whenever Robert drove right behind the car in front because they were driving too slow, I'd even turn off Hollyoaks whenever they were in a hospital. But, I'd never really noticed any of them as affects from the past, they were just habits.

I tried for the hundredth time to distract myself with other thoughts.

I thought back to Jay's protective arms, cradling me so gently that I felt like I was a small child who'd just grazed her knee. There was only one other person who had ever made me feel so important: dad. The similarities between both Jay and my dad were alarming, yet kind of comforting, and then the contrast with Jay snapping at me and acting like Robert was crazy. The person I hated most in this world, and the person I couldn't have loved more and somehow they made up Jay.

I saw a young lady walking across the golden sands, her beach babe hair floating in the summer breeze and her tanned body complimented her yellow bikini. It reminded me of Gabby, the mother of Jay's child. The fact that he saw similarities between Gabby and I was a strange matter, and one that I couldn't quite get my head around.

Perhaps we all have the same qualities inside of us, just some people choose to pursue certain ones more than others.

I suddenly spotted a shadow next to me. "How long have you been sat there?" I asked timidly, as if the shadow may not actually be there at all.