Clopwyck River - revised version

Chapter Twenty-five

Ruby and I squelched back through the woods towards dry clothing. I think it's the first time I've spent any time with her and she's not had anything to say. Our escape from the moths has worn us both out; we could barely wave a hand as we said our goodbyes. It's so late, I'm hoping everyone is asleep; the darkness of the hallway suggests that my wish has come true. I walk towards the stairs and hear movement from the living room. A lamp flicks on, revealing Andrew stretching in an armchair.
​"Demi?"
​My shoulders slump, one foot poised at the bottom step. "Yeah, it's me."
​"Can we talk a minute?"
​"I'm kind of tired."
​"It won't take long. Come and sit down."
​I slope into the living room and flop down onto the sofa, jumping up again when I remember that I'm drenched in river water.
​Andrew looks me up and down. "You're soaking wet."
​"Yeah. Kind of."
​"Are you going to tell me what happened?" His face suddenly crumbles, his eyes brimming with concern behind his glasses. "Oh my God, Demi, you didn't try to do anything stupid did you?"
​"What?" I frown at Andrew, then I realise he's thinking back to my first night here, and what Ben did on the bridge. "No, no, of course not."
​He leans forward and grabs a fluffy towel from the top of a washing basket that's sitting by the sofa and throws it to me. I catch it and rub it against my hair, then wrap it round my shoulders.
​"Fine, I guess I don't need to know." He takes his glasses off and rubs the top of his nose. "Look, Demi, I know that you must be feeling very betrayed by Daria, and by me."
​"Insightful." I roll my eyes but let him continue.
​"I need you to know that we're sorry, but that everything I said when you got here still stands. This is your home, and we're your family."
​"Yeah, the Addams family."
​"Drop the sarcasm, just for a minute." His eyebrows are angled in concern, and his mouth is set in a serious line. "I know this isn't your ideal situation. It's not ours either. But you have nowhere to go and we have a responsibility for you. Daria and your mother did what they thought was best for you. I know it's going to take you a long time to understand that- you may never fully understand- but for now you have to accept it and try to live your life, under this roof, because we do want you here. One day you might be able to forgive Daria, but to get that day you need to try and put it in the past. You need to try to look forward."
​I let his words flow over me, absorbing the sense in them. I know he's right. I know that I have nowhere to go and I'm sure I will never get my head around my family's lies and secrets, but I don't have the energy to keep digging this chasm between me and whoever I'm around. I take a deep breath, stand up, and walk over to Andrew.
​"I'll add that to my list of things to work on. That's a start, right?"
​He smiles at me as he stands up and puts his hand on my shoulder. "Right. It's a start."
​"Thanks, Andrew."
​"No need for thanks. I'm just glad you gave me a chance."
​I look down, and watch one of Andrew's stripy socked feet take a step forwards. He pulls me into him, puts both of his arms around me, and kisses me on the top of my wet head. I put my arms loosely around his back, and press my cheek against his creased shirt. I don't fight it. I hadn't realised it, but I really, really, needed this hug.
***
I lay in bed all night, not even trying to get to sleep. Thoughts of the last twenty-four hours, of the last couple of weeks, bounced around my mind like a slippery ping pong ball, and I just couldn't keep hold or make sense of a single thought.
​After school, I excused myself from dinner, ignoring Daria and Andrews's glances over their cups of tea, as well as Elliot's whining for me to play hide and seek with him as I grabbed my jacket and headed back out the door, knowing exactly where I was going.
​I've thought about coming back here a few times since my first night, but there was always something that stopped me. I stand at the foot of the bridge, looking up at its cast iron railings that have been touched by hundreds of people since it was built, the ancient black paint peeling with secrets left from the ends of fingertips.
​I close my eyes and can see Ben at the top of the bridge, the night enveloping him in darkness, almost hiding him away from me. I take a deep breath, open my eyes and take my first step onto the bridge. I run my hand along the handrail as I trudge up to the top of the bridge, thinking about Ben laying in his hospital bed as I arrive at the top. I shake my head, silently berating myself that I didn't do more to stop him.
​I look down on the river as it rushes beneath me, unnerved at how strong it looks and the fact that I've found myself deep inside it twice since I've been here. I turn around, leaning my back on the railings, my legs no longer able to keep me upright and I bend my knees, sliding down until I'm sitting with my legs crossed on the cold bridge.
​The questions and thoughts that buzz around my head don't seem so stifling out here, and I drill down onto one of the thoughts that keeps flittering into the front of my mind, letting the cold wind sweep everything else away.
​Now that Dan has finally told me what happened to Ben and me, I thought that everything, all the weirdness that Nigel has spoken of, would have stopped. If the truth about Ben isn't hidden away anymore, why did Ruby and I get attacked by those moths? Did Nigel blind me with a fairy tale that I've been too willing to believe? I was sure if I found out what happened to Ben everything else would fall into place, or at least, Ben would wake up. But he hasn't. Why?
​Because someone is still hiding something. I'm sure of it. Who was the girl that attacked Ben and left me unconscious? Where did she go? I pull my phone from my pocket to search for anything about what happened, but drop it in front of me, annoyed at my habitual attachment to it. I put it in my pocket when I left the house, even though it's been dead since my dip in the river. Its blank screen ignores me, mocking me with information I can't access.
​"Stupid."
​"Was that directed at me, or have you started talking to yourself?" Leo's voice swoops in from nowhere on the wind, catching me off guard and I gasp as I look up at him. "Sorry. Didn't meant to scare you. Mind if I sit?"
​"What do you want?" The sight of him confuses my insides with anger and longing, and I can hardly look at his face as he towers over me, the moonlight turning his hair into a scruffy halo.
​He crouches down and sits next to me, his knee touching mine for an agonising minute as he stretches out his long legs.
​"Nothing. I mean, I didn't know you were going to be here," he says.
​"Oh really, you come here often then?"
​"Actually, yeah I do." He rings his fingers together. "I've been coming here every night since Ben..."
​I look at him in the corner of my eye, realising that Ben isn't the only victim here, that Leo must have been struggling with everything that happened as well.
​"I'm glad you're here though. I've needed to speak to you since the church."
​I shrug my shoulders. "Really, why?"
​"Demi, I....." He looks at me, searching my face for the words he wants to share with me.
​"No, really, Leo, I'm right here." His face fractures but I hold my resolve. "What do you need to say to me so badly?"
​"I just needed to tell you that I'm sorry."
​"Oh!" I clap my hands together. "Thank you! That makes everything better. It's almost as if you never lied to me."
​"I didn't lie to you."
​"That's a joke, right? You knew I'd been here before, you knew what happened to me when Ben was attacked, but you kept it all from me. You just pretended that we'd never met, that I didn't know you and your brother. What else have you lied about?"
​His eyebrows knit together, and he turns to me so his face is just a few inches from mine. My tears betray my harsh words, and I look away from him.
​"Nothing, I haven't lied about anything. The thought that you think I've betrayed you makes me feel like I'm walking around with, like, a stitch, a massive stitch in my side."
​"I don't just think you've betrayed me, you have betrayed me, and you should feel bad. And I'm sorry you feel like you've got a stitch in your side, but I feel like I've got a knife in my side, stuck there by people I thought I could trust, the only people who are my family." I pause, revelations from the twenty four hours still not fully absorbed yet. "Or who I thought were my family. If you've come to talk to someone to make yourself feel better, you're talking to the wrong person. However you spin it, Leo, you've not been honest with me."
​"You...you just don't understand what it's been like for the last ten years, since it all happened. It hasn't been easy for Ben growing up here, with the memory of what happened. I should have protected him then, and I should have protected him from himself, from what he did here. I wanted to tell you everything, I wanted to know if you remembered me, but my Dad didn't think it would be healthy, and considering the issues Ben has had, I didn't know what to do for the best. Believe me, I know I don't deserve to feel better."
​I look at him, his profile staring straight ahead at the other side of the bridge, and I wonder if he's still talking to me, or if he's just sharing his own thoughts with himself. I want to reach out and hold his hand, or kiss his smooth cheek, but the there's a gulf between us.
​"I haven't tried to mislead you, Demi. I've been completely open with how I feel about you. When I kissed you, at the party? That was real. I'd been wanting to do that since I saw you in the hospital." He looks round at me, a hint of a smile on his face. "Even with the bad hair."
​I shake my head, frustrated that he's dredging up that perfect moment at this dark place. "I don't know what you want me to say, Leo."
​"I don't really know what I want you to say, either." He pauses for a moment, his eyes to the side of my face, trying to find his words as he exhales. "You're going to think I'm a complete loser but I've got to be honest about how I feel."
​A little bubble of hope starts to float up in my stomach, anticipating what Leo is about to say to me, but it bursts before it floats too high, something inside me not allowing my body to entertain such positive emotions. I turn my body towards him, and look between my hands and Leo's face, concentrating on his eyelashes as he starts to speak.
"When I was little, we used to go on holiday every year to this small town on the east coast. Dad would drive and Ben and I would fall asleep in the back of the car, but Mum would always wake us once we got close. We'd have a competition to see who'd be the first to see the ocean, and I would crane my neck and kneel in my seat, just so excited to get that first glimpse of our holiday. I'd see a flash of the sea on the horizon between a couple of houses or some trees, and I know it sounds stupid but it was the most incredible thing I'd seen in my young life. Almost mystical I suppose. It was such an exotic colour blue to me, so colossal and magical with the sun twinkling on the surface, and I would get a massive rush of excitement when I caught sight of it."
I can't help but smile at him, enjoying this insight into his childhood but not really knowing where he's going with it. He fixes his gaze on me.
"Your eyes are the same colour as that ocean, Demi, and when I look into them I get that same rush of excitement, times a million. I don't know if it's because you were in my life before but I'm so drawn to you; I can feel you near me like I'm standing right next to a fire. If I touch you, I could get burned, but it'd be worth it. It doesn't feel right not to be with you, not to be kissing you, but if that's not what you want, then I respect that. That's just how I feel."
I blink at him. "I don't know what you expect me to say to that, Leo? I mean, that's incredible, but I....I have feelings for you too, or I had feelings. I don't know what I feel about you now, not after all this. I guess I just need.....what I need at the moment is-"
​"A friend?" A hopeful smile quivers on his face, and I can hardly look at him as I reply.
​"I was going to say....space."
​He turns his face away from mine, but not before I see his features crumble. He takes a moment, then nods his head. "Okay, okay, if that's what you need, I understand."
​"I'm sorry, Leo, I guess that's not what you were hoping for, but too much has happened. I still don't feel like I'm getting the full story. I know there's more that you're keeping from me."
​He pulls himself up, shaking his head as he leans against the railings. "There isn't anything else to the story, Demi! It's not a story, it happened and we've all been trying to move on from it for the last ten years."
​Anger springs me to my feet. "No, you've been trying to move on from it; I've been in the dark since it happened! I know you're holding back from me."
​"How do you know?"
​"I just know! There's something you're not telling me! Daria too!"
​He looks up at the stars and takes a deep breath. "You just need to drop it, Demi. There's nothing else to say."
​"No! I won't drop it!" He rubs the back of his head and looks at his feet. "If there's nothing else to say, you can tell me this one thing then."
​He shrugs, energy pouring from his shoulders. He looks like he can barely stand up straight. "What?"
​"What was her name?" He frowns at me, and I take a step closer to him, my eyes boring into his. "The babysitter? What was her name?"
​The frown dissolves on his forehead and he swallows before he finds his voice. "Her name? Jesus, Demi, I have no idea. I don't remember that."
​I shake my head and put my hands on my hips. "See? This is exactly what I'm talking about. You expect me to believe you don't remember the name of the girl who attacked your baby brother? You must think I'm stupid."
​I turn to walk back down the bridge, away from Leo, away from his lies, and he grabs my wrist, pulling me back. "I don't, Demi, I just, I...."
​"You've become so used to telling lies, you don't know how to tell the truth anymore. Now get your hand off me." His fingers uncurl from my wrist and I snatch my arm back. "I never want to talk to you again."
​I run back down the bridge, the sound of my feet punctuating Leo as he shouts my name after me, for the second time in less than a week.