Page 46 of Life Lessons

“The one I sent you a letter about a few weeks ago. A magazine wanted to do a feature dedicated to how I have coped over the past year, and they wanted to end the piece with a memorial service showing how I have chosen to remember my daughter. It was beautiful. But imagine my humiliation, that my one remaining daughter couldn’t even be bothered to come and mourn her twin sister. I had to tell them you were ill. Better that than them knowing you are a heartless bitch who couldn’t even show up to her sister’s grave.” Her words pierced through all the armour I thought I was wearing when I prepared for this call, and her words left me bleeding.

“You know I would have never missed it intentionally. Besides, how can you call me heartless when you are the one using Tillie’s death as a fucking publicity stunt,” I shout down the phone, not giving a shit that I am out in public.

“Matilda always believed in supporting charities, and I made sure to mention that in the article. I wanted her anniversary to be remembered and painted in a good light. With all this talk of you murdering your sister, I thought that if I presented a much more positive narrative, then that would hopefully stop the gossip. But then you went and messed all that up by not attending. Do you know how that looks? It makes you look like you murdered your sister on purpose. Once again, Abigail, in just a few short hours you have managed to bring great shame on our family,” she spits, her words leached with venom that penetrates my open wounds. Stinging like the bitch she is.

“How the fuck can I have brought great shame by missing an event I didn’t know was happening? Was my father there?” I ask, only to be met with silence at the other end. “No, I didn’t think so. Is he next on your call list? Are you going to bollock him next? Because there’s a very good chance that the headline tomorrow could read ‘grieving father misses daughter’s remembrance ceremony as he’s balls deep in his secretary’.”

“How dare you? He is your father and you will not speak about him like that. He is a very busy man,” she argues and I can’t help the sarcastic cackle that escapes.

“You are deluded. He hates you, that’s why he stays away. He is too busy banging every blonde employee under the age of twenty-five to even remember your name. And as for the remembrance service for Tillie, she would have hated it. She never wanted to be dumped in the ground, or to have a head stone. The last thing she would have wanted is people she has never met, gathering round a stone that has no personalisation to match her at all, all talking about her like they knew her. You didn’t really know her. She was my twin, my best friend. So, even if I did get your invite, which I very much fucking didn’t, I wouldn’t have come. I have spent today remembering her exactly how she would have wanted. So, yes, I do dare. I dare to ignore you and to concentrate on what Tillie wants. Something you don’t know how to do,” I shout, and I am shocked to hear her breath hitch.

I can hear her try to mask it, but I know she is crying. It’s a bit of an eerie thought. I didn’t know my mum was capable of having that kind of emotion.

“I wouldn’t have to mourn my precious baby girl if it wasn’t for you. You killed her, and we let you get away with it. I knew we should have handed you over to the police, and made you tell us what really happened that night. Not that it matters what caused it. You are the reason your sister is dead. And all I can think is that the wrong twin died that day. It should never have been my baby, Matilda. She was always the good one, whereas you were nothing but trouble even in my womb. If I had known the pain and turmoil you would have caused, I would have aborted you straight away. But instead, I have to live with the knowledge that I gave you life, only for you to take away the life of your sister. We both know it should have been you.” With that she hangs up the phone, doesn’t even pause to see what I have to say back. Not that I do. What is there to say, she is right. She finally voiced what I had known she was thinking all along.

Darkness combined with her words swirl around my brain and I just want it all to stop. Without thinking, I walk into the shop and ask the man behind the counter for his largest bottle of Absolut vodka. After showing my ID and paying him, he hands it over. It’s been exactly a year since I touched this stuff, but as I walk down onto the beach, I take a swig from the bottle, the familiar burn bringing back all the memories.

I take my converse off, making sure to take large mouthfuls of vodka in between each action. I leave the shoes, my coat, and bag near the walkway and feeling the sand between my toes, I slowly walk towards the waters edge. My brain doesn’t even worry about my stuff being stolen, I don’t really give a shit. Losing a pair of shoes is nothing compared to what I have lost.

As I stand in the wet sand, slowly sinking slightly now that I’m not moving any more, I let my toes scrunch into the sand. I feel like I’m not really in control of my actions, like I am just moving in a daze, not really thinking or caring about what I am doing. Each time the tide moves inward the waves stretch closer, like they are desperate to meet my toes. And with each wave they get closer, and I drink a mouthful with each one. It doesn’t take long for the alcohol to hit my system, the waves have only just started tickling the tips of my toes. But with the rate I am drinking, I know it won’t take long before I am really drunk. It’s kind of ironic given we were drinking the night she died. In fact, Absolut was Tillie’s drink of choice, that must be why I asked for it in the shop. Now that I think about it, my drink was always Jack Daniels, but Tillie always preferred vodka. Maybe that’s why I chose it.

I try not to think any more, the memories of Tillie becoming too painful, as they are marred with the words I can hear from my mother. The confirmation that I shouldn’t be alive. There is no way I can right the wrong, but I can set the balance straight again. I can do what needs to be done. I’ve thought about it many times before, particularly after she first died. But I held onto that hope that there was life after heartache. All the therapists said I would move on and learn to be happy again, which gives them credit I did do. I found Trixie. She was never a replacement for Tillie. In fact, if Tillie were alive, she would have loved Trix. She is just the kind of girl you can’t help but love. With her bright colourful hair, and smiley positive personality, she is completely loveable. She taught me how to begin existing again, but it was him who taught me how to live.

I never wanted to need a man. Obviously, I wanted one, but toneedsomeone is an entirely different thing. Yet that is exactly how it is with Jett. I could carry on without him, but I don’t want to. There is no point, I would just be living a shell of the life I once had. He helped me learn to love myself, to get the confidence back that I had lost. He taught me how to feel real, true, and intense pleasure that is given to you by someone else. He taught me to fucking love sex, and to never be shy when it comes to letting your kinky flag fly. I loved experimenting with him. But the biggest thing that he taught me was how to embrace the death of my sister, and how to carry her with me through life. The one thing he never taught me was how to live without him.

At least now I know I don’t have to live without him. I don’t have to let Trixie down again, which I inevitably will do. I don’t have to listen to my mother’s foul words ever again. And I don’t have to live a life without my other half. And as I swallow more and more mouthfuls of vodka, my reasons for staying fade away.

I don’t know when the tide came in so much that the waves are now hitting above my knees, and I am having to brace myself so the sheer power of them doesn’t knock me over. I don’t remember the blues and black of the night beginning to descend and tussle with the bright orange colours of the sky, beginning their fight for control. The cycle of the day completes again. I also don’t remember when I swallowed the last pill in the box of ibuprofen that Mike just gave me.

I remember pulling them out of my pocket, hoping they would help to dull some of the pain I was feeling in my chest. But with each swig of the vodka bottle, combined with the lack I don’t really care, it didn’t take long for me to consume the packet. Feeling the effects of the alcohol beginning to take hold strongly, I stumble back to the sry stand and lie down. The movement of stumbling and sitting sloshes the vodka around in my stomach and nausea ripples through my body but I clamp my mouth shut, forcing the sickness down. The pills won’t work if I vomit, my brain reasons throughout the misty haze.

I pull the bottle to my mouth and groan when I realise it’s empty. No wonder I feel like shit if I have drunk the whole bottle. It’s a good job I don’t intend to wake up tomorrow or I would have a fucking horrendous headache, my brain jokes. I try to giggle, I think it might just be in my head, but it all hurts. I feel my brain and my body becoming heavy now and as I lay back the bottle drops out of my hand without me realising. Laying back in the sand, my eyes start to drift close. I try to hold them open, wanting to watch the last of the sunset, but it’s like I have no control over my body.

There’s an annoying ringing in my ears that I can’t seem to get rid of, and my heart feels as though it’s racing so fast it will pound right out of my chest. Weirdly, even though I know I’m laying flat on my back, I still feel dizzy. It’s like the world is hopping around and there’s nothing I can do about it. I know I should be panicking, I can feel myself losing all control over my body, but it’s weirdly serene. I don’t have to worry about it anymore, I don’t have to think or feel any more. All I have to do is lay here and keep my eyes closed.

I feel as though, as I drift in and out of awareness, each time I gain a little bit of control, I think of him. Of the way he kissed me, the way he stroked the scar on my thigh like he really didn’t care. I thought about the evil glint he gave me when I mouthed off in his lessons, and the way he punished me after by bending me over his desk. I remembered the way he held onto me and breathed my name during sex, like I was his life line. I saw his face and the way he looked at me, the love that shone on his face as he told me he loved me and would always be there for me.

It hurts so much, but luckily I don’t have to feel any more. I don’t have to see the bad memories, only the good. That’s when I see Tillie standing over me. I’m not entirely sure my eyes are closed, but I know this has to be a dream. But through the haze in my brain, it feels so real. She is there, looking as beautiful and angelic as always, she even has a long white flowy dress on to emphasise the point. I’m covered in black, dripping wet, and looking like darkness personified, while she is there looking like the light. Two sides to the same coin. It’s no wonder I can’t live without her.

“Abbie,” I hear her call my name, but weirdly her mouth doesn’t move. My head spins as it occurs to me the shouting is coming from further away. Tillie is right in front of me.

I hear it again, only this time it’s a little clearer, and I make sure this time to try and focus on Tillie’s mouth, but I still don’t see it move. She motions for me to come with her, and I know what she means. I don’t know how I know, but I know she wants me to let go of all the ties that are binding me to this world. I want to do it. In fact I don’t even consider it, I simply let go.

It’s a surreal feeling as you allow the darkness to descend, when I give up for the final time. It’s only when all ties are cut, and I feel like I’m free falling, do I finally hear the call again. Only this time, I hear it loud and clear. It wasn’t Tillie talking to me, it was Trixie. She is here. She came for me. Too bad she is too late.

I feel my body start to shake as the darkness descends, and things appear to happen in flashes. I feel her grab my body. I hear her screams. I feel her sticking her fingers down my throat but to no avail. The last thing I hear before the darkness descends is Trixie. Once she has finished shouting for help, for someone to get an ambulance she bends down and whispers in my ear, and I feel her tears against my skin. “Please, Abs. Don’t leave me.”

Before I get a chance to even try to speak, to apologise for hurting her, the welcomed dark envelopes me.

Iused to think having no ties to this Earth was a blessing. I lived from one day to the next, not caring about my actions or the consequences, feeding my selfish need with regular ego boosts. Being a teacher made me feel important, not giving a shit about it made me feel invincible. Now I’m nothing.

Staring at the empty base of my whiskey glass, the bartender tries to pour me another double and I raise my hand to stop him. What’s the use? As torturous as the prison sentence of solitude Agatha Nightingale handed me is, I need to make sure there’s some of me left to present to Abbie on her graduation day. Right before I start grovelling at her feet. I was supposed to protect her. Respect her. Yet, sitting here drowning my sorrows isn’t doing either. At least she’s safe, receiving the best education money can buy. Probably elbow deep into a tub of ice cream with Musgrove watching the latest reality show, I muse to myself.

Pushing to my feet, I step off the bar stool and wobble slightly. With unfocused eyes, I spot a young woman leaning against the pool table with long black hair and my heart squeezes in my chest. It’s not her. Even if it were, I can’t go over without being arrested so I turn and stumble for the door.

Gulping in the fresh, night’s air, I start the trek back towards an old lodge which happened to still be in my family name. The town is tiny, only attracting tourists during the summer for hunting season. The roads are quiet, the people keep to themselves and the best part is, no rich snobs. Not a single Lamborghini or bodyguard in sight, let alone a phone signal. It’s for the best, I decided. Otherwise, I’d have found a way to contact Abbie a million times by now, and I can’t risk Agatha bugging her phone and whipping her out of Willowmead before graduation. I don’t care about going to jail, it’s not like I have much else going on. But all Abbie wants is to get as far away from her shrivelled old hag of mother, and she’ll need an education behind her to do it.

The small rocks twist and crunch beneath my boots, the slight incline up to my area of the woods causing me more issues than it should to climb. Alcohol sloshes in my gut, threatening to come up like some pubescent day drinker, stealing liquor from daddy’s cabinet while he’s at work. I hadn’t realized how much, or how easily, I’d stopped drinking while I was with Abbie. Now it’s all gone to hell.

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