The Search for Rebecca

Chapter 4 :

The sun started to rise, and with it a new persona, for Peppa. For the first time in a long time, she awoke with the feeling of hope and happiness, even the voice of her little brother calling her from inside the house didn't deter her from the new day. 

As she rubbed her eyes, somehow cherishing the pinpricks of white dots resting under her eyelids, she looked around her at the damp wooden planks, making up the DIY shed that her Grandad built for her. She silently thought back to her 13th birthday, the day when the small shack was constructed; her parents thought she'd want her own space-away from her brother. 

Now, Peppa looked out the window, an hour had gone by since she woke up and, surprisingly, she was in the same mood. As she looked, she admired the swaying grass and the chirping birds. Time was ticking, and she had to leave for school, picking up her phone hastily she realised that she hadn't checked her phone since the morning before and grimaced a little at the memory of past text messages she'd gotten, usually consisting of different variations of 'are you still alive?' She never answered back.

Peppa hummed the same tune as the day before as she reached the fork in the road, connecting her to Candy's house. Then, that same flooding feeling of guilt, making Peppa feel like her whole body was full of carbon dioxide. Her hands clammed up and she took them off the handle bars to wipe off the sweat, one at a time that is. Once she placed her right hand safely back on the handlebars, she looked up and then,

BANG

A piercing pain in her side, she felt her cheek hit the ground, and leg, in canon. A faint noise in the background, someone's squealing, "Oh! Pedro, look who it is!" Candy. she opened her eyes to see a boy, wow. His skin was golden, and his hair like honey- no, she barely realised that the person stood before her was Pedro, but again, the eyes. It didn't take Peppa nervously waiting for some sort of prompt on what to do, this time, she got up and started to fan herself, quickly searching for a conversation topic. 

Peppa dusted herself off and pretended not to notice the grazes on her shins. 

In true Great British fashion she started the conversation with a sigh and a comment on the weather, "It's warmer than usual today, isn't it?"

Candy rolled her eyes, after briefly glancing at Pedro, trying to imitate him, "Peppa, didn't you get my message? No?-Well, if you read them you would know that today Pedro's giving us a ride." Peppa lifted the tip of her golden locks and tucked a single strand behind her ear; her forehead felt colder now.

Pedro spoke, "I hope I'm not intruding on anything, it's jus-" his voice had changed since Peppa had last known him, before it was an unsure and insecure timid neigh, now, Peppa thought, he's got a newfound confidence he never had before. Pedro was always the kid that would sit quietly, occasionally getting into bother with bullies, Peppa recalled one time in particular.  Some of the other children were insulting Peppa, and Pedro stepped in, to defend her, like always. 

Peppa snapped back to reality; she heard the car boot clang open, and felt the cold metal bike, tightly gripped beneath her hands, pull away from her. Peppa noticed him...again, and again she felt the same guilt, threatening to make her stomach implode. All of a sudden, Candy and Pedro snapped their heads up at her; Peppa looked around her trying to figure out who was just shouting, but no one was there. Was that voice hers? Yes, it was, but she couldn't remember exactly what she'd just said.
Candy wrinkled her nose at her and exclaimed, "I know Peppa! And so does Pedro, I told him about you and Danny. Can you just get in the car please, I want to get to school early, I told Pedro I'd reintroduce him to all our friends, didn't I, Peddy?"
Peppa forced herself to ignore what Candy had just said. But what she couldn't manage to ignore was Pedro taking off his glasses and cleaning them on his shirt. Reflex told Peppa to question, "Are you ok?"
Peppa and Pedro may have been apart for a few years, but she hadn't forgotten his habits, and what they meant. But that same reflex hadn't left Pedro either, so he spat out a raspy "No." followed by a nervous laugh. 

Pedro snapped up his head, after realizing what he had done and correcetd himself, "I mean, yes, I'm good-fine, even. Ha, just I dunno, refl-"

"Reflex," Peppa finished, "Yeah, me too." Yet again, they shared a look. 

Peppa climbed into the backseat of the car and tied her hair back up into a messy ponytail, leaviing a few strands of hair covering her face. She slumped back into the hot-mesh seats, and wrinkled her eyes shut.

[Pedro]

Wow. It was weird seeing her again, all those same feelings came back, and all the thoughts I'd worked so hard at burying deep down within me. We hadn't seen each other for years and we hadn't had contact for 3 of those years. I ocassionally find myself looking back at the last message she sent, the one where she tried to keep the pieces of our broken relationship together. 

Sitting here in the car, after that interaction, I replay the day I recieved the message. I remember it being warm, not unalike this day, and hearing the small pocket fan whir on my bedside table. My phone buzzed and the fluorescent green text appeared on my phone screen. 'Hey P! Can't wait for next week when I can come see you, I know things between us have been hard with all this long-distance stuff but I'm not giving up on us. Love you, xx!' I never responded, and she never came. Whenever I remember that moment I feel disgusted: at how I reacted, at how she never saw me even though she said she'd 'really wanted to come' and at how we weren't even acknowledging that any of that happened now. 

I never wanted to lose her, but I did and I beat myself up over that for ages, meanwhile I would always get notifications of her with her new friends, boyfriend and life. To say that sitting here, in this car, is anything other than painful would be an understatement. A part of me has always wished that I'd managed to say the words to her, the words to end it between us, because, somehow, holding onto these memories makes it feel like there's always been something there. Of course, that's not true, she moved on a long time ago, and I suppose I've always stayed in that same mindset of when we were 14 years old.

As I move along the timeline of my life, mentally, I get back to this moment. It kind of startled me to think that I was the one driving, I had to readjust my mindset to believe in the fact that I'm 17 now. I can't help but glance at her in the rear view mirror, and as I do, I notice how she still hides behind her hair, however, now it's much longer than before.