Original fiction: Things We Don't Tell Rhiannon
We barely speak anymore. A polite nod or a quiet “Hello,” when we pass in the white and turquoise corridors; the floors we walk, tinged with despair and loss and shiny wet eyes brought on by something other than the strength of the cleaning chemicals.
Every time we cross paths I study him in the few seconds I have, taking in what he’s done with his hair, if that’s a new shirt, if he’s lost weight. It sometimes seems astonishing that for five years of my life, I knew him in his entirety. Every fear now realised. Every hope now dashed. Peter is a man broken.
I don’t know what he says to her. We visit Rhiannon in turn, on a slow, monotonous cycle that bears little emotional weight anymore. We visit her, but we no longer see Rhiannon. We see a shell of a woman who was once a girl we knew. I keep talking to her but I can’t bring myself to believe. Our Rhi, our sarcastic, amazing, cruel, spiteful, brilliant and gorgeous Rhi hasn’t been here since the second I heard the squeal of the brakes.
I really tried to hope.
Oddly, it wasn’t anything the Doctors have said that made me stop believing. It was the day I realised her pillar-box-red hair dye had completely grown out that I couldn’t see Rhiannon anymore.
I had to move back in with my parents, I couldn’t stay in that flat alone. They were sympathetic for such an agonisingly long time, smothering me with their cotton wool and kid gloves. My mother started gently nagging that maybe I should go back to my course, or look into night schools or at least try to get a job. Boiling the kettle and making her a cup of tea normally shut her up. Maybe that was the sleeping tablet I’d dissolve in the boiling water.
My father started some sort of a daily verbal vomit about Church. I didn’t want to suddenly find God; to ignore him for nineteen years and then suddenly drop to my knees, raise my eyes heavenwards and ask for a miracle for Rhiannon, a miracle I don’t deserve? I may not believe in a bearded old man sat on a cloud but I know I don’t believe in hypocrisy.
I think as much as I can. As I lie awake I think, but I just can’t make my way through everything in a single night. The effort of dragging myself back through everything that happened to us racks my body and makes me feel physically sick. But I have to re-examine it constantly, and forever. I need to know who plunged the knife in first.
*
“It’s a different incarnation of love,” he tries, perched on the cold rod of metal the crazy designer of the bus shelter likes to think is a seat. He sounds like a fool, his mouth stuffed with words too big for it.
“It’s-” he gestures with both hands, as though more overambitious metaphors are pegged up between us, “It’s like Wuthering Heights.”
My laugh is a bark.
“You have not read Wuthering Heights, dickhead.”
“Well, what are ITV period dramas for?!” He cries, over-dramatically.
And then the bus arrives and in a sudden fit of Wuthering Heights-esque passion, he kisses me for what I had no idea would be the last time and… I’m angry.
“Get off me! Make up your mind, Cathy: it’s Linton or it’s me.”
He just looks at me and then he’s gone and then a schoolboy of no more than thirteen calls me a queer and throws his cigarette in my face.
*
Peter’s stoned, and usually I’d disapprove, but I’ve been drinking since eight and it’s now… too drunk to read my watch, so to have a go at Peter about the weed would be nothing more than pots and kettles making racist remarks about one another.
Rhiannon is frankly ridiculous. She’s shrieking and tossing her head and I’m completely lost as to whether she’s laughing or crying. She clambers atop the table and starts dancing to the poorly composed dance pop track, jerking her long white limbs like a puppet as Peter hollers in appreciation and encouragement.
He’s obviously looking up her skirt and in my current state I am offended for her.
I’m about to punch him in the arm and give him my opinion but I needn’t have bothered. She wriggles out of her top and swings it around her head and for a moment my mind considers “Heterosexuality- why not, eh?” but then we’re kicked out, and the fizzling bout of straightness drops out of my stomach when she drops to the floor and throws up onto the cold, wet ground.
*
She looks at me with her bright eyes, her rich red lips parting to show her perfect teeth as she laughs.
“That slide!” she giggles, “I don’t think I can even go down it anymore! I think it’s kind of a right of passage into womanhood, when your hips are too big for a children’s slide.” Dear God, I think, this girl is brilliant. I want to hate her, want her to be some slag with no personality that Peter will realise he is crazy to chose over me. Yet, I want to smile and laugh at what she’s just said, and discuss things all night, and get to know her, and be her friend. But I can’t do that. The way I feel about Peter won’t let me- my jealousy consumes me.
“Well,” I say dryly, “I can’t say I’d know. My hips are still decidedly masculine. Peter likes narrow hips, don’t you Peter?” I call over. He glares at me. She turns away, but not before I can see the hurt in her face. Damn. I feel like such an idiot. Peter hops down off the steps up to the slide, wrapping his arms around her from behind.
“I like Rhiannon’s hips,” he smiles, “I like Rhiannon, full stop.” She puts her hands over his and turns slightly to face him, and then they’re kissing and I feel sick and I’m scared I’ll cry so I turn and I leave the park.
*
“I’m sleeping with this girl called Rhiannon,” he tells me as he leaves. I raise my eyebrows.
“Breaking up with me? Subtle.”
“David, David, David,” he tuts fondly, “You and I aren’t really together!”
I’m left in stunned silence because I was under the impression we were.
*
I feel it in his kiss the first night he has her.
“Judas. Would you betray me, with a kiss?”
*
He followed me all the way from the train station to the park and quite frankly it scares me, but showing this would only show my weakness. I glare at him.
“Got any fags?” he asks casually.
“Don’t smoke,” I reply.
“Me neither,” he grins, “That’s my expert way of finding out whether I’ll be kissing an ash tray or not.”
“Excuse me?”
His smirk is irresistible and somehow I know that I’ll never shake this boy off.
“My name’s Peter Booth. Who are you?”
*
She is in furious tears, stamping away from me under the orange glare of the lampposts. Her ankle buckles and with an estranged wail she tears off her new heels, the ones we bought on our last shopping trip together, and tosses them away into the blackness under the bridge.
“Do you know how I feel, David? Betrayed! You fucking betrayed me! Both of you! Faggots!” The last word is a shriek and it makes my blood boil. I seize a fistful of her flame hair and pull her around to face me.
“I love him,” I roar, “More than you ever could! He was mine first, and you stole him, you filthy, horrid- you-” I can’t find any word that is cruel enough or fair enough so I push her, with all my might. She tumbles into the road with a little yelp and my breath catches in my gullet.
But then she steadies herself. Looks at me with those eyes. Hold out her arms, and chokes,
“David,” I swallow and hesitate a second too longer. She changes her mind and her anger floods back through her. “Fuck you, homo.”
It’s such a pathetic attack that I almost laugh. She spins around and runs out into the road.
And the car hits her, and she disappears forever.
*
I have always desperately hoped that she didn’t recognise the car. Didn’t have the chance to take in the colour or the make or the registration plate. I can’t bear the thought of her knowing that Peter was driving that car that night.
*
Peter is looking terrible and we both know it. He lives alone and never mind eating and sleeping: he looks as though he doesn’t even breathe. And one day, we confused the schedule. We visit Rhiannon at the same time, and as we hesitate outside her door, caught between our history and social norm, and the word has left my mouth before I think of it.
“Sorry,”
And our eyes meet like they haven’t in what seems like centuries, and he crashes into my arms and if we never do another thing, to love one another now is enough. I cover his hot mouth with mine, and we don’t need to tell.
There are some things we don’t tell Rhiannon.
*
Every time we cross paths I study him in the few seconds I have, taking in what he’s done with his hair, if that’s a new shirt, if he’s lost weight. It sometimes seems astonishing that for five years of my life, I knew him in his entirety. Every fear now realised. Every hope now dashed. Peter is a man broken.
I don’t know what he says to her. We visit Rhiannon in turn, on a slow, monotonous cycle that bears little emotional weight anymore. We visit her, but we no longer see Rhiannon. We see a shell of a woman who was once a girl we knew. I keep talking to her but I can’t bring myself to believe. Our Rhi, our sarcastic, amazing, cruel, spiteful, brilliant and gorgeous Rhi hasn’t been here since the second I heard the squeal of the brakes.
I really tried to hope.
Oddly, it wasn’t anything the Doctors have said that made me stop believing. It was the day I realised her pillar-box-red hair dye had completely grown out that I couldn’t see Rhiannon anymore.
I had to move back in with my parents, I couldn’t stay in that flat alone. They were sympathetic for such an agonisingly long time, smothering me with their cotton wool and kid gloves. My mother started gently nagging that maybe I should go back to my course, or look into night schools or at least try to get a job. Boiling the kettle and making her a cup of tea normally shut her up. Maybe that was the sleeping tablet I’d dissolve in the boiling water.
My father started some sort of a daily verbal vomit about Church. I didn’t want to suddenly find God; to ignore him for nineteen years and then suddenly drop to my knees, raise my eyes heavenwards and ask for a miracle for Rhiannon, a miracle I don’t deserve? I may not believe in a bearded old man sat on a cloud but I know I don’t believe in hypocrisy.
I think as much as I can. As I lie awake I think, but I just can’t make my way through everything in a single night. The effort of dragging myself back through everything that happened to us racks my body and makes me feel physically sick. But I have to re-examine it constantly, and forever. I need to know who plunged the knife in first.
*
“It’s a different incarnation of love,” he tries, perched on the cold rod of metal the crazy designer of the bus shelter likes to think is a seat. He sounds like a fool, his mouth stuffed with words too big for it.
“It’s-” he gestures with both hands, as though more overambitious metaphors are pegged up between us, “It’s like Wuthering Heights.”
My laugh is a bark.
“You have not read Wuthering Heights, dickhead.”
“Well, what are ITV period dramas for?!” He cries, over-dramatically.
And then the bus arrives and in a sudden fit of Wuthering Heights-esque passion, he kisses me for what I had no idea would be the last time and… I’m angry.
“Get off me! Make up your mind, Cathy: it’s Linton or it’s me.”
He just looks at me and then he’s gone and then a schoolboy of no more than thirteen calls me a queer and throws his cigarette in my face.
*
Peter’s stoned, and usually I’d disapprove, but I’ve been drinking since eight and it’s now… too drunk to read my watch, so to have a go at Peter about the weed would be nothing more than pots and kettles making racist remarks about one another.
Rhiannon is frankly ridiculous. She’s shrieking and tossing her head and I’m completely lost as to whether she’s laughing or crying. She clambers atop the table and starts dancing to the poorly composed dance pop track, jerking her long white limbs like a puppet as Peter hollers in appreciation and encouragement.
He’s obviously looking up her skirt and in my current state I am offended for her.
I’m about to punch him in the arm and give him my opinion but I needn’t have bothered. She wriggles out of her top and swings it around her head and for a moment my mind considers “Heterosexuality- why not, eh?” but then we’re kicked out, and the fizzling bout of straightness drops out of my stomach when she drops to the floor and throws up onto the cold, wet ground.
*
She looks at me with her bright eyes, her rich red lips parting to show her perfect teeth as she laughs.
“That slide!” she giggles, “I don’t think I can even go down it anymore! I think it’s kind of a right of passage into womanhood, when your hips are too big for a children’s slide.” Dear God, I think, this girl is brilliant. I want to hate her, want her to be some slag with no personality that Peter will realise he is crazy to chose over me. Yet, I want to smile and laugh at what she’s just said, and discuss things all night, and get to know her, and be her friend. But I can’t do that. The way I feel about Peter won’t let me- my jealousy consumes me.
“Well,” I say dryly, “I can’t say I’d know. My hips are still decidedly masculine. Peter likes narrow hips, don’t you Peter?” I call over. He glares at me. She turns away, but not before I can see the hurt in her face. Damn. I feel like such an idiot. Peter hops down off the steps up to the slide, wrapping his arms around her from behind.
“I like Rhiannon’s hips,” he smiles, “I like Rhiannon, full stop.” She puts her hands over his and turns slightly to face him, and then they’re kissing and I feel sick and I’m scared I’ll cry so I turn and I leave the park.
*
“I’m sleeping with this girl called Rhiannon,” he tells me as he leaves. I raise my eyebrows.
“Breaking up with me? Subtle.”
“David, David, David,” he tuts fondly, “You and I aren’t really together!”
I’m left in stunned silence because I was under the impression we were.
*
I feel it in his kiss the first night he has her.
“Judas. Would you betray me, with a kiss?”
*
He followed me all the way from the train station to the park and quite frankly it scares me, but showing this would only show my weakness. I glare at him.
“Got any fags?” he asks casually.
“Don’t smoke,” I reply.
“Me neither,” he grins, “That’s my expert way of finding out whether I’ll be kissing an ash tray or not.”
“Excuse me?”
His smirk is irresistible and somehow I know that I’ll never shake this boy off.
“My name’s Peter Booth. Who are you?”
*
She is in furious tears, stamping away from me under the orange glare of the lampposts. Her ankle buckles and with an estranged wail she tears off her new heels, the ones we bought on our last shopping trip together, and tosses them away into the blackness under the bridge.
“Do you know how I feel, David? Betrayed! You fucking betrayed me! Both of you! Faggots!” The last word is a shriek and it makes my blood boil. I seize a fistful of her flame hair and pull her around to face me.
“I love him,” I roar, “More than you ever could! He was mine first, and you stole him, you filthy, horrid- you-” I can’t find any word that is cruel enough or fair enough so I push her, with all my might. She tumbles into the road with a little yelp and my breath catches in my gullet.
But then she steadies herself. Looks at me with those eyes. Hold out her arms, and chokes,
“David,” I swallow and hesitate a second too longer. She changes her mind and her anger floods back through her. “Fuck you, homo.”
It’s such a pathetic attack that I almost laugh. She spins around and runs out into the road.
And the car hits her, and she disappears forever.
*
I have always desperately hoped that she didn’t recognise the car. Didn’t have the chance to take in the colour or the make or the registration plate. I can’t bear the thought of her knowing that Peter was driving that car that night.
*
Peter is looking terrible and we both know it. He lives alone and never mind eating and sleeping: he looks as though he doesn’t even breathe. And one day, we confused the schedule. We visit Rhiannon at the same time, and as we hesitate outside her door, caught between our history and social norm, and the word has left my mouth before I think of it.
“Sorry,”
And our eyes meet like they haven’t in what seems like centuries, and he crashes into my arms and if we never do another thing, to love one another now is enough. I cover his hot mouth with mine, and we don’t need to tell.
There are some things we don’t tell Rhiannon.
*