Page 4 of Vying Girls

It’s louder today. The anniversary. There’s nowhere to contain it. No grave, no resting place. He whorls around me, incessant and rageful. Aunt Kathleen wouldn’t tell me where he was buried, if he even was. I visited every cemetery I could the following years. No sign. He was dust, blown away on the wind. Makes sense he’d blow his way to me.

My tent rattles behind me. Should probably take it down. At least until the storm passes. But that’ll mean holing up with her again. Not something I can do today, certainly not sober.

Hence the club crawl. Hence this black poison.

I hear twigs snap. Could be anyone. Dumb app, sending them here. Whole place feels violated. The wolves won’t bother here now and that pisses me off all the more.

But of course it’s not just anyone. I hear an uncertain breath. Don’t even have to be looking to know she’s looking at me. Like I’m some dangerous animal. Tucking those flying dark strands behind her ears, freezing in her cropped jacket.

I close my eyes against the beating in my heart.

Dangerous.

I could toss her in an instant, let the devil in the ocean take her. Maybe toss myself afterwards. I don’t feel steady, can’t have her here. But of course I don’t make her leave. I’m as stuck as these rocks, turned rigid from the cold wind.

There’s something different though. This vow I made days before. Seems kind of poetic to do it tonight, given the day. Is she ready to face her past? Because I sure am.

‘Heard them try to bury it last night,’ I say, still not turning around. ‘Ground’s just fucking rocks, so they left it in the end. Wasn’t hard to find this morning.’

‘You’ve been drinking that since this morning?’

I release a huff. ‘Wouldn’t be conscious if I had.’

‘That bad?’

I hold out the bottle without answering. The weight of it disappears. I still don’t look. Not until she starts hacking her guts up. She’s bent in half, back of one hand to her mouth as she coughs, the other still grasping the bottle. Careful not to spill any despite her distress.

I watch dispassionately until she calms. ‘Just can’t hack this place, can you?’

Tilda frowns, still gasping. ‘Thanks for your help there.’

‘What was I supposed to do? Heimlich manoeuvre?’

Setting her face into a glare, she straightens up, taking another sip. Smaller this time, hesitant. I’m thrown back to Halloween. We were just playing at first. She had giggled, I think, when I did that thing with the glow stick. Then it all went wrong, and she was never the same with me. She drinks me in small sips. She’s hesitant.

That stuff’s gone to my head. Tilda watches those twinned rocks and I’m thinking about my arms around her. Who was Heimlich anyway? The guy who invented it, or someone who was saved by it?

My arms would be tight. Crotch pressed against her ass. Hurting her to save her. Tilda had done some form of that in our other life. Hurting me to save herself.

She sniffs, wiping her watery eyes. ‘They’re gonna think you made me cry.’

‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’

No, that had been a decade ago. Tilda cried a lot back then; she was just that kind of kid. Crying got her things, couldn’t blame her. Wasn’t the same for me. Dad just wasn’t like that. If I wanted something, I had to earn it, impress him. All her crying pissed me off at first. All that girlish emotion.

But that last time, that last day, it had been my leaving that made her cry.

I cried too. I wasn’t a robot. Just a ten-year-old who had never really been treated as one. The tears went on for a week, I was missing her so much. Then I found Dad, hanged, and the tears stopped, evaporated with the anger that came instead. The anger that’s been cultivated, perfected, over the years. Like a poison garden. And here’s Tilda, come for her fill.

‘We got your shirt,’ she says.

‘I know. Haz said.’

‘Cool. Well, I’m gonna get back before it pisses it down.’ She catches my eyes. ‘You should too. It’s dangerous up here in the rain.’

I just smile until she drops her gaze.

‘I’m taking this too.’ She hefts the bottle. ‘As a thank you for the shirt.’ She gives me one last look just as it begins to rain. ‘See you later, then.’