Positively Negative [Rewrite]

Nov06: Three Little Birds, Don't Worry

I eased myself off the bed and stepped softly, barefoot, to my ensuite where I shut the door firmly and began to undress, ignoring the headache and slight dizziness that was threatening to unbalance me.

When I was younger, I'd always remembered being terrified of entering a bathroom and taking off my clothes. For years my dad would step in with me, we'd brush our teeth together and then we d both get undressed, and he'd show me that there was nothing to be afraid of, then he'd wait with me as I clambered into the bath like only a six year old could. I'd never want him to leave, so he'd sometimes stay under the pretence that he was simply shaving, but I knew he probably enjoyed those times as much as I did. Wanted to lengthen the duration of our odd father-son routine.

They faded, though, as all things do, with my growing up and his growing busier. He never had the time to waste, and muttered it was disgusting by then anyway. I was too old. It wasn't right anymore. I should grow up.

And then I was sent to boarding school by the time I was ten anyway.

I rubbed my face and took a laboured breath in, turning the shower on as I did so.

The water calmed me even before it touched my skin, and afterwards the sound called out to pain and worry, coaxing them to roll on down. I lifted my head and closed my eyes, feeling tension being slowly erased as I squeezed my toes and held my breath.

I knew what was to come. I could not be happier about having been granted the day, and the next, did I feel I needed it, off from school, but that consequently meant that I had to be home.

The worst thing was that I'd barely known. When I was called into the office nearer the end of lunch, all I'd been told was that someone was on the phone for me, that there were complications at home.

Complications.

Complications could mean anything. Could mean Lou had misplaced her keys again whilst Mia was out, and I needed to be ready by the entrance whilst she came to collect mine. Could mean Mia had to go see her daughter again, who lived all the way in Manchester, and Dad had gone on a two-day business trip to Birmingham, and mum was awful tired again, so Lou and I would have to make our own dinners and keep the noise down. And, perhaps even stay with a friend for the night?

I had not expected go hear Mia's strained voice on the other end as repeated to me, like she must have by then done to the rest of my sisters, in age order I imagined, that my father had been diagnosed with prostrate cancer.. Her words had shrunk in size, confidence and clarity by the time she got to the last two words, and I asked her to repeat what she'd said without knowing that I'd regret it. That I wouldn't want to hear those damned words at all.

How I composed myself enough to go and retrieve my things from Sherry in CT I didn't know. I suppose I hadn't really fallen apart yet. Crumbling as I strode down the halls, maybe, hearing stupid, meaningless conversations coming from every stupid direction from every stupid student who lived life just as pointlessly as we all did. We all did.

Seeing Joey with my bag had probably snapped something inside me, finally triggered all the anger, and hatred, and frustration – I knew the stages of grief, even though my father hadn't passed away, yet. Wouldn't, I prayed. Still, knowing did not and would not prevent me from suffering them.

I refused to regret a single second of my actions. The guy had taken my bag as some sort of joke, as if they hadn't successfully pushed my day downhill and watched with mirth in their eyes and excitement in their voices. Even still, that I'd been so cut up about the Dahmer incident seemed ridiculous now. That had been what I'd been so upset about just hours before I'd discovered that I could lose my father.

I was struggling to see the reason for an existence so ridiculously futile. Death was the end for us all, so where was our redemption? When were we going to catch a break?

My father had pushed all of his energy, all of his days, towards building up the accounting company he and his friend had started together when they were twenty-two years old; a couple of university students with determination and wealthy enough families to be invested in and supported. And they made it. Thirty-five years down the line, they'd hardly taken a break, only striving for bigger, better and brighter than before, and then Michael Rose, my father's partner, lost his wife in an accident at a ski resort in Austria. Not a full year later, my father is diagnosed. Whether the answer to life was really years of education progressing into years of workplace imprisonment and resulting in undignified deaths for one and all, I was unsure.

I released a sigh that loosened something tight and uncomfortable within me, and leaned forward to rest my head against the white-tiled wall. Tears mingled with the trails of liquid encasing me, my mid-length brown hair felt heavy, the water grew steadily hotter, beginning to burn my skin, and I welcomed it all.

:

Lou whistled lewdly when I exited the room with a towel around my waist and a towel around my hair. She'd still been lying on my bed, but upon seeing me, she'd sat slowly up and smiled in a way that seemed only to scream fatigue. I replied in kind and headed towards my bed when she patted the spot in front of her, between her legs. Having settled there, Lou immediately began unravelled the towel containing my hair and let the mess free. From there she began to dry it for me, something we hadn't done for months, and remained in silence.

I relaxed into the feeling, again closing my eyes, becoming lost in the maze her fingers were tracing into my scalp and through the hair I'd allowed to grow for too long.

"Dad wants it short," I whispered. "Doesn't he?"

Louisiana didn't answer for so long that I believed for a moment she hadn't heard, but when she finally did so, it was clear she'd been trying to ready her vocal cords so that I wouldn't detect how close she was to tears. She hadn't been successful. The tremor in her voice caused my heart to beat falsely and my own eyes to begin to fill. "That doesn't matter now, though. Does it?"

And then we didn't say anything for too long again.

When two sharp knocks broke through the world Lou and I had sunk into, I could feel every fibre of my being protest. I wasn't ready to return to reality and its misgivings. But seeing the face that followed the carefully opened door, I was on my feet before another thought could enter my mind.

My sister, Catherine, pulled me into her arms and held tight, uncaring of my still damp body or the way it shook, now that she was here.

"It's okay, Freddie. It's okay."

I couldn't bring myself to agree, but I loved that she smelt like sunflowers and Cath, and exuded everything that stood for stability.

"It's okay, don't worry."

[Date: November 6th Word Count: 8993 Target: 10,000. Are we enjoying it so far? Oui? Non? Vous ne sais pas?]