Winter 2016

She sighed. The room was silent, and all she could feel was the breathy tears in her throat. If she looked up, she could lose her walls, she could lose the only thing she was holding onto. Her tears of loss and pain stored up in her eyes, all for her great-grandad. Looking up, she could see the aunt she never had crying, sobbing her eyes away, but she knew every fallen tear was for show - her aunt had never bothered to step a caring foot in her deteriorating grandfather's house; and the only time she did was when she was in need of the money. Everyone else looked genuine, everyone else had a story about the man inside the oak coffin standing tall on the altar. Everyone else had seen him smile, seen him grow or seen his story. But Noah had seen everything, the crinkle of his eyes when he smiled, the subtle grin when he knew he was in trouble. The shaking of his dying hands through the door at the home. Everything else she’d been told, like how he married young and smiled his last smile at Noah’s drawing of elephants holding trunks. She’d seen and heard everything about her great-grandfather, and missed him more than she had ever missed anything.

Waking up was a chore.

Laughing was as hard as getting an A in a test she didn’t revise for.

Everything was pointless, and her thoughts clouded like this for days, months.

Everything was ruined, and nothing else could make anything worse.

But Noah was one to realise early on that someone always has it worse, even if her great grandad had died quicker than the rain that touched the ground.

Even if the pain rose up and tried to kill her, tried to break down her walls, she stuck on her brave face - because things could always be worse.

Jumping from the bus ledge, she hit the ground in her Doctor Martens and ran to the door; number 15 of Antler Lane. It was a good day, and for once she felt as free as a floating leaf. There was acceptance bubbling at the back of her crowded mind, one that would commemorate the great-grandad she loved and missed. So, she stepped into the house of warmth for one of the first times with a smile laying on her face.

After stumbling up to her room, Noah was called downstairs. Her stairs were a workout - and one she hated to repeat. “Noah? Now please.” She slumped down the stairs, as slowly as she could. What now? She thought. If Leo’s got me in trouble, isweartogod- “NOAH! NOW!” She padded down the stairs, quicker now, and opened the creaky door into the living room. The sarcastic voice in her mind begged her to make a comment, but she pushed it away despite the urge. “Yes?” She said tiredly, ready for an argument. But her mom's eyes were glassy, and her dad was unusually grasping her tearful moms hand. “Honey, grab Leo,” her mum whispered, her voice cracking on every syllable. She swung the door to the study open. “Leo. Mum wants us.” He trailed after her, pushing the door closed as they passed through it. He curled up next to their mother, sensing the quiet sadness Noah had also detected. “Mummy?”

“Grandad’s dying of cancer.”

‘I’m so sorry.’ The apologies rung through her ears, killing her every time the words were said. Sobbing, her world was again brought to a close, bought to a halt. The acceptance once present was gone, and the new found but not forgotten pain crowded her body once more. It was happening, but the gift of time had not been pre wrapped like it was with her great grandad. The burn of cancer storming her body, her mind, framing the words she would never forget. The tears blurred her sight, the words killed her mind. It was confusing, scary, mind blowing. It was simple, but as hard as the equations she couldn’t face in class. Sorry didn’t change anything, unless it could summon up a remedy for the pain.

Early March, she started talking with someone she wasn’t expecting or intending to see for quite a while. George. There was history, history she was determined not to forget, but seeing him again brought everything back. Every smile, every laugh. Everything she had tried to forget from the past year. She laughed through the pain of remembering, of having to relive the past year and the previous months. The days of that month flew, meeting up with her friends every few weeks, each time at a new person's house. Noah and George grew closer, and the mystery of what they felt clouded other people's visions. They were together, but were also so different and apart. As they were drawn together, they knew more about each other, grew closer and described that feeling as love. As confusing as it was, it was a release, to feel needed and important to someone, to feel like maybe someone needed Noah. Someone wasn’t trying to break her. Fate was finally on her side.

As soon as it seemed to be perfection, he left.

Not him - but something about him.

Left Noah breaking, falling apart.

The stitches had been pulled out of an unclosed wound, letting out the pain in waterfalls; the agony of that feeling haunting her little mind. She suddenly knew nothing about this boy, the boy who confused her and made her laugh and cry and who knows what else. He left her crumbling, falling like a house that was hundreds of years old. And as she fell, she fell deeper into the dark abyss of the future. He broke her, and for once, she kept her walls up. And she decided that maybe it was better for her to keep the walls of her painful castle up, to keep herself protected at all times. This meant, that maybe, he couldn’t hurt her again.

She crawled to his bedside, slipping out of her chair and creating bigger holes in her jeans knees. She needed him, she needed to not lose him. So without a word, she slipped her palm into the mans that shaped hers hand, determined to say everything she needed in this sacred and simple moment. She held on, and it felt like she’d fall if she didn’t, into both her pained grandfathers and her own world of agony. He stirred, and she stood up to re-adjust the pillows. Her palm was still clamped in his, and as she moved the pillow, his eyes fluttered open. His look said it all and she couldn’t say anything at all. She just held on, as tight as she could. Because she could lose him, the only thing she had that was holding her together. Her heart was breaking, and she begged he could see it in her eyes. And as both of their eyes fluttered to a close, him on the bed and her on the floor, and their hands remained together like the world depended on it.

Sweatpants on, greasy hair, over ear headphones. Slow music filling her ears. Her parents had dragged her out on this lazy sunday, to Bachelors nursery. She’d been taking photos on the camera she’d taken from her dad that was in the front of the car, and was then desperately trying to write a piece of composition music for her summer coursework. Laughing rang out from the next car, a black land rover, interrupting her trail of thought. There were so many notes whizzing around her cramed mind, and the noise from the car on the right got louder and more annoying. When it finally stopped, she readjusted herself to lying in the boot in ability to write, and one of the people from that car with the annoying kids opened the door onto her dad’s car. ‘Shit,’ the person whispered quietly; and she clambered out of the boot. ‘What the f-’ she began, and stopped mid sentence, because the tall lanky boy staring back at her, was no other than George.

They met up again with friends, went on walks, laughed, talked. It was perfection, like before. And after 6 months of the painful bliss they again began to call love; she left him, trying to protect herself. The pain was like before, but the burning “i told you so’s” came forward from the back of her head. Her world crumbled, but if she didn’t have her shit together, she would keep loving him - so she shut up and took her life off pause.

---

The burn of a broken heart never goes away, even if you left them. Noah loved him, and didn’t think she would ever stop.

---

She didn’t visit her Grandad again, and the guilt that tormented her was fiercer than hurricane winds. It was painful, but she loved the man to bits, so left him to sleep and float in his dreams of colour and clouds. She didn’t understand the dangers of leaving him this long - she didn’t understand how much she had to lose.

On one sunny march day, she left work feeling like nothing could touch her and the feeling of happiness. She wanted to see him again, so this was her request as she climbed into the car. The steady silence was haunting, but to her clear mind it meant nothing. The car pulled up, and Noah grabbed the little duffle bag and climbed out of the car. She took out the key attached to a little pink monkey, and opened the duck egg blue victorian door. She stepped through the threshold, and was just about to slip of her boots when a familiar pair of clarks shoes appeared at her feet. Mom? She said to herself quietly, and confirmed this by looking up at the woman that looked a lot like her. She spluttered her regards, and then returned to removing her shoes. The next face she looked up to surprised her. Nan was standing in the doorway to the diner, and as Noah went to hug her, her grandmothers face cracked. She realised why everyone was home; and she was suddenly petrified of the truth.

On the 25th of March at 9:25 am, her grandads beautiful life came to a close, and she fell further than she ever had before. The feeling was agony, and she’d never missed anyone more than this. It was like losing her other half - and to her, half of her soul went to heaven with that crazy, incredible, loving man that day.

People made the sick jokes, and Noah couldn't tolerate them in the way she used to. She shut anyone down who said they thought they ‘had cancer’ because they’d searched their symptoms on google, and was disgusted by anyone who wished the disease on anyone else. It hurt her, and people only thought to make the joke and not to think it through. She became immune to these jokes over time, ignoring them and pretending the ‘hilarious’ person who made the joke never existed. The walls were up for once and for all, and the only thing that could take them down was a hope she would not feel until many years later.

Months passed. Nothing changed. The sadness, the anxiety she’d fallen into each day broke her. Then, she started to turn down a little lane called Shooters Way, and everything began to change.

Winter 2017

Winter commenced, and although it was the season she was dreading, the pain had begun to ease. Her idea of this Christmas was ‘hell in a handbasket’, and she walked through the season dreaming and wishing on stars for the christmas she could hope for. She told people about this pain, coming to the conclusion that she should tell her friends why she was feeling this constant upset. Coming to grips to death was for her, a living miracle, and the fact she could openly talk about it made her feel stronger than ocean winds. Her walls were up, and she tried to push everything negative to the back of her mind. No feelings of being paralysed in pain, most feelings of self hate gone, and she could trust the people she loved once again. But, nothing runs smoothly, and some of these feelings returned after an event in late November.

---

Concealing the pain, Noah took in what she had just been told. Her entire relationship with her now only grandfather was lies, and the pain the overcame her was like all of the other pains she had recently felt. He was not dead; but he was dead to her. It was something people saw on TV, something you would hear on the news. The subject that had never had to touch Noah’s protected mind slammed into her immediately.

Sexual assault.

Her age, not her. Her mind, not her. Her innocence, not her. It wasn’t her, but she felt as close to the girls that were younger than her as she did to her two best friends. The trials, the lies and the hate would last as long as he lived, but there would be relief in the thought she never had to lay her eyes on the man again. The man who betrayed and breached all the trust she had ever given him for the past 15 years of her life. Another blow to her walls, another forceful kick that someone had decided to enforce to break them down.  

But she tried to keep it in and hid the pain at the back of her mind. They came back to haunt her, crawling from the abyss at the back of her mind - but she pushed them away. She was determined. It's a beautiful power to have to be able to push things away. Feelings, people, thoughts. And although it was one Noah couldn't master, she could pretend she had it; but lying to yourself is a dangerous thing.

Scars on her ankles, tears on her legs. Marks reminding her of the pain and the past. Marks that reminded her of who she was.

---

The end of December and a fading sadness bought a new face into her life, who she welcomed with open arms in return for more months of pain and broken-heartedness. Geoff. Although his contagious laugh and sick sense of humour mirrored Noah perfectly, somehow that broke her. And he was the only one she had ever trusted with her secrets, her fears, and the truth. Words like ‘perfect’ ‘beautiful’ and ‘amazing’ haunted her, the lies pushing her limits, luring her in to believe he was the perfect one. But boys will be boys, and boys will sadly be liars.

It was New Years eve. Noah had carted her and her loved-up self to Elizabeth’s house in order to get takeout, stay up watching titanic and to get drunk. For Noah, the latter wouldn’t be happening, as drinking didn’t appeal her - but the offer of domino's pizza was so tempting she figured she could eat and be on the phone to Geoff all night; which didn’t seem so bad. Switching on Titanic, and listening to the opening music, Noah clicked open her phone to look through the texts. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ ‘You’re so amazing,’ and many other texts littered her current conversation with Geoff. She knew trusting him was dangerous, that she was undoubtedly going to get hurt, but she buckled herself in for the ride and responded with love and admiration. ‘You’re so cute,’ she said, ‘what have I done to deserve someone like you?’ And his reply was simple - ‘been beautiful.’ Although it was so simplistic, it was the best compliment she had ever received in the world.

—

These compliments and arguments continued throughout the night, Geoff’s drunken words making them special - that he chose to talk to her when he was in this state; that he chose to talk to her at all. She felt good, for the first time in a while, because she had finally found someone who began to understand her - appreciate her. She had never felt so close to anyone, and she’d only really noticed him a couple of weeks back. Really noticed him. The dark hazel of his eyes, the way his jawline wavered half way through. The way in which his eyes sparkled when he laughed at her jokes. And maybe he had noticed her too - the dimples that only sunk into her face when she was having a really good time, the way she smiled before she cried. The pain that reflected in her eyes when someone spoke of the dead and the dying.

Hope was a beautiful thing, something she thought that could keep her going, but unfortunately hope can’t change the future.

Days past, days of the pair becoming closer but almost drifting apart. The shorter his messages he sent to her got, the longer they got to someone else. She tried to push the negative thoughts out of her mind, but like most things she tried to lock out, they stayed put. He stopped the adoring texts, and soon more saddening ones began to seep into his mind, and as he drained his suicidal thoughts onto Noah, her depression returned - because she realised not everything can be solved by love, unlike what movies and books say. His bipolar took him over once more, and a Geoff she did not know made somewhat of a return.

January 2018

It was safe to say that Noah's drama production drowned everything else out, making her feel like a different person on stage, and it made her think like a different person too. It left her thoughts alone, and it also made the voices bigger but the pressure on stage under the lights completely drowned them out. It left a spot for vulnerability, but this was one of the happiest periods of Noah's life. Then, the week before the show turned up dropping bombs and bringing the voices bubbling to the surface.

'Did you remember it was Les's court case today?'

It took a sentence to bring the anxiety washing back onto the shore, to take a kick at the castle walls.  Fear flooded her, and she really didn't know why she was so worried. She was absolutely certain of the outcome.

'20 months sentence.'

There was a wobble in her throat the whole way home. Why - well, she had no idea. It was quiet the rest of the way home, thoughts coming and going in Noah's head. Relief, worry, loss.

---

“Are you going to the meal tonight?” Arms wrapped around her torso and Noah span to see Erin behind her. They went to explorers together, and Erin was one of the best friends she could have ever asked for. “Wouldn’t miss it,” Noah laughed, spinning around to fully look at her. “It sounds great. And curry? Hello - of course i’m going!” They had been invited to a meal to celebrate the packs seventh birthday. There would be cake, and all of her explorer friends, so as far as Noah was concerned - it was going to be a great evening.

---

Grabbing her little pink bag from Skiathos and slinging it onto her back, Noah trotted down the stairs in black jeans and a nice shirt. The email had described what they should wear as ‘formal’, but Noah didnt do formal - so jeans were the go-to of the evening. It was that, or she went in her pajamas. She prefered wearing this anyway; she was comfy and sort of 1970’s stylish. A good, H&M, £10 sale 1970’s stylish.

She threw on her coat, and stepped onto the drive in wait of the family that were giving her a lift. Fiddling with her purse, she checked she had all the money, and as the bright headlights of the car shone onto the drive, she went to jump in - and fell.

Typical Noah.

---

February 2018

The alarm clock pulsed into her ear, echoing around the room. It was the third day back to school, and she had her jabs, plus she couldn’t shake the thought of her cousins and grandparents. The what-ifs bounced around her mind, and shaking them off really wasn’t working. She dragged herself out of bed and across the floor, her feet cold as she plodded onto the freezing bathroom floor tiles. Grabbing the packet of pills from the side cabinet, Noah popped out two of the hard paracetamol pills and poured herself a glass of water. She placed the pills one by one under her tongue, swallowing them with gulps of the cold water. Pouring the rest of the glass down the sink, she stumbled back into her bed and waited for the numb feeling to seep through her, erasing all thoughts and drifting herself into a new, easy place of mind.

---

‘Who’s that nervous one in the middle? With the lovely long brown hair?” Noah’s head snapped up, nervousness pulsing through her body. “Do you want to come and get them done?” Jabs. For a second, she’d almost managed to escape the clean, doctors surgery smelling room with bundles of nervous girls sitting around her, but the nurse had hooked her and pushed her back into reality. F, she thought, it’ll be worse than last year. Lily, the girl Noah had dragged in with her poked her arm as a reminder that she was still there. “Noah.” she muttered, “lets get it over with.” Fear was an understatement. She had tensed up; and could feel every hair on her body standing on end. “Relax,” Said the nurse, looking at her evenly, “It’s better to just relax.” Noah felt a harsh scratch on her arm.

“In the name of jesus…” She muttered, making the nurse smile at her, almost in reassurance. “Same again.”

---

The Dear Evan Hansen soundtracks blurred through her ears, her fingers clicking on the keyboard at a somewhat rapid pace. Thoughts scattered, eyes sad.

I’ve learned to slam on the breaks

Before I even turn the key

Before I make the mistake

Before I lead with the worst on me

Relatable, she thought, and picked up the phone vibrating next to her, smiling. Someone was finally making her feel happy without completely using her. She tapped out a couple of replies, and checked the time. Nearly 5. Music was her key, the one people turned to find her happiness. It was calming; it was her sanctuary. She floated into the notes, fingers clicking all her ideas onto the page, imagination pouring out and turning into fully formed stories for people to love as much as she loved writing them. She was chained to the keys - the words were a drug. She had to put them onto page, she had to create with them. So, with no reluctance and a rather useful laptop, she poured the years she lost it all onto the pages.