Day 5:
I dreamt of a whale. Whales in a dream are supposed to mean calm and tranquillity, at least… that’s what the dream interpreters say. But what do they know? What if I’m scared of whales? What if a whale tried to eat me once? Okay so maybe not eat me necessarily but maybe looked at me
Anyway, so I dreamt of a whale. It was huge and scary and amazing. This massive thing dwarfed by the sky it was in. What? I didn’t mention it was in the sky? My bad. So, I dreamt of a whale in the sky, swimming?flying through the clouds.
A vastness meets an infinity.
I know it’s supposed to be calming but all I kept thinking, in my dream, was:
"What if this massive whale falls out of the sky? What if the calming, tranquil whale just decides to stop swimming (or flying) and just...
Wooo
Oooo
Ooooo
Oooooo
Ooooooosh
SPLAT."
That’s not very calming, is it?
Day 6:
“If someone told me a year ago that this had happened to me, I wouldn’t have believed them.”
That’s what they say right? When something terrifying or amazing or weird happens, that they never would have believed it. Well, that’s not the case with me. If you’d have told me this was going to happen, I would have believed it, it seems very much like something that would happen to me.
Weird shit like this has been happening to me since I can remember. You might even say I’m cursed, if you believed in that sort of thing. Maybe I am, but does a curse even work if you don’t believe it? Because I don't, or at least I didn't.
Sitting in an ambulance in one of those stupid tin foil blankets and feeling like a baked potato, I’m starting to think I might be (cursed, I mean... not a baked potato).
[later that night]
I heard him again. It woke me up. The same way it did the first time. I’m hyperventilating. They got him, I’m safe, I’m okay, he can’t hurt me again. It’s like a mantra I play over and over again in my head. But that’s not the only thing rattling around up there. I can hear him, just over the mantra, trying to drown it out. Trying to beat me.
I get out of the bed and wince. I take slow and deliberate steps trying not to move anything that I don’t have to. They offered me a catheter so I don’t have to get up but I wasn’t going to let them stick anything up there. No way.
The bathroom smells like disinfectant, everything in this damn place does. I’m starting to smell like disinfectant. God, I need to get out.
I didn’t mind hospitals until tonight, until I had to stay in one. They were just a place I sometimes had to go to visit someone, or get my wisdom teeth pulled out once (which I swap for this in a heart beat).
I wipe and slowly stand back up, I scuffle to the mirror. Looking at myself, bruised and makeup-less, I feel small. For the first time in my life, I feel weak, and small and pathe- it wasn’t my fault, there was nothing I could have done, I survived.
I hear him speaking to me, I try to squash him down, I close my eyes and focus on my own mantra again They got him, I’m safe, I’m okay, he can’t hurt me again. I open my eyes-
“HOLY FUCK!” I scream and jump backwards, smacking harshly into the door.
He was in the mirror, I opened my eyes and it was him, beady eyes and lipsticked smile. I’m going crazy. I can hear him again, his laugh, loud and obtrusive in my head. I hear knocking, actual knocking. I open the bathroom door and there’s a nurse looking panicked. He sees how scared I am and asks if I’m okay. I tell him what I saw, he’s kind and listens patiently.
“It’s normal for patients who experience a traumatic event to see things like that. He had you for weeks, you’re bound to be a little- and this is the medical term- fucked up.” He smiles, it’s a comforting smile, it soothes me. My breathing has slowed down, I didn’t even notice I was hyperventilating again.
“They’ve always freaked me out a little,” He says. “I guess you’re going to have a proper phobia now.”
“Yeah, maybe… then again, once you’ve punched a clown in the face, they’re much less frightening.”
Day 9
The shopkeepers played a game with the Marfield kids. They didn't notice their little feet behind other shoppers on the way in, or the rustling under their jackets when they left and they definitely did not notice if a pack of biscuits or toothbrush fell out of their jacket, nor did they see the scramble to pick it back up. They didn't notice these things because they knew these kids and they knew their mother, everyone did.
They heard her screams at night and they noticed her absence in the day. She used to dote on them, every penny she made at the factory would go to them, every ounce of affection she produced would be poured over them. They never wanted for anything. Until they did. Until she no longer doted on them, until she no longer went to work, until she stopped producing affection. It happened slowly, so no one really noticed it and then all at once they did. No one wants to be the one to take them away from her so they play the game.
They put clothes in their sizes at the front of the rack and would sometimes accidentally drop money on the ground when they were near. The whole town played.
Sometimes they would see them dancing in the street, smiles on their faces and ragged shoes on their feet. Other times they would hear them singing to their mother to soothe her screams.
They're the Marfield kids and this is their game.
Day 10
"Are you coming out tonight?" Jess asked, knowing the answer would be the same as every other time she asked: 'No, I need to revise.'
"Yeah"
"Okay well if you change your min- wait what?"
"I said I'm coming out."
A smile spread across Jess's face but then she replaced it with faux confusion.
"Who are you and what have you done with Grace?"
"You've been hounding me to come out for weeks, I finally say yes and you question it?"
"Good point, let's go get ready".
[Later]
Jess was stood watching Grace, she was smoking with people she hadn't seen before. This was wrong for two reasons.
1. Grace does not smoke, she never has and she'd constantly moan about people who do.
2. Grace does not speak to complete strangers. Ever. She'd rather spend 30 minutes looking down each aisle in a shop than ask a worker where something was.
She hoped that her friend was just branching out, but, deep down Jess knew something was wrong.
She went to speak to her but when she asked Grace what she was doing it came out a little too motherlike.
"I'm just having a smoke, calm down?"
Jess felt a small pang of betrayal followed quickly by worry, she'd never spoken to her like that before.
"Let's go inside."
"Yeah, I'm nearly finished," Grace rolled her eyes, "okay, let's go."
They battled their way inside, holding on to each other so neither got lost, and found somewhere to sit.
"Are you okay?"
"Let's do shots."
"You've had enough."
"Nope"
"What do you mean? You've had more tonight than you've had in all year. You need to slow down"
Grace looked at Jess and she saw something that told her to drop it and that fuelled her anxiety about her friend.
"I'm going to dance."
She would let her have 10 minutes dancing and then call for a taxi home, they could talk about whatever was bothering her in the morning. Or, more likely from the state of her dancing, late afternoon.
[later]
"You have to tell me what she took, we're not the police, we're trying to help her." The paramedic was being kind and sincere but Jess had no idea what she was talking about. She realised she hadn't said as much and was just staring at the paramedic perplexed.
Grace was being bundled into an ambulance, she'd stopped breathing after Jess found her passed out in the bathroom.
Jess shook herself out of her confusion and told the paramedic what she was thinking.
"I have no idea what she took, she's never done drugs, I have no idea."
One of the strangers Grace was smoking with earlier came forward and told them it was molly.
"What?" She shoved him, hard. "You gave her ecstasy?"
"No, I mean yes," he spluttered and slurred. He'd clearly taken something too. "She asked for some! It's not my fault!"
The paramedic got in between them.
"Stop it, we need to leave now."
"Yeah, sorry."
She clambered into the back of the ambulance and sat back in her seat to avoid getting in the way.
The ambulance ride was a blur, she'd never been in an ambulance before, she didn't enjoy it.
They got to the hospitals and the doctors and nurses were rushing around doing what they do. Jess was told to wait in the waiting room, she didn't enjoy that either.
10 minutes or 2 hours later a doctor came to speak to her. Grace's heart had stopped twice but they managed to get it restarted both times, she was resting and was going to be okay.
"Can I see her?"
The doctor smiled and told her that Grace had been asking for her.
Grace had never looked so ill, she didn't look she was asleep, she doesn't sleep like that. Jess wanted to ask if she could move her so she'd be more comfortable but thought better of it.
The doctor came back in, gently woke Grace and told her the police would be here soon.
"Why?," Jess almost yelled, panicked, "she's never taken drugs before, I promise, you don't need to call the police about that."
The doctor looked from Grace to Jess and back again. She looked concerned, like she'd over shared.
Grace gave the doctor an almost imperceptible nod that Jess would have missed if she wasn't staring at her best friend, silently trying figure out the secret her and the doctor shared.
"We noticed some bruises on Grace that we thought were concerning, we asked if she wanted to have the police called and she agreed."
"Well, she fell over a lot tonight, I don't understand..." she looked back to Grace, "why would you want to speak to the police about bruises?"
The doctor looked shifted where she stood and cleared her throat slightly.
"No. the bruises aren't from tonight."
She was about to continue when Grace told her it was okay, turned over and grasped her best friends hand, and stared into eyes. Jess noticed they were glistening with tears. The doctor excused herself as Jess stared into Grace's eyes willing her to explain, but all she got in return was a slight squeeze on her hand and the tears in Grace's eyes spilling over on to her cheeks.
Realisation dawned on her. The drinking, the smoking, the drugs. It made sense now.
She sat and held her best friends hand and cried silently for what she had endured.
Day 13
I read somewhere that most people fall out of love with people for the same reason they fell in.
That's all I think of as you tell me that you you're not in love with me anymore.
That's what I hear as you tell me that I've changed and you don't love the new me.
But you're wrong.
You fell in love with me because I'm stubborn and impulsive and get excited about silly things and wear only odd socks.
You fell out of love with me because I'm opinionated and reckless and immature and... okay you still like my odd socks.
I haven't changed, you just became acclimatised to my quirks so I am no longer interesting to you. No longer that mysterious girl who peaked your interest.
I haven't changed, that's the problem.
