This Girl

April wakes up, disorientated. She is lying on the floor of an empty room. The beer-stained carpet smells like hell, but feels familiar. There's a single armchair in the corner and a broken TV set, nothing else. The torn curtains are barely hanging on anymore and the daylight fights its way in through the cracks, like an intruder. It casts a broken shadow on her still body. She can't move and she doesn't want to move, she could stay like this forever. It wouldn't matter, she thinks, the world would go on and nothing would change without her.

Hot tears run down her pale cheeks as fragments from the last few months flash through her mind. Can you ever run out of tears? She wonders, and her whole body quivers as a fresh wave of sadness grips her. The tears comfort her, she knows she can rely on her tears to escape from her eyes and come rolling down her cheeks when ever she feels sadness. They never disappoint, they never let her down. Now they roll off her cheeks and drop onto the carpet adding yet another stain. She wonders how long she could lie there before anyone would find her. Would anyone go searching for her? Would she go searching for herself?

She suddenly feels an intense wave of nausea and breaks into a violent sweat. Her whole body seizes up and her stomach flips upside down. She jumps to her feet, throws open the window, and the remainder of the beer that didn't hit the carpet plunges from her mouth foaming and yellow onto the concrete outside. She wheezes and coughs, exhausted she slumps against the wall. Feeling like there's nothing left inside her now she kneels down, rests her head on the windowsill, and inhales fresh air.

Everything is still again. Then out of the corner of her eye she sees a snail; tightly wrapped inside its shell and surrounded with a puddle of sticky slime. She reaches up and tries to flick it off the windowsill but it's stuck firmly, clinging to its slimy bed. Resting her head on her arm with her legs tucked under her she stares intently at the little snail. She takes comfort in feeling as though they are the only two beings in the world, both curled up and stuck firmly on this window ledge.

She thinks about her past and what a mess she has made of everything. She places her hand on her flat stomach and trembles. The baby is gone. Peter is gone. Her friends left hours ago, they left her lying there all alone. Sure, they have their own problems so they came over to get drunk and forget everything for a few hours. What good is that? Everything comes back in the morning.

***********

Lynda arrived at 9:27 p.m the previous night. Typical, thinks April, who had been expecting her since 8:30. She didn’t want to be alone when she arrived back from England but instead she arrived back to a cold, dark house. All Peter’s things were gone and the cozy little house they had once shared was almost unrecognizable. He had even taken the couch from the sitting room. For tonight though she was going to forget everything. Her friends were all coming over to help her drink her troubles away. They were there for her now.

April took a second look at Lynda and noticed that she had a horrendous black eye.

“What happened?” She exclaimed
“Hockey practice!” Giggled Lynda a bit too quickly “Sex on the Beach?”
“Huh?” Said April as Lynda produced a large bottle of Vodka and an even larger bottle of Peach Schnapps and proceeded to fill a glass to the brim with the toxic concoction.

April looked at her friend again. Her eyes were wide like dinner plates and she was shaking with a kind of nervous energy. She cranked on the stereo and began dancing around the room and singing along to Abba at the top of her voice.
The doorbell rang and April jumped up to answer it. Her heart did a summersault as she saw Peter’s silhouette through the frosted glass. She pulled the door handle but the latch was caught, she had been meaning to fix that since she and Peter moved in but hadn’t gotten around to it. She shook it a few more times, her heart was racing. Finally the door opened up to reveal an impatient Dave standing outside in the rain. Disappointed, she let Dave in.

“Get in another fight Lynda?” Dave said dryly as he entered the room cracking open a can and sitting down on the armchair. Lynda gave him her famous two-fingered salute and kept dancing. April looked at Dave as he lit up a cigarette. Dave was handsome. He was tall and dark with designer stubble and tousled brown hair. He was like a more groomed version of her Peter. April sat down next to him on the arm of the chair and took a cigarette. He put his hand on her knee supportively but knew not to say anything and instead they began talking about his rugby trials for Ireland. She had known Dave all her life. They were next door neighbors as kids and close friends. He has been so busy with rugby that she rarely sees him anymore though.

“So..Where’s Peter?” She asked at last, her voice cracked as she said his name out loud.
“Dunno.” Muttered Dave. She knew he was lying. Dave and Peter had become good friends and she knew he was obeying the “guy code” by not telling her anything. At least he wasn’t mad with her, she couldn’t bear to lose a friend as well. April took a large gulp of her drink and they both sat in silence.

Lisa and Katie were next to arrive. Lisa looked beautiful, she always did. She was wearing a black Gucci dress, black strappy sandals. Her Barbie-blonde hair was blow-dried to perfection and her make-up was immaculate. She could have stepped off the cover of Vogue. After giving April a warm hug and a bottle of Champagne she parked herself on Dave’s knee and the two of them immediately started into a full-on make-out session. April felt uncomfortable and moved away to greet Katie, and cause an intervention as Lynda was trying to pull her up dancing and Katie was having none of it. The two of them are polar opposites and April doesn’t know how they are still friends. Lynda is a good-time girl and up for a laugh at any cost. Katie is sensible, she believes in moderation and has amazing self-control. April offers her a drink.

“Just a diet coke hon, I’ve just been to the gym and don’t want to undo my hard work!” Katie replied.
“Sure you’ve earned it then!” Lynda says before breaking into the chorus of Dancing Queen.

“She’s in flyin’ form,” Katie acknowledged following April to the kitchen.
“I’m worried about her, she hasn’t been herself lately” April replied thoughtfully.

Suddenly the front door swung open and in piled Lynda’s work crew. It was sure to be a mad night, thought April, and a pang of regret shot through her body. She poured another drink and knocked it back in one go, killing any feeling that stirred within her even just for tonight.

By 11 p.m. the party was in full swing. April was drunk, she didn’t know half the people in her house and she couldn’t care less. Lynda and her work buddies were up dancing and their shrieks of laughter could probably be heard all over town. Dave and Lisa had disappeared and some of Dave’s mates were huddled around the dancing girls hoping to get their attention. Peter wasn’t there; he wasn’t going to be there. April was alone in the armchair. She rolled up another joint and laid her head back against the headrest allowing the music to pump through her body. She felt every fiber in her body relax. She heard Katie mumble something about leaving but everything was hazy and she couldn’t tell. She saw the back of Katie’s curly black hair as she headed for the door, leaving the chaos behind. April closed her eyes.

She opened her eyes again and saw Lynda and another girl whispering outside the open door. The girl handed Lynda a bag of white powder… again April drifted off to sleep.
She dreamt about Peter; his cheeky grin, his messy black hair. He always wore black, and that Guns n’ Roses t-shirt. He used to touch her so softly, looking into her big brown eyes so full of love.
Suddenly the dream became a nightmare and she was in Belfast on that training day with Sean. Just colleagues nothing to worry about, she assured Peter. All that Champagne, why did she let her guard down? Why did she drink so much? And why, why didn’t they use protection?

She jumped awake as she awkwardly hit the floor, pain shot up through her arm. She looked around and everyone was gone, leaving her in that messy room with one chair. She fell asleep on the floor and had more nightmares this time she was in England and they were taking the baby from inside her.

***********
Now as April rests on the windowsill with her little snail as her only companion, she thinks about now, about this present moment and how it’s all she has. She feels strength deep within, clarity. She has two options; she can stay there and hide while life passes her by, or she can take control and embrace that which is all around her. She doesn’t want to be like Lynda, hiding in a stupor of drugs and meaningless parties. She thinks of her other friends Dave, Katie, and Lisa. They have taken hold of their lives, they are happy, they have goals and they know what they want. April is ready to get there too.

She rises to her feet, dusts herself off, goes outside and hops into her little car. With a twist of the key she makes her way to the lakeside. Less than twenty minutes later she pulls into a parking space. It is seven a.m. and there’s nobody around just April and her lake. She picks up her handbag as she climbs out of the car, it’s so heavy. She walks down the dusty path with a light breeze in her hair the sun shines down on her warming her skin. She hears the water lapping in the distance and quickens her pace, kicking her shoes off so that she can feel the earth at her feet. Her handbag still weighs her down so she stops walking and looks inside. It’s full of old rubbish she has hoarded over the years. Suddenly it dawns on her that she doesn’t need it, any of it. She turns the heavy bag upside-down and out falls the entire contents onto the ground. Feeling light as a feather now she skips along the path and doesn’t look back.

As she reaches the end of the path she comes to a gate. She unlatches the gate with ease and there it is, the big blue lake glistening in front of her and stretching as far as the eye can see. The mountains on the horizon and the blue sky are reflected on the glassy surface and April can see everything twice; once clear and beautiful and once blurry and unsteady. “There are two sides to everything,” she whispers softly. This first day of summer is the first day of the rest of her life. She slowly walks down the jetty removing her dress as she walks. Then feeling as though she is floating on air she dives into the crystal clear water, feeling more alive than she have ever felt before.

WORDS: 1,980