TEN - ASH

I WAKE UP WITH THE empty bottle beside me and decide I want more. That’s the only reason I ever go into town. It’s a long walk and not one I make often. I don’t drink anywhere near as much as I did. It numbed the pain for a while and it still does when I need it to but I’m past the stage of needing it every day.

I need it today though. I had hold of the lightest, most innocent bloom in the forest, and I let her slip through my fingers. I am a bloody fool.

I walk through the trees and out of the other side. By the time I get into the open the light is starting to fade. I plan on going into the one shop to get another bottle or two but I see too many people outside. I decide to wait for it to die down. I head for the pub instead.

Inside is the same as ever. I order a drink and am served it in silence. I pay and down it quickly. I order another and this time I savour it, enjoying the flavour, the heat of it burning through me.

I visit the toilet and while I’m in there I feel dizzy. I sit down in the only cubicle and put my head in my hands. It isn’t the alcohol making me feel so nauseous, what is it?

I realise it is guilt, still washing over me. I tell myself to stop it, to stop feeling things. I let her into my life and that was a mistake. I should have known that letting her go again would only increase my pain. She is gone. I am going to have to deal with that fact. No one that pure deserves the damage I would bring to her, the pain of my past that she had no need to know. Let her remain pure and good.

I think of her speech before she went, of the way she talked about wanting peace, not wanting to move but not wanting to stay at home. I knew exactly how she felt.

After the crash I wanted to turn the house into a shrine and I wanted nothing to do with the place anymore, it was too full of memories. I chose to move and I still did not know if I made the right choice. I just had to hide away.

I stand up when I hear a noise. It is the shout of a woman. There hasn’t been a woman in here the entire time I’ve been visiting. She sounds like she’s in trouble.

I step out and see her swinging a right hook at the leering guy in front of her. The blow is stronger than it looks, catching him in just the right place. His head whips back and hits the nose of the man behind him. Blood spurts and the two men begin to brawl. She is looking around her for a way out. I grab her hand, she looks at me with questions in her eyes. I have some of my own but they can wait. A chair flies past. Things are turning nasty.

We duck past flailing limbs and get outside. Already the noise is fading. I keep hold of her hand and cross the street with her, spying her car on the other side. How did I not see that before? Because I wasn’t looking for her. I was looking for a drink.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I came back to find you,” she says.

I am confused, not sure I hear her right. “You did what? I thought you were moving?”

“It all went wrong,” she says and explains what happened since she left me. I listen, wanting to kiss her, wanting to feel those soft lips of hers pressed against my own. She has nowhere to go but back to her parents. Or does she?

“They were right,” she says as she finishes. “I can’t look after myself.”

“I think you did pretty well just now,” I reply, mimicking the swing of her fist through the air. “I’ve never seen anyone hit like that.”

She shrugs. “I got lucky.”

“So did I, when you walked in the forest.”

“I need someone to look after me,” she says. “Someone big and tough and strong.”

I freeze. The guilt is still there but beside it is a figure, misty and faint, in the distance. It is Jess. She smiles and I understand the smile. A tear forms in the corner of my eye. “I’m not a good person,” I say, the sound of skidding tyres loud in my ears.

“I don’t need a good person,” she says, shuffling her feet in place. “I need an honest one.”

“That I can do“

“And a cabin to stay in, maybe. Just for a little while.”

“Are you sure it won’t be too quiet for you?”

“I don’t think it’ll be quiet all the time,” she says with a smile.

“Anything else you need?”

“Just some ice for my hand. It bloody hurts.”

“I have ice,” I say, smiling at the thought of her punching that guy. Despite her innocence, she can clearly handle herself. I like that about her. She’s tough at her core, like me. “At home.”

“I can give you a lift if you like,” she says, opening the passenger door of her car and nodding towards me. “If you trust my driving.”

“I trust you,” I say, climbing in.

“Good,” she replies before getting in herself.

She starts the engine. I don’t need a drink anymore. I don’t need a bottle or two to take back with me. I have all I need beside me, my hand on her thigh as she drives. She feels warm. She smells good.

She parks where she did before. We get out, leaving the car in the last of the snow. I take her hand in mine and we head into the forest. “It’s so quiet here,” she says as the trees close in above our heads.

I smile and look across at her. “It won’t be for long.”