Leilah suddenly shouted from upstairs, ‘Shut up! Aleisha, shut up!’ Aleisha and Aidan looked at each other, their faces blank, their smiles gone. She wasn’t surprised. Last night, the giggling, the yoga … but nothing had changed. Nothing would ever change. That thick black curtain would always be there, shrouding the whole house, holding Aidan down with it this time. After a moment of silence, the two of them barely drawing a breath, Aidan finally shook his head to say, ‘She doesn’t mean it.’ He didn’t say it out loud because he couldn’t know it was true.
‘So, I’m just going to have to leave?’ Her voice was sharp – but she was whispering. She didn’t want to make a sound.
‘Leish, you can stay, but you know it’s going to be like walking on eggshells here.’
Aleisha shrugged. ‘Literally no one else has to put up with this crap. Don’t you hate it?’ She was exhausted – exhausted from being alert, exhausted from listening to her mum cry at night, pretending she couldn’t hear a thing and letting Aidan sort it all out, exhausted from never being needed, and always being a trigger. She was tired.
Aidan stayed silent. He was wiping down the surfaces, but they were already spotless.
As the front door slammed shut behind her, Leilah’s voice rang out in Aleisha’s head: ‘This is my house, not yours!’ Her standard comeback.
She had nowhere to go, but nowhere was better than home.
Without thinking too much, she just let her feet lead her. She walked, slowly, passed the market stalls being set up, ignoring the fruit sellers shouting things at her, prices, unbelievable prices, that never sucked her in. She wandered past kids already out on their bikes, cycling across the road without looking, shouting at their friends behind them, turning their heads a full 180 degrees to see their mates, wobbling on the handlebars.
With each step down Ealing Road, then along the high road, she edged further and further away from home. With each step, she felt her heartbeat slow. She didn’t know where she was going, not really, until the bend in the road straightened, and there it was, like a little Tudor cottage, looking thoroughly out of place.
Of course her subconscious would bring her here: the library. The only place where she knew she could just be quiet, alone, for a little while. Maybe it wasn’t the worst idea. If books actually could let her escape, reading was at least cheaper than getting shit-faced.
Goody-two-shoes Kyle was on the front desk today. Aleisha nodded to him in greeting as she walked through the library doors, ignored the surprise written all over his face, and started to wander the aisles. She went to the crime/thriller section, wondering if Crime Thriller guy’s words would impart some kind of inspiration. She watched the spines, sparkling in the sunlight, shimmering in their plastic covers. She let her fingertips graze each book, but she didn’t pull anything from the shelves. Eventually, the reds, blues, yellows of the spines merged into one big book mass, and nothing made sense to her. The library was silent, but it rang in her ears. The words jumped out – ‘Death’ ‘Murder’， ‘Killer’ – as well as softer, creepier titles like ‘Watching You’ … It was all getting a bit much. How did he do this? How did he feel chilled here, in this space, with these words bearing down on him? She tapped her finger on the side of her leg, trying to look calm, trying to look as if she knew what the hell she was doing.
Her phone buzzed.
It was the WhatsApp group again: they had set it up when they were 14, but Aleisha hadn’t spoken in the group in weeks. No one had noticed. Three of them were tagged in the last message from Mia. Once upon a time, Mia had been Aleisha’s very best friend.
@Beth @Lola @Kacey you at home? Wna do something tonight?
The other two girls, Jenna and Shreya, were on holiday – they’d been relentlessly sending poolside pictures from Ayia Napa and Croatia.
The rejection still stung Aleisha, even after months and months of her making up excuses to her friends. She was known to bow out last minute due to illness, food poisoning, migraines, missing birthday dinners or gatherings in the park. But being flaky was easier than telling the truth: she didn’t want them to know her mum was mad. They’d never understand.
Beth, Lola, Kacey, even Jenna, all responded immediately.
Ping. Buzz. I’m around, let’s do something
Ping. Buzz. Missing u girls, have fun without me. Ill b there in spirit vodka
Ping. Buzz. Yh where shall we go?
As Aleisha stood in the library, the walls of books began to close in on her, the spines growing larger, heavier. She watched her friends continue their lives without her. Message after message. Book after book. She didn’t exist any more. Emojis, dancing girl, high fives, thumbs up. Happy. They were all happy. They didn’t have anything else to worry about. It was summer, after all. The future stretched ahead. The best time of their lives.