There are blinking lights within the darkness. Most of the time what is meant by this is that the people in your life, the ones you hold close, are the hands you hold when navigating hard times. In a house full of siblings, aunts and cousins, I didn't have any time for myself. None of my thoughts were personal. Mentally, I ran away from that place a lot.
I'd say that friends were what kept me from losing it all when the pressure of my daily life weighed on me. But isn't it always like this? My siblings and I were always at each others' throats, biting and cutting where it hurt the most. When you have emotionally absent parents, you are manipulated into blaming everyone but the actual perpetrators.
"Scream at me. You can even smack me. But only once. Okay? Sometimes you just need to get things off of your chest." Billie was my oldest friend. She was the person I spoke to about my home life. The only human being on earth I felt comfortable enough to confide in. She didn't know the whole story, but details never matter to the people who really care about you. My emotions were enough. With her, there was no need to justify my every action. No need to be quiet and pretty and a people pleaser.
Billie smiled all the time. I didn't know this was something that was important to me till I met her. Up until then, I had come to terms with the long faces and the sour mood when I arrived home from university. It was the way my family had become.
I had the faintest memory of my family being a place of warmth and acceptance when I was still a child. Birthday parties at Spur with all the fixings. Colouring books with mini crayons. Vanilla ice cream sprinkled with 100s-of-thousands. Playrooms with slides and jungle bars and Xbox video games. The tart scent of my newborn niece wrapped in ten million baby blankets. But those years were so far removed from who I was as a person now.
I hide my face in my hands. "That's not… It's fine."
The air was crisp. It was something unique to summer nights in the South. Days like these reminded me a lot of my adolescence. When I was still a melancholy teenage girl who knew that her life sucked, but thought she had to endure it by herself. You don't meet people like Billie until you are ugly crying on your twenty-second birthday and you just got off the phone with your mother. "Hi, I just wanted to call and wish you a happy birthday. This year… I've been a little short on cash and I'm sorry that I can't get you anything. But you know I love you. Right?"
"I know. It's okay."
"I'm really sorry."
"It's fine."
"I don't mean to ask—and I know it's not the right time… But can't you pay a little something into my account? Like I said, I'm really short on cash right now. You know I love you right?"
"Okay. It's fine."
"I really appreciate it."
"It's fine."
"Happy birthday again. I'm always thinking about you."
Is Mum smiling? I wonder if that's an expression I'll ever get to see on her face. "Thank you."
"See you."
"Goodnight, Mum."
Billie fished a crumpled tissue from her tote bag and stuck it underneath my nose. It had the powdery scent of a bottle of Paco Rabanne cologne I'd sniffed when I was shopping with one of my friends. It was such a strange feeling smelling it again that night. Smelling it on her. As if she was a part of a memory of mine that I could barely recall.
"Woah, dude. Are you okay? Did you come here with anyone?" She crouched down next to me, Dr Martens crunching the wet tar in the parking area where I sat. The dampness soaked through the high-waisted Levis I wore. It was disgusting, but there were things you did when you were having a bad time that you just had to forgive yourself for when things got better.
I took a moment to clean my nose. Then I said, "I just needed some fresh air. My friends are inside somewhere."
"Do you need help getting back to them?"
"Are you like trying to fucking kidnap me or something?" I adopted a defensive personality when I was being backed into a corner. Like a dog nipping at the same hand that feeds it. It was a coping mechanism. If I could call it that.
She chuckled. "Seriously?"
"I don't know. You tell me!"
"Right." She rose to her full height.
I've never met anyone as tall as her. My mum's side of the family was composed of average-height people. My siblings and I were unfortunate enough to inherit our height from my dad's side. I stood at four foot nine inches on a good day. It was something I didn't think about when I was a teenager and it was acceptable to be as short as my younger brother by two years.
"I think I can find my own way back. But thanks for the offer whatever. I like your perfume. Paco Rabanne. Right?" I didn't wait to hear her answer.
I met up with my friends and they fussed about the wet stains on the back of my jeans, pressing napkins from the bar into the crease of my butt to adsorb up the majority of the damage. "You should soak it immediately when you get home. These are literally my favourite jeans on you, babes. It's such a shame."
"Can we leave? Like, I think I literally almost got kidnapped in the parking area."
"What do you mean?"
"Some random lady asked me if I needed help getting back to my friends. Does she think I'm stupid or something? I probably shouldn't have used her tissue. What if she laced it with something? Should I go to the police station?"
They looked at me like I grew a few heads. "You are so dramatic!"
"If she put anything on the tissue, you would have been feeling it by now, babes. Trust me. A friend of my sister got drugged once and she was knocked out for like three days," my one friend said.
"That doesn't sound right," someone else said.
"I swear to God!"
It went on like this for the remainder of the night. They ordered a few more drinks and the night was history. But, really, the world is smaller than you'd like to think.
"Mum, I really can't talk on the phone right now. Seriously. Just send me a message and I'll get back to you," my phone was tucked in between my ear and my shoulder. When I wanted to be, I was every part the cliche protagonist in a movie. Always running late and making the most embarrassing and inappropriate arrivals. How can I be late for a meeting I added to my Google calendar?
"I didn't mean to bother you, but there is really nothing going on on this side. We didn't have anything to eat today. I just wanted to know if you could pay something into my account. It doesn't matter how much you send—honestly. Anything is enough."
"But I sent you money a few days ago?"
"I know, but your sister is living with us now, too. She's about to have her baby and I just need you to help me out right now. Just until she gets back on her feet."
"I don't know what to say."
The thing I said about being a cliche movie protagonist. The advantage Billie had was that her height made her body like a shield. This was a word I associated with her the more I got to know her. She grabbed me before I fell backwards, large hands wrapping around my upper-arms.
She assessed me. "Fuck, I think you're going to need to see a nurse or something. Your nose is starting to bleed."
Again with the tissue. Despite my efforts, I wasn't as organized as she was. Although it was something I craved. She always had what was right for the moment. Tissue with the peculiar scent of my adolescence. A helping hand when I lost my balance. A guide.
I decided that she wasn't part of a human trafficking ring and followed her to the campus clinic. She waited with me for twenty minutes like a good soldier, sitting idly in the waiting room while I got my nose plugged with something that oddly resembled a tampon and was prescribed pain medication for my now throbbing headache. I was advised to lie down.
Billie stood up from her seat when I exited the nurses' treatment room, wiping her hands on her thighs. "Is everything going to be okay? Did they give you something for the pain?"
I laughed. Guttural belly laughs that tightened my abdominal muscles and made my upper body feel like jelly. This was all so ridiculous.
I thought about the night before: What if I had gone to the police station? Would Billie have been here today to wait for me while I got my nose plugged? To take me back to campus? Strangely, my friends were right about everything—even if they didn't know it at the time.
"What?"
"Nothing," I wheezed. "Nothing!"
Then she started to laugh, too.
We weren't laughing because it was funny. There are times when reacting in this manner is the only appropriate response to emotional pressure. My phone was buzzing in the pocket of my coat and I knew it was Mum calling again.
I missed the deadline to appeal for a resubmission while I was getting my nose treated. And it mattered. It really did. But I couldn't care less then. Time froze. People moved in slow motion around the two of us.
I wasn't myself—in a good way.
"We should probably leave before the chuck us out?"
"Chuck us out?" I was hysterical at this point. "I… I haven't heard someone use those words in so many years. I can't—"
She laughed at me.
Those are the moments you draw your strength from when you become jaded by life. Up until then, I was a twenty-two-year-old who had drained her savings to support her mother and her extended family. An adult who had to take two gap years so she sould save enough money to go to university. A disappointment to her family for leaving her job and not being able to provide the way she used to.
I was someone else when I was around Billie. The kind of person I daydreamed about being.