Picture This (Niall Horan Trilogy)

-Sun, sea & interuptions [Chapter 1]

But who thought somewhere and something so magical and almost enchanting could be the bearer of something so sinister, hollow and bleak? Not me, that was until it finally was. The evidence right before my eyes delivered to me in the usual sweetie we have something to tell you manner. At the tender age of four years old death was a whole another world for me. So it was safe to say that I was all for confusion when I was informed that she had died right in the ocean. Nobody really knew what happened that night, of course everyone had the audacity to offer up their scenarios at the worst of times, but all in all, there was no real evidence found. And after two months of investigation the police did what everyone else but I did: Case Closed. It was made out to be that simple, like you could put this stamp on this piece of paper and press a button on a computer and the case of death is forgotten about along with the person who was the victim. Apparently to everyone it was that simple, everyone but me.

Alone was a whole other concept for my Auntie. She didn’t like it, loathed it even. Which was why whenever she went for her quiet evening walks on the beach I would always go with her. But then things started to change when she got divorced, a divorce is never pretty, but the word ugly didn’t even begin to cover hers. So when she told my four year old self that she wanted to go for a walk alone I knew that something was wrong. But I was too innocent, and polite to say anything so I had agreed that night. That didn’t mean I didn’t press my face up against the window leaving fingerprints to be cleaned off as she left her long skirt flowing behind her as she trudged across the threshold, down the steps and onto the beach and then disappeared from view, a prominent pout evitable on my full and childlike lips. But all the frowning in the world wasn’t going to undo what went wrong that night. It was like a missing person’s case, although the outcome of death was concluded was a lot sooner than anyone was prepared for, and that included me.

I always knew that the quiet and hushed conversation took behind the almost-shut-but-not-quite-shut kitchen door was a risky one. It was one that was not meant for a child’s ears, the one that if you were to enter the kitchen in hope for another Juice Box you better backtrack right now and wait until Mum’s done on her Kitchen Phone Conversation. But being the close relation I was to Jane and the strange sense of something being wrong, I had stood there at four years old against the wall and listened to my Mother’s tired tone, worry flooding it.

“Yes…No. About eight last night it was, eight yes. E-I-G-H-T.”

My Mother repeated into the phone as if this was a spelling convention and not a missing person’s case. Even in my shortlist memory of what time The Tweenies’ was on that time rang an immediate bell, it was the time that Jane had left for her ‘alone’ walk. And to my knowledge, never came back.

It didn’t even surprise me when she realised I was there and ushered me out worry and concealing of it etched onto her tired face. I was a stroppy child when people kept things from me so I had walked to the lounge hugging a cushion to my chest as I frowned watching the window, waiting, hoping, that just any second now she would walk up the steps, over the threshold and be ready to hold me in her frail arms again that had only got thinner with the depression of the divorce that she was enduring, but we all knew deep down that she never did, and never would again.

It also didn’t surprise me when my Mum sat next to me and tried to act like everything was okay, but I was all ready to bombard her with my frantic child’s scenarios.

“Where is she?!”

My voice was so cracked and dry with that question, mirroring my Mother’s own. That was probably the only thing we held in common, how shaky our voices were when we worried.

“She’s safe Ashley, she’s safe.”

But the uncertainty in my Mother’s tone was clear as day. I had never understood why she had this, if she didn’t even believe or know it herself. To tell someone that somebody’s safe when you have no idea if they are or not is giving false hope, I’d always hated false hope. Even if sometimes it was all I wanted somebody to give me.