Shattered

chapter three

The lights of Sydney at night pierces through my pupils, blinding me with the sharpness. The world comes crashing down and I stumble with whatever balance I can muster to the side of the road, hot tears scorching my skin in rivers of agony. It had never crossed my mind that he would do this to me, or, attempt to. Now I'm in pieces, on the sidewalk, my heart racing.

Barely taking my brain's command, I start walking. And I don't turn back. I walk away from the place I've endured for so long, too long. And all this time, I didn't feel myself breaking until I shattered.

'Chelsea?'

Ace.

My heart skips a beat, overwhelming relief coursing through my veins. He had been the one that helped me when Damien left, listening to all my insecurities and understanding me. Relating to me. Slowly, I lift my head, the weight of my troubles weighing me down. That's when I finally realise.

He tried to...

The sentence goes unfinished. Unspeakable.

'What happened, Chelsea? Are you okay?'

Ace's face is etched with the gentle concern that I so value as a best friend.

My mouth remains shut. It's glued together, even though I try so desperately to say something, even if it's just a 'hi'.

So I start crying. I start crying as if all the times my stepdad made me feel broken would wash away with the tears.

My heart pulses with all the emotions I've kept bottled up inside me.

Ace raises his eyebrow a fraction, obvious discomfort creasing his face before he offers me an embrace. I lose myself in our hug. After all, it's the only thing I have left. The shoulder of his hoodie is soaked with my tears, and I hope he doesn't notice. About how many tears I'm shedding, about how broken I really am. He murmurs words of comfort into my ear that I'm crying too hard to hear. My knees grow weak at the recollection of what he had done.

'Chelsea.'

His voice is quiet, barely audible, but his tone is shadowed with a seriousness I've never seen in him before.

'Chelsea, hey. Listen.'

Fuck, I'm a mess. I look up at him and swallow the tears that threaten to rise.

'What happened?'

God, I'm so lucky to have a best friend like him. His eyes are laced with a tenderness so raw and exquisite that I just break.

And like that, it spills out: everything I hadn't mentioned to him before, my story, my father, Damien, my mother.

My mother.

I think of her, a mere bundle under a Mount Everest of duvets, a horrifyingly skeletal shadow of the woman she once was. Doused with depression after Damien's death and hardly aware of my existence. She is nowhere near recovering, we all know that. He had said the medicine wasn't worth the money. I wonder what he thinks about his wife in bed all day and almost waiting for death. In the back of my mind, I still remember the days when my mother wore the prettiest sundresses and took us to the beach. When she still valued us.

Ace stares at me with disbelief, and I almost feel sorry for him to be listening to everything I tell him about. We are just two lost souls.

We only have each other.

I almost expect him to comfort me. To put his arm around me and tell me that it's okay. But when he finally speaks, his voice is hollow.

'Why didn't you tell me everything earlier? Why did you keep all this bottled up?'