Crystal Clear

Chapter Eight

Flicking through an old battered brown faux-leather photo album, Ava looked upon the various shaped pictures of memories of nicer days. In one photo, 18-year-old Ava stared back at her – thinner, prettier and around her shoulder was Dan’s protective arm. His hair in a fifties shaped style, a cigarette in between his lips, shades on – his attempt to look cool. Ava looked at herself, tanned, toned and grinning wildly. A costume party of an old school friend. Back then, Dan was all that mattered to her, every waking moment she lived and breathed him and now when she looked at the photograph, she felt nothing but a longing for the wasted years. As the photo album progressed, Dan’s body language changed, and it seemed that Ava was the only one left smiling. Dan looked so preoccupied, uninterested and often forced to stand for a photo. With a flick of her wrist Ava flung the album across her front room, it ricocheted off the oak sideboard and knocked over a vase of ornamental twigs next to the fireplace. Ava got off the couch and caught a glance of her haggard reflection in the mirror. Greasy hair pulled back into a loose pony tail, shiny skin and her eyebrows looked like black slugs on her brow. She looked away, unable to look anymore at herself. She bent over and rectified the blue patterned vase and rearranged the twigs inside of it. Luckily work had kept her busy for the last two weeks but today was the start of the weekend and she was pleased as she couldn’t bear fighting back tears at work anymore. Today should have been blissful; a day of uninterrupted aloneness, but instead her mind was filled with nothing but the pain of losing Richard and the very occasional thought about Dan wronging her.

Getting in the shower, the water cascaded down her skin. She hoped that it would wash away some of the bad feelings that were bringing her down. Ava didn’t feel the slightest bit clean after she’d scrubbed and cleaned every part of her, so many regrets had made her feel so dirty. She cursed the fact that she’d lied. He would have understood if she had been honest from the beginning she thought. Ava knew she shouldn’t have dated him, but he was the forbidden fruit and he tasted as delicious as he looked with his James Dean looks and his electric personality. If he came back to her, she swore she would never ever lie to him again…but lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice and with that thought, she got out of the shower with a lament.

Drying her hair with a fluffy blue towel, the smell of soap and shower gel filled the air. Ava brushed through her tangled mane, sat in front of her dressing table mirror, glancing upwards she looked at the photographs tucked into the wooden frame around the oval-shaped mirror. Richard’s handsome smile gazed back lovingly at her, his chiselled jaw line covered in a dusting of stubble – she longed to feel his stubble against her neck. She sighed deeply; her heart and head couldn’t cope with this self-inflicted heartbreak. The photo above the one of Richard by himself was Ava and Richard together – they were side by side after a beautiful picnic in a country park. Ava missed his smell, that woody masculine perfume smell, soap and the apple smell of his hair from the shampoo he used. She remembered something, and in her dressing table drawer she pulled out a grey t-shirt of his that he insisted on leaving at hers for a spare. It was old, grey, worn and extremely soft; it smelled just like him, so she lifted it up to her nose and inhaled deeply. She hadn’t spoken to him in weeks and this smell only seemed to further her heart ache for him.

Ava’s pining for Richard was cut short when the noise of her landline phone ringing interrupted her. She rushed downstairs, hoping the person on the other end wouldn’t hang up before she could get there. Ava reached the phone; “caller unknown” flashed her phone’s caller ID. Cautiously, she reached over to pick up the phone but before she could it went to answer machine.

“Hi, Ava…It’s Sally, I’m erm…Richard’s Mother. I’m afraid he’s been in the hospital, he’s been in here for two weeks now – he’s in a medically induced coma. I wasn’t sure if I should ring you or not, Richard told me you’d had a fight, I hope you can help us. I have tried to contact you on several occasions throughout the last week but to no luck on your mobile phone, maybe I typed in the wrong number? anyway, so I had to go to Richard’s place and find an alternative number for you. If you want to visit him, please do, it might help him wake up. He’s in the local hospital, Dixon ward. Thanks, good bye, I hope you come soon.”

Ava listened shocked, the words coming out of the answering machine were conjuring horrible mental images. What had happened to him? Her heart sank, thinking about Richard covered in tubes, strapped to machines in some ward. Richard had said he didn’t want any more contact with her, but if he was unconscious, she could at least hold his hand and say sorry. Maybe this could be good closure for her and help her move on.