Canal Bridge

Chapter Three: Happy Families

It had been a week since all of that hassle had occurred. I'm still traumatised but I'm good at hiding my pain. Always have been. I managed to convince my parents that Tabitha had bled all over my bed as her period had started so we took it to the skip and dumped it – it was ruined. The covers were taken too and thankfully my Father neglected to mention the weight of the  mattress. The same night it happened, I took the chopped up remanence of the man who I couldn't fit inside the mattress and I snook it down the road to the canal. "Meet you at our usual spot?" I knew exactly where that was. Under the canal bridge. It was our place, we hid there when we were done with people. We always went there after school and before school. When I arrived, I knew that this was where she'd done it. She had killed herself. However, I still had hope that she had gone back on it and went home and isolated herself, as she normally does. I hadn't heard from her the whole week though and it was scary as I know that some investigators had been to her house and had been interviewing people on my road. It was only a matter of time before they find something. The canal bridge is where I tied rocks to the bag and dumped the evidence. My parents had no suspicions and were rather concerned that some youths had gone missing in our area. It was only when the police turned up at the door at 6am that I knew Tabitha was gone forever.

"Hello Ma'am, is this the Bailey household?" My mother answered the door to them and nodded to the question.

"Oh, is this about those missing kids? Absolutely shocking what this area has come to. Can't let your children leave the house without being scared of every white van parked on the street."

My mother has a tendency to over talk people. It's her curse. We spend 2 hours shopping because for an hour and a half she's chatting away with some random woman she's met or the cashier or someone she knows that she's bumped into. I think it's a medical condition.

"No Ma'am. I'm sorry. My name is Detective Spence, I'm here to let the family know that a friend of your child – Tabitha Maneera – was found dead in the canal last night by someone fishing. We have ruled it as a suicide. I'm terribly sorry for your loss." My mother stood in shock. Sympathetic eyes stared my way. I didn't even feel the words hit me. Maybe knowing already took away the blow of losing her. Or so I thought until I saw her inside my mind and all of a sudden my Dad is holding me and I'm wailing like a banshee. At least no one will suspect me as of yet.

"We know this is hard to hear so we will leave the questioning for another time. We will be back to discuss the missing people." The detective shared her condolences once again and left us to grieve. Her body was washed up further down the canal so no one would check where I dumped the body thankfully. I believed I was fully in the clear. My only friend is dead, but at least I still have a future.

There was no funeral hosted, her body was cremated and she was left with her mother and brother. Suicide is a sin so the local churches refused to hold a ceremony for her. It was disgusting that they could do that. My family decided we would host a wake even if there was no funeral to allow people to say goodbye. I made a shrine of stuff that I had from out friendship and I even went in a trendy black outfit Tabitha had brought me for a party we went to a few months ago. She was only 19. The wake ended up being a disaster. My family began arguing as my sister had tried to come to the wake to support me. Catherine, my sister, was disowned by my family. I loved her so much, but she had fallen pregnant by the age of 17. Catherine was kicked out and now lived with her new boyfriend Kieran. Kieran is nice enough, nicer than her baby daddy Darren at least. My mother and father had grown to accept it more but they didn't like it to be a public matter so they kept her away from prying eyes. I was only 15 when they kicked her out but I get to stay over every so often and see my niece who is now 4, she's so big. As my family argued, I just couldn't take it anymore. My sister had already left to avoid a scene at my friends makeshift wake but the damage was already done. I was so torn by grief that I was angry. How could Tabitha just leave me like that? How could my family ruin this day for me? It's not fair. All of the emotions bubbled inside me and I felt like I would burst. My aunty Pam, my moms older sister, shouted at my mom calling my sister a dirty little harlot. As soon as those words left her mouth, my mom went into defence mode saying that Kitty was no daughter of hers and that is what broke me.

"You absolute hypocrites. You had Ruby at the age of 16 Pam and mom, you had Kitty at the age of 19. You're both a disgrace for ruining this day for me, you wouldn't have liked it if I ruined Daniel's wake.. would you?" It all spurred out of my mouth too quickly that I didn't even realise what I had done. The room went silent. Daniel was my moms younger brother, he killed himself while looking after me and Kitty (Catherine.) Dan threw himself off of the same canal bridge. Ironic, isn't it? I might just call it the end of all my relationships with people. My mother's eyes on me stung, I could feel the pain I had just caused her. Punching her in the face wouldn't have hurt her this much. All those eyes on me made my stomach boil. I felt so small. One glance at Tabitha's picture, the smile she had lost when her father went to jail. I have let her down by hurting my family, she hates people taking advantage of their families. I ran. I ran away from the judging states and the little murmurs that were now picking up all over the room. I can't be in the same house as these people any longer

I ran until my lungs burned like there was a fire within my soul, fuelled by the anger and hate that had taken over my body. It felt as though I had been running forever but through memories of dead bodies and Tabitha smiling, not through the streets where I lived. Everything rushed past in a blur of colours and emotions. Without even realising it, I had cried and screamed on my journey. When I finally came to a stop, I could see that I had only gone around the bendy street that I lived on and up one of the side streets in which would lead me back to the canal bridge. I daren't go back. The weight of a chopped up corpse lay heavily on my heart still and crushed it with searing guilt. My own skin cried in shame. As I bent over and heaved up my lungs onto the gravel beneath my feet, I reminisced of the times myself and Tabitha had ran this same way like a race.

"Last one to get to the canal bridge is a rotten egg!" Tabitha sang as she rushed off ahead of me.

"Hey! That's cheating. I'm still gonna beat you, slow poke!" I jeered back at her as my feet pound against the floor and forced me closer to her.

The memories echoed in my mind. I miss her so much. Suddenly there was a little voice behind me that was encased in a mumbling lisp, "hey, are you okay?" Said the little boy that stood by a cream coloured fence next to a rose bush. Our neighbourhood may be boring but it is full of natural beauty, that's for sure. I was shocked that a little kid would even care about me being a blubbering mess. Anyone else would've ignored me and continued with their day. "Yeah, I'm- I'm okay" I breathed, just about managing to squeeze the words out of my stinging chest. The boy didn't look very convinced. He raised his brow and just stood there staring, like he was waiting for a confession of some sorts. This boy was small in stature and only looked about 8 or 9 years old. He had shaggy brown hair and sores on his lips and around his mouth. His clothes were torn and stained in what I assumed to be ketchup. Poor little boy looked feral. I pushed myself to a standing pose and looked down to the small boy. "Are you okay?" I asked with true empathy seeping through my words. He just nodded. Even I wasn't convinced then. "Where do you live? Is your mom home?" The boy looked skittish now as he fiddled with the bottom of his top. "She's not home." He whispered back to me. I felt sorry for the boy, he was too young to be left alone. If I take him with me, I'll look like a creep but I can't leave him here alone. I gave in to my motherly instincts. "Wanna go get some ice cream?" His eyes filled with excitement.