Fic: Four Years On (2)
Effy was always quiet - but never silent - and Pandora had never minded that, not really, because they were friends. And then they got some more friends and Effy talked some more as well. And then there was Cook, and Freddie, and things went a bit bad. Effy ran away and Pandora had a bit of a loopy moment. It didn’t matter how much jelly and ice cream she had, she never felt happy again until the Love Ball. Dancing with Doug was bonkers fun, of course, but the bit where Thomas said they could start all over again was the best.
And so Pandora had felt as if she was on top of Candy Mountain with Thomas and there was a river of Soda Pop, and if it could have gone on forever and ever and ever then it would have been in the top three best things to happen in the world ever (the other two were the time that Effy said she was her friend and the end of World War Two. Or maybe One. She forgets which). But her mum has this awful saying about good things not lasting forever (which is rubbish really - because just look at Power Rangers. And Noel Edmonds). She was right about this particular good thing though, because the feeling didn’t last that long, it was shot to smithereens when Effy didn’t come back when the boys did.
It was like being on a rollercoaster - one of the big ones that twist and turn and have loops to make you go upside down and huge drops that make your stomach do that flippy-floppy thing. The sort that make you want to sick up all your candyfloss until you feel better. But Pandora didn’t have any candyfloss to sick up in order to feel better, just had to leave it all swimming in her tummy.
Thomas took her to the seaside though, and that made her feel a little better for a while.
But then the rollercoaster started a drop, and it dropped and it dropped and it dropped all year long, and it never stopped, not right until the end, when Effy was talking again, and Thomas was holding her hand, and the breaks on the rollercoaster were beginning to work.
---
“Bogging brakes have flipping well come off now,” she mumbled as she buttoned up her cardigan. She didn’t even own anything black (ruddy miserable colour, that’s why), and she had to borrow things from her mum, and they were itchy and scratchy and tight and uncomfortable.
“Are you absolutely sure this is wise Pandora? I really don’t think a funeral is an appropriate place for -”
“Effy’s my friend.”
“Mm, yes, but -”
“My best friend.”
“It’s just that I am a little concerned that you don’t think I should accompany you.”
Pandora sighed and turned round to face her. “Mum, it’s a funeral. I wouldn’t lie about a funeral. And Thomas is going.”
“Well, I should hope you wouldn’t lie at all, Pandora. And really, I thought we’d put all this boy nonsense behind us?”
“I’ve got to go mum, I’m going to be late.”
---
Katie held Effy’s right hand. Pandora held her left hand. Effy didn’t grip very tightly at all.
The priest at the front was old and chubby with no hair and a red nose. And he had a nice smile, a friendly sort of smile that reminded Pandora of her Grandpop before he died.
Effy never looked at him once. Not even when Pandora tried to show her that he had a bogey at the end of his nose, and she was struck with a sudden desire to play bogeys; just shout it out at the top of her lungs, as loudly as she could. She didn’t, of course, because she was being there for Effy, and that didn’t mean playing games. But she wished Freddie and Cook were there, because they would have played it with her. They had both been really good at it, they were never scared. But then Pandora remembered why they were there in the first place, and remembered that they’d never play bogeys all together ever again, and she didn’t want to play it at all after that.
She didn’t realise she was crying until Naomi tapped her on the arm, pointed to the empty seat next to Emily and Thomas, and sat down next to Effy in Pandora’s place.
Pandora never meant to be a bad friend, it was just. She was sad too.
---
Being at home didn’t feel right anymore. Not when Effy refused to talk. Pandora knew that it was something Effy had always done - not talk - but she’d never not talked to Pandora before then.
But going to Harvard was scary too, like monsters under the bed sort of scary. When she was younger, she had a torch. Now, she had a Thomas.
---
“I don’t like it here,” she announced loudly at the end of the first week, after she had burst into Thomas’ room.
He looked up from his desk. “Really? And why is that?”
“Everything’s so serious, and no one smiles, they’re all frowny,” she said, throwing herself dramatically onto his bed.
“Well,” he said, and smiled one of those special Thomas smiles that made everything better. “You’ll just have to make them smile, won’t you?”
---
Making people smile has always been one of the only things that Pandora was any good at. It always just sort of happened; sometimes she didn’t even have to try.
At Harvard though, she always had to try. People would laugh, but it wasn’t like Cook would have, all loud and belly shaky. People would smirk, but it wasn’t how Effy would have done, like it was a secret joke that only they both got. People would smile, but not like Katie, or JJ, or Emily, or Naomi would have, in a nice way that made Pandora think she had friends.
Nobody called her Panda pops.
At Harvard, it turned out that she was useless after all.
---
“Can we go home for Christmas? I miss proper chocolate. I miss Cadburys. I want to drown in Cadburys.”
Pandora missed lots of things, not just chocolate, but those things were difficult to say. Not chocolate though, that one was easy.
Thomas laughed. “There is a difference?”
“Yes, silly. Chocolate at home is scrummy, but chocolate here tastes like Harvard, and it’s just not right.”
“Ok, ok,” Thomas smiled, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “We can go home. But only if we bring lots of back with us, ok?”
---
Cadburys didn’t taste the same as she remembered it.
And home wasn’t the same as she remembered it either.
And when the time came to go back, Harvard chocolate didn’t seem so bad anymore.
---
Things seemed ok for a while.
They only went back for two weeks during summer and one during Christmas, and that was all. There was just too much to do at Harvard.
Thomas was in the running team; she thought he was the best one there in fact, even if she was a little biased. But he helped them win some league thing for the first time in basically a million trillion years from what Pandora gathered, and there was talk of him doing World Championships and all sorts of whizzer super cool stuff.
She kept sending her emails to Effy, told her all about whatever time period they were doing in class, made up stories about the people and that way it absolutely positively definitely counted as studying as well. She wondered if Effy even read any of them, or if Katie opened them and read them out loud to her, or if they were all lumped together in a big pile hiding somewhere at the back of Effy’s computer. She never got a reply, but that wasn’t much different from normal, so kept sending them.
Things seemed ok.
---
It was at the end of their third year of four, that things became less than ok. Pandora knew it straight away, because Thomas doesn’t normally cry.
So when he came to her dorm room with wet eyes, then Pandora knew that everything most definitely wasn’t ok.
“Thomo?”
“I have to leave.”
She was confused - it didn’t make any sense. “But…you only just got here.”
“No, Harvard. I have to leave Harvard.”
“But…why?”
“My knee. It was sore, but I thought it would be ok, so I kept going. I kept running.”
“That’s ok. Just put a bandage on it and voilà! All better.”
“No Pandora. A bandage will not fix it. The doctor said I must not run. But if I do not run, then I cannot stay. They will throw me out.”
“Oh. Bugger.”
“If I can’t run, then what do I have?”
“Me. You’ll have me.”
Thomas dropped his eyes to the ground.
---
He tried to convince them that he was ok, and that he could still run, but it didn’t work. They didn’t want him anymore because it took him an extra three seconds to run around a track. It was stupid, brain exploding sort of stupid. It made Harvard, which hadn’t been all that nice to begin with - just better than some other places - even more like monkey tits.
He managed to get a visa, she’s not quite sure how, but Thomas has always been good at that kind of thing, and he got a job - a rubbish one which made him sad. He stopped being Thomas, he wasn’t how he’d always been and instead of bringing happiness, he sucked it all up.
Pandora knew all about the American Dream. She also knew it wasn’t meant to be like that.
---
He got better. Or she got used to it. She’s not sure which. But she was sure that America is bad. And Bristol might not have been much better, but it couldn’t have been much worse, and besides, she wanted to go home.
---
Getting her degree felt a lot like being let out of a box she’d been squashed in for too long. Her mum flew out to see her, and she sat next to Thomas in the stands, strange boys be damned. He waved to her when she had to walk across the stage, and she waved back.
They flew to Bristol a week before what should have been Freddie’s birthday.
They flew home.
---
The conversation is awkward. Cook, for once in his life, keeps his gob shut. Well, that’s not strictly true. He’s learnt - the hard way, but it all counts - when it’s smart to talk and when it’s not, and he figures he’ll learn more if they all forget he’s there.
Don’t seem to be much hope of that though, what with the way they all keep sneaking glances at him out the corner of their eyes, as if he’s going to up and leave again without anyone noticing. He’s not though. Well, not until tomorrow at any rate. Tonight he’s staying put.
They talk about boring shit mainly. Universities and graduations, and even if he wanted to join in, he sure as fuck can’t. Only place he’s graduated from is the university of life, and even that wasn’t so successful. So he zones out a bit, which is stupid really, because it means he’s less prepared the next time the door opens. He didn’t hear the approach at all, but he sure as hell hears the door scrape open and Katie’s overdramatic sigh as she slams it shut again.
“She’s not coming,” she says, without even deigning to look around the room. “I spent a fucking hour over there -”
“Katie,” Emily interrupts her.
“No, Ems, it’s getting -”
“Katie!”
“What?”
Everyone looks from Katie to Cook, and back, waiting for her to catch on. Her face, when she does, is a sight to see. Not a very pretty one. She looks old, Cook thinks, and yeah, they all do now, but it’s different with her, it’s not just age. She looks strained. She looks tired. And then, in an instant, she’s pulled herself back together.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
The familiarity of it makes him smile, and he slips back into his own role with ease. “Oh that’s nice. Missed you an’ all Katiekins.”
“Are you serious?”
He raises his eyebrows and waits for her to elaborate.
“What are you doing? Why are you even here?”
“Yeah Cookie,” Pandora says. “Why are you here?”
He doesn’t want to answer that. It’s obvious why he’s there, isn’t it? Same reason they’re there surely.
He stands up instead and wanders towards the window. He looks up at the house. There’s a light on, in Freddie’s bedroom.
“Karen not come to your little shindigs?”
Naomi’s the one who answers, eventually. “No.”
“How come?”
Katie snorts. “Because she’s a right selfish cow, that’s why.”
“Oi,” Cook snaps, turning to face her. “Watch it.”
“And what would you even know about it Cook?”
Emily puts a hand on Katie’s arm. “Don’t,” she pleads. “Katie, please.”
Cook feels himself straightening up and his whole body tenses, but he doesn’t really have a response, because he doesn’t know shit, not about any of them, not anymore.
Katie smirks; she’s beaten him and she knows it.
---
The whole thing was horrible. Tragic, is what her mum had said. One so young taken before his time, it was tragic.
But Katie couldn’t dwell on that - she had a job to do. As Effy’s official non-useless best friend it was up to her to make sure that Effy made it through everything and got to the other side.
Getting Effy dressed on the day of the funeral was an indication of what was to come.
Effy was limp, a total deadweight, and not exactly cooperative. But Katie had had plenty of practice, dressing dolls and even Emily when they were younger, so she managed (and at least finding something black wasn’t difficult).
---
Everyone watched. All of their heads turned to look as they took their seats. Katie glared back at them all for watching on, for waiting for something to happen, anything they could remark upon over their tea later.
Effy remained unflinching throughout. She only moved once of her own accord during the day, and that was to turn the order of service over. It had a picture of Freddie on it. Smiling. Happy.
His was the only smile in the church that day.
---
The wake was held in a pub down the road from the church. It was somewhere Sam had taken her before and so she already knew that the staff were all up themselves, and that everything was a bit smart and they played quiet background music that Katie identified as classical for fucks sake.
It wasn’t Freddie. None of it was Freddie, and he’d have hated it, all of this.
She stayed in the corner, huddled next to Effy, Naomi and Emily. Thomas took Pandora home because she wouldn’t stop crying, and JJ actually knew Freddie’s family so he had to speak to some of them.
It was quiet, a gentle murmuring that settled over the room, but they all stayed silent, alternating gazes from Effy to their own feet.
Katie was in the middle of trying to work out the socially accepted amount of time they’d have to wait before they could leave when the “What is she doing here?” rang out from across the room, shattering the almost peace.
Katie looked up to see Karen marching towards them with intent.
“Get out,” she said. Her dad caught up with her, and placed a hand on her arm to restrain her. “I want her gone,” she told him, or rather, demanded.
It sounded deafening, the shrillness of her voice against the relative quiet, but Katie wasn’t intimidated, she was good at making noise as well. She stood up tall, kept her chin high and was just about to tell Karen to piss right off because she wasn’t the only one upset about Freddie and Karen didn’t get to call dibs on it, when she heard what Karen was saying. She actually listened to the words that were coming out of her mouth. The words she was screeching hysterically.
“She killed my fucking brother. She killed him! This is all her fucking fault!”
Katie lost control, her hands moved on instinct, reached out so as to hit Karen, slap her, scratch her, pull her hair, just make her shut the fuck up.
Emily’s always been one step ahead of her though, has always known her better than she knows herself really, and she held Katie back. She struggled, of course, because that skank kept shouting, even as her dad was pulling her away, but Emily held firm. Katie only stopped when she heard Effy’s whimpers.
“Take me home. Katie, I need to go home. I need to get out Katie. Get me out.”
---
Anthea was shit. Utterly shit.
The only useful function she had was taking Effy’s pills for her, but other than that, everything was left to Katie. Well actually, everything was just left, but there was no one else, so Katie didn’t exactly have a choice.
---
Thomas phoned her up out of the blue, one day before both he and Pandora were due to go off to Harvard to play happy families.
“How was your interview?”
“What?”
“You know, your interview. With the French?”
“Oh. That. I didn’t go.”
“You didn’t...but, Katie, why not?”
“I just didn’t want to, alright?”
“But I though…”
“Shouldn’t you be like, packing or something?”
“But Katie -”
She hung up before he could say anything more.
---
Effy’s eyes were dull, lifeless. They were hollow now. She wasn’t there anymore.
Katie didn’t know what to do; she wasn’t able to reach her. Nothing worked, not anymore.
---
She felt Emily hovering behind her, watching her change the sheets on her bed. It was an irritant, those eyes boring into her back. “You’re going then?” she asked, because it would take Emily an age to get up the courage to tell her something like that, and Katie would rather they just got it over with.
“No. We’re not going.”
A pause. That was unexpected.
“You’re looking after her, and that’s great Katie, it’s really great. But…you need me Katie. You need us both.”
Katie’s hands shook so badly that she fumbled with the button at the end of the duvet. “Fuck’s sake,” she snapped.
“It’s going to be ok. She’s going to be ok.”
Katie wondered if that was something Emily believed would come true if she just said it often enough.
---
It was the fucking silence that was the worst.
Silence at home, silence at Effy’s.
The evenings were a bit better, because Emily and Naomi would come over and at least they would help fill some of it. Naomi Campbell coming to Katie Fitch’s rescue. It was a completely ridiculous situation, a clear indication of how shit everything had turned. But at least she had something, and she clung to that, because she knew that before long, they’d both leave. And then.
If she thought things were bad with them both there, then things without them were unimaginable.
---
He opened the door one day, casual as you’d like, and asked her who she was.
“Are you shitting me? Who am I? I’ve only been looking after your sister for a fucking year you prick.”
He looked her up and down, and smiled. “I always liked them feisty.” He turned to head up the stairs, only stopping when he realised she hadn’t followed. “Come on then, you’re just in time to hear about Callisto.”
---
“You’re going now, aren’t you?”
Emily nodded. “I’ll lose my uni place if I don’t. And so will Naomi. We already deferred once, we can’t do it again. And you have Tony now.” She looked anxious, practically pleading with Katie to agree.
“Yeah. Fine. Whatever, you know. It’ll be fine.”
Katie wondered when she had turned into Emily, saying things and wishing they would happen.
---
Tony fucking loved Effy. It was obvious.
And she must have loved him back, because she was different around him. Still quiet, of course, but she didn’t look so broken, so defeated when he was there.
He read her books about guys with weird names and complicated stories from like, the olden days or something - it wasn’t anywhere like as exciting as a good copy of Heat but whatever - and it was alright, just sitting and listening.
---
When he first kissed her, he was upset. It was because Effy wasn’t getting any better. Because his mum was spending longer and longer up high or down low. Because his work had told him he was brilliant (which was true), but unreliable (which was also true) and, in the current climate, expendable.
He was drunk, sobbed his heart out on Katie’s shoulder. After the tears stopped he lay on the floor, rested his head in her lap. Her hands drifted to his hair, smoothing it, soothing him, automatically.
“I need to look after her,” he said. “She’s mine. She’s my sister.”
Katie understood. She understood all too well. The feeling - something being out of your control when it shouldn’t be - was unsettling at best and painful at worst.
“No one else cares. Everyone just,” he said, but then stopped himself. He looked up at Katie as though only just realising who it was that had let him curl up against them. He was searching her eyes, looking for something. “You,” he whispered.
He pulled himself up so he was level with her, and then, very slowly, very carefully, leaned forward until his lips pressed against hers.
It was wrong, probably, for her to kiss him back, but it was the first time in so long, the first time she was wanted. And it had been so long since she’d felt it.
Needed.
So she kissed him back, the way she felt. The way he felt. Desperate.
---
It happened more than once. Perhaps it shouldn’t have, but they both needed something, anything, and it just kept happening. It helped that Tony was fit, yeah, and he was charming, and he needed her as much as she needed him. It didn’t stop Katie feeling guilty for it though.
“We can’t tell Effy. She shouldn’t know.”
Tony pulled a wry smile. “You think she doesn’t already?”
Katie rubbed her hands over her eyes furiously. “Shit.”
---
She sat next to her on the bed. “Effy, I…” Katie stalled.
Effy turned her head towards Katie, and of course Tony would be right about this.
“Look, it’s not like that. It’s just… And he’s… I’m sorry, ok?”
“You’re allowed to be happy, Katie.”
It was the first time Effy had said anything in over a year.
“So are you Eff.”
Effy closed her eyes.
---
He takes some breaths to calm himself, and decides that maybe if he wants to know more, he should just ask them. “I come this day every year. Every year since. And I’ve never seen you. Any of you. Why now?”
“We normally come at Christmas time,” Pandora says. “Do presents and things. But -”
“But we’re all here now,” Naomi cuts in. “So we’re doing it now.”
There’s a reason, Cook knows it, there must be, but he doesn’t push. He doesn’t get the chance to, because the door opens again, and it’s JJ.
“If Great Western Trains have ever managed to get a train from one place to another at the advertised, scheduled time then I’ll…Cook… you’re here, you’re. Fuck, fuck, fuck, tit juice, you’re…Cook.”
“Alright Jay?”
“I think I need to sit down.”
---
“Hello JJ. Do you remember me?”
JJ nodded. It was Detective Inspector Blunt. She was the one who interviewed them all after Sophia jumped off the balcony in Thomas’ club at the beginning of their second year of college.
“I remember you. And I remember your friends too.”
He felt uncomfortable, the way she kept looking at him, kept staring, and so he tried to hide, used his hands to cover his face, kept his head bowed down so she’d stop.
But she didn’t stop.
“Your friend Cook. Tell me about him.”
“Cook’s my best friend.”
“Oh really? What about Freddie?”
“Freddie’s dead now.”
“Ah. Yes, that’s right. So where is your best friend JJ?”
“I don’t know. He’s gone, and we can’t find him.”
“Funny that, isn’t it? That Cook’s disappeared now that we’ve found Freddie’s body.”
“No. It’s not funny. It’s worrying, and it’s stressful and it’s bad. It’s not funny.”
DI Blunt lent forward in her chair. Their bodies were in too close proximity and JJ felt increasingly more apprehensive with the whole situation. “Can I tell you what I think? I think Cook and Freddie had a little falling out. Over a girl, perhaps? What’s that girl’s name again?”
“Effy?” He blurted out before he could stop himself.
DI Blunt smiled. “Yes, thank you JJ. That’s it. Effy. Wouldn’t be the first time they’d had a fight over a girl, would it? Especially not that one. So they have a little fight, and maybe, maybe Cook pushes it too far. Wouldn’t be the first time things got out of hand with him around, would it?”
“No. No, he wouldn’t, that’s not right. Cook wouldn’t do that.”
“Much like Cook wouldn’t beat a man up? Much like he wouldn’t give you a black eye?”
JJ shook his head, because she was twisting things and it wasn’t right, it wasn’t true.
“So Cook panics. He’s just killed his best friend.”
“No!” JJ tried to make her stop.
She continued. “Where does he go? An empty house. He dumps Freddie’s body in an empty house and leaves it there.”
“No! He didn’t -”
“But it’s not empty is it? No. Cook’s made a mistake. Someone lives in that house, and he has to go back to hide the evidence.”
“He wouldn’t, stop!”
“But he gets caught out by someone coming home early and he panics again. He beats up the homeowner, who tries to defend themselves, but Cook keeps going. Cook continues to beat an innocent homeowner until he hears the police coming.”
“Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, be quiet,” he pleaded.
“So you understand JJ, don’t you? You understand why we need to find him before he panics again.”
“He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, you’re wrong.”
“We have his fingerprints,” DI Blunt starts ticking a list off with her fingers. “DNA samples as well. We have a pair of trainers that are his size. We have a body, a weapon and we have a motive. You’re a logical man, aren’t you JJ? All the evidence is there. I’m just piecing it together.”
---
“What’s wrong JJ?”
JJ looked up in surprise. “What?”
“You’re muttering. You only mutter when you’re worried.”
“Do I?”
Lara rolled her eyes, which JJ thought to be very unnecessary. “What’s wrong JJ?”
“The police claim that Cook killed Freddie. But they’re wrong, because it’s Cook, and Cook wouldn’t do that, because it’s Freddie. And it’s just wrong. There’s definitely a flaw in their logic, and I just need to prove it.”
---
He was meant to go to York for university. But he thought that maybe he shouldn’t. Lara was in Bristol. And Albert. But Thomas was going, Cook had gone, and Freddie was dead.
Maybe he could just take the good things from Bristol and move them to York. Lara said she’d think about it.
---
It took him two days to gather up the courage to ask. It was a Monday. He was feeding Albert his bottle, which was his job on a Monday, Wednesday and a Friday. The other days he was on nappy changing duty - which he had definitely gotten better at since the wee in the face incident.
“Have you decided about York?”
“JJ,” Lara started slowly. “I don’t think it’s the right thing for Albert. I don’t think I can move him away from his home.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Just to clarify, that’s a no then?”
Lara smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “It’s a no.”
JJ couldn’t help but feel disappointed. But not surprised, not really. “You’ll visit though?”
Lara sighed. “JJ. This… You’ve been through a lot. I know you’re worried about Cook. But I’m worried about you. And I’m worried about Albert. This isn’t good for him. You’re becoming obsessive about all this police stuff.”
“I know, but if I can just work it out, then I can prove it, that it wasn’t Cook and it will fix it all, and it will be better.”
“JJ,” Lara interrupted softly. “Freddie’s still not coming back. You know that, right?”
Of course he knew it. It was an absurd thing to say. Almost as if JJ hadn’t actually gone to the funeral only a month ago and watched them lower the casket into the ground. “Cook is. Cook’s coming back.”
Lara shook her head sadly. “No JJ, he’s not.”
---
“John Foster.”
“What?”
“The flaw in their logic. John Foster.” He dropped the notebook down on the table. “Karen found it in the shed. She read it and then gave it to me.”
Lara reached for the notebook tentatively, and flicked through some pages. “He wants to hurt her? What the fuck? JJ, this is weird.”
“Effy’s doctor,” JJ explained. “Freddie thought he wanted to hurt Effy.”
“Right… and remind me again what this has to do with Cook?”
“Everything. It has everything to do with Cook.”
Lara put the notebook back on the table and looked up at him. “JJ, it’s just some words in a book.”
“No, don’t you see? Freddie wasn’t scared of Cook, he was scared of Foster and -”
“JJ. This isn’t healthy. You have to stop it. This isn’t normal.”
JJ flinched at her words. It made him angry, that Lara - Lara who knew how difficult he found not being normal - would say that to him. He clenched his fists, and really, really, tried not to get locked on. He almost succeeded. “That’s right. I’m not normal. I’m a fucktard, I’m a fucking mong faced fucktard who doesn’t do normal!”
Lara set her eyes in such a way that JJ immediately knew meant she was angry. “You should go JJ. It’s not…for Albert. I want you to go. You shouldn’t come back.”
---
He doesn’t know when he stopped trying so hard. It wasn’t that he forgot about Cook or Freddie or anything like that, but there was so much to learn at university. And there were new people and new places and there wasn’t that much time for trying to solve murders that should be the police’s responsibility.
---
He got his degree surrounded by his new friends who weren’t so new anymore in a new place that wasn’t so new anymore.
He won a prize for coming first in his class, and his professor offered him a place on the Masters course which meant he’d have another year there and he could study whatever he wanted and his mum cried and said she was proud and it could have been the best day ever.
It could have been the best day ever if the best day ever wasn’t already the day that him and Cook and Freddie all dressed up as the three musketeers.
---
Once JJ’s sat himself down on the couch, covering his eyes and muttering a string of nonsense, Cook looks around the room. They’re all looking at him with worried expressions. He sighs heavily. He’s a bit deflated now JJ’s here.
No one else says anything, so it’s up to him to break the silence. “This it then?”
He’s clearly pissed Katie right off, because she sneers at him like he’s a piece of shit on her shoe. “Looks that way, doesn’t it?”
He nods, twice, slowly. “So where is she?”
All the eyes in the room dart away from him, and the dread that’s been playing at the back of his mind all evening is too big to ignore now. It was nerves earlier, nerves that he might be seeing her and that things might have changed, but now, he’s more concerned that she’s not there at all. “Come on. Effy. Where is she?”
Emily speaks up. “She’s…”
“She’s alright, yeah?” It grows, the fear does. He lost sight of Foster a little over the years, but always kept his ear to the ground, and he left Bristol, he definitely left, and he didn’t go back.
“Maybe… maybe you should go and see her for yourself?”
“Nah,” Cook shakes his head. “Nope, she won’t want to see me.” It’s self-preservation really. He’s not sure he could handle seeing her less than ok, not when he’s still in this state.
Katie turns away from him, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like “Typical” under her breath.
He’s baited by it and he can’t help responding. “She fucking wouldn’t.”
It’s the wrong thing to say, perhaps, because Katie takes a deep breath and sets her shoulders, and it might have been a while, but he knows the signs of a bollocking when it’s coming.
Katie spins back around, anger written all over her face. “She loved two boys, Cook. Two. And then one of them fucking died and the other one fucked off and left her. And then she had no one, and she was alone.” She closes the space between them and beats a hand against his chest. “So don’t you fucking, just don’t you say that you understand her. That you know what she wants. Don’t you fucking dare, Cook.” She starts sobbing then, and it’s how Cook feels, if he’d let himself, that is.
But he’s not letting himself feel anything, and he can’t stay in the shed any more, not now that his throat’s tightened and he feels sick to the pit of his stomach, because that’s too much like something.
So he gets out.
---
Outside, everything’s easier. He’s not trapped, not suffocating.
They all reckon that it’s over now. He’s come back and he can just fix up Effy and everyone can go back to leading their own happy lives. They don’t have a clue. He doesn’t have a clue. How the fuck is he meant to fix something like this. He can’t even sort himself out, and yet they seem to think he has all the answers.
They forget that he didn’t mean to come back. They forget, that in his head, he’s still running.
“You came round the back.”
Cook looks up to see Naomi, with her jacket wrapped tightly round her, standing in front of him. “What?”
“When you came tonight. You came round the back. You don’t know.”
He slides a fag out the pack, but doesn’t bother lighting it; instead he rolls it around in his hand, toying with it mercilessly. “Know what?”
“They’re selling the house. Moving on.”
Cook closes his eyes and releases a breath. He tilts his head back as far as it can go, and lets the rain bounce off his face, lets the drops trickle down his chin, tickling the back of his neck as they fall. He keeps it held there until he can’t bare the sensation any longer. “We should’ve…you know.”
“What?”
He opens his eyes slightly and turns his head towards her. She looks worried, concerned maybe. “Got together. Me and you.”
She rolls her eyes with a smile and sits down next to him. “You’ve not changed, have you?”
He shrugs half-heartedly. “You know I’m right babe.”
“Yeah, maybe.” She plucks the cigarette from his fingers and sparks it up. He’s not that bothered. He was only using it to keep his hands busy. A distraction. He takes to scuffing his heels against the muddy ground instead.
“I’m going to ask Emily to marry me.”
Cook shakes his head ruefully. “She’s a lucky girl.”
“No. No, I am.”
Cook quirks his lips. “Yeah.”
Naomi sniffs a little and shifts awkwardly on the bench next to him. “Do you know how Paddy’s doing?”
He nods. “Yeah. Yeah, he’s getting big, you know?”
She looks across at him in surprise. “You’ve seen him?”
“A bit,” he shrugs, as if it’s nothing, the fact that he’s only seen his brother, his kid brother that used to think the sun shone out his arse, only twice in the last four years.
Naomi raises an eyebrow. “Has he seen you?”
“Nah. Don’t think so, anyway.”
She finishes his smoke, stubbing the remainder out on the armrest of the bench and then stands to leave. “You should go see Effy.”
He spits, off to the side. “I’m leaving. Tomorrow.”
Naomi sighs. “Let it go, Cook.”
“And how the fuck am I meant to do that, then? He’s still out there, doing fuck knows what and he killed my best fucking mate. Naomi, what the fuck am I meant to do, just forget that?”
She frowns at his outburst, and it takes him a second to realise that she wouldn’t have known that, not till right now. “It was Foster, then? You’re sure?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure.”
Naomi wipes the rain from her face. Maybe there’s tears mixed in. Maybe there’s not. “She needs you. She needs you here. Not out there chasing ghosts. Here.”
She turns away from him when he refuses to look her in the eye, and walks back towards the shed.
Cook waits until she’s gone before reacting. He batters his hand off the bench with force, and lets out a sharp “Fuck!” The sound is wrenched from deep within him. It hurts. He doesn’t feel the pain that should be in his hand.
He didn’t mean it to happen this way. He didn’t mean any of this; he didn’t mean for it to go like this. It wasn’t. He just. He wanted…well. He didn’t want this, he thinks, running his hands through his hair, and pressing his thumbs firmly against his temple, willing the pain to stop already. It doesn’t work of course, never has in the past and nothing’s changed now.
Fuck the future, that’s what he’d said to Freddie. Well he’d fucking done that. Fucked it right up.
---
The rain has stopped by the time Pandora comes to get him. “Naomi said you were down. You know there’s a song for that.”
Cook glances up, watches as she sits down next to him. “Yeah, probably.”
“Effy’s down too.”
He digs his nails into the palms of his hands, feels the blood pumping underneath them. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. She’s sort of shut off. Like she pressed pause on the DVD and the buggering button got jammed and it won’t play anymore. You were always good at that, turning her on.”
It’s the moment that the tension is broken, or lessened at least. Cook snorts involuntary laughter, laughs like he hasn’t done in a long, long time. It’s unexpected that it’d be Pandora that makes him do it, but actually, maybe it’s right that way. But it’s also the moment that he realises, that no, they don’t think he has all the answers. They just really fucking want him to.
He closes his eyes and tries to pull himself together, get rid of all this emotional shit that’s going on so he can focus. “We could always try turning her on together,” he winks, but Pandora must not get it, because she only nods enthusiastically.
He smiles back, best he can under the circumstances. “Missed you Panda-pops.”
She beams - proper lights up - and it wasn’t so difficult, Cook thinks, to do that, and maybe the rest of it will just come natural as well.
“Missed you too Cookie.”
---
He walks to her house alone. He told Pandora that he’d come back later, but he needs to do this by himself.
It’s a walk he knows like the back of his hand - from Freddie’s to Effy’s, and back again - and it’s not very far. Not far enough for him to sort his head out at any rate.
Tony answers the door. They’ve never met, but Cook recognises him straight off - there was always plenty pictures around, and it’s the eyebrows, really, that give him away.
“Alright mate? I’m Cook,” he introduces himself, and puts his hand out for a shake.
Tony glances at it disdainfully. “What do you want?”
Cook grimaces. His reputation clearly precedes him, and it’s not looking good. “Is Effy about?”
Tony shakes his head. “Don’t think so, mate.”
Cook purses his lips together. It’s no more than he should have expected - no more than he deserves really. But even though he was so nervous about possibly seeing her earlier on in the night, now the idea of not seeing her makes him worse. “I need to see her.”
“She doesn’t want to see you,” Tony answers, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what I thought, but then Katie said all this stuff about not knowing her, and I dunno, maybe she does.”
“Katie said that?”
“Yeah, Katie, you know, one of her mates at college.”
“Yes, thanks, I know who Katie is. She’s my girlfriend.”
“Oh. Nice one. Never had a crack at her myself, but -”
“Shut up.” Tony looks him up and down, and must come to some conclusion, because he reaches for the sideboard and grabs his keys. “I’m going out. You’ve got an hour.”
---
He checks her room first. She’s not there. It’s not her room anymore, obviously, the one that he associates with her. It’s Tony’s and it’s been reclaimed. Cook’s relieved as much as anything else really, because that room holds so much, the memories, the ghosts, and it’s for the best that he’s not surrounded by all of that as well.
He finds the right one at the other end of the corridor. The door’s closed. He knocks, but there’s no answer and Cook knows he has two choices. He can either walk away, or see this through. He walked away once already, and it didn’t fix things.
She flinches when he comes in the room, but other than that doesn’t acknowledge him at all, just flicks her eyes back to the far away wall and keeps them trained there. It’s bare. The room is empty, soulless and dark. But Effy keeps staring as if it’s the most fascinating thing she’s ever seen.
He lies down on the bed next to her, stretches himself out and rests his hands on his chest. “Alright?” he tries, but doesn’t get anything in return. “You wanna know something?”
He looks over at her in the hope that she’ll say something, but she doesn’t. He’s not surprised, not really. “I have not been laid in four years. Four fucking years.” He laughs, quietly at first, and then can’t seem to stop.
He glances at her and feels the knot in his stomach loosen slightly when he sees that the corner of her mouth has lifted very slightly.
“He’d love that, eh?”
Effy turns her head towards the window, and away from him.
Cook keeps going. “Bet he thinks I’m losing my touch.”
“Don’t.” Her voice is rough round the edges, from too many fags most likely. But then, he doesn’t even know if she still smokes. She used to, yeah, but she also used to talk.
“I reckon though, I reckon, that maybe he’s just jealous of me.”
“Stop.”
“You know, getting to sit here, all me and you like.”
“Stop!” She says it with force this time, turning towards him sharply, and so he does.
She’s not broken, he thinks. No more than he is. She just doesn’t want to deal with it. He doesn’t either, of course he doesn’t. It’s why he ran after all. It’s why he keeps running. But Effy, she didn’t even run. She sat in it, let it eat her alive, and that’s not right either.
“You know about the house?”
She swallows - he can see it, even in the dark - before she nods.
“Things have to change Eff. You can’t keep…” He waves his hands, searching for the right words to describe it. “This,” he finishes lamely.
She tilts her head, the way she always did when she going to say some clever shit, and he knows he’s going to get called out before she even did it. “Are you going to keep…that?”
That’s the thing, with Effy. She says these things that can just cut right through him, and he doesn’t know if it makes him love her more or less, mainly it’s just the way it is, but Jesus, fuck, it hurts sometimes. He doesn’t even mean to, but before he knows it, he’s spilling his guts, and for the first time in a long time, it’s the God’s honest truth.
“I don’t know how not to. I can’t stop. I dunno what I’m doing anymore.” He’s known it for years, that he was trapped and there wasn’t a way out, but it’s the first time he’s admitted it aloud, and he hates how pathetic it makes him sound, how he needs to take deep breaths to compose himself, hates how his voice cracks, hates how it all makes tears come to his eyes.
It does something to Effy too, because she stops looking at him like she has it all sussed, and instead she’s looking at him like she’s scared, as scared as he is perhaps.
She stretches a hand across to his cheek, and wipes away the stray tear that’s fallen. Her hand stays where it is, and Cook closes his eyes so as to remember the contact that little bit better, to feel it that little bit more. He doesn’t see her then, when she moves her lips towards him, doesn’t know anything until she’s kissing his cheek and digging her fingers in that little bit tighter.
When he opens his eyes it’s instinct. It always has been around her, and he’s not even sure when she started crying, but soon they’re kissing through tears, desperate to feel something other than the last four years.
When they break apart, he holds her wrist to keep her in place, and rests his forehead against hers. He keeps his eyes open. Hers stay closed. He’s breathing heavily. She might not be breathing at all. All he can think is this is it. The answer. This is his way out. They can both get out.
He closes his eyes. “We don’t have long.”
---
Cook’s life restarts in the same place it stopped four years ago. He’s sure there’s a word for that, that it means something, but he’s not sure what it is. He’s never been big on words, especially not when they’re meant to be important.
So he doesn’t say anything when he stands next to her, at the top of Freddie’s garden, looking down at the shed. The lights are still on, and they’re playing music and chatting, even though it’s gone one in the morning now, and it makes a mockery of all the times he’s come here before and tried to be as quiet as possible, pretending like he wasn’t really there at all. Turns out, no one would have blinked an eye.
He waits until she’s finished her cigarette before he picks up her rucksack, swinging it over his shoulder with his good arm. “Coming, Eff?”
She takes a long, final look at the shed, before nodding. She takes his hand when he offers it, grips it tightly, and follows him out to the street.
They’re not running. They’re moving on.
---
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