See? Love is for fools. For every heart swoop, every glimmer of joy, there’s an ugly, gnarled and twisted downside. I’ve had to rip the hands of lovers apart, I’ve been forced to tug the foundations away from families, I’ve sat and watched that blasted love blossom, knowing that it’s blossoming below an unstoppable ticking clock.
So, in conclusion, I’d advise you to go nowhere near it. Let somebody else have their heart broken. Steer well clear.
* * *
Have you ever had someone completely ignore you? Pissed off somebody and they’ve taken the childish route of dismissing your existence. Or you’ve been at a party where everyone else knows someone and you’re stuck in the middle, waiting desperately for your one friend to return from the toilets and speak to you so you can reassure yourself that you do indeed exist.
But that’s not really being ignored. No matter how much somebody tries, they can never completely ignore you. Not when you’re still a visible living being interacting with the same world as they are. In order to know what it’s like to be properly disregarded, with absolutely no acknowledgment of your existence, you’d have to be good and dead. Except I don’t recommend that—because it is a truly painful and heartbreaking experience. Especially when the person ignoring you is your best friend.
As I’m standing there, feeling like someone has punched me in the gut with a concrete glove, she’s merrily gathering the supplies together for tea. She’s still waiting for the milk I went to get her. She doesn’t know; she has no idea that her best friend has just been ripped from her life.
Then there’s a knock at the door. That weird tinny sound of someone’s knuckle against the glass because we never bothered to get a proper knocker. Violet pauses, glancing back toward it. And I can almost see her thoughts scrolling above her head, like subtitles. She’s thinking that I must have forgotten my key. She’s thinking that it’s about time I’m back because it’s been a while. She’s thinking that we live in an all right area but you can never be too careful, not at this time of night.
Another knock. Then: “Uh... Violet?” A somewhat familiar voice who knows Violet’s name and that’s enough to convince her. She steps forward and tugs open the door, with the usual amount of force required to pull it from its slightly warped frame.
It’s the young woman who lives across the road from us, the one with the three kids and the postman husband. She’s wrapped in her thick coat, expression stricken. Foreboding grips at the back of my neck, like icy fingers digging into my skin. Here it comes.
Violet blinks. I watch the way her fingers hold the door a little tighter, hear the wood creak. “Um, hi?” she begins, and all of a sudden she seems so small, so young.
The neighbor shifts, adjusts her coat. “Violet... I—I was just going to get some cat food, we’d run out...and, um, I thought you should know...”
She’s not saying it right, she’s not making sense. That’s all I can think. I need this to be done properly, and I don’t care if she’s finding it difficult because this is Violet and I need her to get through this. And this woman won’t know that Violet hates any sort of suspense and that she needs clear information, and I know I could do this so much fucking better than her.
If Violet would just look at me.
Her eyes crinkle into a bemused squint. “Uh...? What? What should I know?”
The neighbor, Nina her name is, bites down on her lip before stepping away a little. “Your friend Daisy, She—she’s had a fall.”
I can see Violet’s shoulders stiffen, like someone has injected cement into her veins. Does she know, instinctively, that this is it? Or does she think that there’s just a few broken bones, a concussion? “What?” she replies. “Is she OK? Where is she? What happened?” The questions tumble thick and fast from her mouth, causing Nina to grip her coat tighter around herself, a makeshift shield of sorts.
Hesitantly, she gestures for Violet to follow her. “I—I called an ambulance, it’s just arrived. I think she fell awkwardly...” She trails off, glancing back to Violet as she reaches the top of our steps and moves back onto the street.
“Awkwardly? What does that mean?” she demands.
Nina shakes her head, gently beckons her up the last few steps before leading the way toward the corner shop. Down at the other end of the street, by the bus stop, an ambulance is parked. In the intermittent flashes of blue, I catch a glimpse of a shadowy form sprawled on the pavement.
Violet starts running, then. I want to stop her, in case she slips as well. Though at least I wouldn’t be alone anymore.
I shake that unpleasant thought from my head before it can get too comfortable.
“DAISY?” Her yell cracks through the air like lightning. I half expect the houses to crumble at the sound, or the trees to topple down around us.
I don’t want to go any farther. I don’t want to see the scene of my own death. But I can’t leave her on her own, not Violet. I made sure she wasn’t alone at her most recent dentist appointment, for fuck’s sake. I can’t leave her now.
And there it is. My body. Crumpled on the pavement, a small pool of blood staining the ice around my head. It’s brutally real and I feel something inside twist, cruel and painful. We run around, thinking we’re going to make our mark on the universe, but really, all we are is this: a body with a finite end that can so easily become an empty shell, an abandoned doll.
Violet has skidded to a halt, staring as a paramedic begins to work on trying to revive my body. I feel like screaming at them, to warn them how pointless their attempts are. Especially when I can see Violet’s shoulders hitching up by her ears, just like they do when she’s waiting to hear back about an audition. She’s hopeful, she still thinks I’m coming back. She’s still hoping for a miracle. But I don’t want her to get her hopes up, not when they’ve got so far to fall.
The paramedic sits back, takes my pulse. As if it isn’t already obvious that there’s nothing to be done. She looks up a moment later.
“I’m sorry—she’s gone.”
Violet’s shoulders crash back down and I hear her voice tremble as she finally manages to speak: “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry,” the paramedic says again. “We can’t revive her...there’s nothing we can do. She’s gone.”
It only takes a second for Violet’s legs to give out from beneath her. For her to drop to the freezing ground.
“Woah, woah it’s OK, sweetheart.” The paramedic sounds so kind, but I know that Violet hates that term of endearment because it’s what her father always called her.
“OK?” she snaps. “OK? My best friend is dead!” she yells, and that seems to trigger some further realization in her. “Oh my God, my best friend is dead!” Her head drops down to her knees, her curls seeming to cocoon her, protecting her from the world. But I can still hear her desperate, broken cries. I think the whole street can hear them.