Raindrops — Part Seven

Sorry, I just can't let it slide that there are no seatbelts in this game.
— Silver

You wake up in the morning
And fall out of your bed.
Mean cats eat parakeets
And this one's nearly dead.
— REM, Parakeet

"I think she's going to be okay..."

The voices dimmed. I slept.

I opened my eyes. Everything looked dim, I couldn't see properly. "Ash?" I sat up.

"Oh Jasmine, I'm so glad you're awake!" It wasn't Ash. A woman's voice. Saffron.

"Where am I?" I asked, groggily. My head hurt so much. I felt like I was underwater. "Where's Ash?" I started to panic; had he left me again?

"Ash!" she said contemptuously. "Why would Ash be here?"

"He was there," I mumbled. "In my house."

"There was no one with you, Jasmine!"

"But he was there, I —"

She switched. "Ash wasn't there! You were tripping, you stupid girl!"

"What?" There was something wrong with what she said there. Ash had been there, I knew he had. I saw him. I felt him. And anyway, trips were what you got when you took acid, and I hadn't; Jack didn't have any.

"I'll kill Jack Faerie," Saffron was sobbing now. "And you — you promised you wouldn't. After what happened last time, you promised you wouldn't. And what about Liam?"

I didn't know what to say. She didn't wait for a response.

"You're a selfish woman, Jasmine Elemita," she heaved. "You're selfish and a liar, and I hate you!" She ran out the room.

My head was pounding. My eyes dimmed again. I didn't know what was going on. Ash had been with me, he had.

Hadn't he?

Luckily I was spared having to think about it right then as I fell back into a deep sleep.

"Jasmine, how are you feeling? Better?"

Better off dead, I thought.

He looked at me sadly. "Why, Jasmine?"

I hadn't the energy to answer. I looked up at him — he was crying. I couldn't believe it — Mr Happy was actually crying!

"Didn't you think of how much you would hurt us?" he continued. In all honesty I didn't. I didn't think they'd notice, let alone care. "Isn't Melissa suffering enough without having to deal with this? And what about your poor dad? He's already lost his wife and son, and now his last remaining child too? Didn't you think?"

No. "You haven't told my dad, have you?" I managed to croak.

"No," he said. "We told him you've gone to London for a few days."

"I'm sorry, Tony," I said hoarsely. "I — I wasn't trying to — I just wanted to stop the pain. And I thought you all hated me anyway."

"Hated you?" he was incredulous. "Jack Faerie was traumatised when he found you. He and Saffron spent yesterday cleaning up the mess in your sitting room and crying their eyes out. Melissa thought you were dead and went into hysterics. Candy saw you being taken into the ambulance and is so distressed she's talking of moving into a convent." He squeezed my hand and was silent for a while. "Jasmine, so many people love you. Why didn't you come to us, why won't you let anyone help?"

Because you can never understand, you can never get close enough. Only Ash could, and the idea of living the rest of my life without him is too frightening.

"I'm sorry, Tony," I said. "You're right. I am selfish, I was only thinking of myself." I wiped my eyes. "Things happen... I always drag everyone else down with me. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too, Jasmine," he softened. "We aren't mad at you, just really scared." I felt my eyes close. I was so incredibly tired. "Go back to sleep, Jasmine, you'll be okay."

They made me stay in the hospital for a few more days. The doctors told me I'd have to go to therapy and start taking those awful antidepressants again. "Okay, doctor," I said meekly.

In your dreams, buddy.

Even worse, Tony and Melissa refused to let me go home. They said I had to stay with them until I was better. If I was actually able to move my legs without pain, I would've done a runner the second I was out the hospital doors. Instead I had no choice but to be carted off like a baby.

If I wasn't feeling suicidal before, I certainly was now.

I didn't like it. They were always fussing over me, asking me if I was comfortable (no), did I want anything (yes, a noose), could they get me anything to eat or drink (a dash of cyanide, if it isn't too much trouble, thanks).

They locked away all sharp objects. They opened the curtains for me every morning and remarked on what a sunny day it was for November.

They were freaking me out.

They were constantly watching me, constantly.

"Make sure you take your medicine, Jasmine."

I didn't take it.

I had a therapist do home visits for the first few weeks. A nurse would come in twice a week to clean and redress my wounds. A social worker also visited me twice a week. She'd ask me the exact same questions each time and it annoyed me so much it was just as well they'd locked away all sharp objects. She gave Melissa and Tony a schedule, which they followed religiously. I was being treated like a toddler. Wake up at this time, make sure you're washed at this time. They actually made sure I had my meals at the exact same time every day. You could literally set your watch by it.

"Seven o' clock — dinnertime!"

Like I said, it was just as well they'd locked away all sharp objects.

There was a fight when they insisted on Melissa supervising me at night. That was the one time I found the energy to kick up a fuss. It was bad enough having them watching me all day, the least they could do was give me some privacy at night. Melissa put her foot down and said I couldn't be trusted. I wouldn't stand for it. In the end, Tony worked out a compromise. I'd get to be alone at night, but they wedged our bedroom doors open and installed an extra lock on the French windows in case I felt tempted to fling myself off the balcony.

Nights were still hard. Being alone gave me time to overthink. I'd lie awake, helpless thoughts swirling through my mind. Just a few seconds, I'd think. A few seconds either way — if Ash had stopped to tie his laces, had left the house just ten seconds earlier, the accident may never have happened, and this — this could all have been avoided.

Just that one little thing, just a few seconds, had ruined my life.

I still didn't get it. Why did I fall apart like this when a relationship ended? Other people grieved and moved on. Dad missed Mum terribly, but still got on with his life. Maybe they carried the sadness for a while, maybe a long time, but they didn't end up like this. Why was I this way?

I tried to talk about it with my therapist, when I had enough energy to talk. But for some reason she kept wanting to talk about Liam and how I got caught shoplifting when I was fifteen.

Sometimes I'd get terrible nightmares. No, not even nightmares; I'd wake up and still see them.

"That's what happens when you take acid."

"Shut up, you."

Tina was trying to strangle me.

"Jasmine! Jasmine! Open your eyes! Please open your eyes!"

"Stop shouting at her, Melissa! You're scaring her!"

"She's still screaming!"

"Stop shouting!"

Melissa found out I wasn't taking the antidepressants. "You have to take them, Jasmine, you need to get better."

"I'll never get better."

"Just take them anyway."

"I'm not taking them."

She told my crisis worker, the little narc. It was a choice between taking the meds and risking being sectioned, the doctor told me. "We'll try a different variant, start you on a lower dose and make sure you're taking it with meals," she told me. "You're less likely to get sick that way. Just try it."

Melissa was there, staring daggers at me. "I'm keeping hold of the meds," Melissa said. "And I'm going to watch you like a hawk to make sure they go down your throat and stay there. Don't think you can slip them down your collar this time."

Damn it, she'd figured it out.

"And I'm taking you to the wellness centre every Saturday just to get you out the house and you're going, even if we have to drag you."

"But you can't afford it, you're a broke student," I mumbled hopefully. Having to be checked by the crisis team and doing therapy was draining enough, let alone having to go out to some hippie centre.

"It doesn't matter, I still have my credit card from my da, he can pay for it," she said simply. Adding grimly, "since it's his fault you're ill."

I hardly ever left the bed. Just to use the bathroom; the days I was dragged to therapy; and the Saturday trips to the wellness centre to sit in a zen garden or do acupuncture.

"Stupid needles."

They never left me alone in the house. When they had to leave for uni or work, they'd send someone else to keep an eye on me. Saffron, when she was free, or Candy Summer. Dad would come and see me too, although he didn't know the full story, just that I was "depressed" and needed "looking after."

Usually though, they'd send Jack Faerie to keep me company — because he hadn't anything better to do, I expect.

He apologised a lot. "I'm really sorry for giving you that stuff, Jasmine."

"Forget about it."

It was stupid. He thought it was his fault for giving me the gear. It wasn't even because of that that I ended up in hospital; you don't die from smoking a joint. In fact, if I hadn't gone to him for the stuff that night, he wouldn't have noticed how upset I was and come after me (lucky for me I'd forgotten to take the spare key back). I wished I had the energy to tell him that, but talking required too much effort.

Saffron made him cry. "I'll break every finger on his hands if he dares to give you that rubbish again," she told me. "And I'll break that Asbo Barbie's fingers too if she dares to harass you again, the scheming hussy."

I was too tired to reply.

The antidepressants still made me feel sick, but it wasn't quite so bad as last time. I still had that awful dull ache all the time, knowing I'd never get Ash back. I still missed him so much. It was a pain I would probably have to live with forever. That and the urge to wring Asbo Barbie's neck.

But the meds and therapy and foot massages and zen gardens and needles must have been doing me some good. After a few weeks, I found that even though I still felt dead inside, it wouldn't hurt to brush my hair every morning. Believe me, this was progress.

Once I'd started to perk up a bit, Melissa suggested we go sit in the park for a while. "Now you're just asking me to run before I can walk," I said, very much alarmed at the prospect.

"You have to get out sometime, Jasmine," she urged gently. "And no, the wellness centre doesn't count. You have to face the outside world again."

"I can't," I said. "My legs—"

My legs were healing well, but no need to tell her that.

But something was waking me up. It was a shame, for I would have had it a lot easier if I could stay in bed all day, but eventually I got bored of it. And I got fed up of living in the same smelly pyjamas all the time.

Melissa caught me smirking at a William book and I knew the game was up. But instead of forcing me to go to the newsagents with her, she sat down and asked me a question.

"Is it true Da's marrying her again?"

I wondered how she knew. I hadn't told anyone except my therapist. I supposed news just got around in this town. Maybe they'd already started inviting people. I shrugged. "That's what she told me. Maybe you should ask him yourself." I didn't really want to think about it. I felt myself start to detach.

"I'm not talking to him," she said fiercely.

"Since that day? Because of her? You really don't like the idea of them working it out?" I asked. "But you love your dad. Most kids would love their parents to reconcile. Do you hate her so much you'd stop talking to your dad over this?"

"I do," Melissa replied simply. She was silent for a bit, thoughtful, before she spoke. "But she wasn't always like that. I don't know. She was nice when I was little. It was after that time we went to Dublin for a week in my summer holidays when I was about eight. She said she wanted to live there permanently, that she was a young woman in her twenties, she should be having fun, not stuck in a backwater milking cows. I told her no way; I loved it on the farm with all the family and the green and so did Da. I didn't want to move to a crowded, stuffy city."

"I guess something must have been up with her for a while before that," she continued, "but after Da said he didn't want to leave Sligo and definitely wouldn't unless I agreed, it was downhill all the way. I was never so close to her as I was to my da, but... after that... she got more and more distant from me. She'd hardly spend any time with either of us. She started drinking a lot, though I didn't understand about that back then. All I knew was, she was always narky and miserable, always trying to pick a fight with Da. Although she usually failed in that." She smiled ruefully. "You may have noticed, my da would rather put up and shut up than get into any kind of confrontation."

"Maybe she was depressed," I suggested uncertainly. I didn't know why, but I started to feel a tiny bit sorry for Tina now. I could identify with something there, though I wasn't quite sure what.

"Don't make excuses for what she did!" Melissa nearly shouted. "Three years, Jasmine! For three years she made fools out of us. She told us she'd got a job as a barmaid. My da was delighted, said maybe she was just frustrated staying at home, that the job cheered her up. Oh, it cheered her up all right." Melissa laughed bitterly.

"Barmaid how are you! There was no job, it was her excuse to see her fancy men. And all the time we had no idea, my da trusted her that much." She clenched her jaw, trying to compose herself. "I'll never forget the look on his face when he told me what she'd done. She broke his heart, it nearly killed him. And now she's breaking up our family all over again and he's too stupid and selfish to see it."

I said nothing. Even after hearing what Tina had done, even knowing the way she behaved now, I still felt pity for her and I didn't understand it.

But you see, I had a revelation. I always thought there was some kind of dignity in my suffering. You know, that I'd borne it silently and privately by myself, unlike Tina who took out her misery on others: first her family, then Nafeesa's, and then me.

And now I realised that really, there was no difference. What I had done to myself, the way I behaved, was just as selfish, just as hurtful to those who cared about me.

Really, I was no better than Tina.

Tony arrived from the trial of the guy who ran over Ash. He'd been found guilty of dangerous driving and had just been sentenced. "What did he get?" Melissa asked.

"Two years," spat Tony. "And he'll be eligible for parole in twelve months."

"Twelve months," Melissa repeated scornfully. "He's hurt my da, robbed him of his memories, you," she turned to me, "of the man you love, me of my father. He's wrecked our family. He's ruined so many lives. We'll have to pay for this forever, and all he gets for it is twelve months! Justice, how are you."

Christmas was a muted affair. Melissa and Tony insisted I help them decorate their tree. They made sure not to use any glass decorations in case I used them to cut myself.

"Aw, Jasmine, you're out of bed!" Saffron was delighted to see me perched on the sofa one afternoon.

"Tony's just now dropped me off from therapy, that's why," I smiled wanly. "I'll be back in bed soon, don't worry."

"So how is the therapy going?"

"I don't know what I expected. A quick fix, I suppose — do this and do that and you'll stop missing Ash. But my therapist, Emma, made it clear it wasn't going to be that easy or quick or painless," I said quietly.

"Yeah?" Saffron coaxed gently.

"She brought Liam up in the first session. I wanted to talk about how much it hurt to lose Ash, but she just kept bringing it back to Liam. Asking how thinking of him made me feel. And suddenly it was like fourteen years of suppressed pain and guilt and self-hatred came at me at once. I couldn't take it. I lost control," I sniffed, trembling at the memory. "Melissa said I was wailing and screaming; they could hear me downstairs."

Saffron put her arm around me and handed me a tissue.

"For the first time I heard my feelings being said out loud. I couldn't bury them anymore. I couldn't save Liam and it was my fault. I should have been a match. He died because I failed him," I sobbed.

Saffron rubbed my back. "That's not true, you had no control over that."

"I know that now, but I've been carrying it all this time."

Saffron let me cry it out, before I continued. "I didn't know how to process these feelings, so I buried them away. Emma says I did what I had to do to survive, but there are better ways," I sniffed. "We're working on emotional regulation again next week."

Saffron held me closer. "Oh, doll. I had no idea you were carrying so much. You always seemed so strong," she wiped her eyes.

I nodded. "I detach. I play act that I'm fine, but it's always there. You remember how Mum didn't cope well after Liam passed. Dad didn't know what to do. I couldn't let them know how much I was hurting too. So I coped.

"That time when I was fifteen, I never told you about it. I was in the park and those racist yobs started harassing me. They started pulling my hair and calling me slurs. Your brother Kris noticed and marched right up to us. He scooped me up, kicked the ringleader in the stomach and carried me to the café to recover in peace. In that moment, I felt the rush of how it feels to have a knight swoop in and rescue me. It was like my own personal brand of heroin. I fell madly in love with Kris, I got lost in him. My entire identity was wrapped around being Kris's girl. And I thought he loved me as much as I loved him," I said, glancing at Saffron. She'd never approved of me dating her brother. We'd almost fallen out for good over it.

"But then he refused to come to London with me and it just compounded the feeling that love equals loss. I'd lost Liam, now I'd lost Kris. If I let myself love someone again, I'd just be setting myself up for more hurt.

"But my mind still needed to save someone. Then maybe I could make up for not saving my brother. I do it all the time, if someone I care about is in distress, I'll put my own needs aside to make them happy again. Instead of setting boundaries when someone else's behaviour is bad for me, I just soldier through it, because I can't let them down like I let down Liam. I have to fix everything and make it better. I mean, even my job is fixing buggy code. Whenever Ash felt even a little bit of sorrow or pain — or rather, whenever I decided that Ash was suffering — I would go into saviour mode. Even when we first became friends, I did genuinely enjoy being with him, but there was this undertone of, 'He's lonely without Melissa, I can make that better for him.' He didn't need saving, I projected my own need to be saved onto him. And I want so badly to save him now too. Even though he has everything he wants now and doesn't need me." I wiped my eyes. "Emma's helping me with that, though."

"Yeah?"

I nodded. "She does this thing with lights. Bilateral stimulation, I think she calls it. I don't really understand it, but it's meant to make your brain process stuck thoughts or something. It does seem to be helping, though. The thing that's hard is that I have no closure. So she's asked me to think of ways to say goodbye to Ash's love before our next session. I was thinking of writing one last love letter to him, and burying it in the garden with a little gravestone."

"Aww, Jaz."

"Too morbid?" I laughed sadly. "In any case, I have a lot of bad coping habits I need to break. Like, I need to notice when I feel that saviour mode kick in. And to notice when I start pushing you guys away whenever I feel vulnerable."

Saffron nodded. "And I need to be more aware of when you're doing it and step in."

"It's not your job to fix me," I sighed. Saffron frowned and was about to protest, but I continued. "You were right, you know, about how shallow I was with David. I felt safer with men like that. I knew we'd never be close, that losing them wouldn't hurt me as much as losing someone I really loved. With David, it was more the humiliation and failure that hurt, rather than losing him specifically. That's why I was drawn to idiots like him and Callum and Zack."

"It wasn't like that with Ash though," Saffron said gently. "There really was something between you two, it was real."

"It was, wasn't it?" I said, my eyes welling up. "Ash was just special. I don't know. He wasn't anything like my usual type. I was scared for a long time though. I seemed to spend all my time fearing that I'd lose him. And I was right."

"Through no fault of your own, I hope you realise that."

I shrugged. "I'm working on it. I have a lot of negative thought patterns I need to break. It's going to take months of therapy, maybe years, to undo all this damage."

"Now you know why it's so hard for you, you and your therapist can work on ways to make it easier, right?" Saffron said. "Baby steps are still steps. You're heading in the right direction now, that's the important thing. We're all here for you, whether you want us or not." Saffron gripped my hand and met my gaze. "You'll be okay, Jasmine."

"I don't think I will be this time," I wept. "I don't think I can ever get over this. I don't think this pain is ever going to go away."

"Oh, Jaz, we're all here for you. You can ask for help, you don't have to carry everything by yourself. You don't need to be strong for us. And Ash isn't the only good guy out there. When the time comes and you're ready to start dating again, you'll see there are men out there who are just as decent and genuine as Ash," she smiled.

I shot her a look. "What happened to 'All the good men are gone by thirty?'"

Saffron shrugged. "Then do what I did and go for someone younger."

I smiled at that.

Saffron hugged me tighter. "That's my girl!"

"Candy," I asked. "Why are you wearing a salwar kameez?"

"Because you're Indian," she said, like it was so obvious. I didn't get it.

"Jasmine, I think you should call the police."

"I don't think it's a crime to wear clothes from other cultures," I said, feeling rather confused.

"What?" She said, looking at her dress. "No. There's this woman keeps hanging around outside your house. I believe she is casing your house with a view to burgling it." I could tell she was proud of coming up with that sentence. "What happened was, she was hanging round there for three days in a row, then yesterday she saw me looking at her and asked where you were."

"You didn't tell her I was here?" I asked in alarm.

"Of course not!" She scoffed. "I said, 'I think she will be back very soon, and she may also be bringing an Alsatian.' So she would be in no doubt, you see, that it would be a lost cause to try to burgle you. Then she said she was a friend of yours. I didn't believe her, because first when I asked for her number so I could pass it on, she said no, which was extremely suspicious and of course, I am absolutely sure you would have told me about her already if she was your friend."

"Did she have black hair and an Irish accent?" I asked.

"Yes! Do you know her?"

I told her I did, but she wasn't a friend and under no circumstances was she to tell her anything at all about me.

"I shall keep an eye on her anyway," said Candy. "Because one never knows, and she might be trying to burgle anyway." I wondered what book she'd been reading lately. "By the way, are those silver trainers in the porch yours? They're lovely, where did you get them?"

"Jack Faerie got them for me last week," I said. "You might ask him."

"I shall then. Oh, Jasmine! You are so very pretty! Do you think I would look nice with pink hair?"

Later I sat Melissa down. There was something I had to tell her. "I don't think I can stay here much longer, Melissa," I started.

"Don't be silly, Jasmine, you stay as long as you need to, we like having you here."

I told her I didn't mean her house, but Cloud Magna itself. "You see, sooner or later, I'll have to start going out again. It's a small town, Melissa, I'm bound to bump into them. I'll never be able to get over it while I'm here. Everytime I see them together the wounds will just tear open again, and I know she'll rub it in my face. I just... I think it's better if I make a clean break."

Melissa looked at her lap. "Where will you go?" she said quietly.

"Back to London, probably," I said. "I haven't decided yet."

She looked at me beseechingly. "I don't want you to go, Jasmine." Her voice started to wobble.

"I don't want to go either," I gave a watery smile. "But I don't have a choice. I can't stay while they're here. It's too painful."

"But you might have a relapse! Who will look after you? You haven't finished your therapy!" She was clutching at straws, anything.

"I'll be all right."

"But you're just running away from your problems," she started to cry.

"You remember when you felt like you had to get away from Sligo?" I asked.

Melissa's head shot up. "Jasmine... I—" She paused and shook her head, then looked at me for a while. "I understand why you need to go," she whispered eventually. "But please, if you must, at least go somewhere where you'll have people to look out for you. Leicester, maybe? You have lots of family there, yeah? At least think about it, okay?"

In February, Melissa and Tony finally allowed me to go home (they were still going to come in and check on me every day, of course).

Anyway, I was able to function now, and though I still felt so sad about losing Ash, I could at least get through the day without a single suicidal thought (I was still working on conquering the homicidal urges, mind). I was to spend a week brushing up my programming skills, then I would be able to start work again.

Saffron helped me to move my stuff back in. She was upset when I confirmed I was planning on leaving town. "You've only been here a year, and already you're leaving us again," she sniffed.

I looked around. It felt weird. I hadn't seen my house in ages, months. It looked different somehow. I realised what it was. Firstly my rug had vanished. "It was really messy, Jaz," Saffron said by way of explanation. "Jack took it to be professionally cleaned, I think he forgot to put it back. I'll text him now."

Secondly, all my pictures of Ash had gone. I choked back a sob. Now was not the time to be getting emotional. Ash and I were finished, and the sooner I accepted that, the better.

"We didn't throw them out," Saffron said gently. "We just put them into the drawers. We thought it might be easier for you."

As Saffron went to take my suitcase to my room, I heard footsteps outside my front door. I peeped through the blinds.

Tina.

What did she want?

She pushed something under my door, then walked off.

Slowly, I walked to the door and opened the envelope. It was a card. Saffron walked in as I read it.

I started crying. Saffron grabbed the letter off me, read it, then ran outside yelling.

She stomped back in a little later. "The filthy coward," she seethed. "I'll kill her. What's the slut's problem? Hasn't she hurt you enough? Just wait till I get my hands on the little tart! She's gonna regret messing with you."

And that was seriously the worst language I had heard from Saffron, ever. "You see now why I have to go," I tried to laugh through my tears.

"You shouldn't let her bully you, Jasmine."

I knew that, but normal defences were down. All my energy was put into making it through the day. I simply hadn't any left to defend myself.

"This is clearly harassment," Saffron said. "Maybe stalking. We'll go to the copshop first thing Monday morning and make a complaint. We won't let her get away with this."

Saffron left me to it in the evening. "But I'm coming to check on you first thing tomorrow morning."

I felt lonely now. I kinda missed Melissa and Tony fussing over me. I spent the evening watching Thunderbirds and ended up dozing off on the sofa.

I was awoken around seven by the phone. Probably the kids checking up on me, I thought wearily. I got up and answered.

"Jasmine? Is that you?"

My head felt light and I clutched the sofa to steady myself.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

It was Ash.