All Too Well ⏤ Tim Shepard | ✓

CHAPTER SIX

Becca needs to get out of the apartment. Every second she spends in this empty place is suffocating. It claws at her throat, constricting her airways. Like somebody is holding her head down in the vast sea and she's struggling to stay afloat to suck in oxygen.

It isn't until she's outside the housing complex that she can breathe easier. She takes a step, then another step, then another step until she's crossed the road and she can't see her apartment building.

Becca can't stop seeing her mother's betrayed look when she had thrown Tommy's death in her face. Becca feels disgusting at using her brother's death like a gotcha! moment to gain the upper hand in their argument. What type of sister does that make her? Nausea rises in her throat, her guts rolling at the answer; a fucking shitty sister.

Her mother left quickly after that, slamming the front door shut behind her. She never slams the door, not even when Becca's come home after a night out way past the agreed time. Now she's going to visit Becca's father with red-rimmed eyes and a shaky voice and tell him what has just transpired.

(Not that Becca cares what her father thinks about her. She cares about how she's made her mother upset when her issue was with her father not her.)

Becca's legs walk, wanting to get to somewhere unfamiliar. Usually, she'd go to her friends. They'd listen to her if Becca wanted to talk or if she didn't, they'd watch whatever was on television as they painted their nails together.

After yesterday, Becca doesn't want to see any of her friends. Annie will be unrepentant when Becca wants her to apologise and Diana will be the peacemaker by burying her head in the sand and avoiding the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room which takes shape as Tim Shepard.

Becca always considered Annie to be the one to wield her words like a weapon. Annie had trained herself in the art of deflection and cutting someone deep to the bone with her words from an early age. It was how she survived living in that house with her parents.

But after today, Becca considers that she and Annie are more alike than she originally thought.

How does Annie do it? How does she not care about how her words hurt? Does she not care? Does she pretend not to care? Becca thinks back to yesterday in the Russells' living room. If Annie was pretending not to care about how she hurt Becca, she did a good job because Becca couldn't see any remorse in her eyes.

Becca doesn't realise how far she's walked until she stops at an intersection. She's reached the nicer part of town where the houses are bigger, the grass is greener and the cars are shinier. Becca doesn't make a habit of crossing into her nicer parts of town and she's never had a reason to. All her life she's been surrounded by people of the same status as her. The richer kids never wanted to hang out with the poorer kids. Similar types banded together in high school, as a form of protection for the Greasers.

'There's strength in numbers, Becca,' Tommy had continuously reminded her. He'd always taken his role as the older sibling seriously, even more so when Becca reached high school. Becca had always been annoyed when their mother told Tommy to look out for her, but it wasn't until he died that Becca realised why that was.

She wipes at her eyes. She doesn't want to cry in public, she doesn't want to be seen as an unstable girl from the East Side.

A group of boys laughing at the park across the road catches Becca's attention. They're loud as they throw around a football together. Their shirts are discarded on the grass in a bundle. One boy throws the football and it spirals in the air, over the other boys' heads and onto the road, bouncing until it reaches Becca's feet. She crosses the road to hand the boys their ball back.