Five Thousand Miles, Rae

Part One

‘I’ve spent my whole life hurting myself mentally, well mostly mentally. Sometimes without realising it, and sometimes knowing exactly what I’m doing. Falling in love with people I should have no reason to fall in love with, people who aren’t mine to have, I guess I need to grow up when it comes to happy endings and love stories. I know what I’m doing to myself right now, the same thing I’ve always done, except this time it’s a mixture of both physically and mentally, I’m killing myself. If I know I’m hurting myself why don’t I stop? Why am I torturing myself? I guess, I like it, at least I know I’m alive that way. Although don’t get me wrong I love drugs. I love them and they don’t leave me, they don’t break my heart. And even better they numb the pain, there’s nothing better than not being able to feel your face. I know they’re likely to kill me eventually but at least we’ll die together. It’s better than a broken heart killing me. If you’ve found this I can give you one piece of advice in this world, don’t fall in love, especially not with your best friend, because everything is fun and games until somebody falls in love. There’s just too much to lose. Walk away, even if it’s five thousand miles away.’ – Rae Turner 17/09/16

“These violent delights have violent ends”. That’s what Rae was currently getting tattooed on her arm. There are many different famous quotes which came out of William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ but this was the one that she always remembered. There were very few things that she truly loved and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was one. I can think of the others… I think every day how different everything would have ended if she had gone by what the Friar had said on Romeo and Juliet’s wedding day to the two star crossed lovers.

“I can see it Leo.”

“Eh?”

“LA. Us in LA. That would be the best thing, wouldn’t it? Just imagine.” I sometimes can still hear that optimistic voice echoing it in my head and I can also sometimes still see the massive smile on her face as well which was there when she said it. I wish she had never said it. We were just friends but I knew she loved me. I know what you’re probably thinking. If I knew she loved me why did I not do anything about it? I like to think it is because she was my best friend but that’s not true, I liked knowing she was in love with me, it made me feel good about myself at least then I knew she’d always be there if I ever decided I wanted her, I guess I thought she’d wait on me forever. I knew I was both killing her and making her happy at the same time and I’ll admit to you that I liked that, I liked that I could make somebody feel like that.

“What? Me and you? In LA? Are you mad?”

“Think about it me and you in la la land. You know it’s where I’ve always wanted to go. We go out there to this massive city where nobody knows our names and just be free. Think about the scene Leo.”

We lived in a small town in Scotland, five thousand miles away from Los Angeles. She knew we were ‘just friends’ but for some reason she was convinced that I would come with her, she thought we had always been more than that. She thought I was in love with her and I just never admitted it. Although she was starting to now realise that was all in her imagination. She was starting to realise I wasn’t coming with her. “We’re twenty years old. We can’t just move five thousand miles around the world. We’d never survive”. By this point we were leaving the tattoo parlour and Rae had decided she had heard enough. She told me it was fine, she didn’t need me she could go herself and drove home, broken hearted. I should’ve known that nothing good would come from her moving five thousand miles away on her own, broken hearted, and completely infatuated with the idea of the Los Angeles scene and being seen.

A week later that’s exactly what she does. She gets on a plane on her own to prove that she can do it and her dreams are not ‘mad’, as I had previously said.  She always had a desire for the whole world to know her name but at the same time loves going places people don’t know her name, she can be whoever she wants to be. So, LA seemed like the perfect place. Rae, you stupid girl, I wish you had known the mistake you were making and I wish I didn’t delete every text I typed on my phone to send to you.

‘It was like, James Dean, for sure. You’re so fresh to death and sick as ca-ca-cancer’. She sang along in her head. Lana Del Rey her favourite singer, to try and calm her nerves down on the plane, despite how much she wanted this she was very anxious. But she knew she had to fight through the nerves.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t noticed a change in Rae on the come up to that day in the tattoo parlour. It was clear it wasn’t a spur of the moment decision, she had been thinking about it for a while. She had started distancing herself from many people in her life and focussing on herself and the life she could have in LA, a life which at that point wasn’t real, it was a vision, a dream, a dream with me in it. An untrue one.

“Have you spoken to Rae? She’s so brave to go five thousand miles away on her own, wouldn’t catch me doing it.”

“No, me either…” I responded to my mum, trailing of as I said it.

“Have you spoken to her?”

“No I think I might message her later, see what the flight was like and what she’s been doing.”

“You should, she’s a lovely girl. I always wanted you two to end up together.”

“Aye well, no chance of that happening anymore mother.”

‘How did we get here Rae?  It’s been a rollercoaster eh?  How did we even survive this long.  I know I never told you to stay, I know I never told you I’d go but you know me, I can’t escape my pride but I’m trying to run from it now to tell you this. You’re 30,000 feet in the air right now and I’m lying on my bed in this same town. When you first told me I hoped it would be a phase but I know it’s more than that. You need this, and you’re gonna love it, their gonna love you and you’ll stay forever babe. Leaving me and your life behind. I keep on thinking that you keep on thinking that you wish you had heard me say that you should stay, that I can’t let you leave me, that this is your home, this is where you belong. But I saw you changing, the tattoos, the style, the ambitions, you had to go and you had to go without me. My mum said she thought we would end up together but you’re so much better than that, no chance of that anymore.’ I typed and immediately deleted. I couldn’t send it to her. When I wake up I’ll move on and when she steps off the plane she’ll move on.

Eleven hours later and a beautiful blonde haired, blue eyed twenty year old girl is stepping of a plane in LAX.I can only imagine what she looked like.  A beauty queen. Her family has a lot of money so she knew she could spend and spend here. If her daddy continued giving her access to the money, that is.  She couldn’t contain her excitement at the fact she was finally in California. The fact she could be Hollywood. Fast cars. Beverly Hills.  Designer clothes.  Drugs.  Alcohol. Anything. Everything and nothing.

That was her life from then on.  Going to all the clubs  .The rough ones, the decent ones and the ones the celebrities go to. Having relations with dealers and degenerates and never sleeping during the night, unless she passed out.  All because of her broken heart.  She wasn’t only going out in California; she made her way to Nevada occasionally.  Tonight, was one of them times.  After several hours of casinos in Vegas she heads to a party she wasn’t invited to but heard people talking about.The party was in a club, not just any “normal” club but it was the only kind she’s been going to lately.  The kind with nobody good for her. The kind that if authorities were to go into they could shut it down and arrest every single person inside, no doubt about it.  As she walks in somebody stands out to her immediately.  A man standing with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, like most of the people in there.  He didn’t look like he belonged in this century, with his hair gelled into a messy quiff almost like he spent a while combing it back until it was perfect then ran his hand through it to mess it up.  He had sharp cheekbones, a fierce jawline and was wearing a plain white t-shirt, denim jeans and a red jacket.  The way he smoked that cigarette was like an art form, she could look at him forever.  Then it hit her, James Dean, he looks like James Dean and he was walking towards her. His piercing blue eyes not loosing contact with her as he walked.  It was like something out of a movie scene. Little did Rae know that she would come to regret ever meeting this beautiful monster.  You thought her lifestyle was bad before. In just two weeks this man turns her into a mess of a drug addiction and eyes that look but don’t see. Rae becomes attached to him though, obviously, he has no feelings for her, he was always just looking for one thing from her, and after making her a mess of a drug addict he disappears never to be seen by Rae again.  When he first met her he told her he likes the ‘bad LA girls’ and then he gave her something, she didn’t know what it was but he told her to rub it on her gums, and she did because she was already infatuated by him, it made her face go numb, and she loved it. Her face had gone numb from drugs before but it had never happened that quickly and it had never felt as numb as it did. He later told her that one day she’s gonna realise why she doesn’t have any friends. Then finished of the sentence by calling her a bitch. Oh, Rae, you took being a ‘bad girl’ to a whole new level, a whole new scale, you had no idea.

So here she is, a twenty year old drug addict alone in California.  Unaware of the night she had ahead of her.

Downtown LA, somewhere she has grown extremely familiar with.  The dry heat, the hot wind from the desert. It’s never truly dark like back home. She is out again trying to get into anywhere she can.  As she’s walking along the sidewalk she sees a face, a face Rae could never forget.  The face of the boy that broke her heart. I remember looking up and seeing her running to me, or at least trying to run, in her intoxicated state. Every step she took she nearly fell over hopelessly. She was so glad I was here. I wish she hadn’t of been. A part of me had thought about going to California to find her, and when my friends asked me if they wanted to go on holiday with them a part of me had hoped I would see her but I never thought I would be able to find her.  Now here she is coming towards me, yelling my name with smudged make up, struggling to run.  I did want to see her, just not like this. Although she looked like a drunk mess she was still dressed to kill, everything designer, and me? Well apparently, I was to die for. I knew what she was going to say but I couldn’t believe any of it, I couldn’t fall for it. I knew in that moment that she’s made of glass. There was no way she could last like this. I thought she was the most beautiful person I knew, but at that moment all I saw was a pathetic twenty year old girl wanting me to notice her.

“Rae...”, I stare at her, my voice trailing off as I say it.

“What are you doing here?  Are you here for me?  Did you change your mind?” She went to put her arms around me but I pushed them away.  I was horrified by the state she was in.  This wasn’t the Rae I knew.  I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know who she was. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening. I was bit drunk myself which probably, looking back, didn’t help the situation but my drunkenness was the normal kind that you would expect from somebody who’s out while on holiday with their friends. Rae? What even was she? Completely off the scale, that’s what she was.

“I’m here on holiday with some of the boys. What the hell has happened to you?  Have you seen yourself? I hardly recognised you Rae. Your make-up’s all smudged, your hairs not blonde anymore it’s almost grey and is that a cut on your face?”

“Yeah I fell over but I’m fine. I’m just living fast.”

“Well you know what happens to people who live fast Rae, they die young. Does the speed help with your whole living fast idea aye? Rae, there’s blood on your nose, I’m not an idiot I know why. I don’t know what else you are on, what else you’ve taken or how much you’ve had to drink.  But you’re the furthest thing from sober I’ve seen.” By this point my voice was starting to get louder and I knew there were a lot of people watching us but I didn’t care I had to say what I was thinking. I had to let her know the mess she was in, “I’m guessing by the state of you this is an everyday occurrence. Buying it all from daddy’s money? Tell you what thank god I never came out here with you if this is what happened. Life’s a bitch Rae right, I know I hurt you but if you keep on playing with fire you’re not gonna be able to avoid getting burned. If you keep on living like this, you’ll never make it out alive.  You’ll die here Rae. This can not end well for you. You may think you’re having fun but you’re far from it. You will never make it out alive. Look at you for fucksake!” My voice was cracking. I never swore at her. Ever. I looked away from her but her eyes stayed fixed on me, I could feel them, but I couldn’t look at her. “Look, why don’t you come back home? Sort yourself out.  This city, this ‘scene’ as you always called it clearly isn’t doing anything good for you.”

“If I was to come back would things be different, with us? There’s no point coming back if the answers no. In fact, let’s not even talk about this, you’re here in LA lets go into this club and you can dance with me. We can dance the way we used to whenever we went out back home. C’mon let’s just forget about everything go in there and just lose it. Remember all them times back home? Or right even better idea how about we just go in there and go straight to the toilets?”

I ran my fingers through my hair, then to the back of my neck continuing to avoid eye contact with Rae.  Not saying a thing. I couldn’t say a thing.

She knew what this meant so again broken hearted, embarrassed and angry she walked away from me, but she didn’t go into that club she went back to the 90210.  As soon as she steps out of the Uber she gets straight into another vehicle. Her car.  Her bright red, custom designed, Lamborghini Aventador.  Intoxicated at three am.  She turns the engine on, turns the radio up, takes another line and shows herself exactly what fast is.  The roads were empty so she drove ignoring any traffic lights, road lines and stop signs.  Keeping her foot pressed firmly on the accelerator. ‘It’s alarming honestly, how charming she can be. Fooling everyone, telling them she’s having fun’ Lana sang through her car radio. The song’s called Carmen, Rae loved it because it’s almost like it’s about her, she loved Lana Del Rey so much she became the person in not just one of her songs but them all.  She only had the street lights, the neon fantasy land of LA, helping her to see her blurry surroundings as she drove recklessly. Until the moment when she couldn’t see a thing anymore, she had become completely blinded by the bright light coming towards her.

There was a house right beside where the crash happened and a person inside had told the police that because her music was so loud in her car they heard the tyres screeching on the tar and the collision and after the cars had stopped all they could hear was Lana singing hauntingly, ‘Darlin’, darlin’, doesn’t have a problem...’.

Rae knew she was going to die when she saw the car coming towards her, even in her off the scale, intoxicated state, she knew.  Almost like for a few seconds she was completely sober.  All she could hear was an all too familiar voice in her head saying, “You’ll never make it out alive” repeatedly.

The end of Rae’s story was inevitable. Inexorable, even. Since the day she got on that plane, a beautiful, charming, twenty year old girl with a heart violently ripped apart and a bank full of delightful money. In a city with everything she could dream of. A city of violent endings. Such a tragic girl who thought she was having fun.  Her whole life gone all because she ended up broken from loving someone who could never love her.

Part Two

I walked into the apartment Rae was staying in, her dad told me to go and see if there was anything belonging to her which I could bring back with me. The door had been left open, she wouldn’t have thought to lock it behind her that night… Everything was placed perfectly, just the way she always liked it. It was haunting to be there. As I started to walk around I began to notice the intensity of the problems which Rae had been dealing with. The white powder and credit cards on the glass table, kept company by the ashtray filled with ends of fags and blunts. I then went through to her room and there was a mini fridge full of alcohol, reachable from her bed. There were also boxes and boxes of different medication some prescribed, some not. I just sat there on her bed looking around, cold, numb and close to taking all the fucking pills myself right there and then. I never though, I picked up a notebook entitled ‘LA Story’ and her phone and I walked out and got the next flight home, like nothing had happened.

‘You still love him don’t you?’ I was reading on Rae’s phone, a conversation she had with her best friend from back home on her first day in LA. Reading her texts made it seem she was still alive, I had to know what she had been thinking.

‘Of course I do I can’t just shut it off, everybody has always seemed boring compared to him, nobody is like him, he was always my best friend. I can’t stop loving him.’

‘No Rae, I’m your best friend. He left you to go five thousand miles away on your own Rae, he’s a dick. He put the idea of running away with you in your head four years ago and then when it came down to it he let you down. He didn’t even fight for you to stay. He doesn’t deserve your love for him Rae.’

‘You always say he’s a dick. He is a dick but I’ve known that since the day I set eyes on him. But he always treats me better than any other lassie he fucks about with. I couldn’t have expected him to do this with me. I love him and I always will love him until the day I die.’

It’s so difficult to think about her, I like to think I knew her better than anybody did but now that I’m thinking of ways to describe her and what happened to her and how it happened, I don’t know if I knew her at all. The thing with Rae was she hated everything everybody loved (apart from Love Island, but everybody loves Love Island). She had a lot of love in her but a lot of anger as well. She enjoyed and felt extremely passionately about the music only a small percentage of people in this town listen to, the alternative kind. She dressed differently as well, she hated the way that so many people feel they should be the same as everybody else and never understood it. I guess that’s why she liked city’s so much.  She didn’t give a fuck about anything but at the same time she really cared, but it was the things that mattered she cared about: climate change, equality, education, helping the less fortunate, the kids in Africa and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.  She tried her best but she had a lot going on in her head, she always did which I suppose can be seen through the effect of leaving to go five thousand miles away had on her.  She wanted to make a difference, create an impact and I guess she did. She died way too young and if that isn’t creating an impact I don’t know what is.

LA was never a home for Rae, she didn’t feel safe there, how could she? She had nobody apart from her dealers, and she never had me. But I let her go, I let her stay and I let her take so much fucking gear and drink that she ended up killing herself with it. I let it all happen so maybe I wasn’t a safe place for her. I’ve been called a ‘dick’ by so many girls, so many times in my life and I always loved it. I loved being a dick but I guess I thought deep down I wasn’t, I had a heart and I had a soul, Rae thought I did, she thought she saw something in me nobody else could. But I had a black heart and no soul and it’s true what they all say, I’m the biggest fucking ‘dick’ anybody’s going to come across and everybody should stay away from me because I will hurt everybody that comes near me, and I don’t mean I’ll do it by accident by pushing them away I’ll do it because I want to and I have to.

After Rae’s body had been brought back from LA the funeral came. I thought with me being her ‘best friend’ I may have been asked to perform a eulogy or at least say a few words but I wasn’t. Maybe her parents could see right through me, to who I really am. Maybe they blame me. I don’t know, I don’t blame them though, for feeling that way about me. I didn’t feel upset at the funeral. I’ve been numb since it happened, I still am now, two months later. So, I went to the wake and that was where my ‘alcohol problem’ started. I was sitting at the bar in the hotel downing my 3rd straight vodka. I started off on bottles of Stella but I needed something a lot stronger than that, Stella wasn’t going to do the job for me. Anyway, I was sitting at the bar and I decided I had to say something, I couldn’t not say something. I stand up, almost falling over in the process and ask the bartender to make an announcement, to tell them that I’d like to speak. So here I am at my so called best friends wake with all eyes on me and suddenly I’m stone cold sober.

“Sorry to interrupt you all from whatever you’re doing, let’s be real your probably not even talking about Rae, you’re most likely talking about yourselves. So, I’ve got something to say and I’m going to have to say it now because I wasn’t asked to speak at the funeral, I can guess why, it’s fine I’m not offended. So, if you don’t want to listen to what I have to say and you want to go back to talking about yourselves that’s fine but I’m going to keep talking anyway.”

“Leo son, sit down please I know you’re upset but you’re drunk”, Rae’s father tries to tell me. He had no right even speaking to me. What kind of father let’s there twenty year old daughter go and live five thousand miles away with nothing but some money anyway? He was the one supplying her with the money for the drugs and the drink and everything else.

“No. I’m finally going to tell the truth for once. You won’t know this, unless you’re some kind of psychic or whatever, but when me and Rae first became friends four years ago I… I fell in love with her, I remember the day I realised. There had always been something about her. I knew she wasn’t the most beautiful girl in the world, but she was too me. She was the type of girl that when you meet her you know she’s going to affect you, you know she’s going to stick around and you know you’re going to love her with every beat of your stupid fucking heart. It was a warm summer night. She had came around to my house, as friends, and we stole a bottle of my mum’s wine and decided to go a walk. I didn’t need the wine though… I was already drunk off her. We were running all over the place, like the naïve kids that we were, across the fields. I was picking her up and spinning her around, everything was coming so naturally, it always did with her. Then we just lay on the ground and started talking, properly talking. She started telling me about this book she loved, ‘Diary of an Oxygen Thief’, I could see the passion in her eyes as she told me about it. It was then when I realised I was in love with her. But I never done anything about it, I acted like the feelings weren’t there. Do you want to know what is pathetic though? I used to talk to her about us running away together when we were finished school to have this great life where everything would be perfect, yeah, we were just a couple of sixteen year olds and we didn’t know better but I put the idea of running away in her head four years ago and when it actually came to it I couldn’t do it. I lost her to some other guy shortly after that night I fell in love with her and they were together for a while, so I snapped myself out of it and moved on, it hurt though, to do that. She was killing me without even realising. There was a quote in that book she loved, I remember her telling me about it, “hurt people hurt people”. But I’m not going to get into that because I can’t... Rae wasn’t just a pretty girl she was a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece and a friend. She was a beautifully broken masterpiece; people write songs about girls like her. People write books about girls like her. I still thought about her everyday, no question about it, when she was in LA. I still think about her everyday now. I just wish I…I just wish… I could rewrite her ending.” By this point I was struggling to breathe, I had to get out that place. I walked outside, staggering because of the alcohol. The hotel had a massive garden which seemed to go on forever I saw a bench sitting near the trees away from the entrance of the hotel so I went to it. I sat down, lit a cigarette, something I had been doing a lot more of, and just stared at the same part of the ground. I don’t remember crying, I never cried once. Horrible isn’t it your best friend dies basically because of you and you don’t even shed a tear. I just stared, not even the intoxication could stop me from feeling so numb.

After about ten minutes of sitting on the bench chain smoking and staring at the ground I started to think. If I was her best friend I wouldn’t have let her do it to herself. I was her chance to help her live her dream but I left her to do it on her own. I wish after that she had just forgotten about me because I was clearly no good for her, I didn’t deserve her. Now I’m sitting out here, in the smartest suit I own, with freezing cold hands and I’m starting to now realise that my heart is just as cold. Did that make me feel anything though? No, of course not. I haven’t cried once since she died, I saw the mess she was in and I didn’t help her I was horrible to her, I let her go off on her own. Leaving her to be forever twenty years old.

I eventually looked up from the ground and I saw her best friend’s car sitting in the car park and suddenly I was seventeen years old again.

There she was, Rae standing outside Ambers car smoking a fag. She was clearly drunk I could tell by looking at her, but she hadn’t been out at any pubs she had just been with Amber and she was driving so she was sober.

“You alright babe?” she shouts as I’m coming towards her.

“I’m good ta”, replied my best pal Freddie.

“Mate, I don’t think she was talking to you”, I said while laughing, “You alright Rae?”

“What are you dressed as the day? I ken you’ve got an awful taste in shoes but those must be the worst yet. Honestly you need to start taking my advice, I’m the most stylish person you ken. You used to dress well cool and now you’re just buying disgusting shoes all the time. Seriously Leo I can’t even look at them, I feel a bit sick when I do.”

“Shut the fuck up man, the shoes are hot. I’ve accepted now that you’re never gonna like any of my shoes. So, I’m no even listening to what you have to say”

“Wait a minute, Amber come here quick and look at Leos shoes and tell me what you think.”

“Sorry mate but they’re no nice”, Rae started laughing at Ambers response and so did Freddie. Then she gave me a hug and said, “It’s alright babe, you’ll always be cool to me, even with your shit shoes”

“They’re not shit, they’re in fashion right now, loads of famous folk have them. But anyway, moving the conversation on so I stop getting bullied… What you been at the night?”

“Just had to get out of the house I was going mad, plus I needed some fags so I had to get Amber to get them for me”

“Why are you drunk?”

“Why the fuck no Leo”

“You’re an idiot”, I said while smiling and looking at her.

“Aye but you love me so it’s fine”, she said, doing the exact same thing as me.

That’s not all I thought about at the bench though, I didn’t want to tell anybody but there’s no point lying now. There was one night where we weren’t just friends. It was the weekend after her boyfriend broke up with her, the boyfriend I mentioned in my speech. I made her come to a party I was invited to, to try and make her feel better and forget about him. I didn’t have any bad intentions, I just wanted her to stop being so sad, because to be honest it was starting to really irritate me. It was just a normal party, she was one of the very few girls there, we drank a lot and smoked a lot. She always liked to keep up with the boys that way. By about 2 in the morning we were both lying on the couch.

“I don’t think I can feel my face”, she says to me. I couldn’t feel my heart. I was just looking at her feeling the smoke fill in my lungs, as it had been doing all night, hoping, praying, that she was still going to be there when I was coming down. She looked up at me and she knew exactly what I was thinking.

“Don’t you even think about it boy” she said it with a smirk on her face and that made me even worse. I had to have her, I wanted her to be mine even if it was just going to be for that night. It had to only be for that night because I didn’t love her anymore. There’s no place for feelings here, in this type of situation, in this type of world.

“I’m not thinking about anything” I replied with the same smirk on my face, only mine was probably worse.

“I know exactly what it is you’re thinking Leo, I’m not going to have sex with you”, although as she was saying this she was moving to sit on my lap, with the same smirk on her face as before.

“That’s fine with me, girl”, when I said this our lips were almost touching and she had one hand on my chest and the other running through my hair. I remember feeling so cocky and happy with myself at this moment because even though she didn’t want us to be more than friends she was unable to help herself. In the intoxication, she had to have me and I had to have her. I got hold of the back of her neck and pulled her closer to me so that there was no longer any space between our lips. At the time, when our lips touched, I remember all the feelings coming to back to me but now I know that was just the substances messing with my head, I came to my senses when I sobered up.

There wasn’t much talking after that. I’m not going to go into too much of the details but for that amount of time I thought I was in love with her again, just for a moment. She was insane. I can’t help thinking that was where it happened that was when Rae fell in love with me. Yes, I know I took advantage of her and it was all my idea and the fact I was drunk was no excuse. You shouldn’t mess with people’s feelings like that. Friends should stay friends, because you get fucked up if anything changes it. To be completely honest though I don’t regret it, I was quite proud of myself. Now I’m thinking of what would’ve happened if I had taken advantage of her in the same way I did when she came to me in LA, it would have been easy too, the state she was in. As terrible as it sounds maybe she would’ve still been alive now if I had done that. She would’ve been with me instead of in her car. She still wouldn’t of went home though...

Part Three

I could tell you all about my life, after the funeral. I could tell you all about what’s happened to me over the course of the last couple of months but there’s no point talking about it. Long story short I’m writing this from rehab, my therapist said it would help to write everything down, she’s an idiot if she thinks she’s going to get to read it though. I haven’t loved anyone or anything since I stopped loving Rae four years ago, apart from alcohol and any drugs I could get my hands on and did they do anything good for me? No, they nearly killed me and ended me up here in rehab. So, I’ve learned one thing from being here, nothing good can come from loving someone or something it will always end up killing you or it will come very close to it. I should’ve payed more attention to every fucking Leonardo DiCaprio film I’ve watched, Rae loved him. What I’ve noticed now though is that every one of his films shows us that no good can come from love, well most of his films anyway, the ones that stick in my mind, the ones Rae loved most. Think about what happens at the end of Titanic, Romeo and Juliet and The Great Gatsby, Leo must be the best actor at playing a dead man, he’s done it enough and in every film love is the main theme. There’s also The Wolf of Wall Street which does have a better ending but not before he goes to prison and loses everything because of love again, his love for money and girls and drugs. She may not have noticed, for all we know Leo might not have noticed but Rae’s favourite actor shows that loving someone or something can never end well. Gatsby should have let Daisy go.

I was talking to my psychiatrist earlier today, she asked me think about the first time I met Rae. She asked me to talk to her about how I felt towards her and how I thought she felt towards me that day. How am I meant to know how Rae felt? It’s all so stupid. I told her it was in school and that was all I said. I’m thinking about it now though as I’m lying on my bed in this box room. There’s nothing to do in this place than think and sleep.

Here I am sitting in higher maths, finally a senior, only two years of this school to go. So I’m sitting at my desk my friends around me and I’m acting like an idiot, as always, making sure I stayed the most popular, funny and attractive person in this class, then she walked in and I stopped and watched her walk by me to sit down beside her friend.

“Right Rae, good to see you back, there’s a jotter here for you”, Mr Williamson said.

“Aye sir, couldn’t miss maths, another year of no being able to factorise”

Then they both started laughing, her friend did as well. I remember thinking that I wanted nothing more than to be in on the joke. The way she spoke and the way she wasn’t scared to clearly have ‘flirty banter’ with the twenty-six-year-old teacher made me think I was going to have competition in this class because she was so cool. So, I went back to being an idiot and cracking jokes to get her attention. Then I realised something, she was watching me as I spoke, she was laughing at my jokes. Maybe this could be something, maybe it couldn’t but I knew one thing… Rae Turner was going to be an important part of my year. Because I knew she was listening to me I had to do something to get her attention in the way I wanted. I can’t fully remember everything I said but I do remember saying that I got five A’s in my exams last year. Then I heard her voice, “no you never”. Fuck. She just spoke to me, play it cool Leo.

“Em, aye I did”, I replied, looking right at her as she was looking back at me.

“Don’t believe you”

“Wait, I’ll show you the text’s still on my phone”, I got my phone out of my pocket at showed her the proof.

“Okay I apologise, well done”

“Thank you”.  It seems like nothing but I knew that one small conversation was going to change everything.

They don’t know I’ve got Rae’s diary in here, they would probably confiscate it if they knew.  I hide it well, in-between all my own pieces of writing. I’ve only read little bits of it, I normally start reading then can’t bring myself to finish it.  Although I’m looking through it to see if Rae wrote anything about that first day in maths.  I thought it would be near the beginning of the diary but it wasn’t, it was at the end, one of the last things she had wrote.

The alcohols been making me think about the first day I walked into that maths class and saw Leo lately. I was 6th year, he was 5th year.  I was late into the class and his voice was the first thing I heard, it always was.  He was being loud, cracking jokes, acting like the cocky prick that he is, something that I would normally find annoying but this was different.  I sat down in the class, spoke to the teacher and I could feel Leo looking at me the whole time.  When I knew he had looked away I looked back at him and I knew that he was going to be so important to me, I knew that I was going to love him and I knew it would probably kill me but at that time I didn’t care because this was Leo, somebody that I had heard about for the full four years he’s been in this school.  He was so cool and I already loved him.

The whole time I’ve been in here I’ve never needed a drink more than I do now.  This place isn’t working they’re trying to teach me how to forget about it, how can I forget about it?  She loved me the moment she saw me, that doesn’t happen.  It’s changed everything.  How can I forget about the one person that loved me? The whole things fucked.  Rehab isn’t fucking working, I’ve been here for what feels like forever.  I want a fucking drink.  I need a fucking drink.  I’m a fucking alcoholic, I’m a fucking addict and I’m always going to be because I’m fucking good at it and the one person that was stupid enough to love me is dead, because of me.

If I had somehow stopped Rae from walking away from me that night in Downtown LA, I wouldn’t have had to read her whole ‘LA story’ from her diary or how she felt about me in her texts. I don’t know exactly what happened when Rae went away from me that night, I don’t know exactly how she felt when she was seconds away from dying, I don’t know what she was thinking, I hope it was me. That’s quite selfish of me, I know but I do. When the post-mortem examination results came through I was able to find out about the amount of cocaine, morphine, Xanax, codeine and alcohol she had in her system when she died and that when the car crashed into her she died instantly. I was told that they didn’t even know how she was still alive, let alone driving. But that doesn’t help me know how she was feeling and what she was thinking. All I know is, I haven’t been able to feel a thing since. I wanted nothing more than to rewrite a new ending for Rae, one where she doesn’t die, one where she comes home. But that wouldn’t be the truth she would still be gone and there’s nothing I could do. It’s such a terrible thing to expect somebody to be in love with you, to expect them to ride up to you in a white horse and give you the happy ending you’ve been dreaming off. I think she was always expecting me to turn up at her door in the rain and she’d tell me I’m an idiot and I’d tell her how much I’ve missed her and that I was scared to share my feelings with her. I think she was expecting me to tell her that even though I broke her heart I’ll fix it again and remind her how happy we were and that she means everything to me. I think she was expecting me to tell her that I’ve been the biggest idiot ever and I love her and want to be with her forever. I think she always believed in the idea of that happening even when she was in LA. If anybody done that they would almost definitely be forgiven and they would end up with that person but I didn’t want her to forgive me.

I fucking loved her, of course I did, with every beat of my heart. But I couldn’t have loved her in the way she wanted me to, not in a relationship way. I can’t love anybody like that. Why would I let anybody else be in love with me anyway? I didn’t want her. Even if she did come home that night with me, I would continue to hurt her and nothing would change and that is truth. ‘Hurt people hurt people’, I would continue to hurt her because I had been hurt before, and now I can’t feel a thing. People hurt people they love, people hurt people they don’t love, people just hurt people. That’s the way it’s always going to be. So, I’m going to tell you two things: fall in love if that’s what you wish to do but don’t expect to make it out alive and please for fuck sake stop moving to LA.

Epilogue

“Well Leo, I think this will be our last session in this environment.  Everybody that’s been working with you agrees that you don’t need to stay here anymore.  You will still come back once a month for a session but you can now leave rehab.”  My psychiatrist that has been trying to help me for three months tells me in that therapist voice she puts on.

“What?  No, I’m not ready for that.  You can’t just say that.  I only started talking to you a few weeks ago.  I’m not strong enough for that yet.”

“We learned a lot about you when you decided to talk to us Leo, but we also learned a lot when you weren’t talking, a lot more than you would think. I want you to see the world differently when you go out of these doors and I know you will.  It’s a brave new world, Leo.  Every single person outside these walls has to fight and struggle with something their life throws at them and everybody thinks they’re not as strong as they are.  After my first meeting with you I thought I wasn’t going to be able to help you, I thought it was beyond me. Not that you were too far gone, there is no such thing as somebody being too far gone as you’ve shown me and as I see every day in here but I didn’t believe in myself, I didn’t think I was strong enough to stick with this and help you but here we are now on your last day here.  This is why I’m telling you it’s a brave new world because I want you to know that you’re not the only one struggling with the inside of their head and it is so brave to wake up and fight through the day. Strong people get through the day everyday, even stronger people accept that they need a bit of help to fight whatever demons are in their head and that’s how I know you are strong enough to leave here now.”

“There will be nothing but reminders out there.  What am I meant to do then?”

“You’re still coming back here every month and if you feel you are really struggling then just phone.  If you see a reminder of Rae all I want you to think about is the love she had and the love you had, the love you thought you never had, the love you thought you were incapable of having.  I want you to think about the happy times you spent together and I want you to smile about them, laugh even.  You can do that because I’ve seen you do it here.  You’re a good person Leo, who has the rest of their life ahead of them and you’re so much stronger than you think.  She’ll be so proud of you. Keep making her proud Leo.”

“It’s a brave new world Leo”, I said having a little laugh to myself.  She just smiled at me, the caring smile she always gave although this time it was a bit different, like she was saying good luck.  I got up and as I was walking out she told me to keep writing, I looked back and smiled and closed the door behind me.

As I stepped outside I looked up to the almost clear blue sky, took a deep breath and then stood at the steps and watched all the different people going by.  It’s a brave new world.  I might not be able to bring myself to love it yet but I will one day. I promise. But for now I think that’s enough from me.  I’ll see you soon Rae.