Girl on the Bench [Completed]

Brave

Dominic

The days and weeks passed and I found myself getting stronger and stronger until I was managing to walk using my walking stick on rare occasions. Rosa and I fell into a routine. We'd have breakfast together, she'd go to the cafe for a couple of hours and I would work out with Lee and then she'd come home and the rest of the day was ours. We would drive to beaches and cliffs, talking for hours on end about absolutely anything and everything. We did as Rosa asked and slowed down and it was nice. She still stayed in her room and I had mine, even though every night I wished that she was curled up against me, my face buried into her hair.  I had this odd feeling in my chest that I couldn't seem to name and when I mentioned it to Lee, he tipped his head back and laughed. 

"Mate, that's contentment. Have you never felt like that before?"

And I hadn't. 

Lola came back from Spain, tanned and smiling. She burst into the house one day and danced her way over to me, her blue dress spinning around her. I'd been sitting on a chair next to the fireplace and laughed at her, thinking about how it'd been years since I'd seen her look like...Lola.

"Dom, brother dearest, I have news, "she announced, dropping a kiss on my forehead before sprawling onto the floor.

I looked behind her, "Where's your shadow?"

She batted my leg with her hand, "Leave Lee alone, he's at work." 

Lola lay back onto the rug and moved her arms and legs like she was making a snow angel.

"Well, what is it? The news that has you acting all weird."

Lola looked at me, eyes sparkling and her lips curled up into a smile, "Lee asked me to marry him."

"He did what?!"

Lola rolled onto her stomach and rested her chin on her hands, "We were watching the X-files, you know how I love to be spooked and he was holding onto my hand jumping at the same bits as I was. I remember looking at him and thinking, I want him to hold my hand at the good bits and the scary bits forever and he looked at me and said, 'I want to hold your hand forever, Lols.'"

A tear rolled down her cheek, she wiped it away and continued, "I laughed and said that would be fine. Lee became very serious and tugged me close and said, 'I want to hold your hand forever as your husband, can I?'"

"And?"

She laughed, "I said, yes. Of course I did, Dom. I love him, he loves me and it's the first time that a man has seen me, all of me and thought that I was worth holding onto."

Lola sighed and sniffed, "Are you mad?"

I ran my hand through my hair, "Of course not, you idiot. I'm happy for you."

"It's all because of you, Dom. Not because you had your accident, I think somehow I would have met Lee in someway because that's how fate works, isn't it? It's because you saved me. You've been saving me all these years and I never once said thank you."

"Lols, are you content?"

She nodded, "Even better than that, Dom. I'm home."

"Do you think..do you think Mum and Dad ever felt that?"I asked, eyeing her warily. For years, Lola refused to talk about our parents and what happened but the longer we held onto these things, the more they ate at our souls. Until Rosa, I'd barely had one worth saving. 

I didn't want to lose it again.

Lola sat up and crossed her legs in front of her, "I hope they did Dom, I'd like to believe it but somehow I think they loved the drugs more."

I nodded, "Have you told Lee about them?"

Lola shrugged with one shoulder, "A little. He has his stories to tell too. Nobody can live a life without history.  Have you told Rosa?"

"A little."

"Maybe you should, Dom. Would it make you feel better?"

I blinked, staring at the scars on my hands and across my knuckles. Lola said nothing, just fiddling with the hem of her dress. I blinked again and there I was a young kid in a squalid living room looking at Lola crying on a couch that had seen better days. 

They had left us again, for days now with little food or drink and we were scared. Scared and hungry. They'd tripped into the kitchen, clutching a bag of takeaway that they'd thrown at us and we had scurried to, like rats and then they'd disappeared into their room. We weren't allowed in their room..ever. I'd tried once when I'd had a nightmare and my Dad had hit me so hard, I lost two teeth.

The house was quiet, too quiet and then a large man with cold, dead eyes walked into the house like he owned it. He'd asked where they were and I had pointed, my finger trembling. He'd stepped in and walked back out briskly. He stared at us both before bending down and whispering into my ear, "There's a debt still to pay, even if your junkie parents are dead and boy, you're both going to fucking work for it."

"Dom?"

I was jolted back into safety, back to the home I shared with Rosa and back to Lola, no longer a starving, strung out girl but someone who radiated happiness.

"I don't think I can just now, Lols.Maybe one day, when I'm braver."

Sadness flew across Lola's face and she pulled herself up and pulled me into a hug. She squeezed me tight and I squeezed back.

"Oh Dom, you're the bravest person I know."