Two hearts entwined

Clay

‘ I’m sat in the back of the car, I can see the back of Moms curly blonde hair bouncing as she’s singing along to my Dads favourite song, I have my headphones in practising in my head, going over the words and the tune. I’m alone in the back seat. We drive and drive. I pick up my iPod to go over the song again glancing at the small dial on the front and thinking how lucky I was Santa had delivered, not many of my friends had one, some girls at the theatre school did which is why I’d begged and begged and wrote letter after letter that year, Dad rounds the corner and I see it a big red artic lorry sailing towards us except it’s on the wrong side of the road, Mom is screaming shouting at Dad, he remains quiet and try’s to miss the lorry. It’s going to happen I can’t stop it.. it’s coming closer.. closer’

“Ahhh” I’m in bed at home, sweat covers my body, another dream. As I couldn’t remember anything from before the accident I never mention these dreams anymore, Mom once said it wasn’t a memory just a nightmare, yet they always seemed so real and so lifelike it was hard to believe her.. but of course I must for there would have been 2 of us in the back for a start,Mom has straight bobbed dark hair and there was no recollection of my singing. Just a dream.

I roll over to pick my phone up, 5.39am eghhh so early but there’s no change of sleep now. I peel of the wet bed sheets and my wet night clothes and sneak down the hall, false of habit I guess as I knew no one was in, I turn on the shower and wait for it warm before jumping under the cascading water. I let it wash away yesterday and the nightmare the water soothing and relaxing, I spend more than my fair share of time just aimlessly letting the water roll down my body. Shutting off the shower I reach for my towel and head downstairs for some tea, it’s dark and eerie in the dusk of the morning, I fill the pot and wait whilst wondering around at my own leisure.

What I’d often found odd is there was no photos not of us as a family, ones of Mom and Dad at their wedding, a giant golden framed canvas of Lucie and a few of me dotted around, I guess since the accident we weren’t a close knit family.

After dressing and styling my hair in loose waves I head back down stairs it’s 7.14am now so I flick in the TV and stare absentmindedly at the flickering colours and movement, before I know it the door knocks..

“Hey” I greet with a smile, Clay eager to be inside and out of view ducked under my arm into the hallway. “Hi Ava, good sleep? You look a little better but still tired” again I don’t think his upfront attitude was rude he was more concerned again. I just shrugged at his statement, I was always tired these days anyway! “So clay started as you can’t go to school I thought I’d bring school to you” he chatted on oblivious to my open gawking face “so this week’s assignment is to create a family tree and to be honest I’m s**t at this stuff, so you can help” I didn’t argue it was a pleasure and I welcomed the opportunity to be immersed in something other than my strange family. We worked on the laptop and sticking and cutting onto large paper, he had 4 grandparents, his Mother and Farther, their 4 brothers and sisters and his own siblings and cousins, we worked side by side, I got us soda and snacks from the fridge. “ you know you can go into those websites and search your heritage right back to thousands of years ago, luckily I know most my family or that would take ages” he stated, proudly of himself, “ well mine wouldn’t take to long I don’t have much family, one set of parents, one set of grandparents and me!” I said quite matter of factly, “and your sister” Clay said.

My heart fell, how did he know? I felt my face flush, how selfish of me wanting to be just me and he already knew, “yes of course, Mom would loose it if I left her off our family tree” I laughed back at him, trying to hope he didn’t think me an awful person. “Well yes it would be stupid to miss someone off, especially someone who lives here” he said whilst laughing at my joke. “Clay, my sister passed away when she was 6” well that shut him up, he looked thoughtful “so who was the girl in your Moms car when you first got here?” “What girl? It was me you i***t” great batshit Mother batshit friend I thought!

“Ava, you where inside I saw you earlier that day you never left the house your dad was home, I noticed his car return on Friday, she went out later on Friday night and parked on the street, in the car was a girl, she looked younger than you but she was sat in the back, she looked similar to you except she had lighter hair from what I could see, a beige looking coat on and her bed bowed down!”

My mind raced, my head hurt my heart was beating to fast and I tried to move and collapsed. I woke sat in the couch with clays arm around me. “ woah angel face, I knew you’d fall for me eventually but not that quickly. That’s my record!” He chanted pleased at his success.

“ Clay..” and I began, I told him about the accident, the box under Moms bed, the yellow room, the contents of the Yellow room, the basement with Moms work documents(which now I wanted to search though) the tablets addressed to Lucie, the photograph. Once I started I couldn’t stop it all came tumbling out and Clay well he sat he listened and as crazy as I sounded he never once commented, although he was confused and adamant it wasn’t me in the car he said he should investigate further starting with my old house which wasn’t being sold,

He arranged to meet me the following night when my Mom was in bed and we would make the hour journey and be back before anyone noticed. The excitement for doing something so forbidden by Moms standards was thrilling, the worst sin, to get in a young boys car, but I wasn’t living here I was trapped into a routine of mundane tasks and a lack of existence.

I called bye to Clay, he was a sweet boy. He said he would keep a watch out and out his number into my cellphone, he hugged me bye took his project and left.

Why did it feel like my world was opening up for the first time, yet crumbling underneath me?