Noah
‘I know it sounds crazy; hell it is crazy.’ The words were flowing out of him faster than he could think them. A voice in his head screamed at him to stop, but he couldn’t. ‘I felt it the first time I saw you at the airport. And every time after that.’
He watched Molly’s face as a silence stretched out between them. His eyes were drawn to the dusting of ice at the tips of her hair and on her eyelashes, shimmering like glitter. He couldn’t believe he’d told her about his cuts, let along thrown the penknife away, and yet doing so had eased something inside of him, or maybe it was just being with Molly that made him feel different.
‘Now I know you’re drunk,’ she said.
‘Maybe, but I feel stone-cold sober.’
Molly eyed him for a minute, her face a mix of amusement and disbelief. A moment of silence passed between them before Molly tipped back her head and laughed. A gulping hiccuppy-girlish laughter, like a child’s giggle. The sound carried into the night, all the way to the stars, it seemed, and right back into Noah. Like a fizzy drink bottle shaken before opening the laughter built inside him with nowhere to go but out.
For a moment neither of them breathed, spoke, moved, except for the silent shaking of their shoulders and the muscles scrunching their faces.
‘Sorry, what I just said was ridiculous, wasn’t it? Ignore me,’ Noah said, finally catching his breath.
‘No, it’s not that. It’s just …’ Another peal of laughter escaped from her mouth, carrying into the night. ‘You must be in a pretty bad way if I’m the one who makes you feel better. I mean, you might think you’re a mess, but trust me, it’s me who’s the mess here, not you.’
‘You?’ Noah shook his head, laughing harder.
‘Shhh,’ Molly hissed, ‘you’ll wake the dogs.’ She moved to punch him but at the last second released her fist so her hand rested on his arm. She left it there for a moment too long before dropping her hands and trapping them between her thighs.
Noah sighed, feeling the last of the humour seep out of him. Suddenly it wasn’t funny any more.
‘Maybe it takes someone just as broken to help fix you,’ Molly said, her voice quiet now.
‘Maybe.’ Noah felt Molly’s body lean closer. His heartbeat roared in his ears, and even though he knew he shouldn’t, he reached out his hand and took Molly’s. A fizz of electricity shot through the fabric of their gloves and all the way up his arm.
‘My brother – Billy – was killed,’ Molly said. ‘That’s why I stopped running. It wasn’t an injury. Billy had been the one pushing me to run, and when he was killed, I … I lost my drive. I had one race left to qualify for the Olympic team and I messed it up, big time. I felt like I couldn’t run without him. I’m lost,’ she whispered, her voice shaking with emotion.
Noah watched a single tear roll down her cheek. ‘What happened to Billy?’ he asked.
Her body stiffened and for a moment Noah thought he’d lost her. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘You don’t –’
‘A car,’ she said, her voice no longer rich with emotion but hard as steel. ‘He was studying to be a doctor. I told you that right?’
Noah nodded. The first prickle of fear tickled the hairs on the back of his neck.
‘He was almost qualified. It had taken him so long. He couldn’t wait to help people so he kept taking these gap years and heading off to Uganda and Iraq. He just wanted to be where people needed him.
‘All that time he’d spent abroad, and Mum and I had been so worried he’d be kidnapped or killed, but no, it happened in London. He’d been having problems with his course and had been working at a pub somewhere. It was late and he was walking home. I know because I was speaking to him just before it happened.’ Molly’s shoulders shook. ‘I’m sorry.’ She sniffed. ‘I’ve never told anyone this. Not even my mum knows we were speaking. Arguing really.
‘I’d been having a go at him for not coming up to visit us at Christmas. Billy told me he’d dropped out of medical school and I lost it with him. I … told him he needed to sort himself out, that he’d let us all down. That was the last time I ever spoke to him.’
Noah’s body froze, like ice. He could no longer hear his heart beating in his ears or feel his chest rising with each breath. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.
He dry-swallowed and squeezed her hand tight. It was not reassurance or support he was trying to give her now; it was urgency.
Hurry up. Tell me what happened. He had to know.
‘Then the next morning I found out he was killed in a car cra –’ Molly dropped her head to her hands, her body shaking beside him.
A moment passed before she sat up and wiped her eyes. ‘It wasn’t just any car – that would’ve been bad enough. It was a police car. Some idiot with a hero complex killed my brother, and the police covered it up, kept it quiet. Two lines in The Metro about a pedestrian killed in a head-on collision. Nothing about the fact that it was a policeman driving.’
The world closed in around him. The landscape fell away, leaving only the darkness – his darkness – boxing him in like a coffin.
‘I wanted to go to the papers,’ Molly continued, ‘and get the truth out there and justice for Billy, but Mum begged me not to, said she couldn’t cope with the attention, not after everything else. So that’s it. The person who murdered Billy is still out there, wandering around and living his life, not giving a shit about the family he destroyed. And I’ve been so lost and so angry. I … just don’t know what to do any more.’
‘Whereabouts in London was the crash?’ He had to know. He had to be sure. ‘East London somewhere. I don’t remember the road.’
‘When?’
‘January last year,’ Molly said.
‘I’m so sorry.’ He dropped her hand.
Molly sniffed and wiped her eyes. ‘Thanks. It’s not your fault.’
Noah couldn’t voice the words racing through his mind. He could barely breathe through the rock blocking his throat. It is. It is. It is.
Noah knew he should fill the silence but the memories were ambushing him again. He could hear the siren and smell the blood on the empty street that hadn’t been empty at all. Billy had been there.
‘I could do with some water.’ Molly stood up. ‘Thank you for listening, and for what you said earlier. No one has ever said anything to me like that before.’ She spun towards him and collapsed into his arms, wrapping her arms around him. Noah tried to reciprocate, tried to move, but the darkness had him in a vice. He barely acknowledged Molly’s goodnight as she trekked back into the cabin.