Page 69 of The Second Chance Bus Stop
I’ve dropped Sophia off in town and have gone to a small coffee shop to think and put together what I have, which I will need to present to Mum in the gentlest way possible. I carry my tray with a black coffee to a table by the window and sit down.
Then Zara calls, and the ground shifts beneath my feet.
I have to go.
Edith
London
The first thing I think is that I’m not vertical but horizontal and that it’s wrong. Like half of a crossword, I should go the other way. It’s dark outside, so it must be early morning or late evening. There is the pain, but it’s only subtle at first. I look around. The ceiling is spotty with grey, and I think that it’s an angle we have neglected and also that I see it once a year so perhaps I can continue ignoring it, kind of like addressing my aunt’s insensitive jokes at Christmas or buying napkins with Easter motifs. The pain nudges me. Like the soft nose of an imaginary dog, it probes me and pushes me to get up. Left hip, cheek, brain, thigh. I should call out. When you find yourself at the bottom of the staircase unable to get up, calling out is what you do. I know Zara must be in the other room, and even if I can’t see her face in front of me right now I know which name to call: like a phone number, she has become a sequence of symbols I know will bring her here, although there is no face to it. I am about to open my mouth when I decide against it and close it again. Because Ifeelhim, and I know I want to stay and see this through. Hallucination or not. If this is the only way to see him I will take it.
‘You came.’ I’m not sure if I say this in my head or out loud. Either way he can hear it.
‘Of course I did. You know I did.’
‘I thought we didn’t meet?’
‘We didn’t.’
‘But we were meant to meet. I was meant to end up with you.’
‘I know. You always end up somewhere, even if it’s not the place you had in mind.’
‘And you. Where did you end up?’
‘Edith. You know where I ended up.’
‘I know?’
‘Back where I started. The way I was before I met you. I didn’t like it but I grew to understand, eventually.’
‘Are you playing mind games with me?’
‘I am one big mind game, remember?’ He smirks and moves closer. I know that if I close my eyes, if I even blink, it will be over. I hold my eyelids open until they’re sore.Don’t go. If you never came, you at least shouldn’t leave me now.
He stands over me. His face facing mine.
‘I think Blade is almost ready to come home, don’t you? He’s found something you could never have imagined. That will change his life. You can make things right with him. And then you can let him go.’
I blink at my son’s name, and a tear trickles down to my ear. Vertical. I need to get vertical, that’s all I know. Because I have a son and a whole lot of people who need me vertical, well and safe. Then I piece together the emergency call in my head and call it out. Because now the pain is there, cutting through my beautiful hallucinations. I’d very much like to stay, but I also know that I can’t, and as soon as I think those thoughts I see him start to slip away. I find the words finally and call out.
ZARA!
