The Dark Star - Aftermath Pt. 01

Running through the Hospice grounds and Car Park I charge through reception doors. I know my way all too well. I don't stop.

Pushing past two nurses who shout after me as I tear down a corridor, side stepping another nurse pushing an elderly lady in a wheelchair.

Turning a corner pushing through double doors

Crashing into room 21b, my lungs burning with exhaustion.

The bed is empty.

"She's gone Jack....I'm so sorry she's gone".

I look over to the corner of the room where my Auntie Carol and my cousin Katie sit. Their faces tear stained, they both stand, move forward and embrace me.

"I'm so sorry Jack .... I'm so sorry" I hear the words of my Auntie Carol, but I can't register what's going on. "She held on ...she held on but..."

"Why? .... Why?" I repeat incoherently warm tears streaking down my face.

"We were trying to get hold of you all night." Katie softly interjects.

"Where have you been?" I turn my head to the doorway where Mica stands clutching a sleeping Grace to her chest.

Chapter Five; Ugly Truth

She's talking to me, but I can't process the words she's saying.

Sat next to me on a wall in a car park outside a pub I've never been to before and never want to come back to ever again. Random strangers dressed in black hover in the background but don't come near; they simply slip away.

I loosen the black tie around my neck as I look into her deep brown eyes; trying my best to focus, trying my best to understand what she's saying to me. A White Van pulls away out the car park slamming on its breaks as a cyclist crosses its path. The horn blares; the cyclist hurls verbal obscenities. My mind recalls learning to ride my bike with Dad, my Mum watching on so happy, so elated.

I concentrate looking back into her eyes through the blur of tears in mine. She's very pretty l think, I don't remember her being so pretty. Dressed in a black dress over black tights with a little black leather jacket. We hadn't seen one another in years. Times change so much, people move on and if you stop still, like I had, everything moves on around you at breakneck speed.

Now whatever life I had, had come crashing down around me.

I felt so alone; I knew I wasn't alone, I kept telling myself I wasn't alone but that couldn't help me feeling so horribly alone. I'd buried both my parents in the space of a little over two years. I was only twenty-two I shouldn't have had to have thought about such a possibility for years.

I missed them. I missed Mum but I missed Dad now more than ever now; I had no idea Why?

The last week had raked up so many crazy emotions. I'd read that memory stick countless times in the last week, usually in the middle of the night after far too much cheap alcohol, trying to fathom out what was contained between the tales of sordid sexual liaisons.

"Jack?... Jack.... are you listening to me Jack?"

I focus on the words of my cousin Katie sat beside me, Kate as she now preferred to be known, her words break through the combined drunken and emotional blur, for the briefest moment of clarity my depression seems to subside.

I turn my head to her feeling fresh tears well in my eyes. Late reaches up her left hand, on which sits a huge diamond ring as she wipes a tear from under my right eye. Her and my Auntie Carol had been such a huge help to me over the last week or so. I genuinely couldn't thank them enough for all the help they had been, not least financially. The tears well again; I'm so useless I couldn't even afford to bury my own mother.

"I'm so alone Katie .... I'm so scared and alone."

She pulls me into her, and I clutch her slender frame my head crashing over her shoulder.

"You're not alone Jack ...you've always got me and Mum," she near cradles me "You've got Mica and you've got your beautiful daughter".

I start to sob.

"They'll take care of you.... they'll take good care of you Jack".

I pull my head away from her shoulder I shake my head "The... the reason I... why I couldn't ...didn't answer my phone that night..."

Kate looks at me with a sincerity, but she doesn't say a word, she waits for me to finish what I've begun.

"I... I wasn't working a night shift... I was cheating on her."

Just sharing my burden, admitting to my guilt, feels as though an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

**********

"Will you stop fucking going on about fucking money... fucking bills... all I hear is your whinging fucking voice when I get up in the morning when I get home from work even as my head hits the fucking pillow Mica... I've got you fucking pestering me."

My clenched fist slams down hard on the table, causing the plates cutlery and condiments to bounce visibly on the surface.

"Will you be fucking quiet .... you'll wake Grace" she scorns on a hushed drawn-out tone.

I rise from the table as she defiantly stares at me from the kitchen sink, her hands wrist deep in murky washing up water.

My blood boils, seething I can't handle this incessant shit. I'm doing all I can working extra shifts to make up for the time lost for my own mother's death and funeral. I've barely been here, at home, for the last week. I'm tired physically tired from seven days of near enough back-to-back shifts at one of my two employers. Tired also of the frustrations I return home to either day after day or night after night. Everything's blurring into one sleepwalking nightmare. My life has no time for even the grief that I bottle up inside of me. I can't put up with any of this shit anymore.

I look at her, the girl I once loved with all my heart. The girl I've been cheating on for weeks. Chloe gave me everything I needed. Chloe understood me. Chloe had been the one to, literally, throw her arm around me and care for me when Mum had died. Mica had just carried on like nothing had happened, nothing changed for Mica, I thought she'd at least understand, she'd lost her own Dad barely 5 years ago. Surely, she should understand my loss, my grieving, but no she'd ploughed on, carrying on like nothing had happened. Like Mum would call or walk in through the front door with a cheery hello at any moment.

It had been different when we'd found out about Dad. The shock of his murder far more unexpected admittedly than Mum's slow and torturous demise. When Dad had died it had been Mica who'd forced me to see sense in at least attending the funeral, if only as she'd argued to gain closure. I didn't want to, but she'd been a voice of reason. So much had changed since then. People do change.

Life has spiralled since then within months Mum had been terminally diagnosed; my life prospects stunted by the position I found myself in; not least raising a baby when I was little more than a child myself. Mica and I coped, barely, held together I appreciate more and more by our bond and love of Grace. I worked hard but just lately not even that was enough.

"How do we get back?" I ask meekly, regretting having lost my temper with her.

"Back where?" Mica asks confused.

"Back where we started .... back before all this shit and misery?" I qualify.

"Was there ever such a time?" Mica dries her hands in a towel and steps away from the sink following me as I head into the living room "We never had that Jack ... I was pregnant before we knew it... perhaps you should ask should we have even got together? .... would we have gotten together like properly together if it hadn't been for?"

Mica shakes her head as she backs me literally into the corner of the room.

"Why don't we accept we are broken Jack .... why don't we realise that?" Her eyes flicker but her tone is calm "Maybe it's best if Grace and I go spend some time with my Mum".

Her words cut through me like, like she's just reached into my chest and ripped out my heart. Even though I agree with her sentiment the reality of what she suggests stabs my stomach like she's just taken a knife from the draining board and plunged it into my gut.

"You don't take her away from me ...you don't take my Daughter away from me." I snarl forcing my emotions back hiding them behind anger. "I've lost enough."

"You can't even be honest with me anymore .... you expect me to care about you?" Mica continues.

"I'm always honest ...you and her are what I live for," I bargain.

"Her .... that's what I'm beginning to suspect .... when you say her who do you mean?"

"You know I mean Grace" I fire straight back at her.

"But you still can't tell me where you were the night your Mother died."

Mica changes the direction of the argument. Pressing once again, not trusting my story of meeting some of Tubs and Harry's friends smoking weed and passing out on their sofa after I'd worked an extra shift at the warehouse. The truth of where I'd been still haunted me a little; a night filled with such raw passion and exhilaration. While I'd been with Chloe my Mother had slowly painfully, no matter how much they tried to assure me, passed away. Clinging to life until a little after sunrise. Clinging to the prospect of seeing her son one last time.

"There used to be a time you cared" Mica turns her face away from me looking to the floor.

"You're right .... a time I cared about you... I still care about Grace." I sneer in response; she can question my love for her all she wants but not for my daughter.

"No, you don't Jack .... you only care about yourself ....you're just like him." Mica spits at me jabbing an extended finger in my direction.

"Just like who?" I don't need to ask but I do.

"Like Father like Son as they say .... selfish ...arrogant ...wanker."

My fists clench I deliberately step physically away from her provocation. Shaking my head looking out the window at the Tower Block opposite.

"You didn't even know him Mica..." My voice raises, ".... you're basing your opinion on vicious gossip and rumour".

"Oh, I knew him," she retorts. "His controlling manipulative behaviour I knew it only too well".

"How .... how the fuck did you know him?" I turn her, my face contorted with rage and bitterness "You're just reiterating the stereotype."

"I knew him," Mica states seeming to rise now in stature. "I knew him .... I knew him because I fucked him"

She's lying. Why the fuck is she saying this. Why the fuck would she say such a thing. She would have been 18. We were together. There's no way, no way on this earth Dad would have paid her any attention. He was with Mum still living with us when Mica and I even got together. Dad had offered me advice about her when I'd confided in him. They'd barely met. Once maybe twice before that horrible experience the last time I'd even seen him. Was this why he rejected us, my mind scans the details of the memory stick, did he know. He couldn't have. Her words confuse me, her words anger me.

"You're lying".

"Am I" she shakes her head "I first fucked him at your 18th birthday party ....in the garden of your house while everyone slept upstairs."

I feel the metaphoric knife in my stomach slip deeper and twist.

"We fucked for weeks in secret... whenever we could.... making time for sordid dirty little rendezvous... a little Hotel out in the countryside was his favourite place to take me."

I shake my head, anger simmering just below the surface. The diary flashes through my mind stories of 'A' submitting in a hotel suite filled pages. My mind confused I know that's not, even within the jumbled diary the chronology doesn't seem right and not least because she's lying. Saying this just to spite me, draw a reaction.

"I say I fucked him," Mica paces the room. "He fucked me... he wasn't a lover .... he'd pin me .... control me... always so brutal ....always so raw ....his eyes so emotionless... he saw me for what I was the desperate young girl looking for the touch ...the love of an older man... let's just say I didn't exactly get that love."

"Shut up you cunt" I holler at her smashing a glass vase from the windowsill not even realising I've sliced open my hand open.

"I sucked it all up though...." she chuckles, she actually chuckles, "...or should that be swallowed it all down.

I step towards her my jaw set my teeth grinding. Why was she telling me this?

"While you were fawning around me with pathetic little texts and telling all my friends what you thought about me .... all the time I was getting fucked by your Father."

Mica laughs at me. Laughs at me now as I face her down.

"Shut up," I warn her.

"I got out though." she shakes her head "I got away, but I guess Gemma wasn't so lucky."

The red mist descends I didn't even realise how close I stood to her. The back of my right-hand catches Mica cleanly across the right-hand side of her face. I regret it instantly. Stepping back her feet catch on the rug in the middle of the living room. She crashes backwards heavily on to living room floor.

I shake my head "I'm so .... Mica I'm so..."

"Sorry" she defiantly finishes my sentence for me "You're not sorry .... just like him you're not sorry".

I turn away, my head literally in my hands.

"There was no contrition.... there was no remorse from him...." her voice pierces my conscience, "Even after I told him."

"Told him what?" I can't formulate what she's intimating.

"Even when I told him I was carrying his child."

The walls and ceiling of the shit hole flat seem to come crashing down around me. The words of one of the diary entries I long pondered run through my twisted disturbed mind. The suggestion he'd fathered another child. But that would make Grace my...It can't be possible. Can't be true.

"Liar," I holler.

In a horrible coincidence that brings tears streaming down my face the sound of Grace crying starts to filter through to the living room from her bedroom.

"No Jack I'm not... My Daughter ...My Daughter was conceived while he held me face down on a bed..." she sneers with large wet tears now welling in her eyes "I was impregnated with my hands locked in cuffs... a blindfold over my eyes... and dressed in my fucking school uniform".

**********

I watched her as she lit up the long spliff, watched as she took 2 deep drags and then passed it straight to me.

"Forget about that Bitch." Chloe offered her eyes narrowing as she blew smoke straight into my face. A sentiment that was easy for her to say.

"How can I?" I refuse to cry in front of her but couldn't hide my anger my raw emotion "If it's true she's ruined my life... destroyed everything... the last 3 years have been a lie... no a joke, a fucking joke she's played me for a fucking fool."

I appreciate I'm ranting.

"Calm down Jack," Chloe gently implores, but I can't I'm seething as I take another long hard drag on the strong spliff.

"It's all gone so wrong.... where did it all go so wrong?" I state more out loud than to Chloe.

She doesn't need my burden she doesn't need the guy she's practically just met bringing all this emotional baggage to her, but I can't help myself "What do I do Chloe? ...Where do I go?"

"Well, you can obviously stay here" she states resting her hand over my forearm.

"Really?" I turn to her handing her back the joint.

"Sure.... tomorrow we'll go get your stuff... get what you need.... I mean it doesn't mean anything... like don't go getting any ideas but just until you're back on your feet...you can stay as long as you like," she exhales blowing smoke straight up at the ceiling her right hand now slides reassuringly across my left thigh. "This... I mean this doesn't mean ...well anything ...it's not like we are exclusive or anything."

"Thank you," I state. Chloe's direct forthright reasoning is what I need. "...and I understand what you're saying."

"I mean we can still fuck and everything," she states a little too chirpily before pausing and back tracking, "I mean if you want to ...I know you've just... and well.... Oh, shut the fuck up Chloe".

"You know what..." I state with a lopsided grin, ".... you're alright you are ...you're alright."

"Well, it's a compliment of sorts" she smirks teasing me before changing the tune "I can look at getting you some work if you want ...if you want a complete change of scenery... you can come and work with us .... I mean the pay is shit ...be only about three hundred a week... but it's fun... more fun than picking and packing in a Warehouse anyways."

She chatters away excitedly I don't question why she wants to offer me an alternative job when it dawns on me, I have no idea what it is that she does for a living.

"What do you do?"

"Hustle" she giggles.

"Hustle?"

"Yes....Little bit of this little bit of that" Chloe smirks "It's not entirely legal all the time.... I work for a project I guess you could call it...we put on huge organised parties in abandoned warehouses and buildings."

I sit back taking the joint from her outstretched hand, "Sounds intriguing".

"There's big pay days after the events... depending on how much moneys made. It's all like .... Underground shit.... but we sell tickets on the dark web set up nights and put on the best fucking parties you'll ever attend .... The Phoenix." She shakes her head; her mind off reminiscing somewhere "They're wild nights ... super fucking wild nights... you'll love them."

"The Phoenix?" I question looking into her eyes the impact of the strong joint slowing taking hold of me "How have I never heard of them?"

"Duh," Chloe playfully slaps her open palm gently against my forehead, "Because they're secret?"

"So, what do you do week by week for them?" I ask the confusion of what she's telling me mixing with the cannabis and I'm fast forgetting all about Mica. And there she is I see her face taunting me again I hear her words in my head. Had he really done that; had my own Father really betrayed me in such a way. I take a big, long drag on the joint, Chloe is still speaking but I'm not listening. Something about recruiting something about promotion about drugs supplied to house parties.

"There's a party next week" I tune into what she's saying "Don't give up the day jobs just yet but why don't I take you along make some introductions ...see what happens .... I mean if you're interested."

"Sure" I idly answer. Not really sure what I'm agreeing to.

"There's a big event at the end of next month... we'll go to that whatever.... you've never seen anything like it Jack... there's DJ's... drink... so many drugs .... it's so liberal".

"So better than Servitu" I raise an eyebrow.

"Soo much better .... but that place is shit compared to the Dark Star" Chloe flounders a little as I scowl "Sorry there's me and too much information out of my big mouth again."

"You're alright.... Don't worry" my hand squeezes her knee.

"Shall I skin up again?" Chloe offers.

"That's not a bad idea," I smirk.

Chloe leans forward and kisses me fully passionately in the lips. I push her backwards across the sofa. Despite the haze of the weed in my system I feel my dick grow as I pull her little loose dress up over her hips

Chloe frantically pulls at my belt.

A half hour later, sat naked on the sofa as I pull my jeans up over my hips following a slow stoned fuck Chloe skins up again.

"Where did it all go wrong Jack?" Chloe asks me blowing out a huge lung full of smoke; surprising me by returning to my earlier statement "If that's not too personal a question".

"I think..." I answer immediately and honestly "...it was when my Dad fucked my English Teacher".

"You can't get your life back .... but what if you could get justice .... get even." Chloe neutrally states her eyes look off into a distance on some unspoken thought.

There's a devil in her eyes, a mischief I've not seen before; something I don't know if I find endearing or alarming,

I don't answer her. I take my own huge lungful of calming thick smoke as I take the fresh joint from her outstretched delicate fingers.