The Reading List(90)
She pushed herself out of the car. The Time Traveler’s Wife was sitting on the back seat. They watched Aleisha walk away, taking a moment for herself before stepping into her house. Just as she turned around to close the door, she glanced at them both one last time.
Mukesh smiled at her – hoping she would understand that he was trying to send her all the strength he had in that smile, and to show her all she had in her young life to look forward to. He also wanted it to say something like, ‘I’m always here if you need to talk.’ Though he hoped she had someone closer.
After a few moments, Mukesh picked up The Time Traveler’s Wife from the car seat, and took it over to Aleisha’s front door, where he posted it through as gently as he could. She might not need it right now. But if in one moment, minutes, days, weeks, or months from now, it might prove a comfort, an escape – just like it had for him – it would be worth it.
Chapter 33
ALEISHA
‘ALEISHA, I’VE BEEN TRYING to call you,’ Dean said down the phone, his voice laced with anxiety.
The glass of the screen felt like ice against her ear. ‘I don’t know what to do, Dad,’ Aleisha whispered.
It was her habit to speak quietly on the phone, especially to her dad, but Aleisha knew it was futile – Leilah was upstairs, dead to the world in her room.
She’d tried to get Leilah out of bed today, because she knew she should. But she also couldn’t bear being around her in the same way she couldn’t bear being around herself. They were both to blame.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she repeated, a tear tracking down her cheek. And it felt like the first time she’d been honest with her dad in years. ‘I don’t know how to fix things.’
‘I know, sweetheart.’ His voice was cracking, but she couldn’t bear his emotion. He didn’t understand her. He didn’t understand anything. ‘We can work this out together. What can I do to help? I can come over, help with anything. Just tell me. You don’t need to take this all on alone, okay? I know what you must be going through. How is your mum?’
‘Come over’ – those words just reinforced to her that Dean didn’t live here. For him, this tragedy was for ever at a distance. He existed outside of Aleisha’s world, outside of Aidan’s world, and after the funeral, he would walk away to his own life. Aleisha could never walk away. She’d done too much of that already – she’d been too busy feeling sorry for herself, crying about her friends not being her friends any more, living in other people’s fictional worlds, to focus on her own, on Aidan’s.
‘No, it’s fine, we don’t need anything from you right now. Uncle Jeremy and Rachel are coming next week. They’re bringing everything we need.’
Uncle Jeremy and Rachel hadn’t asked what they needed to do – they’d just done it, insisted. Hun, we’ll be with you in a few days, we will stay as long as you need. Xx R
Dean didn’t have a response to that. Instead he said, ‘Okay, I’d better go then … But, I love you, okay? We will make it through this. Tell me, if there’s anything I can do. We will get through this, Aleisha.’
Aleisha put her phone down. They hadn’t been ‘we’ for years.
As she hung up the phone, she saw three text messages from Zac. He’d been worried about her. She’d told him what had happened in brief, painful detail, but couldn’t say anything else. He told her he was there if she wanted to talk, and had continued to send the odd stupid cat meme. She knew he was trying his best, but nothing felt like enough.
Aleisha picked at her nail varnish. Her eyes lingered on a photo on the mantelpiece. A photo of the four of them: Aleisha, Aidan, Leilah, Dean. Her anger began to dull, temporarily. When Aidan had thrown Dean’s stuff out after he left, she’d been surprised he had kept that photo. He’d even dusted it. The final reminder of their family; the last piece of evidence they’d ever been a family of four. After she asked her mother, in a moment of madness, whether the photo bothered her, Leilah had said: ‘No. It was a happy time, and I can’t regret happiness.’ That had stayed with Aleisha ever since.
She wanted to block out the world, like Leilah, but there was so much to do, so much to organize. Yet all she felt right now was numbness or bloodcurdling hatred for every happy smile, for everyone living life when her brother, her most important person, was dead.
The photo stared back at her, and she saw Aidan’s face, his childhood grin, asking her one question: ‘What happened?’
‘You jumped.’ But I might as well have pushed you.
Aleisha couldn’t bear being in this house a second longer. It was too loud. Too quiet. Too empty. Too full. She left, not caring if Leilah called for her, not caring if her calls went unanswered. She was already living through the worst. How much further could she go? Today, she just wanted to walk. People laughed in the street. They didn’t know Aidan was dead. Children played, shouted, screamed. They didn’t know Aidan was dead. She passed a group of teenagers, jostling and joking, life stretching out ahead of them. And it hit Aleisha: those carefree school days that old people were always talking about, she wouldn’t ever know them. So, she just walked, and walked.
Up the stairs she climbed, so many stairs, onto the platform of Stonebridge Park station. Finally, at the top, it felt like the top of the world. The platform was empty, almost deserted, in the middle of this blistering summer’s day.