AFFTAF

The door creaked slightly and a slight slither of light was cast across the carpet. Half a second later, the dark shadow of a tall person cut across the beam of light, moving smoothly from the doorway across the room to where her bed was. The bed sunk slightly as he sat on it, pressing his damp body firmly against hers.
“What are you doing?” she exclaimed, “You’re all wet!”
He chuckled softly and she smelt alcohol on his breath. “He saw us!” he laughed. “Bruce,” he continued, sensing the questioning in her silence.
“What have you done” she breathed back at him, faking exasperation. What she really felt was a whole other story; admiration, delight and beating just beneath the surface, a pensive excitement that had something to do with his body so close to hers.
“Well,” he paused for effect, building on her anticipation. “We spat on his car…”
“You didn’t!” she proclaimed, quickly pushing herself upright, playing up her reaction for the benefit of his story.
“…and well I did something else.” He continued, gleeful from her response, barely waiting for her to finish.
“What did you do?” She asked mockingly stern.
“I, uh,” He cleared his throat, “may have relieved myself against his car too.”
“TEDDY!” And the shock in her voice this time was genuine. He didn’t respond, simply looking at her with wide eyes. Even in the dark, she could see the playfulness in those eyes, the telltale dimples forming around his mouth. She fought off distraction.
“He’s going to think that I put you up to it, Teddy.” She said, trying to sound cross. But her voice was still gentle. She adjusted herself so that she was lying back on her elbows, hoping he couldn’t see her face clear enough in the dark to give herself away.
“Yeah, but we ran,” he said leaning closer over her body and sliding one long arm along the length of her forearm, to rest under her elbow, cradling it lightly. All her false anger melted away and she threw away the act as she murmured “tell me about it.”
“Well,” he launched into the rest of the story, the alcohol fuelling his storytelling abilities. “He saw us so we, the three of us that is, we ran! All the way to the lake. Dan and Jake, they kept going. Me, I dived into the lake and just hid there. My phone was in my pocket and there was Bruce, pacing around looking for us. He would’ve killed us.”
“Would he have, now?” She said, amused.
“Yep, but I would’ve fought him.” Teddy finished confidently and, in the same breath, “Dan rang, he doesn’t know where Jake is. We’ve lost him.”
“Lost him?” She asked sceptically, “and your phone actually still works?”
“Yep,” She felt him sliding away, though he was still physically close. “That’s the real reason I came up, have you seen Jake? Has he been here?” Damn him, he was already begin to erase this.
“No, I haven’t, he hasn’t” She said flatly. He gave her a brief blazing look and bent over quickly to swipe her lips with his. The kiss was hard and fast, and he had barely finished before he was moving away from the bed and out the door.
“Bye.” She whispered, as the door swung softly from his exit. And she was left laying alone and still amongst the damp covers squashed with his imprint, heart beating hard.


* * * * *

She heard footsteps approaching behind her. Soft and slow, the way her Dad used to walk. The thought flitted through her mind before she had time to stop it - drinking was a bad idea. It did nothing to stop the pain. Instead it made her hallucinate, made her remember, haunted her. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, but that too did nothing to shut out the pain. A small tear still escaped from her closed eyelids to roll down her cheek. She had never ached so much.

A soft hand gently caressed her cheek, wiping away the fugitive tear. Her eyes flew open and a soft gasp betrayed her. Teddy was squatting in front of her, his face written in concern, his outstretched hand still hovering around her cheek from which he had wiped away her tear.
“I thought I’d find you here.” His soft voice was barely audible over the strengthening wind.
“How did you know that?” She mumbled, her voice thick with tears, her throat constricted.
“I remember you telling me about the ships.” He responded, his eyes darting towards the horizon were they were anchored, lights flickering at intervals.
“About how you watch them. How it’s your way to remember.”
When she nodded miserably, he changed his position, rolling so he went from squatting to sitting beside her. Tentatively, unsure, he slowly put one arm around her. She was too miserable to even care and for once, her heart didn’t betray her by speeding up.

I walk into Mum’s room to get the dog off the window sill, where he is sitting barking. My eyes sweep over the room and come to rest on a purple journal on the bedside table. I sigh, closing my eyes for half a second. Mum has been torturing herself again with the diary documenting Dad’s death again. I pick it up and flick through it absently. It spans from the 2nd of August 2002, being told Dad has only a year to live, to the 12th of February 2004, when he finally stopped.

* * *

“You have the same knees.”
She glanced down at them, her legs outstretched on the carpet. Even through the tears, she could make out her knees clearly for the first time. Knees. One of those things you never take notice of. It’s always thighs, ass, tits. She tilted her knees inwards, looking at them from all angles, from within a trance. They lost focus as her eyes blurred over. Blinking out a fat tear, she drew those knees up to her chest, which was being gripped by an unbearable, almost forgotten pain. .
“What else?” she croaked.
“Your expressions. Your articulation. That passion for life. He could never understand why people didn’t want to live when there was so much about the world to see and learn, to love.”
“So you see him in me? I remind you of him?” She had sat forward now, her splotchy water-streaked face hungry, the tears momentarily halted.
“Everyday. I notice something in your mannerisms, or the shape of your arms. You can’t have gotten those knees from me, mine are way more knobbly. I have the Askey knobbly knees.”
She sat back slowly, staring at her knees again. She would gladly give both those knees and everything below for him to walk through that door right now. She wished she had been more attentive. All those times that she had sat next to him on the couch. She should have compared knees then, but she didn’t even notice.