Gravitate

Gravitate

By Jo Duchemin

Kindle
Edition

Copyright 2012 Jo Duchemin

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Cover design by Laura Mills

Edited by Kim Ashman

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only,
then please return to amazon
.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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For Richard, Su and Kim.

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Prologue

STUDENT LODGER REQUIRED

OWN ROOM, OWN BATHROOM

ALL RATES INCLUDED

ONE OTHER STUDENT IN HOUSE

£350 PER MONTH

I looked at the advert.
They weren’t
my words, but it was my advert.
I didn’t w
ant someone living in my house.
I didn’t want to liv
e with other people.
In all
honesty, I didn’t want to live.

My parents had been killed ten weeks previously and
I wanted to be dead with them.
Wh
at did I have to live for now?

Chapter 1

I know most teenagers wouldn’t admit this: I got on well with both my parents. I’d planned to go to our local university after completi
ng my A levels for two reasons.
One, because it was cheaper than going away to university; and two, because I actually liked living with my parents – I knew they would still let me ha
ve a normal student experience.
Nothing was normal now.

Mum and Dad had on
ly gone out for a quick dinner.
Jus
t down to the local restaurant.
It was may
be a five minute drive at most. We’d been there many times.
The only reason I hadn’t gone was because I had one of my exams the next day
, so I stayed home and studied.
That exam saved my life and ended my reas
on for living in the same move.

It got late, but I was still up, poring over books, when th
ere was a ring on the doorbell.
Like I’d always been told, I had put the safety chain over the door when my parents left and when I heard the do
orbell I was very much on edge.
My parents had always let me know when they were on the way home, so why would someone ring the bell if nothing was wrong?

My
instinct served me well.
The two policemen at the door stood with seve
re expressions on their faces.

I knew then.

The
words they said didn’t matter.
I can
’t even recall the exact words.
What I can
r
ecall is the thundering
in my chest, the shake of my hands and the feeling of dizziness as the realisation th
at my parents were dead hit me.
I could hear the men talking, bu
t I couldn’t take the words in. They were just words. They had no meaning. Nothing had a meaning now.
My two best friends
in the world had gone.
I was alone.

The ne
xt few weeks went by in a haze.
Not just because I was self-medicating with red w
ine, but because I was so busy.
I should have been on study leave and then summer holidays, instead I found myself at the police station, the solicitors, the funer
al parlour and the off-licence.
It was just as well I was kept busy, because the silence of our empty ho
me would drive anyone to drink. Or worse.
I didn’t turn to the worse, one thought of my poor, dead mother watching me shoot up was enough to stop me in my tracks, but I would have tried anything to fill the empty space in my heart.

It had turned out that the driver who had wiped out my dad’s rock of a Volvo had been off his head on drugs, uninsured and disqualified from
driving for previous offences.
He’d decided to overtake a tractor on a single carriageway, plunging h
ead first into my parents’ car. They never stood a chance. Neither did he.
It
had been a lose-lose situation.
The tractor driver had been the first on the scene and immediately
called the emergency services.
I h
ated to think what he had seen.
The image of it would flash into my mind and the tears would form in my eyes, forcing me to rea
ch for the Cabernet Sauvignon.
Anything to avoid that vision in
my head.

My school teachers were brill
iant about the whole situation.
As I had wanted to attend the local university, they were able to work out a deal, sending my mock exam transcripts as proof of my ‘academic ability’ in light of my exceptional circu
mstances.
Personally, I would have relished the chance to attempt my exams as a light diversion from the person
al darkness my life had become.
The head-teacher had told me firmly that I didn’t have to worry myself w
ith the triviality of my exams.
I took that to mean my presence would divert my fellow students from the task of gett
ing good grades for our school.
Who could expect them to concentrate with the distraction of me, the tr
agic orphan, in the exam room?

Our rambling, five-
bedroom, detached house felt too
empty for an eighteen year old.
I considered having a party, but I hated the thought of my parents’ possessions being handled, moved and p
ossibly destroyed by outsiders.
My mum’s sister, my Aunt Jessie, was living in
Australia
.
My dad’s sister, my Aunt Sandra, was very supportive, but busy with h
er own family of five children.
They lived a two hour drive away, and although she had offered to come and stay with me at first, I didn’t feel comfortable about pull
ing her away from her own kids.
Her youngest was only four years old, so I’d lied to h
er and said I had company here.
The truth
was, I’d never felt more alone.
All the people I knew had someone more im
portant than me in their lives.
I wasn’t the centre
of anyone’s universe anymore.

My best friends did come over for the first
few nights after it happened.
I think they
were scared to leave me alone.
We checke
d and double-checked the doors.
We’d had so many sleep-overs before, but we’d always ex
pected my parents to come home.
They
were never coming home again.

Th
ree nights in, I was on my own.
My frien
ds made excuses.
They needed to wash clothes, their parents were
worried, they needed to study. I knew the real reason.
They didn’t know
what to say to the new orphan.
I no
longer fitted into their world.
Where they fought with their parents, I never
would.
Where their parents disapproved of t
heir choices, mine never would.
Where they turned to their parent
s for guidance, I never could.

On my own
, everything became more real.
When my friends were with me to distract me from my sadness, my feelings were muff
led, hushed, in the background.
When I was on my own, I couldn’t ignore the reality
of my situation; it haunted me.
The wind would rattle against
the French doors and scare me.
The phone would ring, but I wouldn’t want to talk to anyone; it wo
uld make the pain too real.
The TV would be on, but I didn’t see it – I avoided anything that could remind me that my parents were dead.

So I stayed in our perfect suburban house: the perfect fa
mily house, without the family.
I started sleeping in my parents’ bedroom, where the sheets still had a faint smell of my mum’s perfume and my dad’s watch sat on his bedside table (he always took it off after work –
off the clock, he used to say).
Getting up every morning seemed to be an increasingly difficult str
uggle. What did I have to live for?
No brothers or sisters, Mum and Dad dead, blo
od relatives living miles away.
I felt like cryi
ng out for someone to live for.
I felt so alone.

I considered getting a pet but I co
uld barely take care of myself.
If I knew nobody was coming to visit, to offer the sympathetic head tilt and to make me a cup of tea, I’d spend all day in my pyjamas, waiting until 2pm to crack open a bottle of wine from my parents’ cellar and retire back to bed.

At only eighteen, I felt my li
fe was over.
I could see everything I’d ever cared for sli
pping away, yet I felt nothing.
My p
arents had good life insurance.
The ho
use was mine and paid outright.
There was enough
to pay for my university fees.
I would
n’t need for anything in life.
Except a reason to keep going.

It was my Aunt S
andra who snapped me out of it.
She came over, unan
nounced, at 4pm on a Wednesday.
I was in my bed (well, my parents’ bed really) halfway throug
h a very nice bottle of Merlot.
When the bell rang, at first
I felt ashamed.
Who is in their bed, in pyjamas, drink
ing wine at 4pm on a Wednesday?
And then I remembered, both my parents, the most precious people I knew,
were dead, so I had my excuse.
It was pretty fool-proof w
hen people knocked on the door.
Nobody ever picked on someone so obviously in mourning.

Except Aunt Sandra.
As I creaked open the door, ready to vent a torrent of mournful abuse, I d
id not expect to see her there.
The words I’d been preparing to hurl at some unsuspecting postman stuck in m
y throat. The tears formed in my eyes.
This
woman was mourning her brother.
She knew some of my pain.

“Hi, kid,” Sandra said, sounding more like my father than I’d remembered.

“What are you doing here?” I sounded strange, even to my own ears.

“I heard you needed someone to talk to, can I come in?” Sandra came inside the house wit
hout waiting for an invitation.
That was the thing about my Aunt Sandra, if she was needed, she was there, regardless of formalities.

“
So,” she said, her eyes sweeping
over the dishevelled creature I’d become, “I hear you’re getting pretty well acquainted with the contents of your parents’ wine cellar.” I wondere
d if she could smell my breath.
I spotted her mentally noting my pyjamas and un-brushed hair.

“It’s my wine cellar now,” I answered with a defiant raise of my chin.

“Yeah, whatever you say,” Aunt Sandra said, dismissively. “The point is this: would your parents be proud of you?”

“They were proud before they left.”

“But would they be proud now?”

“They shouldn’t have left.” My voice cracked on the words.

“They weren’t given a choice.” Aunt Sandra’s eyes shone with unshed tears.

I could feel myself crumbling.
The bravado, t
he drinking, was just a crutch.
I melted in to my aunt’s arms.

“I don’t know what to do.” I whispered the words, afraid to make them true.

“Don’t
give up.” Sandra held me close.
She rubbed her hand on my arm, the way my dad had always done when I’d hurt myself as a child.

“Aunt Sandra, I’m only eighteen, I can’t even drive yet – I’m not a real adult.”

“But you can drink, vote, own property – you can choose a life that is right for you.” Sandra stroked my hair as she spoke.

“I just want my parents back,” I sobbed the words out, my voice broken, like my heart.