Trapped Between

“Beth, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Mrs. Ashburn’s voice brought me out of the debris. I turned to her, surprised she was still there, surprised she hadn’t been crushed by the falling bricks. Fragments of brick from the wall lodged in my throat and I swallowed hard, trying to rid myself of the dry, scraping lumps.

“I’m sorry,” I choked out through the rubble; my throat was ripped to shreds by the sharp chippings. “I didn’t… realise the time…got to go.”

I couldn’t get my mouth to work right, couldn’t get the words to form a proper sentence. My eyes were stinging but I couldn’t blink, they bulged from my head as if they were trying to escape the sound of my hammering heart that was thundering around my brain.

Mrs. Ashburn looked at me, like I was some kind of strange creature. It wasn’t surprising, what with the garbled, strangled mess of words that had just fallen out of my paralysed mouth.

I reached out with shaky hands and slowly, and painstaking, removed a charcoal of a guitar and the photograph I had been studying. I worked carefully so not to let them tear and then I silently passed her the staple remover so I could cradle the sheets of paper to my chest.

Mrs. Ashburn opened her mouth as if to say something, but then shut it again. My unhinged expression must have made her think twice about questioning what I was doing, why I had changed from ripping the work down to treating it like it was made out of the purest silk.

I rushed from the room, paper and photograph flapping from my clenched fists. The wall was breached and all my emotions were free to swirl around my head, filling every breath I took with thoughts of him.

I ran out of school, down the street, stopping briefly at the market as I scanned the stalls. The market was a ghost town, minus the ghost I was looking, so I barrelled off in the direction of the park.

He was there.

“I didn’t think you’d be coming back,” he said in a quiet voice.

His body was motionless. His arms were clasped round his knees as he sat, leant against the statue, and his head was cocked to the side as he appraised me. But the sound of his soft voice, soothing like beautiful music, and his calm, relaxed pose of his body weren’t enough to bring me out of my frenzy.

“You didn’t tell me about this?” I screeched at him, waving the picture and the photograph. I was so angry I was physically shaking.

He stood up straight, looking puzzled.

“Tell you about what?”

“About these,” I shouted as I laid the two pieces out on the bench for him to see. My voice sounded too high and scratchy, too loud compared to his soft melodious question. “You never said you did art!” I cringed at the absurd volume of my cry. I took a deep breath and repeated myself, trying to control the outrage in my voice. “You never said you did art.” I sounded tired and frustrated, like I was explaining something to a child, enunciating each separate word.

“You never asked?”

He shook his head, smiling a little, baffled by my random attack. The last time I had seen him I had told him that I didn’t care about him anymore, now here I was caring more than I should about his hobbies, his past times, him.

I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t lie to myself anymore.

This wasn’t just about helping him find out what happened that night; I’d been fooling myself to think that it ever could be. Just looking at his confused and beautiful face, his grey eyes searching mine, peering into the very depths of me made my exhausted heart stutter back to life. It was ridiculous to think I could have ever tried to pretend that I was unaffected by him.

I loved him. I was in love with him.

He continued to hold my gaze with his steady grey eyes, I was frozen, completely spellbound.

All the tension and anger, all the fight that had built up in me after seeing his art display, drained away, leaving me slumped, drained and resigned. I looked at him in defeat and he cocked his head to the side again, baffled by my change in disposition.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” he said again. His voice was soft; it curled around me like a blanket, comforting and warm. “I’m glad you did, even if it is to berate me over some long forgotten school work.” He laughed a musical sound like the tinkle of bells, but I could hear the tension and nerves below the chime.

“I tried not to,” I sighed. It was true. I’d tried everything in my power to keep the wall standing but seeing his artwork, knowing that he really was the other half of me had brought it crashing to the ground. I shrugged by shoulders in defeat. “I couldn’t stay away.” That was true as well.

He continued to hold me in his gaze, his face didn’t alter, the bemused look stayed in place on his features, the tension around his eyes remained.

Why didn’t he realise how important this was?

Why didn’t he see the tragedy in the fact that we were so right for each other and that we could never actually be together?

No matter what happened, no matter how much I loved him, I wouldn’t win him in the end.

“Can I see them?” he asked.

His face changed, it became earnest and open, like a curious child. Who was I to prevent him knowing his past? Who was I to refuse him anything? I took an unsteady step towards him and he strode forward to close the gap, bending over the bench to pick up the photograph.

The flame in my chest fizzed and crackled back to life. It had never really been extinguished, never really been completely smothered by the wall, and now it burned tall and true. Its flame licked across the rubble and debris, torching the remains until there was nothing left of the wall but swirling motes of dust.

“This was the band I told you about, Beth.” He gestured to photograph and a strange mix of both fondness and sadness passed over his face. “This was from their first ever public performance. I’d forgotten all about this.”

He put the photograph down, gently, carefully like he was frightened it would dissolve into a pile of ashes. He brushed his fingers over the charcoal and his voice became thick, full of emotion.

“You’d have liked them, Beth.”

I swallowed hard, trying to keep back the flame. Trying to keep back my desire to shout out how much I still loved him. Trying to keep back how much I had hurt myself when I’d built the wall.

“They were playing in the snooker hall,” I stated. I tried to keep my voice level and business like.

“In the what?” he asked, but he wasn’t really listening. His eyes never left the charcoal; his fingers never stopped stroking the sheet.

“The snooker hall,” I said again, speaking louder this time.

“No, it was the club,” he murmured, shaking his head, still entranced by the charcoal. “The Newlington Working Men’s Club.”

I plucked the photograph off the bench; I was unable to keep the intrigue at bay. I looked again at the scene, the band thrashing their instruments, the faces of the crowd turned toward the stage in reverence. The room didn’t look like this anymore, but it was defiantly the snooker club, just in a different lifetime.

“Maybe it was, but it’s the snooker hall now. They must have changed it.”

His fingers froze, his body became rigid, a stone sculpture.

“Is it still here?” he gasped, incredulous. Grey eyes pierced in mine, making me wince. The charcoal drawing momentarily forgotten.

The temperature around us plummeted, like his shocked question had brought a chill to the air. I shivered, frightened by the intensity of his question, afraid and confused by the change of atmosphere.

“Yes,” I whispered in a shaky, confused voice.

Slowly his body thawed but the ice remained in his eyes as he looked at me with an alarmed, stunned expression on his face.

“This was where they played their second gig, Beth.” His voice was a thin whisper, a strained murmur almost lost in the breeze.

All the air was knocked out of my lungs. I gasped but it brought no relief, no oxygen flooded into my system. It was cold realisation that worked its way into my body, not air; it crawled through every vein and artery, it was my turn to become the cold, stone statue.

Drew had been in the snooker hall, when it was the working men’s club, the night he had been killed. It was in that building he had been so brutally assaulted. It was from that building he had run for his life. And that building was still standing

If only the sea of faces in the photograph were from that fateful second gig. If they were, somewhere amongst that crowd would be Drew’s attacker, Drew’s killer.

“I wish we had a picture of that gig,” he murmured, his thoughts in tandem with mine.

So did I.

I thought about everything I’d learnt about Drew and wished, more than I’d ever wished for anything, that I could come up with some way to break through all the years of lies, all the years of injustice that had kept him here like this. I would do anything for him, even if it meant unearthing how he died and then having to let him go, I’d do it, even if it meant hurting myself.

I racked my brains trying think of a way to see that gig, see inside the club that night.

“Oh my god, Drew,” I looked at him with wide eyes, “I think I know where to find one.”

His face mirrored mine, shocked, wide eyed, frozen.

I told him about Laura’s scrapbooks filled with tickets, programmes, articles and photographs from her years at school, the same years that he had been in sixth form. I told him how she had pretty much documented everything and it was highly likely that if there were any photographs of that night, they would be in there.

His face turned business like and he nodded in agreement, jerky bobs of his head that showed his keenness, his desperation to find the truth. The light in his eyes couldn’t disguise that fact that he wanted to know. I tried to ignore the pain that stabbed into me when I looked at his face, but I couldn’t ignore what the spark in his eyes meant; he was no longer conflicted about where he wanted to be.

We were stood on the edge of a real breakthrough. Stood side by side on the path that might lead to the truth, uncover how he died and now that we were faced with it, he didn’t even have to think about what our next step should be. He wanted to find out. How could I compete against the pull of Heaven? It was a joke to think that I was even a contender, it wasn’t a fair fight, I had nothing.

I reached out with desperate hands, trying to gather the dust, trying in vain to rebuild the wall. I was too late to tell him that I still loved him, too late to take back my words from Sunday when I’d told him that I didn’t want him anymore. I was too late and it was clear what Drew wanted, I couldn’t allow myself to get in the way of that, I loved him too much. The flame in my chest burned just as brightly as before, but its heat mocked me, tortured me.

He didn’t notice my agony, didn’t notice my pathetic attempt to remake the wall. It was my fault this time; he hadn’t rejected me like before, as far as he was concerned I had rejected him. I’d told him that I was in this to help solve how he had died and that I wanted nothing more. It wasn’t his fault that I was once again destroyed and bleeding before him whilst he put together a plan.

“It’s a long shot Beth, but this could be the breakthrough I’ve been waiting for.”

Agony.

I threw the front door open and stepped out of my shoes, kicking them haphazardly onto the shoe rack.

“Beth?” My mum’s voice called from the kitchen. “You’ve missed tea. I thought you were due back half an hour ago?”

It took me a second or two to be able to answer. To remember that as far as my mum knew I had just returned from helping Mrs. Ashburn strip the art room.

“Sorry, Mum. There was more to do then we first thought. I’ll just be a minute.”

“Okay, love.”

I flew up the stairs and crashed into my bedroom. I closed my eyes and pulled in a deep breath. As far as Drew was concerned I had made it pretty clear that I no longer felt the same about him and that I was only in this to help him find out what happened that night. He didn’t know that that had been a lie, a lie I had used to try and stop his attempt to forfeit his place in Heaven. I couldn’t allow that to happen, he belonged there, he was already part angel in my eyes.

Nothing had changed on the surface, the mystery still had to be solved, Drew had to go to Heaven and I would be left behind. But underneath the surface, I was in agony, writhing, flailing around in acid that burned me to the bone. But I was burning for Drew, it didn’t matter that this was hurting me; I’d hold myself in the acid for as long as necessary, I’d let it strip me, rip everything away if it meant I could save him.

The decision was made.

I opened my eyes. I grabbed an empty red cardboard folder from my pile of school stuff and thrust Drew’s drawings and photographs in it. As I pushed the folder to the back of my desk my fingers brushed over the scrapbook, which was exactly where I’d left it when I had shoved it away in frustration; it was still open on the pages of articles about Drew’s death.

I’d told Drew that the scrapbook was our best shot, our only shot.

I flicked back a few pages, my fingers shook as I leafed through, my eyes searching for anything about the gig at the Working Men’s Club. The acid was splitting me into two, one part of me was desperate to find something, anything that would help me keep good on my promise to save him, the other part of me didn’t want to know, didn’t want to find anything that would take him away from me. I forced myself further into the acid, holding myself down in it; I had to let it strip away my selfish desire for Drew, my selfish desperation for his love, I had to emerge from it as the selfless Beth.

Since the wall had crumbled and the flame had demolished the remains into dust, my love for Drew was all I could think about. It was all consuming, but it was also soured by the ever present knowledge that he didn’t belong here, that he didn’t belong with me and that made it taste bitter in my mouth.

At that moment, with a page frozen in my hand, I genuinely didn’t know what I wanted more, to find the truth or to simply love Drew. I writhed in the acid and I wasn’t sure which Beth would be left when the burning stopped.

I swallowed hard and forced my eyes back the book, I had to find out something to prove the truth, that was the Beth I had to be. My eyes were swimming with tears of self-pity; I dashed them away with the back of my hand and refocused on the pages.

This was it.

It was a double spread collage about the band. It was just like Drew had said, they had been school celebrities and the Year Seven Laura had collected everything she could about them, like a true fan. The collage was made up of folded posters about school gigs, a crumbled set list with a dusty footprint on it, some photocopies of pictures of the band and a band logo that had been drawn in black pen.

In the bottom right hand corner there was an article from the school newsletter. Alongside a biography of the band, and a set review, was a photograph similar to the one I’d taken from Drew’s art display. My eyes flicked to the top of the article, searching out a date.

My blood ran cold. It ran down my arms into each finger, freezing them in place on the page. I couldn’t get my body to respond. I sat rigid, ice cold, staring at the date and I knew that my face must have taken on the same pallor of Drew’s.

This was it.

The article was about the gig. That gig.

The ice moved to my eyes, it splintered and cracked, impairing my vision; I could feel my eyes begin to freeze, staring, unblinking at the photograph. I pushed my fingers into my eyes, hard, and rubbed them, trying to massage them back to life.

Among the crowd of ecstatic faces, one particular face stood out. It was twisted into an ugly sneer, a look of disgust that ravaged its features as it stared up at the stage. The shot was grainy and faded, but I would recognise that face anywhere.

“Oh my god,” I breathed, the sound was just a whisper escaping over my frozen lips. My heart had swollen to about three times its size and it lodged itself into my throat, cutting off my air supply, making me feel on the edge of blacking out. I gripped the edges of my desk, trying to keep a hold on myself before my heart choked me to death. “Oh my god.”

I looked at the clock, it was late. There was no way my mum was going to let me go out now. Somehow I was going to have to get through the night with this knowledge. I carefully peeled the article off the page, folded it in half and tucked it into my jeans pocket.

I cut through the park on my way to school the next morning. I had no idea how I’d managed to get through the night in possession of the ticking time bomb, but I knew I couldn’t keep hold of it all day as well, it would explode if I didn’t relieve myself of it now. I could feel it burning through the lining of my pocket, branding the outline of that repulsive face onto my thigh.

Drew was waiting, leaning against the memorial as usual. He looked breath-taking in the early morning light, like the beautiful angel in waiting that he was.

“You found something,” he said. It wasn’t a question; it was a statement, like he somehow already knew that I’d pieced together something from his lost past.

I noticed his jacket and saw straight away how he knew that I’d found something. My mouth fell open as the zip and buttons caught the light, shining a dazzling silver, almost white in the morning sunshine.

“You found something,” he repeated in the same flat tone.

“Yes.” It was agony to confirm it, agony to see he was getting closer and closer to leaving me behind.

“I knew,” he murmured, gesturing down at his jacket. “These told me.”

His smile was half-hearted, as if he wasn’t happy about our step forward. He looked at me for a long moment; his eyes searched my face as if he was looking for something. I kept my expression neutral, not allowing it to betray the agony of the flame singeing my chest into a blackened mass of scar tissue.

He looked away, disappointed, as if whatever he had been looking for wasn’t there to be seen. I released the breath that I hadn’t realised I’d been holding.

There was no going back. I was the selfless Beth.

I reached into my pocket.