Fading Read online

  With nothing left to say, I leave the room in silence and don’t make a sound until I collapse on my bed.

  Twenty Nine

  Jason finds me pathetically sobbing into my pillow a couple of hours later.

  Without a word he climbs up next to me and just lays there until I calm down, saying nothing even once all my tears have dried.

  “What do you want?” I ask to break the silence. It’s not like we can stay here and not say anything for the next couple of days? He’d never let me get away with that.

  “What do you want, Lily?” He asks instead of answering.

  “I don’t know.” I answer honestly. “I just want everything to be normal, but I don’t know what that is anymore.”

  “You don’t what what is?”

  “Normality. I can’t even remember what my life was like when things were normal any more, that’s sad, isn’t it?”

  “It’s because you’ve been pretending that nothing has happened.” He points out softly.

  So softly that it makes me sit up to look at him. “That’s not what I’ve been doing.” I frown at him. “Not exactly.”

  “Yes it is. Lily, I need you to be completely honest with me right now.”

  “Okay...”

  “When did you start taking them?”

  “The pills? After my mum died. It was an accident but then when I realised how they made me feel, I just started taking them because I could and dad was out of it so there was no one to stop me and… well, it got a little out of control.”

  “So you started taking them right away? No wonder you don’t remember what it’s like when everything is normal. You’ve got all this loss to deal with and instead of doing that, you’ve been ignoring it.”

  “So what am I supposed to do?”

  “Honestly?” He asks and waits until I nod before he continues. “I think you need to deal with all the deaths, Lily. I think you have to accept them, even Gavin’s. You haven’t even processed any of them yet, Gavin was first and then before you could really understand that, your mother died and then you were taking the pills and the your dad died and now… well, now you have to deal with all three of them.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “I know. I wouldn’t want to either, but you have to. If you want to move on and start finding your way back to normal; you need to accept that those three people you loved, they aren’t here anymore.”

  “I know they aren’t here anymore.”

  “Do you? Because I think this whole time you’ve just been pretending that none of it happened. Wait… was you trying to do that thing that you do where you think that if you pretend it didn’t happen then you’ll start believing it and then it’ll actually be like it never happened?”

  For a second I’m shocked, but then it turns into suspicion. “How do you know that I do that?”

  “Because you did it when you fell over and needed stitches in your hand, the whole time we riding to the hospital you were talking about how it never happened and that if we all pretended it didn’t then it would be real and you wouldn’t need the stitches.” He smirks.

  I’m pretty sure I’ve turned the same shade as a serial killer’s hands after a particularly successful night. I remember that day and I remember the stitches – I didn’t actually need real stitches, I had those dissolvable ones and Jason came into the room with me and held my uninjured hand all the way through it.

  “That’s not really the same thing, mostly because it worked when I did it that night, it hasn’t been working so well over the last couple of years – hence the need for the pills.” I point out.

  “I’m glad you can make a joke out of it, I really am.” He says but the expression on his face says quite the opposite.

  “I’m not joking about it, I’m simply pointing out the obvious.”

  “Well, it’s time to do something. What are you going to do? Sit around and keep trying to pretend it into an alternate universe, or are you going to deal with the truth and start moving on with your life?”

  “Uh, that was really harsh.” I frown at him.

  “I know it was, but maybe that’s what you need. Nothing else seems to be working. You’re way certainly didn’t.”

  “Okay, so what do you suggest? How do just accept that? I mean, it’s not like I don’t know that I’m never going to see them again. It’s not like I sit at home and wait for them to walk in. I know that none of them will ever call or text me, I know I won’t bump into any of them in the street, I know I won’t speak to any of them every again. I know they’re not here. That’s not the problem.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” Now he’s the one frowning and I can’t help but wonder how this is helping. All we seem to be doing is confusing each other.

  “The problem is the pain. The pain I feel when I think about them. I don’t deal with pain well, you know that. The pain I feel when I think about them though, that’s something I couldn’t have even imagined because it’s not a physical pain. It’s not something I can just put a band aid on.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere.” He smiles for the first time in what feels like weeks. “So you think about them and it’s hurts; which is understandable, but that’s what you don’t want to deal with?”

  “Yeah, I like to try and avoid pain at every available opportunity.”

  “But you think about them.”

  “Of course I do. I loved them, all of them. Thinking about them is natural. It’s not like I can just wipe out every memory I have of them and believe me, I’ve tried.”

  “You can’t take away your memories of them, Lily, that’s not fair to you or them. But I think I know a way we can start getting you through this.”

  “How?”

  “The next time you find yourself facing a memory of one of them, come to me. We can talk through it. I can remember with you and we’ll focus on the happy times and hopefully, that pain you feel will start to fade away.”

  I nod at him and find myself smiling back. “Replace the pain with happy memory… I like it. Thank you, Jason.”

  “You’re welcome.” He pats me on the head awkwardly and leaves me alone in my room.

  I know it’s not something we discussed, and I’m not even sure it’ll help, but once he’s gone and closed the door, I walk over to my desk and find an empty journal, - my mum was always buying them for me but I always forgot to keep writing in them. Once I have the one I want I grab a pen and take them back to bed with me. I get comfortable and start writing about everything that’s happened since Jason found me on the kitchen table.

  Thirty

  Writing in a journal, like everything else has its good points and its bad points.

  The good points are that it’s helped me work out a lot of frustration, reading over what I’d been doing helped me see what a complete total wreck I’ve been and it’s an outlet for all those small things that I would usually keep inside my head and never get them out.

  The bad ones, well, there’s really only one and that’s it’s made me realise how much Jason took on when he declared himself my saviour. And now that I understand how much he’s done for me and how much he’s been there for me these last couple of weeks, it’s reminded me of how he used to be.

  How we used to be.

  So now I spend the majority of my time thinking about him and how we used to be, how we are now and even, how we could be. I’ve even caught myself trying to make excuses for what he did to me that night when everything changed.

  You’d think that it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, right? I mean, I’m only thinking about him. But it is a big deal because now that I’m spending so much time inside my own head, the real life Jason that lives with me is worried that I’m zoning out and I’m going to relapse. So he’s focusing all his energy on ‘distracting’ me and staying close.

  Really close.

  I’ve tried assuring him that I’m not going to do anything stupid but he’s not taking any chances.

  As
much as I appreciate everything that he had done and is doing, it’s getting harder and harder to keep up with my hatred of him. Hell, I don’t even think I dislike him anymore. And the more time I spend with him, the more my feelings are starting to shift.

  How do you avoid someone who spends every minute of every day with you while you’re awake?

  You can’t.

  There’s no way around it.

  Not one.

  Take today for example, - Jason picks a new project every day for us to do which is supposed to keep me focused on the present. Today’s project is redecorating my father’s bedroom.

  The house I live in is the house I’ve always lived in, a couple of years after my mother died, my father had the whole place remodelled in a way that the bottom half of the house was mine and the top half was his. It’s basically two separate flats with two separate entrances but there is a door on the inside that connects the two which we never really locked.

  Anyway, since I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the whole place, sell it and move somewhere new or just rent out the top floor, we decided to stick with the two flats set up and make it a neutral place. All the furniture has been moved out – Cal helped with that- and the carpet has been ripped up and I’m painting – or at least, trying to paint- the walls a nice shade of gainsboro. I say that I’m trying to paint instead of painting because right at this very second Jason is on the other side of the room, sweaty and shirtless, standing on a step ladder with a drill as he installs new wall shelves.

  It’s a little hard to concentrate with that going on a few feet away from me.

  I mean, really hard to concentrate.

  When he uses his forearm to wipe his forehead, I consider taking my own shirt off and joining the half-naked club. It’s the simple movements like that which seem to fascinate me so much.

  Oh and he does this thing where he grabs hold of one of his shoulders and then rotates his head… that one’s really good to watch too.

  But my favourite one is when he drinks and I can see his throat working…

  Okay, so I need to get out of the house before I go insane.

  “You okay?” He calls out, making me jump.

  “Huh?”

  “Are you okay?” He turns his head to send a worried frown my way.

  So he’s not wrong about the whole zoning out thing; he’s just wrong about what my fantasies revolve around.

  “I’m fine, Jason.” I assure him and turn back to the wall, smearing some paint on it to try and get him to resume shelf building. “I was just taking a break.” I take a step back to admire my work.

  Jason snorts.

  I frown.

  I have painted an area no bigger than my head.

  “Yeah, you’re working real hard over there,” I swing my had around just in time to see his smirk before he goes back to his original task.

  “Maybe I’m just a slow painter because I want it to be perfect.” I grumble.

  “You’re painting a whole wall… It’s not like you need to stay inside the lines.”

  “I know, but it’s just so boring. There’s so much wall and it’s all the same movements and… it’s just really freaking boring.”

  “If you don’t want to paint, what do you want to do?” He doesn’t stop working on the shelves when he asks it so I know he’s probably thinking that this is just one of those times where I give up and go back to what I’m doing but I’m not joking about how boring it is. Plus, I need something new to focus on.

  “We should do something. I mean something normal. Like, go out or something, I don’t know. I’m starting to get a little cabin fever-ish.”

  That got his attention. He froze when I used the word ‘normal’ and when I mentioned going out, he climbed down from the step ladder. “You want to do something?”

  “Yeah, don’t you? I mean, you must be going crazier than I am. We need to do something. Anything. I just need a change of pace.”

  “We could do a movie night.” He suggests.

  I scrunch my nose up. “Here?”

  “Yes… but we’ll get Lexi and Matt to come over. It’ll be good for you to have someone else to talk to besides me.” He smiles a lopsided smile that just too cute for me to handle so I grab hold of the idea with both hands and run.

  “I’ll call Lexi.”

  “Great.” He nods.

  I start leaving the room but stop when a thought hits. “Jason…” I don’t turn around and knowing he can’t see me, I steal myself for both the upcoming question and the answer. “You won’t tell them about…me, will you?”

  “I never considered it an option.”

  I let out a breath and let myself relax. “Thank you.”

  Thirty One

  “So what have you been doing?”

  I turn to look at Lexi and grin. We didn’t get to choose the movie, Matt and Jason did so naturally it’s something we couldn’t be less interested in watching. We’ve spent that last forty minutes pointing out the lack of a plot and how unrealistic the events are. The guys keep shushing us and one – we’re not sure which – even threw some popcorn at us. That’s when we decided to keep the noise down and talk among ourselves as quietly as possible.

  “He has me painting my father’s bedroom.” I roll my eyes. “It’s so damn tedious.”

  “Getting antsy, huh?” She smirks.

  I poke her arm. “Not funny. I actually considered sneaking out of my own bedroom window the other night. Like I’m some teenager who’s been grounded or something.”

  “So why won’t he let you out of the house anyway?”

  “He thinks that I’ve been pretending that no one has died. He doesn’t want me to go out and go back to that, so instead he’s trying to get me accept death.” I shrug. It makes more sense when Jason explains it. “We’ve got this whole system thing going, it’s working.”

  “I thought you hated each other.”

  I sigh. I hate keeping secrets from Lexi, she’s my best friend and we mostly tell each other everything but even though I’ve only known her a few years less than I have everyone else, she doesn’t know much of anything about my life. I can’t tell her about the pills, but maybe I can tell her something. “Come with me,” I gesture towards the kitchen with my head and when she follows me out of the room, I just hope the guys will give us a few minutes alone.

  “So what’s up?”

  “Okay, so you remember at that party when you said that Matt told you some stuff about the two of us?”

  “Yeah.. so?”

  “What did he tell you?” I grab two glasses of juice and offering her one, I sit at the opposite end of the table.

  “Umm… just that you both used to be friends but then one day it was like you went out your way to piss each other off.”

  “Sounds about right.” I mutter. “No. We were very close, I guess his and his mum’s speeches at my dad’s funeral clued you into that. But we were really close. He was my best friend, I used to tell him everything, I never went anywhere without him and … and I fell in love with him.”

  “You loved him… wait, we’re you two together?”

  “No. It wasn’t like that with us. I loved him but I don’t think he ever felt the same way and one night, I told him how I felt, I just needed it to be out there, you know? Anyway, I told him and after arguing and talking it through, we had sex.”

  “You slept with him?” Her eyes bug out so far, it’s a wonder they don’t roll onto the table.

  “We did it on the floor of his mum’s living room.” I tell her dryly. “After that, things were never the same between us. As soon as it happened, I got the feeling that he regretted it and when he sent me home… well, like I said, things never went back to how they were and we acted like we hated each other.”

  “He slept with you and then kicked you out?” He she asks slowly and I can see the anger building up inside her.

  “We were young,” I shrug. “Probably too young, but I don’t regret it. It happ
ened and I can’t change that.”

  “I don’t care how young you are, that’s a dick thing to do.”

  “Of course it is, but that’s just Jason. Anyway, we spent the next two years doing everything we could to piss each other off. It didn’t calm down until Gavin and I got together, Jason mostly stayed out of my way after that.”

  “Did Gavin know about the two of you?”

  “I never told him, but he knew something happened. I think Cal knows too, but I’m not sure how, he hinted at it a few weeks ago though. Told me I need to forgive him.”

  “He said you needed to forgive Jason?”

  “Not in those exact words, but that was the gist of it. He’s not very good at being subtle.”

  “So, have you forgiven him?”

  “I don’t know,” I shrug and take a long drink of juice. “Part of me understands that it happened a long time ago and we’re not the same people anymore, but there’s also a part of me who looks back and remembers what it felt like to have the one person you trusted most in the whole world to discard you like yesterday’s left overs.”

  And with that excellent imagery in our heads, we sit in the kitchen, at opposite ends of the table in complete silence until the movie in the next room has ended and the guys finally notice that we’re no longer sitting there with them.

  Damn it. I totally could have used the movie as a distraction to sneak out.

  Two hours after Lexi and Matt have left, I find myself standing outside the room Jason is using as a bedroom like a stalker. I’m not sure what I’m doing out here. I don’t know what I think is going to happen if I go in there.