Stranger Love [Billy Hargrove]

Stranger Love - Chapter Ten

Stranger Love

Chapter Ten: Sorry seems to be the hardest word

The air was full of what looked like snow. Flakes of it swirling into the air, never quite touching the ground, leaving no dusting or trace it even existed.

Anya stood on the threshold of her home, only, it wasn't home. 

It was naturally dark in this place. A place she recognised but also didn't. The town of Hawkins was shrouded in a cloak of death, her ears hearing the shrieks of the creature she was now convinced was real.

A figure was walking towards her. Anya squinted, unable to move from her spot. She was beginning to fight the stillness of her own body, wanting desperately to be able to move and run away. The person walking towards her was a child. Anya could see their short, curly brown hair. She couldn't see a face.

"Who are you?" Anya called out.

The child stretched out one arm towards her. Suddenly Anya was thrown backwards, landing heavily on her back. 

She gasped for the breath that had been knocked out of her. The scenery had changed, and she was now in the diner, her father before her. A gun shot rang through the air and he went limp, falling to the ground as blood poured from his wound.

Anya screamed.

She sat up, leaping out of bed as if the mattress was on fire. Her heart was racing as she gasped for breath, tears falling down her cheeks as she recalled the image of her father's death. She didn't know if she'd screamed out loud, or only in her nightmare.

Her Mom had not stirred, though Patricia was notoriously a very heavy sleeper. Anya tiptoed down the stairs to make herself some hot chocolate, unconvinced she would be able to sleep for the rest of the night.

Taking her hot chocolate and guitar to the back porch, Anya wrapped herself in her oversized fleece, taking a seat on a lounger. There was a song she had not sung since her Dad's death, one that he'd always loved and she'd listened to a thousand times. It was the only way to rid her mind of her dream, to try and figure out who that child was.

"Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup, they slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe... Pools of sorrow waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind, possessing and caressing me..."

Her voice was soft. She did not sing too loudly due to the time of night, a blanket of stars covering the black sky. Bracken curled up on the floor next to Anya's feet, perfectly contented.

They were wrong. Those people who said time was a healer. That it would make it easier for her to come to terms with her Dad's death. Time was not a healer, it only created a space, a space for the pain to become ever stronger.

Anya finished singing and her voice broke, tears falling from her eyes. Would she ever run out of tears? She thought she would have by now.

A rustling sound made her jump and she looked to her left. Billy was stood just yonder to the porch and for a moment they both just stared at one another. Anya wondered how long he had been standing there for, having not spoken to him for the clear majority of the week. She stood up quickly, making to march back into the house.

"Anya-" He began.

"Don't." She replied. "I don't want to hear it,"

"So, is this it then? You just gonna ignore me for the rest of the year?" He said in a louder voice, stepping closer to the porch. "Thought you might have gotten over it now, you know?"

"Well, you thought wrong." She made to leave, but a thought stopped her and she turned back to him. "Do you honestly think, because you got Tina to keep her mouth shut about what happened between us, that I was going to come running to you like some love-sick puppy?"