It's Tumbling Down Hard
It’s early morning when you hear the voices.
Two; three, four…maybe five.
But none of them are his.
“Yes, but are you sure?” A woman’s voice; she’s pleading, reaching out for something.
“Absolutely,” a man replies solemnly. “Everything matches up.”
There are more murmurs among the group.
You wonder what they’re talking about.
“If you’ll excuse me then. I-I have to go tell her.”
Footsteps…and then a door closes.
Are the voices real, then?
The steps are coming up the stairs. There’s a rustling outside your door. No, this is real. You’re awake.
-
“Sweetheart,” your mother’s voice wavers. This can’t be good.
“It’s Freddie,” your ears perk up and an extra beat is added to the rhythm of your heart.
She won’t elaborate though, so you urge her to “go on.”
Was he, in fact, downstairs? Were you not listening closely enough? Did he come back for you?
Mum starts crying, and the pit of your stomach drops.
“Please,” you cry out, shaking her arm. “Please, what about Freddie?”
“He’s dead.” She whispers, almost inaudibly.
You don’t hear at first - you can’t. There’s no way to comprehend. No way to accept it. What did she say?
“Mum…what?” You ask. Even though you know. Even though you can suddenly feel it in your bones.
“He’s dead; Freddie is dead.”
And then the world comes crashing down.
He’s dead.
-
She must expect you to cry onto her shoulder, or bawl uncontrollably.
You see the box of tissues she’s brought up with her, and that just makes you fight back.
“No!” You scream, jumping up from the bed. “Liar!”
“Effy, Effy, darling, please calm down. I’m sorry. I’m so so so sorry.”
“Get away from me! He left. That’s all. He’ll come back, he just needed a break. He loves me… He loves me.”
It doesn’t matter that you can feel the absence of him surrounding you now, you still refuse to believe it. There’s nothing to it. He’s not dead.
Your mother lets out another cry and the tears continue to pour down her cheeks.
You think about the events of the past few days; he hasn’t called, hasn’t texted. He promised he’d be here. You can’t go on thinking that he’s gone because he couldn’t handle you, that he didn’t want anything to do with you anymore.
Maybe she’s not lying, then. But how could this happen?
-
She refuses to tell you all the sordid details, but you manage to get two words out of her that lead to what caused his death murder.
John. Foster.
That’s enough to make you break down, and so you cry for a lifetime (or so it seems), and your mother is there, the one rock you have left in this world.
-
“I’m gonna take care of you. I promise.”
Yeah, and how’s that? You wonder.
He couldn’t even save you from yourself, but then again, how much did you really want him to?
-
You realize that you don’t really know his father, at least not nearly as much as you should.
Karen’s always been there, but you have a feeling she’d rather you hadn’t.
Regardless though, that doesn’t stop you from going to his house as soon as you can string a coherent thought together in that pretty little fucked up head of yours.
The front room is quiet; death is almost palpable in the air.
Freddie’s father is leaning against the kitchen counter; head in hands.
You wonder how long he’s known.
He picks his head up when he hears you enter and gives you a slight nod.
His face reads of sorrow, agony, heartache, and distress. Emotions you know are more than likely etched across your own face. But you can’t feel a thing.
-
Karen is sitting on the staircase when you leave the kitchen.
Her eyes are red and puffy and yours are too, but she jumps up and into your arms when you come closer to her.
You have a tight hold on her and she seems to have an even tighter hold on you. You cry into her shoulder as she cries into your hair.
“I’m sorry I called you a crazy bitch,” she sobs.
You don’t know what she’s talking about, but you manage to squeak out an “its okay” before dissolving into your next round of tears.
“I know you loved him,” she chokes out. “He loved you too, a fucking lot.”
She might just be the only person who understands one tenth of the misery you are feeling. It’ll be safe to stick around Karen.
-
You spend the whole day at the McClair house.
Family and relatives and people whom you’ve never met stop by and offer their condolences and food.
You watch as Freddie’s father moves about the company robotically, and you suddenly see that this is the second time he and Karen have had to deal with this kind of loss.
Mental illness was at the root of both deaths. And it’s becoming painfully clear to you that Freddie’s death is partly on your hands.
It almost kills you to think about it like that, but you know it to be true.
You’re sorry.
No one will say anything, but without you and your horribly beautiful memories, John Foster never would have known Freddie’s name.
If you would have allowed him to move on, he would still be alive right now.
If you hadn’t have completely devoted yourself to him; maybe you wouldn’t even be mad at all.
But you needed him, and in some fucked up way - he needed you too.
-
“We’d be good together, don’t you think?”
No. You see that now. It never made sense.
You were always a head case, and he was too whimsical and idealistic, but fuck, you know you’ve never felt anything stronger in all your life.
And you never will again.
“No. I’d break your heart.”
“Maybe I’d break yours.”
And he did; and you can’t deny it.
-
So you wonder - what’s the point of love when it has the power to make you feel so wretched? In the end, is it worth it at all? All the pain and heartbreak, what does it really do?
Then you feel the picture of him that you’ve stuck in your back pocket. It’s suddenly calling out: Don’t forget about me.
You won’t.
-
“We’re together. We’ll be together.”
And so you will be.
“I love you,” you whisper out to the night.
A voice in your head wakes up, and suddenly, he’s there.
“I fucking love you, too.”