Phoenix

 

There’s something about pounding the hillside with misty breath and my pulse in my ears that lends the illusion I’m getting somewhere. Sometimes I feel that if I could just run fast enough I’d outrun all my mistakes.

Dawn is breaking over the ridge as I power on up toward the beacon at the top of the Malvern Hills, lights twinkling below as people begin their Friday morning. It’s bittersweet to think of the early risers down there crammed around the breakfast table. Chatter and laughter and arguments. Songs on the radio. Music in the car.

That Friday feeling.

Family.

Once upon a time I thought that would be me.

If Mariana was still here, she’d laugh. Sometimes when I close my eyes I still feel her ahead of me, as though she’s still running and I’m still chasing. Sometimes I’d swear I hear the ghost of her breath along with mine. Sometimes her memory feels close enough to touch – her breaths ragged as I caught her, her mouth hot and hungry. Her nails on my back.

Her wildness as she fought me.

The darkness in her eyes.

The way she loved me.

And then I remember her tears as she ran for the last time. The pain in my gut as I held myself back and watched her leave.

I allow myself a moment when I get to the top, doubling over to catch my breath as I stare at the land below. The view is spectacular up here. I’d stay to admire the way the world falls away if I wasn’t so damn afraid of staying still.

I’ll never outrun my mistakes, but I’ll keep trying.

The run down is always an anti-climax. My heart is always in my throat as I head around the back of the house and let myself in through the porch. I’ve made my daily routine close enough to clockwork to cruise through on autopilot. I’d be happily on autopilot right now if not for the text message burning silently in my pocket.

They’re willing to negotiate.

It’s such a shame I’m not.

I only allow myself five minutes in the shower. I towel off in a rush as I pull a fresh shirt from the closet.

Cameron’s footsteps are on the landing before I’ve fastened my tie. He’s in spaceman PJs this morning – his favourites.

His sleepy eyes meet mine as he shunts my bedroom door open. My boy’s hair is a dark tangle straight from bed. He looks so much like his mother it takes my breath. Every morning the same.

“Hey, little guy,” I greet, hoisting him onto my hip as I grab my jacket from the hanger. I check he’s not wet himself before we head downstairs. “Cornflakes?”

He shakes his head as we reach the kitchen.

“Krispies?”

Another head shake.

“Shooting Stars?”

He has Mariana’s dimples when he smiles.

“Alright then, Stars it is.”

He still has his special high chair, even though he’ll be four this coming summer. He still has his favourite blue bowl and spoon, even though he’s big enough for big boy cutlery now.

The speech therapist says he’ll speak in his own time. The psychologist says he’ll stop wetting the bed in his own time too.

Everything in its own time. Always in its own time. Time is the great healer and all that crap.

Time changes nothing, not for me and not for him either seemingly.

I’d give anything to change things for him. I’ll never stop trying, but for now it’s always tiny steps. Such tiny steps.

Every tiny step is enough to keep me going. A smile. A laugh. A new expression.

“Shooting Stars for little Cammy!”

Cam turns his head to smile at my sister as she props herself in the kitchen doorway. I feel her eyes on me as I grab myself a coffee.

“Well?” she asks.

“The answer’s still no, Serena. No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“You’re really going to turn them down? Jeez…”

I hear the hiss of her breath as her words trail off into nothing. I know she’s fighting back expletives to spare Cameron’s ears.

“This isn’t healthy,” she tells me, and the cutting edge of her voice bristles above her self-restraint. “Not for any of us. You have to move on, Leo. We all have to move on.”

All. I know exactly who she’s referring to, but my considerations are in this room only. Me and Cam. Fuck everyone else.

Fuck him.

My voice is low and calm, at odds with the twist in my gut. “Their offer was an insult.”

“They said they’d negotiate…”

“And I said no,” I tell her again, even though I haven’t. Not yet.

“You have to speak to Jake, Leo. He’s got to have a say in this too.”

“My name is Phoenix,” I tell her for the thousandth time. “And he lost his say a long time ago.”

I flick on the worktop TV and turn the channel to Cameron’s favourite as he digs into his breakfast. If he’s bothered by our exchange he doesn’t show it. I almost wish he would.

Serena joins me at the counter, and when she speaks again her mouth is close enough to my ear that the little guy won’t hear her.

“Jake is still my brother. Yours too. He’s still blood. And you’re still Leo, Leo.”

My eyes burn hers, so close. So similar. All three of us, so fucking similar.

“He’s no brother of mine, and I’m not still Leo,” I hiss. “He’s not Jake anymore either, he makes that clear enough.”

She shrugs. “I give up. You’re both as bad as each other.”

I wish she really would give it up, but Hell will freeze over first. Another family resemblance.

I down my coffee, then plant a kiss on my boy’s head before I grab my wallet and keys. I ruffle his messy hair on my way out, even though he barely looks away from the cartoons.

“I’ll be back later, champ. Be good for Serena.”

She pulls her dressing gown tight as she watches me up the path to the truck. I see her shake her head before I pull away. Her brows are heavy, like mine, her dark hair piled up in a messy bun so stark against her pale skin. She’s still fighting the obvious, still holding on to hope that Jake and I have long given up on.

She should really just give up too. Let go of the notion that one day we’ll all be bright and breezy again. That one day we’ll play happily families like our whole life didn’t burn down and Mariana didn’t burn with it. That maybe one day I’ll be able to look my brother in the eye and see anything other than hate staring back at me.

His hate is redundant. I despise myself easily enough for the both of us.

The early shift workers are piling into the warehouse as I pull into my parking space. Jake’s space is empty beside mine, just as it’s been every day for the past six months we’ve been trading from this location.

Scott Brothers Logistics the sign on the frontage reads, but now it’s just a name. I watch my tattoos flex as my fingers grip the steering wheel.

The office lights are still off, waiting for me to jolt the place to life for another day of the same old shit.

Goods to pack and dispatch, customers to invoice, money to be made. Fifty percent still goes to big-brother-Scott, even though he hasn’t stepped foot inside this business since the day my Mariana passed away. My Mariana. Fuck what he has to say about it.

I pull out my phone and bring up the text message.

They’re willing to negotiate.

My fingers are shaking as I key in my reply.

It’s not for sale. Not now, not ever.

A tick flashes up on my handset as the message disappears. Job done.

I have plans of my own for that place. I don’t know what they are yet, but I’ll be damned if they involve selling off our old premises to the cloud of vultures circling overhead.

They’d pick at my bones if I let them. Hers too.

The scars on my back itch. Flames prickling across my skin. Under my skin.

I climb out of the truck and slam the door behind me.

And then I run, again. Only this time I’m walking.

This time it’s all in my head.

 

* * *

 

Abigail

 

“Abigail Summers! What the hell happened to you?”

I register the question with bated breath.

My skeleton melts and sags. My secrets ready to tumble from my unhinged jaw in a river of pure relief.

It’s the question I’ve been waiting for. The question I figured inevitable from the moment I stepped foot in this building on my first day here.

Lauren Billings is staring right at me when my mouth drops open. It’s only ten minutes past nine when I’m finally ready to blurt my sorry life story to the virtual stranger in front of me. But then she speaks again.

“Last night, I mean. I thought you were heading to Divas with Jack. We were all out. We could’ve hit the dance floor.”

My jaw clamps shut, my skeleton toughening to marble as I shove my heart back in its cage. It pains in protest.

“Last night?” I bluster. “Oh, I was tired. Long week, my dancing shoes weren’t up to much.”

“And I thought you’d be part of the cool gang.” She laughs as she rolls her eyes at me. “Jack thinks you blew him out. You didn’t, right? I mean, you’re still interested?”

It’s sad that she thinks I ever was. I feel like a leaf blowing on the wind, curling at the edges.

“I told Jack we’d do it another time,” I tell her, and she smiles as she takes her papers from the photocopier.

“I should think so. He’s a great catch.” She tips her head. “I think you’d make a good couple. You’d look good together. Well suited.”

I look down at myself. My boring blouse, my knee-length pencil skirt. My semblance of normality.

Well suited.

“He’s really not a dick, you know,” she continues. “He wants to get serious. I mean, he goofs around, but he’s not a jerk. He’d take care of you.”

The bile rises in a heartbeat. Take care of me. The world swims around me as I try to focus on her voice.

“I know some guys around here act like they’re so cool, but he’s not one of them. He really likes you.”

My hands are shaky as I shove my purchase order into the copier. I wish I could turn to jelly in front of her and sob my heart out onto the dull beige antistatic carpet.

But I don’t.

It seems paper walls are tougher than I thought. They get tougher every day.

And still every night they burn.

I hold my breath until my copy comes out the other side, and then I wave it in her general direction, armed with generic excuses about work piling up on my desk. It’s a lie, of course. I have nothing piled up on my desk. I had to dumb down my resume to get this position, downplaying everything I’d been doing for the past six years previous.

Just your average girl called Abigail. Nothing special. Nothing to note.

A nobody.

I retreat to the safety of my desk among the other desks, scrolling through my purchase software as though I’m pondering something important. There’s nothing important. Nothing I have responsibility for. I key in and send out, nothing more. A constant blur of the same old product codes I’d learned by heart by the end of week one. A blur of days and faces and coffee breaks and pay checks.

It’s not enough.

My fingernails pinch my thighs under my scratchy skirt. I’m itchy, like a flurry of tiny beetles are scurrying across my skin. Under my skin.

So I run, even though I’m only walking. My expression is empty as I pace through the sea of desks, back past the copier in the hallway, and past the kitchen and the stationery cupboard to the bathroom out the back.

I sit. Tug my starchy skirt up and scratch my naked skin until it turns pink.

I think of denim guy, and the darkness of the car park last night, and how much I wanted to feel alive.

Needed to feel alive.

I think of the relief in the middle of the night, when I dream of the man chasing me and not of the man who cast me aside like I meant nothing to him. Like our baby meant nothing to him.

And then I make a choice, right here and now. I make a choice between breakdown and breakthrough, even though I’m not sure where the two meet anymore.

If I’m going to stay standing I need to keep running.

I need something real. Something more than the unrealised fantasy I’ve been clinging on to through long nights these past few months.

I need to meet the monster.

And this time, for once, maybe even finally, he needs to catch me.