Glitch (The Write Awards 2013 Winner)

Glitch - Chapter 19

It took mere seconds for the smile to slide from her face and vanish from view entirely as she slumped down onto the bed. She had secured another knot alongside the growing tangle of her worries. This particular knot sat ominously complex and no immediate route to untangle it presented itself. To her left she could hear the creak of Bryn’s door as he returned to his room. From the right she could hear the shuffle of Mat’s movements in the room of his own. She had no way of escaping either of their company. Not entirely. She was forced into this confinement with both of them on either side; caging her in. A flush of horrified shame swept over as she considered the possibility that, if he listened close enough, it was plausible that Mat could have overheard every word of her conversation with Bryn.

Tears bundled behind her eyes as she considered the depths of her mistake. She couldn’t have both of them. A decision would have to be made. And the longer she waited to cast aside one the harder it was going to hit them. It had never been her intention to become some fluttering fool that struggled to make even the simplest of choices. It had never been her intention to drag other people into the chaos of her mind. But she had fallen into a rut on both accounts.

 Bryn. Mat. Even Wren. The thought captured the breath in her throat and instilled a heave of twisting nausea. She still could not forget that her hand had dealt the card that resulted in the accident. It stained her record with a festering mark of blackening guilt and blame. She could feel it beneath every layer of her skin and lining the throat to steal her breaths. In a panic driven and clumsy trembles she unlatched her window and took in greedy gulps of the air outside to settle herself.

This problem was her own doing. She couldn’t blame it on the Government, or anyone else. This had been a path carved by herself alone and the fault weighed heavily on her shoulders unsupported by any other source of blame. The air of the room seemed to possess a growing stuffiness to the taste; permeated by the guilt of her actions. Freya found herself leaning further and further out the window to access the refreshment of the untainted air outside. And it began to seem like her responsibilities didn’t exist outside the cottage.

The thought was of course ridiculous. There was no such thing as barriers on blame and responsibility. But that didn’t seem to matter much. Fact had been buried under a weighty cover of cluttered alarm. And when her eyes caught the lattice structure supporting the trail of ivy up the walls her decision had been made without pause for common sense. Freya’s mind fixated onto that expanse of open space she had been led to that morning and the freedom it had flared within her. The thought of it provoked the itching and drowning desperation to get out. It rose to a level that she was unable to suppress.

She gripped the wooden lattice and gave it a shake. The structure seemed to possess enough strength to support her weight. It was a risk she was willing to take. Very carefully she hoisted herself out the window and settled her feet and hands into holds. The lattice creaked under the weight, but seemed to show no other signs of weakness. Without losing her nerve Freya navigated a path to the ground and did not pause until her feet rested firmly on the grass. Fear at the prospect of being caught fluttered somewhere in the back of her thoughts. Determination was the driving force of her emotion and nothing seemed to matter much behind that.

Her ad-hoc plan had worked. As she pushed aside the garden gate the foundations of her problems seemed to topple. Her breaths fell easier. Her mind seemed clearer. Problems receded into trivialities. She could have walked until horizon met the ground without a care for practicalities. If she got far enough she could shrug off her identity, find another ghost village to haunt and remain there until she had the peace of mind to strike out a better plan. The thought was blurred and she didn’t have the energy to twist things into focus. It only mattered that ambling without aim seemed to make things better.