‘No, I didn’t mean it was bad of you,’ I said. ‘I guess I think it’s OK to be angry about that kind of thing. And sad. You know that, right?’
She looked at me then, but she didn’t say anything for what felt like a long time. ‘Yeah, I know. I just . . . I don’t want it to affect me like this. I don’t want to be like this.’
I hesitated, unsure what to say. I was surely unqualified to have this conversation. ‘What do you mean, “like this”? Like hurting?’
Her hands moved to clutch her elbows in a gesture of self-protection I now recognized. ‘It’s over. I know that. But it still hurts as much. I just wish that would go away. What if . . . what if it never does? What if I always feel like this?’
‘Well, it probably makes it worse if you tell yourself you’re not meant to be feeling it,’ I said. I didn’t know quite where I was getting that from, but it sounded right so I carried on. ‘I mean, being hurt by your parents? That’s awful. You’re allowed to feel awful about it.’
‘But, see, it’s not even that.’ She breathed in a deep sigh. ‘It’s not so much that they hurt you; it’s that they don’t care that you’re hurt. That’s the bit that . . . stays.’ She made a face, like she thought she wasn’t expressing herself well enough. ‘I mean, bruises fade. Obviously I remember how it feels to get punched, and that’s completely shit, but the bit I really remember is sitting on the edge of the bath, by myself, trying to clean up my face. And I was in the house with my family, you know? But I was doing it by myself. They just . . . left me to do it by myself.’
I both understood and didn’t understand what she was saying. What I did know was that I was the wrong person to hear it.
‘You need to talk to someone, Suze.’
Her voice was soft, fragile. ‘But talking about it hurts.’
I felt a wave of a helpless kind of sympathy rise in my throat. ‘Well, what about Brian? Do you ever talk to him?’
‘Yeah, I always used to. But ever since I moved here it’s been different. Like, I can’t pretend that things are the same for the two of us any more. He’s got a normal life, at uni and everything, and I . . . don’t. And I think he feels like that too. I’m just this crappy burden for him, getting in trouble all the time and whatever. He used to try and help me out when I needed space and stuff, but now he’s all, like, “Stop fucking around, what’s wrong with you?” You know? Like he misses me being this little kid who didn’t realize how bad it actually was. Because you don’t, when you’re a kid. It’s just your normal.’ She let out a sudden choke of breath. ‘God, this makes him sound awful, doesn’t it? He’s not. He’s really not.’
‘You don’t have to defend him.’
‘Yeah, I do.’
He didn’t defend you, I almost say, but I stop myself just in time and choose a less cutting response. ‘But why hasn’t he visited you?’
‘He helped me move,’ she said. ‘He came with me and Sarah and stayed for a couple of days. I was still pretty bashed up, so I couldn’t really leave the flat. He was a big help.’
I knew I would regret this. ‘What do you mean, bashed up?’
‘I . . . Well, I didn’t move out with a hug and kiss.’ Her smile was pained. ‘There was no sunshine; let’s just put it that way.’
I wanted to know. I didn’t want to know. Despite myself, I tried to remember all the snippets of information she’d revealed over the last few months. Hadn’t she said that Sarah had lived with them for a while? So what had she been doing? There was something about hospital as well, wasn’t there?
‘Well, it’s good you got out,’ I said, stating the obvious because I didn’t know what else to say.
‘Is it?’ She turned away from me again, taking a few steps closer to the edge. ‘Maybe things would have got better. You know, if I’d been better.’
‘It wasn’t anything to do with how good you were,’ I said.
‘How do you know? You weren’t there.’ She was still facing away from me.
‘I don’t have to have been there to know that.’
She shook her head. I caught a glimpse of the frustration wrought on her face. ‘You’re saying that because that’s what you think you have to say. But I know it was me.’
‘What was you?’
‘Why I had to leave. It was me.’
‘What are you talking about? Of course it wasn’t.’ The conversation was getting so confusing, and she was so close to the edge my heart was hammering. ‘Do you have to stand there?’
She turned on the spot, which made me relax a little. At least being able to see her face made me stop worrying that she was about to throw herself off the roof. She opened her mouth like she was about to speak, then closed it again.
‘Have you ever actually talked to anyone about this?’ I asked. ‘It sounds like you really need to.’