Damaged Goods, Waiting to be Broken - Chapters 1, 2 & 3

Damaged Goods, Waiting To Be Broken

By D.J Coleborn

A B U S E - By Penn Canaan
Sticks and stones, sticks and stones
They shred my skin, splinter my bones
Cry and tremble, cry and tremble
You break me up then reassemble
Got too dirty, got too dirty
Hide in the corner, beg for mercy
I got home late, I got home late
You lash out and spew your hate
I walked in mud, I walked in mud
So now you make me stand in blood
I see your grin, I see your grin
Bite and bear, cold leather sting
Don't understand, don't understand
When I was  young you held my hand
Manic laughter, manic laughter
I looked up to you, you were my father

Where We're Going, We Don't Need Seat-Belts

1
As the car crashed, the metal casing crumbled around me and collapsed inwards. The last thing I saw was the world famous BMW emblem, glistening in the light of the cracked headlights on the darkening road, surrounded by the mangled, misshapen metal that was once my car bonnet. Those three letters seemed to be gloating, they were proud of the fact my own car could kill me, whenever it wanted to, and however it wanted to. We put our lives in the hands of the car manufacturers, and the cars themselves on a daily basis. Never hesitating. Never considering, it could be the last thing we ever do. Nothing seemed wrong with my car that day, there seemed no cause for concern. Yet, traveling at forty, in a thirty zone (mainly due to the fact that I had offered to drop my mother off at home, knowing very well I was already going to be late for class that afternoon) I drove directly over a pot hole, around two feet wide and one foot deep, which directly resulted in the loss of my cars suspension, quickly followed by my front, right tyre blowing out. Spinning out of control, we drifted to the opposite side of the road, in the line of incoming traffic. I panicked. Apparently, the driver of the sixteen wheeler didn't see us, or the vast amount of cars swerving and deviating around us, yet he later swore in court this had nothing to do with the fact he had been driving for fourteen hours straight, fueled purely by Red Bull and coffee.
So there I was, I had just collided with a sixteen wheeler, at least ten times the size of my car. The world seemed to transcend into slow motion, one moment I was flying forward, the next I was being forced backwards by my airbag. In this heightened state of sensitivity I felt each of four ribs on my left side and three on my right snap under the combined pressure of both my seatbelt and airbag, I could feel the dashboard caving in onto my legs and my door being forcefully compressed to half its original size, scoring a twenty four stitch long cut along my arm as it did so. Worst of all, through all of this I realized I could hear the engine and the fan of the sixteen wheeler, more than that of my own car. Staring at the glistering BMW insignia, still trapped in the slow motion realm, I began to slide in and out of consciousness. Eventually settling in an interesting state of sleep, I could no longer see, I couldn't even open my eyes if I wanted to, however, I could hear everything, every snap of metal, every muttered word and every crack of splintering bone.
I heard my mother breathing deeply, I couldn't believe that from the moment I went over the pothole and the car began to spin out of control, my flittering thoughts had not settled on her once. Knowing that she was alright did set aside an uneasy feeling that had been plaguing my mind, inside my unconscious body, however. She shuffled and gasped,
‘Oh my god.’ There was a long pause, filled only by various sounds of movement. If she was checking my pulse, or silently trying to wake or move me, it occurred to me I obviously could not feel in the surreal state I was in. I could only hear. Suddenly the silence was interrupted by three sequenced beeps, voiced by her Blackberry, her second pride and joy, after me supposedly. ‘Um, yes. I need an ambulance and a fire engine … Yes, the fire service.’ Her voice was constantly wavering from panicked to calm, sad to scared and her English accent was magnified, as it always was when she was on the phone. ‘Yes. I've been in a car accident. No, I'm fine … No … I'm fine, I can move. But my son. He was driving. No, he's unconscious, he has been since it happened. He is … But it's very slow, and shallow.’ Although, I couldn't see my Mothers face, I could most definitely hear the aggravated tone to her voice. She was obviously extremely concerned for me. I began to wonder how I looked. Did I look as if I was about to give up? Like my body was struggling? I heard a final beep of her phone, apparently having missed the final sentences of her conversation with the emergency services operator. The noises around me drifted. The noises of the passing traffic became blurred and merged together as a constant hum. An almost electrical hum.
‘Don't worry Penn, here be out you'll soon of. Be you'll safe.’ I heard her say. But I didn't. Or she didn't. Something was wrong. Was I still breathing? I couldn't tell. Could I even tell before? Suddenly I was overwhelmed by a bright, white light.

2
I didn't sleep. I didn't dream. It was as if my mind died in the accident, and stayed dead for several days following the collision. I was cold, but I didn't know it.
When I woke I was alone. My room was empty, filled with the clinically sanitized scent that undoubtedly filled every room, on every floor of the whole hospital. What was that smell? Every hospital smelt like it, but can anybody, really, pinpoint what the cause of it is? It always made me feel too clean. It felt like the place was so clean, it didn't have a smell at all. Nothing has its own smell in a hospital. I bet even second hand books, usually mustering individual and potent aromas, would all smell exactly the same within such a sterilized and aseptic environment. I sat slowly, running my hand over my face and freshly grown facial hair, perhaps just verging on fully fledged beard territory, rather than stubble. Impressive. Although, it did set my mind wondering, how long had it been since the crash, how long had I been lying in bed? My five o'clock darkness suggested it had been at least a few days, three at the least, five at the most, I was almost sure of that. I sat up straight, my ribs and legs aching as I did so. I simply felt lucky to still be able to feel my legs, to be able to move, to be breathing at all. The pain in a way, felt good, it seemed to me that after being involved in a serious car accident, if you felt no pain you were worse off, either paralyzed, or dead. In that kind of situation, pain is the best you can hope for.
I didn't feel scared, or emotional at all. I stared out of the window, it was bright outside, but there appeared to be a fair amount of wind all the same. I saw the trees bending and twisting in the breeze, which would surely smell like the ocean, like salt. I must have sat, staring, for at least ten minutes. I watched the trees bow to the breeze, I watched the birds skit and scat amongst them, and several lone butterflies flit past the window. Once, a sixteen wheeler passed, I could only see the top of the trailer from my bed, yet, I could hear it living, the pressure releasing and hissing from the tires, the gravel of the road spitting up around it, and the creaking chimes of the attachment between the trailer and the drivers cabin. I shuddered, and flinched as I heard the brakes screech, and the whole thing jolt to a stop outside the hospital, no doubt at traffic lights or a pedestrian crossing, although I had come to learn of the severe lack of pedestrians in L.A. As the goose pimples were finally departing my body, and the hairs running along the top of my spine and around the back of my neck were returning to their comfortable, more vertical position, the door to my room, my private room, opened. The nurse who entered immediately seemed panicked, either not expecting me to be conscious or alarmed by my somewhat, upright position.
‘You really shouldn't be sitting up.’ She said. Her yellow, stained teeth scintillating at me as she did so. They made it very obvious she took more than a few smoking breaks a day, most probably escaping to the hospital roof to do so. Releasing the built up tension caused by her most annoying and stubborn patients. Each to their own. I thought to myself whilst lying back slowly, using both arms to slowly lower myself back to the confinement of my bed. She approached me and grasped my left arm with considerable strength, seemingly pushing me down even more so. I was fairly convinced, she now considered me one of her most annoying and stubborn patients, apparently she tarred patients with the same brush surprisingly quickly. ‘Please Mr Canaan. You've got to give your body time to recover, and if you pull any stitches again, I won't be best pleased.’ She glanced down at the outside of my left forearm, just bellow where she was holding. The cut that I had felt being made by the crumbling metal of my car door appeared much worse than it felt. It was not a cut, but a gash, at least ten inches long. The stitches seemed fresh and clean, juxtaposing with the thin layer of dry blood surrounding them.
‘How did I ...’ I started, staring from the clean stitches to the nurse. Nurse Samson, according to her staff badge. She pursed her lips and glanced at me sympathetically.
‘You were in a car accident.’ She finally said. ‘What is the last thing you remember?’ I felt my eyes, wanting to roll in my head. I resisted the temptation, knowing she was only doing her job.
‘I know I was in a car accident, with a sixteen wheeler.’ I said calmly, I felt my mouth slowly curving into a smile as I looked at her. ‘But, um … How … When did I pull out my stitches?’ Her face dropped drastically as I asked this severely fractured question.
‘You've been here for four days.’ I knew it … Almost exactly! ‘In that time ...’ She said this slowly, her voice lowering along with her head as she began to stare directly into my eyes, her browns meeting my blues. My smile quickly disappeared. ‘... You've awoken seven times. This will be your eighth, and hopefully your last.’ I agreed with her there, the sooner I was able to leave the happier I would be. ‘And every time, except now obviously, you've been worse. Distraught. Convinced that somebody, a man, was going to find you, and hurt you. Convinced you had to leave, run. You kept saying you had to run.’ This haunted me as soon as she said it, and why couldn't I remember it. ‘It was like each time you were waking from an even worse nightmare. Four times, four times you tore your IV from your arm, your stitches too. A real mess.’ It became clear she could tell by my face, and my newly acquired case of, sour lemon lips, that what she had told me, I didn't want to hear, as she smiled and shook her head. ‘But that's all behind you now. You clearly seem better. Do you feel alright, considering?’ I smiled, unsure as to whether it was an attempt to calm her mind or mine. Who was I really trying to convince?
‘Considering.’ I responded, not quite sure what I meant. Nurse Samson simply smiled and nodded before she moved around to the other side of my bed, she tapped the clear tube flowing with liquid from my IV and peered into the monitor positioned next to it, beeping quietly, presumably in sync with my heart beat.
‘You seem to be in good enough shape, you have a visitor outside. Should I send her in?’ She muttered distantly, gazing back at me, her mind had obviously, and suddenly been overcome with another thought. I nodded. She approached the door, and just as she was about to quietly exit my room, she turned. ‘And leave those stitches!’ She added jollily. I laughed and saluted, with my left arm, my arm not attached to an IV, a monitor and only god knew what else. It was an odd, half salute, and more difficult than I assumed it would be, being a righty. She seemed to appreciate it none the less, smiling and chuckling, gleefully as she closed the door behind her. I lay still in my bed, considering who my mystery visitor was. Who was behind door number one? I became half convinced either my mother or an insurance worker would enter my room. It was neither.
It was her. Her long dark hair, softly cascading over her shoulders, it blew slightly in the breeze as she entered, her hazels looked me up and down, concerned but relieved. Who knows what she expected to see, a paraplegic? A beat up body with a hamburger where my face once was? She stood at the end of my bed, holding her glossed lips close and tight together, her eyes began to fill and tears began to flow freely down her cheeks. She began to mourn my almost death, my close call. I understood her, and that was why I loved her so, incredibly much. Her name, Sadie Madison, LA born and LA raised. The faded blue shirt she had bought me from The Lab at Costa Mesa during our first week together was draped over her left arm, I looked at it and smiled. She tried to smile back.
‘I heard that you should be surrounded by your favorite things.’ She said softly, struggling to hold back yet more tears. She lay the shirt across the attached table at the foot of my bed, and began to slowly approach me.
‘Thanks.’ I replied, ignoring the voice in the back of my mind that said, People who are on their deathbeds should be surrounded by their favorite things! ‘I will be out soon though.’ I added, calming my worries brought on by that nagging voice. Sadie reached my left side and held my hand, squeezing tight as her thumb massaged the back of my hand. She took a deep breath as she noticed the long gash traveling up the outside of my forearm, her eyes began to overflow with tears that this time she didn’t even attempt to hold back. ‘Don't ...’ I started, my heart sank as she squeezed my hand yet tighter.
‘I'm sorry.’ She said, wiping her eyes with her free hand before sitting down at the chair, positioned close to the side of my bed. She shook her head, squinting her eyes tightly closed and attempting to smile. It was the kind of face you made when you didn't want to smile, however, you felt like you had to. Diving her hand into her, huge bag Sadie smiled, yet this smile looked right, she pulled my sketchpad out and waved it at me. I smiled. ‘It wasn't all me. I knew you'd want it but I had no idea where to find it ...’ She giggled and I began to feel my smile crack into a grin. ‘I checked everywhere in the apartment.’ Obviously not EVERYWHERE I thought, but I knew where the story was going. ‘Eventually, just before giving up, I called your Mum. I wasn't too hopeful, especially considering the situation, yet, apparently knowing you for nineteen years rather than the three that I have known you for, means she still knows you … And your hiding places better than I do. Still, when she suggested looking inside the deep freeze for your sketchpad, I wasn't quite sure my search would end in success. But god damn me ...’ She threw the sketchpad as one would a Frisbee onto the table at the end of my bed, it settled softly next to the shirt. ‘Why the hell do you keep your sketchpad next to frozen peas and steak?’ Sadie asked, breaking into another giggle as she did.
‘I don't know.’ I responded, really quite unsure as to why I did, it was one of those habits I was just used to. Something I was told to do once, and did every time, from then onwards. ‘I think my art teacher told me it kept the paper fresh, that was back in senior school. It does seem a bit crazy now though. And, trust me, there are plenty things you know about me, that my mother doesn't know about at all.’ I continued, pondering slightly on whether I would continue storing my sketchbook in the deep freeze now that I knew how crazy and weird it seemed.
‘Your Mum is fine by the way.’ My face dropped as Sadie said this, which she clearly noticed and noted.
‘Why wouldn't she be?’ I asked, quickly adding, ‘I'm the one in hospital.’ Her face changed, in an almost indescribable way, as her eyes filled with concern and her smile sank away.
‘She was in the car with you. Remember?’ She finally said, and she knew I didn't REMEMBER. She knew I thought I'd been alone in that metal tragedy. She knew, that I didn't know.
‘I … Um …’ I barely managed to stutter. There was a lump in my throat. My hands suddenly felt icy cold. How did I not remember? My mother could have been dead. She could have died in my car, right next to me, and I still would have had no idea. Tears began to slither and slide down my hair lined cheeks.
‘Don't worry, she's fine. Especially compared to you, I mean a few bruises and scratches at the most, they kept her in overnight, just to keep an eye on her. But now she's back at home, back to work, worried about you of course though.’
‘Maybe that's not such a bad idea … I know I'm beginning to worry about myself.’
‘Why? You feel alright. Don't you?’ Sadie asked concerned.
‘I feel fine, a bit achy. But, why wouldn't I remember she was with me? Or even where we were going, I have no idea where we were going. How can I not even remember where we were going?’ As I said this I heard the bleeping and beeping from the monitor begin to speed and increase in volume, Sadie stared at it perturbed.
‘Calm down!’ She shrieked, her eyes wide, pushing forward, still in the direction of the monitor. I took a deep breath. The deepest breath. So deep my ribs twanged and shot with pain. I gradually forced the thought that I could have killed my mother without even remembering, out of my head. The bleeping and beeping slowed slowly. Slowly it slowed.
‘I'm sorry.’ I uttered, before taking a series of short, deep breaths. The monitors repetitive beeps slowed yet more.
‘It's fine, and you're fine. The doctor said it would be dubious for you to remember everything. Some people wake up knowing nothing. But, you're fine?’ She said, the tone of her voice heightened slightly for the final three words.
‘I'm fine.’ I said, not totally convinced myself that it was true.
‘Good.’ Her voice cracked slightly as she said this, indicating that there were perhaps yet more tears on the way. Before she added, ‘I couldn't bare the thought of losing you. When I got the call from your doctor I was … I was so scared. They wouldn't tell me what kind of condition you were in until I got here … I never want to lose you.’ I hated to hear such hurt in her voice, I hated knowing that worry for me had caused said pain, I hated knowing how she felt. The thought of losing Sadie terrified me, although she had only been part of my life for three years, she came into it at the perfect time. She saved me.

3
Sadie Madison. I met Sadie Madison when we were both at the tender age of sixteen, I had been in LA for just over three months, one hundred and twelve days exactly. It was early on the morning of June 14th 2007, the sun was just edging above the city and all of the signs pointed towards it being a beautiful day. However, waking up on Huntington Beach, my face buried in the sand, and my head banging like the lead in a steel drum band, I was struggling to see the point in waking up, apart from the fact that the tide was rising and beginning to lick the backs of my calves. I did, however, wake slowly, gradually rolling over to find a young woman, accompanied by a dog, almost half her size. She looked down at me. She looked down on me.
‘Excuse me.’ She said, her voice spitefully filled with both annoyance and pity.
‘You're excused.’ I said, slyly stretching out into an evermore so elongated position.
‘You're in my way.’ She cawed, suddenly reminding me of exactly who she was, and where I knew her from.
‘Wait, you're from my ...’ I began to say, sitting up slightly as I did so.
‘I'm from your Spanish class.’ She interrupted. ‘Sadie Madison, we were paired together for a project last week, you ditched me for every study date I arranged and then bunked out of class for the final presentation.’
‘Oh, right. Sorry about that.’ I croaked, the previous nights antics finally showing negative effects on my body.
‘You look really sorry.’ Sadie sneered before taking a large step over my midsection, followed closely by the horse sized dog I would soon come to know as Levi. One, if not both of them kicked sand up at me subtly. I stood quickly, wobbling slightly as I reached a fully upright position, yet, finally collaborating both my thoughts and balance I began to walk after her. A staggered chase.
‘Hey! Wait up.’ I shouted, the hoarseness in my voice almost completely obliterating any remains of an English accent, something, that most definitely would have made her stop a little sooner than she chose to. ‘Wait up!’ I repeated, again my voice croaked and cracked. She finally stopped, spinning on her heels, sand flying up around her calves. Levi, delayed, stopped and stared up at her, confused and startled.
‘Why should I?’ She asked immediately, glaring, she looked me up and down. From my shoeless feet, I couldn't even remember what shoes I had been wearing the night before, or where they could have ended up, washed away perhaps with the waves, washed away with the night. Sadie's eyes then rose to my shorts, torn up one side, with what appeared to be splatters of blood, trailing up my right leg, still drying in the early morning sunlight. My shirt, unbuttoned, revealing my vest underneath, which smelt strongly of Tequila, and salt. Presumably salt water. Her eyes, a deep honey in the sunlight, settled on my face, framed by unruly, dark blonde curls. She stared directly into my eyes, hers dark yet dazzlingly bright and full of enthusiasm for the day ahead, my oversized pupils, surrounded by icy blue iris' and ever so slightly red whites, all finally bordered by dark circles and heavy lids.
‘You're bleeding.’ She said, emotionless, her eyes not wavering from their fixated position upon mine. I gaped in her direction, my face frozen in an equally emotionless state. ‘Your leg, your thigh. You're bleeding.’
‘I'm ...’ I uttered, suddenly finding myself in a precipitous state of dazed confusion.
‘You ... Are ... Bleeding.’ She said slowly, breaking the sentence into three single parts. She approached me slowly, Levi reluctantly following, free from his lead but still clearly aware of his dominated position. Leaning down in front of me, brought to the same height as Levi, I stared downward onto her, the strap of her vest top slid off of her tanned shoulder, she moved uncomfortably, quickly sliding it back up to it's original position. She lay her hand onto my knee and began to slide it up my leg, up my thigh. Distracted, I stared around the otherwise empty beach. A sting, a sharp biting pain. I flinched. Her hand flew down my leg and out from the bottom of my shorts, she stared up at me shocked. ‘That's a lot deeper than I thought it would be.’ She said, her voice shaking slightly as she did so. She stood up, meeting me again at eye level, the fingertips of her left hand dazzling in the sunshine with ruby, bright blood. ‘I think that needs stitches, and definite medical care.’ As she moved into the shadow of my head her eyes flickered and changed from honey to what could only be described as a deep caramel, soulful and heavy.
‘So you do care about me?’ I asked, jokingly, apparently not realizing quite how serious the newly discovered cut on my upper thigh was.
‘No … But I now have your DNA under my fingernails, so if I walk off, and you just happen to keel over and die … They will send the CSI guys in, and do all that forensic shit and somehow link us together. Then I … Yes I, Sadie Madison, whose never done anything wrong in her whole life, I will go down for murder. That's how I see it happening anyway.’ She said, managing to keep an entirely straight face.
‘Oh, that's how you see it happening is it?’ I inquired, a slight sarcastic tone now overtaking the huskiness of my voice and allowing my English accent to amplify itself once again.
‘Exactly.’ She immediately retorted, as serious as ever. I felt her face gravitating towards my own, ever so slightly I leaned in a little more, wobbling on my feet still. My face unexpectedly met not hers, but the palm of her hand.
‘Are you kidding me?’ She spat, sternly. ‘Lets get you to a hospital. I don't want to be late for school.’
‘You do realize it's the last week of the semester? Right? Everybody knows that in the last week of the year attendance isn't mandatory.’ At that point, my academic achievements consisted mainly of mediocre grades and the sheer fact that I was still not permanently excluded from school.
‘I understand that that is how you and the rest of the trust fund enhanced class see school, and the education system as a whole. However, I, unlike you and all of your moron and apparently unreliable friends, I actually want to go somewhere in life. I actually want to achieve something, other than the perfect surf session or tan. I'll take you to the hospital. My car's in the lot.’ She pointed towards the top of the beach, behind her. A flock of seagulls circled overhead, squawking as they gawked down upon us. Listening in on us. Watching every movement. I nodded and we started off towards the parking lot, Levi constantly sniffing around my ankle, coated in places by sand veiled droplets of blood.

4
‘You will never lose me.’ I reassured her, she leaned across me, stroking my arm as she did. She kissed me. Twice.
‘I'll check in tomorrow.’ She said, withdrawing from the second kiss, I clung onto her side a little longer. Her warmth was comforting, and welcoming. ‘I would stay tonight, but I have class in the morning. I haven't been in for the past couple days, so...’ She looked at me, a look that said Tell me you understand so that I can leave without any guilt. And of course I understood.
‘It's fine. Go home, get some extra work done, the kind of work I know you're dying to do, and get a good nights sleep. I'll still be here tomorrow. Maybe I'll even be discharged, I mean, I haven't asked, but, that will be almost a week so, well we'll see.’ I replied, watching both her face and body relax as I did. I never understood before how much people rely on each other to be happy, to live, to survive. I never realized how much I relied on her, on Sadie, to help me through each day. I knew I would be fine once she left, lonely, but fine, knowing that I would not allow anything to happen to myself, at least without seeing her, one last time. It also seemed Sadie relied on me for her own happiness, putting it simply, if I was happy she was happy, and if she was happy I was happy.
‘Alright, I'm leaving. No trying to get me to stay.’ Sadie said, smiling and biting her lip as she finished. Her smile relaxed me even more than simply her presence.
‘One more kiss.’ I begged. Once again she leaned carefully over my newly frangible body and pressed her lips against my own, I sighed deeply as she eventually pulled away, grinning.
‘I'm leaving. I love you.’
‘Ditto … Apart from the leaving part.’ I replied. She squeezed my left hand, one last time before turning and leaving.
As soon as Sadie was out of sight I felt an intense, sharp pain, shooting up my ribs. Had it been there, attempting to grab my attention whilst Sadie was sitting across from me, whilst Sadie was holding and squeezing my hand? Did I rely on her so much so that when she was close, when she was with me I felt no pain? The pain shot up my ribs again. I quickly pressed the emergency call button and waited for around three minutes. Another shot of pain ran up my ribs, playing them like a xylophone. Tickling my ivories. Just as I was about to press the emergency call button for a second time Nurse Samson entered.
‘Is everything alright Mr Canaan?’ She asked immediately, returning the chair Sadie had been sitting on to it's original position next to the wall, between the door and what I assumed was my own en suite bathroom. Another dose of pain shot up my side, like a boney finger pressing heavily on each bruise and fracture, running back and forth, up and down my side. I flinched as my body cramped.
‘I … Um … I'm feeling a lot of pain in my side. In my ribs.’ I said, my voice cracked, I was worried.
‘That's nothing to be concerned about, you suffered a lot of deep tissue bruising and broke seven ribs in total, four on your left side and three on your right.’ She replied, instantly soothing my sudden anxieties.
‘I guess that would explain why it's worse on my left then. Is there anything you can do?’ I asked, hopeful.
‘I'll just increase your morphine.’ Ah Morphine, has there ever been a more beautiful word, or drug? My personal panacea to pain.
‘You might get a little groggy, but at least you'll get a good nights sleep.’ She added, making her way over to the right hand side of my bed where she began to fiddle and tinker with countless dials and knobs in a blur of fingers and thumbs.
‘I don't think I'll be sleeping much tonight … I don't like hospitals. Plus, I've had what, four days sleep already?’ I scoffed slightly.
‘We'll see.’ Nurse Samson responded with a playfully sardonic tone to her voice. She smiled at me as she crossed the room towards the door, it was a smile of uncertainty, but not hers, mine.
I closed my eyes.

5
I was there, in the hospital. But was I really? Was I really there at all? The florescent lights hanging from the ceiling of my room were slowly transmuting from bright white, as bright as the flash I saw, I thought I saw at least during the accident, to an electric blue, bouncing from the excessive amount of chrome and steel in the room. I hadn't notice the amount of metal I was surrounded by, I was caged by. I sat up slowly, however, my side, my ribs, they didn't hurt. I was painless. That morphine seriously worked! I thought to myself, sliding my legs off of the side of the bed. The frosty chrome side bars forced themselves into the undersides of my thighs, I shivered and shuddered before sliding the lower half of my body completely off of my bed. As my feet hit the floor, the slap of skin to tile echoed through my room, through the whole hospital perhaps. The lights flickered and settled, finally on the electric blue.
Something caught my eye. What was it that I could see? Glimmering slyly from behind the closed, vertical blinds, there was most definitely something there, hidden away. There was suddenly a loud screeching sound, a metal bird singing, squawking. I jumped, almost high enough to touch the ceiling, to touch the bright, blue florescent lights.
‘Hello!’ I hollered. Nothing, except my own voice echoing through the halls. The mysterious object hidden behind the blinds winked at me again. It was beckoning me. Begging me to get a little closer. Calling for me to open the blinds. I took a deep breath and slowly began to approach the blacked out window, each of my faint footsteps echoed around my head. I reached the blinds. I grasped the pulley and squeezed it in my hand, tight enough for the conjoined beads to leave shallow grooves in my skin. I pulled the cord, fast and hard. The blinds flew open, and what was behind them I couldn't believe. ‘Oh my god.’ I muttered under my breath. There it was, staring at me. Gloating, just as it had done before. The BMW crest. There was no window, not anymore. Just that fucking insignia, embedded in the wall. I stared at it. However, before I knew it, it wasn't the emblem that was captivating my attention any longer, instead I found myself staring at the walls, as they changed. The once solid, white, sanitized walls began to transform in front of my eyes morphing in a ripple, morphing into crushed and corrugated metal. My car. My previous car was becoming stretched over the walls of my room. It was surrounding me, boxing me in. My very own tin coffin. The electric blue of the lights caused the newly metal clad walls to appear exactly the same colour as that of my car, and these, rich, bright blue, metal walls began to shift. The excruciatingly high pitched screech sounded again. I realized what it was. I'd heard it before. It was the noise my car made as it was crushed around me It was the noise of metal bending and snapping. I stood, paralyzed in the centre of the room. There was a thumping in the air, it sounded like, impending doom. It was my heartbeat, I could tell by the dull bleeping sounding in sync with it.
Get a grip! This isn't real … It's not fucking real! I thought, I shouted to myself in my head. Eventually, I gathered enough courage, or pent up fear, to move, to run. I slammed into the door leaving my room, and stumbled immediately into the hallway. A hallway I'd never seen before, a hallway that had to be at least one, no two hundred feet long. The lights were no longer blue, they were orange, flaming orange, and they were hanging, swinging, low from the ceiling. I turned and stared down the length of the hallway it was empty, not a doctor, not a nurse in sight. I could hear a dull, sizzling, the sound of meat on a grill, the fire spitting the fat back. As I took a step, for some reason in the direction the sizzling noise was coming from, cigarette ends began to fall from the ceiling, from the lights. At first the flow of cigarettes was slow, limited to averagely one per five seconds, however, the ratio of cigarettes to seconds began to increase, soon one was falling every second. Then two a second. Then four. Then eight. Before I knew it, I was no longer walking towards the sizzling sound, I was wading, wading through cigarette butts. They were reaching my knees, and not all of them were out. I felt small burns, like pinches, being caused up my shins. A door quickly opened to my right. A flow of the cigarette stubs flowed in, around the feet of a nurse. She paid no attention to them. She simply stared at me, and I at her. Her face was broken and blood was flowing, freely from her nose. But, her hands, they were attached loosely by what appeared to be extremely thick thread, to the ceiling. Like a puppet. The right hand string jolted forward, towards me, her hand followed. Her fingers bent into a pointing pose. Her head fell forward, yet, she kept both eyes on me, staring up through her blood caked fringe.
‘Three little birds sit by my doorstep.’ The nurse croaked, she cocked her head back , ever so slightly, revealing a smile, no, a grimace. Her teeth, like her hair, and most of her face, were coated with blood. She continued, still grinning at me. ‘Singing sweet songs of melodies pure and through, singing … This is my message to you.’ I opened my mouth, I was ready to speak. It was my turn, but I couldn't. She jolted towards me again, this time holding out both hands. Both bloodstained hands were reaching towards me. I couldn't speak. I couldn't move. The cigarettes were almost up to my hips, my legs felt as if they were submerged beneath tar rather than what was merely tobacco, filters and paper. Her shredded fingertips were inches away from my face. I could smell the blood, metallic and old, dried. Up both forearms were patterns, formed by small circular scars. I knew them all to well. I knew what had caused them. I knew who had caused them.
She touched my hair. I didn't flinch. I stood there. For how long? I couldn't say. She kept her hands resting on the crown of my head, I didn't move. I felt the remains of her fingernails begin to force their way into my skin, under my skin. I still didn't move. I didn't scream. I couldn't.

6
I woke. Breathless. Drenched in my own sweat. I didn't know what time it was, there was no clock, and my watch was taken away presumably with all of my other possessions I was brought in with. All the same, the sun was beginning to filter in between the slits of the blind. Filling my room with strips of light. Good light. Golden light. I allowed my body to relax slightly, telling myself over and over; It was just a dream, JUST a dream. I knew it was, even when I was there, when I was in it. What scared me most was how much my own mind knew exactly how to get to me. It was as if the moment I closed my eyes my own imagination turned on me, bearing its teeth. Everyone has that part of their mind, that part that could, if it wanted to, if it was allowed to, take you down in a split second, knowing exactly how to do it best. We are not our own worst enemies, our minds are, our memories and our fears combined are. Just as my body was almost fully relaxed, decreased in all the right places, I turned and jumped, and every muscle in my body tensed again as I saw Sadie smiling in at me from the small square, yacht-like window of my door. She looked concerned as her smile seemed to slide off of her face and she pushed the door open and entered quickly, in a flurry of loose fabric and large bag.
‘Are you alright? I made you jump didn't I?’ She asked quickly, calming her limbs into more flaccid positions and dropping her giant bag at her feet. There was a loud thud as she did so. I tried my best to smile convincingly whilst I shook my head. Apparently I wasn't convincing her. ‘Oh my god. I'm so sorry baby, I really scared you didn't I? I knew it was a bad idea, I stood there for ages too, just waiting for you to look over.’ She said, the concerned tone to her voice turning to sheer apologetics. She took the two steps over to my bed.
‘I'm fine, really. Stop apologizing.’ I replied, hoping to set her mind at rest. She smiled. That smile consoled me, almost completely, the memory of the nightmare remained, yet, the fear did not.
‘Anyway, I have some good news baby ...’ She teased, full of excitement herself. I could hear it in her voice just as much as I could see it in her eyes.
‘What?’ I asked gazing into her childlike eyes. She rested her hand on my left leg, patting my thigh, both out of elation and compassion. Her face sank again into worry and fret, her eyes suddenly showing only this and none of the previous excitement or childish thrill. She pressed her hand slightly harder onto my thigh.
‘Penn, you're soaking wet.’ She finally said, slowly sliding her hand up past my hip and under my hospital gown, finally stopping just under my ribs. Her hand felt cold and smooth against my sweltering, clammy skin. ‘It's all over. Are you hot?’
‘I'm fine. I just … I had a bad dream. That's all.’ I said, she stood still staring at me, pressing her hand onto my side, increasing pressure with every breath I took. Sadie shook her head, the fret and worry seemed to turn into guilt and fear quicker than I thought possible. She slid her hand out from under my gown, her fingertips moved smoothly across my array of scars on my left hip as she did so. She took her left hand, still glistening with my sweat and brushed it through her hair, still shaking her head. I thought; you wouldn't have done that if you’d have looked at it first, seen quite how damp it was.
‘I knew I should have stayed last night.’ She said forcefully, apparently not angry at me, but at herself.
‘I still have them, even when I'm with you.’ I replied, hoping to calm her a little.
‘I know. But who wakes you whenever you have one at home?’ She asked rhetorically, knowing full well she was referring to herself I simply nodded in her direction. ‘Trust me, if I'd have been here you'd have woken me. All of that rattling in the covers you do, it would have been impossible for you not to have woken me, and then I could have woken you. Presumably before it got to it's worst point. Night terrors always have a worst point, almost like a climax in a dream, only terrifying, and it normally occurs towards the end, whilst you begin to transcend between deep and shallow sleep. I could have, no, I would have woken you before you got there.’ She continued. As a Psychology major at UCLA Sadie could talk about the mind and the tricks it can play for hours on end, and specializing in sleep disorders and the activities of the mind during sleep I trusted her fully on this.
‘Stop.’ I ordered, reaching out and grabbing her dramatically flailing hand. ‘It was just a bad dream. I'm fine. It didn't hurt me, it couldn't.’ Holding her hand I pulled her towards me. ‘You said you had some good news. Spill.’ Using her right hand, she stroked the side of my face and tucked a stray curl of hair behind my ear before smiling to herself. I was glad to see her smiling again. I hoped that I had seen the last of her worried and sad faces for the mean time.
‘You can come home today!’ She burst, spitting a little as she did so. My eyes widened and I felt a smiled spring onto my face.
‘Really! That's brilliant!’ I spilled, excitement overtaking me quickly.
‘Yeah. And I managed to convince your mum there's no need for her to move in with us while you recover more.’
‘Even better!’ I shouted.
We laughed.

Home Sweet …
1

Sadie unlocked the front door to the apartment, all three locks, she struggled holding both her bag and a bag from the hospital containing both my newly obtained prescriptions and my belongings from the day of the crash. She refused to let me hold it, or even help at all. Eventually, Sadie was able to thrust her way in. I followed. Patches of sand were still scattered over the wooden floor throughout the living room from our excursion to the beach the previous weekend. Sadie closed the door behind me. On the side counter in the living room the flashing light of the answering machine caught my attention, the number 16 blinking repetitively.
‘They're mostly from Hunter and Seb.’ Sadie said, apparently somehow noticing me staring at the machine whilst she rummaged through her bag walking past. ‘They wanted to know when you'd be back. You should probably call them really, they'll be glad to have their leader back.’ I allowed a laugh to creep from my smile.
I'd met both Hunter and Seb, or Sebastian to his parents, on my first day at UCLA, Seb in the food court where he was struggling to find food to suit both his dairy and wheat intolerances and Hunter in my dorm corridor, he approached me from behind and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, telling me that I was lucky enough to be selected from the whole student body to be his personal wingman for the night. Ever since then, they seemed almost attached to me, Hunter even ran with me most days.
‘You'll have to tell Hunt you can't go running for a while though, obviously.’ Sadie said, allowing herself to fall backwards onto the couch, her body bounced a little, then settled in the abundance of stuffing.
‘What?’ I asked, hoping I could somehow convince her that running wouldn't kill me, wouldn't even hurt me. I just needed to buy a little time so I'd know how best to put forward my argument. She glared at me from across the room, I suddenly wished I was still staring at the flashing 16 on the answering machine screen. She knew exactly what I was thinking, I could see it in her eyes, behind the obvious annoyance and growing aggression.
‘You are insane if you think you are going running not even a week after you were in a car accident! You are insane if you think I'll let you! That or deluded.’ She gave me the You choose look and began tapping away on her phone, seemingly text messaging somebody else was very important at that point.
‘Baby ...’ I waited, hoping she'd eventually look up at me. She didn't. ‘Sadie, my legs are fine, a little battered, but, that's just bruising.’ She looked up at me, it wasn't the kind of look I was hoping for.
‘Do you know how much strain running puts on your core? How much your running strength depends on your core muscles.’ She spat. Of course I did. Of course I knew, and of course she knew that I knew. ‘You think your core is at it's best right now? Seven broken ribs and all.’
‘I just ...’ I began, only to be interrupted by her and her snapping tone.
‘Do whatever you want. It's up to you. It's your body after all.’
‘Do you really mean I can do whatever I want? Or is this the kind of Do what you want for which if I actually do what I want, and you don't agree with it, you'll punish me with the silence treatment, or the celibacy treatment, or both?’ I asked and she shrugged. Decision made, I knew I wasn't going running.

2
That night Sadie went on what she called an Emergency Supermarket Run, supposedly always to pick up whatever products we were running worryingly low on which we couldn't live without until the end of the week. However, I knew what these Runs were really for, I came to think of them as Sadie's Craving Runs, and more often than not they were for such products as, Reeses Peanut Buttercups, Diet Cola, or oddly enough Beef Jerky. She would always return with the food to quench her craving hidden amongst Necessity items, such as toilet roll, milk or toothpaste, convinced she was fooling me. While she was out I thought, was the ideal time to call Hunter and Seb and let them know I was back home, perhaps even make plans to meet up for the next day. First, I called Seb, mainly as I knew this would be the shorter call so it was simply easier first. I dialed his number and waited. The phone rang twice and then clicked into action.
‘Hello.’ Seb said hesitantly on the other end of the phone. I smiled, his worrying and timid voice always entertained me, he never seemed quite sure of himself, or even what he was doing. Quite concerning really for a medicine major. Maybe he should look into majoring in just Pathology instead. I thought to myself, still smiling I finally answered.
‘Hey mate.’
‘Penn? Are you home from the hospital already? Sadie said you might be in for a while.’ This time he sounded a little less unsure and a little more perky.
‘It's me alright.’ I replied. ‘Have I missed much?’
‘Not really. Although, you might want to ask Hunter about that. I have had my nose stuck in a biology book all week.’
‘Will do. I'm about to call him actually. Do you want to meet up tomorrow?’
‘Who exactly will I be meeting?’ He asked queerly.
‘Just Hunt and myself, we could meet at The Hut on Wilshire Boulevard, just off of campus.’
‘So Sadie won't be there?’ He asked sharply, almost whispering Sadie's name as he did so, which meant either he was with a girl or he thought I was with Sadie, most probably the latter.
‘No. Why?’ The fact that he cared so much about Sadie being there was new to me, did he want her there or not? And why? Something had obviously happened whilst I was in hospital, I made a mental note to ask Hunt whether he was aware of anything and if he had nothing for me I'd simply ask Sadie. She'd tell me, whatever it was. And even if she lied I could tell, I knew her too well not to.
‘No reason. I'll be there though, is eleven okay?’
‘Eleven's fine.’ I replied, still confused as to what exactly might be going on between him and my girlfriend.
‘Alright. I'll see you then. I gotta' get back to my reading.’ Seb said, perfectly demonstrating the average length of a phone conversation with Seb before it resolved to a final goodbye. Apparently that was it, the phone clicked off on his end, I shook my head slightly, not out of surprise but habit. There was suddenly a loud, solid bang at the front door. The kind of heavy, low bang you'd expect a door to make when another person walked into the other side of it. How dark was the hallway on the other side? I couldn't remember, but I was sure it wasn't so dark that somebody would unknowingly walk directly into a closed door. There was another loud bang, I stood slowly, placing the phone down onto the coffee table in front of me. My heart began to pound. Even though I told myself it was most probably Sadie on the other side of the door, and the bangs had been caused by the shopping bags as she dropped them/leaned them against it. Still, my heart was ready to jump out of my throat.
‘Hello!’ I shouted immediately without thinking. Silence. I began to think. My mind began to fill with scenes from all the horror movies I'd ever seen, movies I'd watched with Sadie. It occurred to me what always happened to the stupid kid who shouted Hello, before going to investigate the strange noise. Silence still. The inside of the dark wooden door, the door I'd once felt so safe behind, remained motionless. It wasn't Sadie. If it was her on the other side she'd be in by now. Unless something was wrong. What if the bangs were her collapsing against the door? She could be dying. Bleeding to death less than ten feet away from me, and I was leaving her there. Irrational, panicked thoughts, that's all they were. But, I knew I still had to check. I took a deep breath. My ribs twanged in pain. I marched towards the door, turned the handle and pulled it towards me fast and forcefully. The hallway was dark. Much darker than I ever remembered it being. The shadows seemed to shift and merge into ominous shapes all around the hallway. Faces. Bodies. Monsters. However, there was nobody there. The hallway was empty, or so I thought. I turned, unnerved as I turned my back to the hallway and there was another noise, almost a rustle I turned back quickly and stared across at every corner of the hall again. Then I noticed it. How long had it been there? Since I turned my back? Since I opened the door? Since I got home? Lying on the floor, positioned directly in front of the door was a piece of paper, almost A5 in size and cut roughly around the edges. I picked it up and stared at it, still standing in my doorway, between the hallway and my apartment, between the dark and light. I held the paper tightly in my hand, peered around the hallway once more before turning again and returning to the comforting light of my apartment. I closed the door and pulled across the bolt, knowing I would soon have to unbolt it when Sadie knocked, most probably impatiently. Back against the door and feeling somewhat safe again I returned my attention to the piece of paper, the gift left at my front door. It was a news paper cutting, the article was poetically titled BENT UP BEEMER : CANAAN AND SON BARELY ESCAPE MANGLED METAL MICROWAVE. So people know. I thought to myself also considering how badly the journalist of the column in question should be fired, purely for the terrible title or tag line as they called it. Then it hit me. How far had this news spread? All the way back to the UK? My mother, as a world renowned novelist was used to the press, the coverage of her life, but, she knew I didn't like it, she knew I had my reasons. She would never have done an interview. Would she? Not a press conference either. I tried to convince myself I believed this. Completely. He couldn't know.
There was a loud knock from the other side of the door, I jumped and the news paper cutting fell and flitted from my hand. Another knock, louder, harder.
‘Penn!’ I heard Sadie shout from the other side, her keys jingling in the background. ‘I can't get in. Did you lock the door? Hello-o Penn!’ I calmed myself quickly, turned and slid the bolt back over to the original position. When I opened the door I was greeted by Sadie holding out three bags, very awkwardly, and glaring at me over the top of them. ‘Thank you! Finally!’ She hissed, pushing her way past me and shooting straight into the kitchen. I stared into the hallway, still and dark. Even darker now. I closed the door and returned the bolt to the satisfyingly safe position. ‘What took you so long? And what's with you locking the door behind me? You weren't watching Skinemax again were you?’ She shouted jokingly from the kitchen, her voice bouncing around the apartment slightly. I didn't answer. My eyes were now transfixed on the news paper cutting, sliding slightly under the side counter. ‘What's up?’ She asked. I looked up, she was leaning against the door frame leading into the kitchen, an open jar of peanut butter in her hand, a spoon in her mouth. Most definitely a Craving food, no doubt the whole reason she went out, I could only imagine what was filling the rest of the three bags. Probably a years supply of Kleenex, or crackers.
‘Did you see anyone out there?’ I asked, worried she might answer yes, worried she might answer no. She stared at me confused, concerned, the spoon still poking from her mouth. She slid it out and dropped it, shovel end back into the peanut butter.
‘Out there?’ She pointed to the door. ‘I could hardly see anything. I swear half of the lights are blown … We should really call the super about that, I mean ...’ Sadie had a gift for tangents, her stories and points becoming endlessly elongated and quickly shifting from subject to subject.
‘But you don't think you saw … Or heard any body?’ I hated cutting her off so bluntly, but, I had to know for sure. If she did see somebody after all, it was probably the person who left the clipping.
‘No. Nobody. Well I saw Mr Philpot from upstairs. And have you noticed how much the place really smells like noodles right now. Egg not rice. Wait has this got something to do with you locking the door? Is everything alright?’ She said, showing another unbelievable example of her talent for tangents.
‘There was somebody banging, like hitting the door, hard. The confusion was gone from her face, overtaken by concern, her Psych majoring mind was ticking overtime, analyzing me, what I was saying, how I looked, whether I was giving her the Crazy Eye.
‘Are you sure it wasn't just neighbors? Or Mrs Abridge...’ She pointed to the floor with her spoon, coated in a smooth layer of peanut butter. ‘Were you making a lot of noise?’
‘It wasn't a neighbor, they left this.’ I bent, straining my ribs, my back, my legs, and picked up the article. I handed it over to Sadie, she quickly slid the spoon into her mouth and took the article from my hand. She stared at it for about half a minute before looking back at me, emotionless. The spoon was dropped back into the jar. Hygienic.
‘You didn't know? It was all over the news.’ She held the clipping back out towards me. I stood frozen. It had been all over the news? What news?
‘What news?’ I asked frantically, my voice full of panic. Sadie shook her head, bending to place the article on the kitchen side behind her.
‘I don't know.’ She muttered. ‘CNN...’ American. ‘It was in the New Yorker...’ American. ‘Even on Sky News, that was only for a couple days though. Following it mainly.’ Sky News! That's World News! ‘Are you alright?’ That feeling was back. The uncontrollable feeling. My eyes were popping. My heart was pounding. Sweat was dripping from my forehead.
‘I'm … I'm fine.’ I eventually replied, she didn't believe me, I knew that. I didn't believe me.
‘Penn. You don't look fine. Come and sit down.’ She'd put down the peanut butter jar and spoon and was making her way across to the living room, clearing a path, throwing the pillows and piled books from the arm chair. The one she always called Sadie's Puffy Chair. ‘Come and sit.’ She ordered. I moved, slowly, towards her. She helped me take a seat, her hands slid up my damp arms. My shirt was beginning to cling to my body. ‘Penn, please just tell me what's wrong.’ My eyes began to fill with water and I felt instantly short of breath. I struggled. Sniffling like a child. Sadie, now sitting on the coffee table, opposite me, leaned her body towards mine and held me. Despite the sweat. Despite the snot and tears. She held me close.

3
Lying in bed, awake alone, Sadie far away in a deep sleep, breathing heavily and sighing every ten minutes or so, probably because of the heat. I was in my boxer shorts, only covered by a single sheet and I was hot, I was still fighting the sweats. Trying to beat the thoughts out of my head, the memories combined with them were starting to feel overwhelming. The wind blew outside and the warm air slivered in between the shuffling drapes. Sadie's whole body jolted. Mine jumped in sync, she then settled and nestled herself in close to me, her legs entangling mine, her right arm across my torso, her hand resting on my scarred and damaged hip, her fingertips sliding delicately under the waistband of my underwear. She pushed her head further in towards me, her chin resting awkwardly on my collar bone.
‘Go to sleep.’ Sadie whispered, her hot breath beating off my chest. I looked down at her. She was asleep. Did I really hear her? Was I asleep? Whether she said it or not, I still couldn't. My mind wouldn't allow myself to close my eyes and even begin to drift off. I couldn't turn off my mind. I thought of my past, I thought of the crash, I thought of that night, the bangs, the scrap of news paper left as an offering in the hallway, an offering or a threat. I thought of how I hadn't called Hunter, and how I hadn't talked to Sadie, bringing up the topic of Seb, her and Seb.
‘Sadie.’ I whispered, hoping for a reply, hoping for a sleepless night, hoping to talk, to touch. ‘Are you awake?’ There was no answer, I considered grasping her by her silky, soft shoulders and shaking her awake. Maybe later, if I still couldn't sleep. I decided I'd get up, fill a glass of water and empty it immediately, repeating as many times as needed to quench my two am thirst. Then, returning back to bed, if I still didn't wake her naturally, I would consider the awake shake again. I slid myself out from underneath Sadie's entanglement of arms and legs and off of the side of the bed, standing quickly causing blood to rush around my head and for myself to become overtaken by the rush, feeling as if I could faint for several seconds. Hoping slightly, I would, at least I'd get some sleep that way, unwilling as it was. I didn't. I remained vertical. Leaving the bedroom I kicked what I had to assume was a new wastebasket, I knew I'd never seen in before anyhow, the metal cage material chimed and beat as it bounced from the floor to the sideboard and back to the floor. I shot a look over my shoulder, at first worried, then hopeful, yet, my hope was in vain, Sadie's eyes remained wide shut. I continued to make my way towards the bedroom door, leading into the open planned living room/kitchen, I turned the handle and pulled the door towards me quietly, opening it just enough to be able to slide through the gap between it and the wall. The door crept closed behind me, and I stood in the open plan space, bathed in blue light. Light which I assumed was being generated by the moon, low and full. I soon realized it wasn't. The room was being lit by an icy blue light, but it wasn't natural. The room was suffused with light flooding from the inside of the refrigerator, both doors wide open, defrosted ice dripping continuously onto the floor in front of it. I stared across the empty space between where I stood and the kitchen, staring at the fridge and the newly formed puddle in front of it. Had Sadie really left both doors open? Had she really left the ice to unfreeze and freely flow onto the floor in front? Perhaps she did, because of me, and my sweaty reaction. She had panicked and rushed me to bed, caring for me every second of the way. Maybe, I'd distracted her from putting away the essentials she'd bought on her Cravings Trip, and her sheer trepidation had torn her mind away from it. There was a crackling crash. A bag of frozen peas fell into the puddle, and rested, just visible from around the side of the door. That made sense, the ice was melting, the produce was shifting. Then, suddenly, as I was about to take a step towards the kitchen, planning on closing the doors and soaking up the puddle with the bath sheet I had seen on the top of the washing pile on the end of the couch in the living room, something less natural happened. The bag, of what was most probably now only semi-frozen peas, skidded from the puddle in a fountain of water, slamming into the counter on the other side of the room. The bag split open and peas exploded out, the kitchen floor became beaded in green. I stared from the freely rolling peas back to the refrigerator. There was an unbelievable smash of glass and the previously clear puddle began to bloat and whiten. I began to move, slowly and hesitantly towards the kitchen, several peas, somehow still frozen bullets pressed into the bottoms of my bare feet. The blue light flickered, only briefly. But it definitely did flicker! It wasn't the kind of flicker caused by a short in electricity, perhaps by the melting ice sizzling away on the internal workings of the refrigerator, it was the kind of flicker caused by somebody, or something moving quickly in front of the light source.
‘Is somebody there.’ I uttered, my words barely audible, temporarily distracted by one thought, the thought that I really, REALLY didn't want to die in my underwear. There was silence from the kitchen, and the bedroom. The silence surrounded me. It intimidated me. I turned back to the bedroom, hoping, praying that I would hear Sadie moving, that she'd swing the door open and glare at me for waking her up. Silence. I returned my attention to the fridge, vomiting out our food, I took two more steps towards the kitchen. Rustling. From the refrigerator, rustling, snapping, cracking. I picked up the cushion from the armchair positioned by the back window at the end of our almost hallway, between the kitchen and our bedroom. I held it in front of me, a soft shield, a pointless shield. I recoiled slightly, taking an awkward step backwards when I caught sight of myself in the full length mirror diagonally positioned next to the window chair and clashing coffee table, it would have made almost anybody jump. But, what I saw, it didn't look like me, six foot one, one hundred and fifty pounds, scrawny as hell, bruised too, I looked like I'd been jumped, bruised and swollen ribs, a long raised cut up my arm, oddly shaped bruising up my legs, and then there were the scars, the only way I definitely knew it was me I was looking at. The delicate patterns of ring scars on both hips, the slices up my inner back and curves around my shoulder blades, and the one from the puncture wound, the worst one, the one I remembered most, located on my side bellow my ribs but parallel to my abs, raised and pale compared to my otherwise tanned physique, I had what some would describe as a dirty tan, an unintentional tan, and it showed each and every one of my scars off even more so. Cracks and Snaps from the refrigerator continued. I stared back at it, light flooding out, along with the newly milky puddle of ice cold water. I tightened my grip on the cushion and took another two steps towards it. Becoming more illuminated with every step I felt my pulse racing. My head was pounding with fear. Ideas. Possibilities of what could be there, less than three feet away from me. I glanced down at the cushion, yellow, happy. I stopped mid step as the cracking ceased. Silence. I leaned to the side, attempting, with everything I had in me to see what, or who was around the other side of the refrigerator doors. Stumbling slightly, I saw nothing. I re-established my balance staring at the yellow cushion, it hit me, my useless shield could be used for something much more appropriate. A use for it that would stop me having to get any closer, a use that, if it worked, would enable me to know whether there was in fact anybody or anything there whilst staying a comfortable distance away. Otherwise I'd know my refrigerator was on the Fritz. I stood back, steadying my stance, staring from the cushion to the fridge, and back. I held the cushion in only my right hand, and pulled my arm back, a new pain slicing into my shoulder as I did so, I stared again at the refrigerator. I hoped. What for, I'm not sure. My arm flew forward and I released my grasp on the cushion, the fringing tickled between my fingers as it began to soar through the air towards the refrigerator, becoming more and more green as it hit the light. For a moment I thought it was going to miss the fridge door completely. However, it didn't, it stayed on course, colliding with the very edge of the door, it pushed it closed, quickly and smoothly. I was surprised at how smoothly it moved, there was nothing on the floor to stop it, nothing to jam it, no stray food, no large fragments of broken milk bottle.
There it was, standing in the ice blue light, flickering slightly. There she was. Standing, facing the opposite direction to me, a girl, couldn't have been more than ten years old, although it was hard to tell from only her back, her long dark blonde hair almost reached her tailbone, and was clotted and tangled with blood, dried blood in places mixed with what appeared to be dirt, or fine gravel, hanging in clumps. She was dressed in a summer dress, it looked oddly familiar to me, I had no idea why, I assumed I'd just seen some kid wearing it on the beach, people were in summer clothes all year round in LA, it was light blue, maybe denim, it was hard to tell in the bad lighting, but it was dirty, I could see that, patches, down her sides and across her backside, coated in dark dirt. Splatters of dried blood were dried onto her legs and bare feet. I couldn't believe it. She was standing there, completely oblivious of the fact I was watching her, she simply made a continuous grinding sound, like the sound of nails on a chalkboard, or teeth on teeth.
‘Hey … Hey!’ I said, getting louder and more confident every second she remained unresponsive. ‘Are you alright kid?’ My old English accent made every word perfectly enunciated, and made kid sound more like kiddd. She didn't reply, and I wasn't surprised. If I were sure she was normally, a ‘Normal’ person, I would say she was now catatonic. Permanently signed out, in other words. Silence, except for the grinding noise, and that began to get louder, until it almost reached a deafening level.
The main light turned on and she was gone. I turned quickly, spinning on the spot. Sadie was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, rubbing her eyes, no doubt readying herself for her own You shouldn't have woken me glares.
‘Come back to bed.’ She mumbled, her voice croaking slightly. I stared at her and then span back to check the refrigerator, the doors were still partly open and the puddle, all of the mess was there, but she, the girl who had caused it was gone. Seemingly, Sadie finally noticed what I was staring at, she was next to me now. Staring like me at the refrigerator. ‘What did you do?’ I was scared, shocked. I turned my face towards hers, surprisingly close, she turned the same, our eyes met.
‘You didn't see her?’ I burst, verging on hysterical.
‘Who?’ She asked immediately. Each breath I pulled in began to shake, in my mouth, down my throat and past my ribs. I could feel the bottom half of my jaw quivering independently from the rest of my face. ‘Penn, calm down. What's wrong? What happened here?’
‘A girl … Was here … She did this.’ I struggled, pointing towards the mess surrounding the refrigerator in case Sadie wasn't clear on the main topic of discussion. She leaned her head to the right, the angle of her neck almost unnatural, returning it to it's original angle she joined her eyes to mine again, sympathetically this time.
‘But, the front door's locked.’ I shook my head slightly. She continued, ‘Penn, nobody could get in here, we locked it as soon as I got back from the grocery store remember?’
‘Yeah I remember, right after the phantom, psycho knocks and the stalkerish news paper cutting gift!’ I almost hissed, I could hear my voice becoming aggressive, preparing to become defensive.
‘Phantom? Are you suggesting some kind of Ghost did this?’ She spat back, matching the tones of my voice to a T. I glared back towards the kitchen, the scattered peas, the broken milk bottle, the now fizzling refrigerator.
‘No … I don't know! But I know what I saw. How would you explain it.’
‘This...’ She waved her hand in front of me, towards the kitchen, the mess. ‘Can be explained with the simplest, most logical explanation. You.’
‘What?’ WHAT!? What was she suggesting, that I'd done it? For attention? As an elaborate joke or trick?
‘I think, that in a sleep like state, you left our bedroom, stumbled across to the kitchen, perhaps hungry or thirsty.’ She was right about that part, I was still thirsty. ‘Maybe you were having one of your dreams, you began to tear our refrigerator apart, the contents of it included.’
‘It wasn't me.’ There it was, the defensive tone, overtaking the aggressive.
‘Sure sweetie.’ She said, a patronizing air overtaking the whole of her, her voice her movements and facial expressions. Red swept over my eyes, she patted me on my naked shoulder, I was infuriated, so much more angry than I should have been, even considering the situation.
‘No!’ I shouted, my voice booming and bouncing from the walls, soaking into the soft furnishings. ‘You still don't believe me!’ She turned to me, shocked. Scared? Her eyes huge, her mouth open. Eventually, she shook her head, slightly and slowly.
‘Just go to bed.’ She said, somehow this didn't sound patronizing at all, it sounded cold, numb almost. She looked at me like she didn't know who I was anymore.
‘No.’ I almost whispered, not wanting it to come across aggressively at all. I hated the thought that I had scared her.
‘Go to bed. I'm gonna' clean it up.’
‘I want to talk.’
‘We can talk in the morning.’ She finished, turning away from me and entering the kitchen, peas undoubtedly popping under her bare feet. I opened my mouth to speak. But, what was I going to say? What could I say? I sighed, disappointed in myself, worried for Sadie and reluctantly made my way back to the bedroom. Silently.
I lay on the bed, on top of the covers. I couldn't sleep, I knew that. I sat, leaning myself against the two pillows on my side, the left side, next to the door, always. I turned on my bedside lamp and stared around the previously shadowed room, all of the ominous shapes and silhouettes taking on new faces, their real life faces, clothing draped over a lumpy chair, perfume and cosmetic bottles crowded in front of a large slanted mirror and atop a dresser, the drapes hanging freely and loosely at the window. I stared at the book I was reading, the latest Stephen King, sitting, lonely on my bedside table, next to only my lamp and watch loosely balanced on the edge. Surprisingly, I didn't feel like reading about a haunted boat, drowning people to Hades. I rolled my eyes, unsure of what to do at such an early hour. I stood, shielding the light from my bedside lamp from almost half of the room, causing half of the deathly, shadowed creatures to return. I decided to take a shower, God knew I stank, I'd had at least two sweat sessions that day, and I was escorted to bed without the opportunity of washing beforehand, although Sadie had wiped me down after undressing me and before sliding me under the single sheet.
In the bathroom I slid my underwear down my legs and allowed them to softly fall at the floor, circling my ankles, I stepped out of them and turned on the shower. The water hissed and whispered as it shot out of the wide head, droplets tapped and bounced off of the glass enclosure. I stood into it, the perfectly heated water began to rebound off of my body, shooting off in every direction. I would never have normally taken a night time shower, however, knowing the chance of the normal, Saturday morning shower nooky was very unlikely with the nights events I chose to deal with the standard boring routine of washing whilst I couldn't sleep, and had nothing more to do, rather than in the morning when my options would hopefully be more varied. I watched the water falling from above me, trickling down my face, following the hollows and curves. Sadie entered the bathroom, minus a smile, almost minus a look in fact. The possibility that she heard the shower running and was also saddened by the idea of a lack of Saturday morning shower ACTION, deciding to forgive me early to make up for it seemed less than likely. Instead, she passed me without a single look in, pulled down her underwear and used the toilet, not exactly the ACTION I was hoping for. She finished her business, pulled her underwear up to her hips and moved across the room to the sink, washed her hands, causing my shower to become considerably colder, I was fairly sure she knew she was doing this too, and then left the room. Not a word, not a look. Simply one spiteful act as she left, fiercely kicking my boxer shorts across the room and out of the door ahead of her. Needless to say, the door was slammed behind her also. I scoffed a little slyly, somehow more relaxed, my mind dragged away from the less comical and far less childish events of the night, of the week.
After the shower I brushed my teeth, realizing I had no idea how long it had been since I last had. Before I confidently strolled from the bathroom, through the bedroom, searching for my underwear along the floor all the way. Nowhere. I slumped onto my side of the bed, as noisily as possible, I twisted, flicked on my bedside light and grasped my book. She sat up sternly, opening her eyes, not happy at all.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ She snapped. I waved my book at her, smiling politely.
‘I'm reading … A book, not a magazine … Just saying.’
‘You're reading, naked?’ She asked, staring me up and down, I could almost feel the metaphorical coldness frosting my body. I kept the polite smile plastered on my face, it was driving her mad.
‘Well you … Hid my underwear, so I assumed you wanted to see the boys.’ Vulgarity seemed to force my English accent from my lungs, it just came with the words, with the breath.
‘I didn't hide them. I put them in the laundry bin, I thought maybe you'd want to switch to clean trunks, you didn't exactly smell clean and fresh before you jumped in there.’ I dropped my book back onto the bedside table with a sigh. I always hated it when she said reasonable points during arguments, and she did, that was why I hated arguing with her. I scooched off the bed, made my way over to the dresser and opened the top, underwear drawer. ‘Red.’ Sadie said out of the blue, I pulled out the pair of boxers I knew she was referring to, like much of my clothing, she'd actually bought them for me. I slid them on there, in front of the dresser, sealing the truce we had just somehow made: The underwear truce. I turned and she smiled at me, a quiet smile that perhaps would have gone unnoticed by some, people who didn't know her as well as I did. I saw it. Her lips symmetrically curling up a touch. It said; I'm sorry.
‘I'm sorry.’ I said, moving quickly and lunging myself carefully onto the bed, settling next to her.
‘Me too.’ She replied, to which I instantly began to shake my head.
‘You have nothing to apologize for, I'm so sorry about how I was, out there, I was freaked, but I shouldn't have shouted at you. I hate shouting at you.’ She kissed me on the forehead, then on my cheek, then on my lips.
‘You need to realize you can be angry, it's alright to be angry. I shout at you, and I don't feel guilty after ... Most of the time at least. That's the way it should be. I know you had it hard growing up, but you're not him, you won't hurt me. I trust you.’ Hearing her say this pulled me through to the completely bright side again, a side I couldn't be in when my mind was stuck in the past, or when the present got … Rocky. This time I kissed her, I pulled myself up by my arms and leaned across her, kissing her neck, still scented with the distant sweetness of her designer perfume.

4
We woke up late on Saturday morning, we had nowhere to be, and nothing in particular to do. So why rush the morning away? Eventually, evacuating the bedroom at eleven thirty-nine I was greeted by a message on the answering machine, the little red 1 flashing more vividly than the 16 seemed to have been the previous day. I pressed play.
‘Penn!’ It was Seb, serious and blunt as ever. ‘What kind of Friend makes plans to meet someone at eleven and doesn't show? Granted, it is only eleven ten now, so I will give you a little more time to show, but knowing you, I'm sensing this is a lost cause, even Hunt isn't here. Did you even invite him? I appreciate you have a lot on your mind at the moment, but it's not exactly like I didn't expect this to happen, it's pretty typical of you, I mean ...’ There was a long pause, as if he were considering how far he should take this rant. ‘Uh … I'll talk to you later, and Sadie, I'm sorry if you had to listen to this all the way through before Penn was even up, that wouldn't surprise me too much either. Bye.’ He was wrong about that at least, Sadie was still in bed, not asleep anymore but dozing, day dreaming, preparing herself for the weekend in a way. I picked up the phone, dialed Seb's number and held the phone in place between my shoulder and ear as I headed into the kitchen, both hands free, even with one arm considerably shorter due to having to scrunch my shoulder up to the side of my head. It rang, once, twice.
‘What?’ Seb shot down the phone line, he either checked his caller ID first or he was having an even worse morning than I'd realized.
‘Hey Seb, it's Penn.’ I realized how weird that would sound to a stranger listening in on the call, not knowing these were simply the rather boho names our eclectic parents gave us.
‘I know … Caller ID.’ He said, sounding just as blunt and fiery as he had on the message.
‘Listen, I'm really sorry I was a no show this morning, some really crazy stuff happened here last night, we didn't get to sleep until really, really late, or early I guess depending on how pedantic you wanna' be.’ Hoping he didn't take this last statement too personally, I plucked a bowl from the cupboard and filled it with Captain Crunch, quickly realizing we had no milk, I began grasping handfuls of it and shoveling it into my mouth dry.
‘Well life isn't exactly perfect and crazy free for everyone else at the moment Penn.’
‘What does that mean?’ I asked, curious, not yet concerned, my mouth brimming with brightly coloured cereal.
‘Nothing, I just had some pretty weird calls last night.’
‘To your dorm room? It was probably just some other student messing about with you.’ I thought. ‘You haven't pissed off any of the Greeks lately have you?’
‘It wasn't any of the frattuccinos.’ He said, I laughed. He'd used this word for all of the frat kids, including Hunter for as long as I'd known him, always with a slightly bitter twist to his voice.
‘How do you know? What did they say?’
‘I just know, it was a little too simple for them, you know?’ I did. ‘After like four or five calls of just deep breathing and hang up tones, the guy was finally like ‘Who is this?’ and I was like, ‘Sebastian Simpson, who's this? The fucking stalkers association?’’ He laughed for a moment, catching his breath. ‘And then nothing, he kind of muttered something, for a second I thought I heard him say your name, but I think that was just my imagination trying to hear words it couldn't.’
I began to pull myself up to sit on the kitchen side, however, once my ribs cracked and howled in pain I decided not to. I noticed the news paper cutting, left, still on the counter Sadie had put it on before my, lets say reaction the night before.
‘What time was this?’ I asked quickly, concern overtaking curiosity.
‘I don't know, pretty much straight after you called me, so eight-ish I guess.’ Straight after I'd called him, that had been when … When I found the cutting. That damn news paper cutting left by the stranger.
‘Why?’ He asked, as any sane person most probably would.
‘That was when somebody left a news paper cutting about the crash, at my front door, banging a lot beforehand.’ I replied trying to keep as calm and rational as possible, after all, there was no reason for me to panic, the pieces didn't fit. Why would somebody leave a cutting at my door and then cell-stalk my friend?
‘Somebody? You didn't get a look at who?’
I shook my head, as I did so I saw in the sink a dark, soggy mess. My sketchbook. I hadn't even thought of it the night before, and she'd tried to save it, unknowingly leaving it to dry in the sink even though if it ever did dry, every picture would be gone, the pencil, the pen, the paint, run and smudged. Those pages were suddenly only filled with dark, incomprehensible shapes.
‘Penn? Are you shaking your head again? You didn't see who it was?’ Seb calmly said, drawing me back, slowly but surely to the conversation, to the present.
‘Sorry, no. Why? Do you think it was the same person?’ I finally answered, tearing my eyes away from the dark, mangled paper shape, shriveled in the sink.
‘Maybe, I mean they're both pretty stalker like things to do. Don't worry though, he doesn't seem too smart. He's probably just getting these steps from Stalkers For Dummies and pretty soon he'll get lost and give up.’
‘How would you know how smart he is?’
‘He didn't block his number before he called, I have it saved in my phone memory now … Under Stalker. I tried calling him back last night but I'm pretty sure he realized he'd fucked up and ignored it. I'm gonna' try later on my roommate’s phone, maybe he won't see that coming.’ He was right, that wasn't a smart move, luckily for me however, Seb was smart and with any luck he would have the guys name by the end of the day. I smiled, calmed at the thought of this being over, especially if it did turn out to be the same guy who left the cutting, just having to deal with a ghost was bad enough for the moment.
‘Sounds like a plan, uh, do think you could text me his number though? Oh shit, no wait ...’ I realized where my phone was, where I'd last had it, I definitely didn't now. ‘Can you text it to Sadie's phone?’
‘Sadie's phone? Why?’ There was a sudden shrill tone to his voice, reminding me to ask Sadie if anything had happened between them whilst I'd been locked away in hospital.
‘Mine is in the trunk of my car, with a lot of other stuff for that matter. You have her number. Don't you?’
‘Yeah, and sure that's fine. Slightly confused as to why you want the possible stalkers number though.’
‘I want to put it into our, and Sadie's own, caller ID, name it Don't Answer or something. I might even go ahead and block it, especially on her cell. The last thing I want is for some kind of fucked up nut loaf freaking her out.’ I replied. Like the fact that I hated scaring her, I also hated the thought of anybody else scaring her, or worse, hurting her, I couldn't let that happen.
‘Sure. That sounds like a good idea, better than my idea of actually going out of my way to call the mad man.’ He laughed, I laughed. ‘I'll text it through in just a minute.’
‘Alright, thanks mate, and I am really sorry about this morning. I know I can be a seriously shitty friend sometimes.’ I heard him sigh on the other end of the phone.
‘It's cool man, all is forgiven.’ That was easier and faster than I'd expected.
‘Alright, well I'll talk to you later.’
‘Yeah, sure, Bye.’
‘Bye.’ I finished before hearing the abrupt click of the phone on the other end, I pressed the red button and dropped the phone on the side.
I groaned slightly, staring again at the mess that was my sketchbook lying, dormant in the sink. It wasn't the one backing up my project and years work for my Art degree, thank god, that was still lying in the boot of my crumbled Beamer, right next to my phone. I heard Sadie's phone beep, not from the bedroom, where I had thought it would have been, but from her bag, that giant bag, left slumped on the couch in the living room. I approached it and delved my hand in felling around for the curved sides of her Blackberry, she'd been talked into getting one by my mother and she hadn't put it down since, it beeped again, yet, I still couldn't find it. I opened the bag fully and peered in, her Blackberry, which I had been searching deep down at the bottom for was resting right on top, I should have known that really, I picked it up and watched the screen light up, as it beeped for a third time, on the screen flashed 1 New SMS From: Seb S. I smiled and was about to read the message and program the hopefully, included number into her Caller ID and if I could figure out how to, block it for good, then moving on to program it into the memory of the house phone. However, my eyes were drawn to a pure, white envelope, it was opened, I could tell by the frayed edging along the top, indicating she opened it in a hurry, her fingernails scratching and tearing at the paper. I picked it up and carefully placed her Blackberry back of the top of the pile contained in her bag. I had to see what was in there. Would it answer my questions about her and Seb? Would it answer any questions at all? Besides, it's fine if it's already open, then you can look, then it's not snooping. I tried to convince myself this was true, but I knew it wasn't. None the less, I slid the index finger and thumb of my right hand into the opened envelope, holding it in my left. I could feel only one object, hidden in it's white paper cage. A piece of paper? Card? It was perfectly square. I caught the mysterious object between my index finger and thumb and pulled it out, freeing it into the sunlight, bathing it in my breath. It was a polaroid, scribbled on the back, in my own handwriting was;
Seb, Sadie, Me, Hunter and Lacy-Liu –
Huntington Beach '09 …
BEST DAY EVER!!!
I smiled, the thought of why Sadie had this photograph, enveloped in her bag not crossing my mind at that point. I flipped the photograph over, what I saw shocked me, there I was, in the centre of the picture, standing between a lanky bodied Hunter and bikini clad Sadie, wearing swim shorts and nothing else, my hair dripping wet, my smile glistening as the salt water slid down my face and over my lips, I, however, was the only person whose picture was still completely intact, all of the others faces, they'd been scratched off, not cut, it wasn't going all the way through, just some seriously aggressive, circular scratching, leaving imperfect white ovals where their faces once were.
Sadie (the real Sadie) entered the room, smiling at me curiously, as I remained hovering over her bag, holding the white envelope in one hand and the literally defaced polaroid in the other.
‘What are you doing?’ She asked, immediately beginning to make her way towards me, no longer smiling. I dropped the envelope, it hit the side of her bag and slid down, finally settling on the rusty orange rug. I held up the photograph for her to see.
‘What is this?’
'It's a ...’
‘Please don't say It's a polaroid! I'm not messing. Seriously Sadie, where did this come from?’ I asked, knowing exactly of the fake nonchalant attitude she was attempting to approach the topic with.
‘It used to be in the frame on my bedside table, I loved that day … I hadn't even realized it was gone, until I received it, like that.’ She pointed at it before continuing, ‘On Tuesday, in the mail.’
‘Tuesday? The day after the accident?’ I asked for some reason, I knew she was talking about the Tuesday of the week only just been, why wouldn't she be. She nodded in agreement.
‘That was also the day the first news about the crash was aired, and when that article was printed.’
‘The one left at the door last night?’ I asked, again knowing it was the article she was referring to.
‘Yeah.’ She replied, her fake nonchalant attitude was now gone, completely absent in the conversation.
‘Why wouldn't you tell me about this?’ I waved the polaroid at her. I shook it.
Shaking her head, ‘I didn't want to worry you anymore, plus I didn't even know what to tell you, I have no idea what it's supposed to mean.’ She stopped me shaking the picture as she lay her right hand on top of mine, levitating high in the air, away from our bodies. I leaned in and kissed her knuckles.
‘Sadie, we're in everything together now. 'Til the end, right?’
‘Of course.’ She replied, moving in closer towards me, simply her presence calmed me, it soothed me, it soothed my mind, my imagination.
‘So you can tell me everything, you don't have to protect me. If something had have happened to you because of this, or because you didn't tell me, I wouldn't be able to li...’ My eyes began to swell with tears, what an emotional week it had been, I don't think there had been a single emotion I hadn't felt at least once that week. She held me, my head on her shoulder, hers on mine, I had to crouch a little to allow this, but, it was worth the effort.
‘I will never leave you. I will never let anything happen to you. I will never stop loving you.’ She whispered into my ear, her voice cracking here and there, it was clear to me tears were also now flowing down from her eyes, trailing my shoulder.
‘Because you know too much?’ I asked, not completely sure myself what I meant, although I thought she would.
‘Because I got you, and because of that you get me.’ She replied simply. She sniffled. I squeezed her tight in my arms, tight enough to feel her heartbeat next to mine. I released the polaroid from my right hand and let it fall to the floor. I didn't care. I didn't care if I died, right there at that very second. I was with her, I loved her and I knew she loved me, and that was all that mattered. She was all that mattered.

Huntington Beach '09

1
The setting sun was hitting the waves, crashing themselves against the shore in a vast spray of white. We had been there the whole day, arriving at around nine am, and we weren't planning on leaving any time soon. Hunter and Seb were still on the swells, determined to get Lacy up and on her board for more than a minute, for at least one wave. I sat quietly next to Sadie, my own board lying on the sand the other side of me, my swim shorts were still wet, and clumps of sand were clinging to them with every slight move I made.
‘You were good out there, I was impressed.’ Sadie said quietly, timidly leaning towards me and bumping her bare shoulder against my own. I smiled, fairly sure I was also blushing, at least slightly.
‘Compared to Hunt I look like a total amateur.’ I replied modestly.
‘Hunter grew up here. Did you even have beaches in England?’ She laughed, smiling at me her eyes lit up in the bright orange sunlight.
‘Surprisingly enough England does have its fair share of coast, being part of an Island and all … But London, where I lived, there was no beach, just a hell of a lot of metropolitan city, not too fun for kids.’ We both laughed, our eyes locked. There was something there I was sure I could feel it. The only thing was, did she feel it? She grinned at me again, biting her bottom lip as she did so. She felt it! I leaned my body in towards hers a little, resting my hands in the soft sand in between us, she moved her hand on top of mine. She leaned in a touch, I was sure I knew what was going to happen next, I was sure I knew exactly how the whole night would go. That was why I was so surprised to hear what came out of her mouth next.
‘I really like you.’ She said, stopping to stare into my eyes as another grin crept onto her face.
‘Good, 'cause I really like you too.’ I confirmed, still attempting to continue the lean in.
‘So, can we take it slow?’ She whispered, looking down now at her own hand on top of mine, she fidgeted her fingers over my knuckles, up my wrists.
‘Sure … I would be happy taking it seriously slow motion, if that's what you wanted.’
‘Thank you.’ She responded, her grin growing even more so, her dark eyes still glistening in the darkening day light.
Out of the blue, drawn from our long gaze, we heard screaming and whooping coming from the sea, we both turned to see Lacy standing upright on her board, Hunter holding her ankles and Seb holding the board, both pushing it over a small, breaking wave. We laughed and joined the celebratory whooping and cheering, waving our hands in the air, sand falling down onto our heads. I laughed a little more, shaking my head before lying back on the sand, arms stretched out by my sides, my hair soaking up more and more particles of sand. Sadie, without even looking towards me, followed and lay close, over my right arm, resting her head, hair still wet and becoming matted, on my chest. She clasped my right hand with hers. I smiled, and heard more whooping and cheering from the sea. Whether they were celebrating what they saw between us or Lacy getting up on her board again, I didn't know. I didn't care. I was whooping and cheering myself, in my head.

2
The night grew closer and the beach began to become enveloped in darkness, soon it would only be lit by the nearest street lights and the light pollution produced by the old pier. We had a fire and we were all grouped around it, not for warmth, it was a surprisingly hot night, but for comfort, for the crackling snaps of the wood and early autumn scent of barbecues and bonfires. We had a drinks cooler, four bottles of wine still remaining hidden inside, one being handed around the fire, friend to friend, no glasses. I took a swig, it was strong but fresh, a dark red muscat. I then handed the bottle to Sadie, whom I was holding close in front, in both arms, my head on her shoulder. The salt water sent of her hair wafting towards me whenever she moved.
‘So, are the dynamics of the group going to be completely different now?’ Seb asked, peering over the fire at Sadie and me. Sadie looked up at me, the expression on her face indescribably placid.
‘Why would it be?’ I asked looking between both Seb and Hunt. Seb was now holding the bottle, sitting almost directly opposite us, he looked slightly confused, something he didn't seem often, and his lanky body was shivering as it was overcome by darkness and shadow. He reached towards his side and grabbed his sweater, a heavy one, for the time of year especially. Hunter, however, seemed perfectly warm in just his swim shorts, his arm laced around Lacy's back, sitting close he rubbed the side of her midriff with his hand, she smiled and leaned into him a little more. ‘I mean, nothing changed when the two of you got together.’ I said, tilting my head towards Hunt and Lacy.
‘Yeah, but the group was less developed when Lacy-Liu and I hooked up.’ He said, I laughed at her new nickname. Simple yet effective. I thought to myself. ‘Now it's almost like the group dynamics have been set in stone, you've got to admit it's gonna' be different now.’ I didn't want to admit it. I didn't want anything to change, we spent almost every day together. Perfect day after perfect day = Perfect summer.
‘Will you still be living with me and Hunt when next semester starts?’ Seb asked, sounding a lot more concerned about the newly evolving events than I expected him to.
‘Probably. I mean, I don't know ...’ I began, hesitating at almost every word, not wanting to freak either the guys or Sadie, not this early on anyway.
‘We're taking it slow.’ Sadie added, Hunter and Seb sighed with apparent relief, Lacy nudged Hunt, shaking her head and rolling her eyes.
‘Well can we get a picture in, before everything starts changing? I think we'll want to remember this day.’ Hunt said, sliding an abnormally large polaroid camera out of the beach bag by his other side. I'd tried to get him to switch to digital many times, but he wasn't interested, If it ain't broke, don't fix it! He'd always say.
‘You mean when we're wrinkly, decrepit and incontinent?’ Sadie asked sarcastically, smiling.
‘Yeah, when our faces resemble maps of Maine and we spend everyday sitting in and smelling of our own shit.’ Hunter elegantly put. We laughed as we all stood and grouped together, around one side of the flames, Hunt placed the large beach bag on top of the drinks cooler in front of us, around five feet away, he balanced and angled the camera on top and pressed the Timer button, a small red light began to flash, and he quickly made his way back over to us, nestling between me and Lacy.
‘Say, incontinent.’ Lacy said in a touristy and elderly voice.
‘Incontinent.’ We all chorused, some in time, some one after the other. The camera flashed and the small, slide of polaroid film trickled from the slot on the front. Hunter approached it, picked it up and began to shake it in the salty air. He stopped and looked down at it smiling.
‘Here you are you two, congrats.’ He said, sliding the polaroid into my hand. ‘Don't forget to title it, you artists like to name and label things. Right?’ I nodded, looking down already at the photograph, the five of us lined up and grinning like idiots, a perfect representation of the day.
‘Pen?’ I asked.
‘Heads up.’ Lacy said, throwing one over the fire towards me. One which had obviously been hidden away in the beach bag all day, a red Papermate Marker. I sat down, Sadie close next to me, and flipped the polaroid, beginning to scribble on the back.
Seb, Sadie, Me, Hunter ...
‘... And Lacy-Liu.’ I looked up and over at Lacy, it was fairly clear she was less happy with her new nickname than I was. ‘Huntington Beach '09 … Best Day Ever.’ I added three exclamation marks after the last line, grinning to myself with pride and happiness.
‘Wow, your life must've been pretty dull, for this to be your best day ever.’ Seb said before beginning to laugh to himself, I smiled and also began to laugh. Soon we were all laughing, possibly finding ourselves more influenced by the wine than we'd realized.

3
The hours passed, we drank and laughed. As the fire began to dwindle to its final sparks and crackles Sadie turned to me, taking the bottle out of my hand and setting it down beside her.
‘You wanna' take a walk?’ She asked, Hunter immediately looked up towards me and raised his eyebrows, smiling discreetly.
‘Uh, sure.’ I said, she stood in front of me and helped me up, my feet sinking into the sand as Seb reached over and grabbed the bottle. We walked along the beach silently, I held her hand tightly in mine. Once we reached the pier with our friends and the dwindling flames of the fire we'd built almost completely out of sight, she leaned her back on a dark, weathered beam and pulled me towards her. We kissed, and Sadie's hands slid up my sides and around the back of my neck, I felt her fingers bump and shiver over the three neat scars positioned at the top of my spine, she held her hand over them even when I pulled my lips, my head, away from hers.
‘If I asked, would you tell me?’ Sadie asked, a question that could have sounded overly confusing to others, but I understood her completely. I sat down, almost falling to the sand, pulling her with me, tightly nestled between me and the old post. I turned to her, no smile, and began to talk.
‘I was eight when my Mum got her first novel published, she suddenly span from being the daughter of a rich conservative to being a novelist, known around the world almost over night. A few weeks passed and she was flown off, around the world as far as I know. I was left at home, in London with my Dad and half sister, she was born two years before me, my Dad had an affair, but my Mum gave him a second chance, even letting her live and grow up with us four days a week, she always said she didn't want to deprive her of a father, turns out it would have been better if she did. Anyway, whilst my Mum was away, I stumbled upon the fact that my Dad was having yet another affair, some slut from down the road, and I told my Mum … Needless to say, she ordered a divorce which was completed within a matter of weeks, her lawyers were good, although I think they were mainly fueled by the astonishing royalty checks she was receiving, wanting to get it filed away before he could get his hands on any more. However, she was busy, traveling and working, mainly based here in LA for most of the year ...’
‘She left you with him?’ Sadie said, sounding both astonished and concerned. I continued,
‘She promised he wouldn't find out I told her, I don't know how she planned on doing it but, I trusted her, and I wanted her to be happy. And for the first time in god knows how long, she was. He knew. Two years passed, pretty smoothly actually, for me anyway, and then she died, my half sister Jessica. Apparently, she caught pneumonia and her body just gave up, I didn't see her at all whilst it was happening, or after, but that's what I was told. My Mum didn't come back for the funeral, she'd just released Dark Fountain, and it was huge. She called to check on me, almost every day for a month. But then, when she stopped calling, my life began to fall apart. I was ten, and my life was just cracking at the seams, pretty soon so was I. For six years, some weeks were fine, maybe even months, but then there were times not even a day would pass without … My mum still doesn't know, nobody does.’ Sadie suddenly looked shocked, she grasped the side of my face and turned it to look at her.
‘What?’ She almost shouted. ‘He should be in prison Penn! Why wouldn't you tell anyone?’
‘Because my Mum made a mistake, she didn't know and she would never forgive herself, if it had been one cut, or one broken finger she just wouldn't.’ Her eyes filled with water as she stared into mine.
‘How much was it?’ She asked, staring in the darkness at my body, trying to pinpoint and pick out individual scars and battle wounds.
‘It was six years worth.’ I replied bluntly, I didn't want to, I couldn't give specifics. It was my life, my childhood and it was all wrong, but I still couldn't get it back, so I chose to ignore it as much as I could, almost pretending it had never happened.
‘How did you get away?’ She queried, I was glad to hear this question, it meant we were close to the end, she met me three months after I got away after all.
‘I ran. As soon as I turned sixteen the first settlement in my trust fund was unlocked in my account, I bought a ticket and left. I came here and never talked about him, or why I left again … Until now, and he never tried to find me, he knew he was lucky not to have the police knocking on his door. I'm fine, I'm happy, as long as I never see him again.’ She leaned over and kissed me on the forehead before resting her head on my shoulder, running her fingertips over the collection of scars on my hip. I didn't mind. She accepted them, she accepted me. I smelt her hair.

4
That night wasn't special or memorable because of what happened. But, for what didn't happen, we talked, I told her things I'd never told anybody else, she didn't push, and we kissed, it was the slow start to us.