Lime and Soda ✓

seven - burnout

I wake the next morning with a clear head and a heavy sinking feeling in my chest. The memories from last night flood my brain, and even though they're not my problems, I feel like it all happened to me.

Astrid has been my best friend since I was five. She's the single most caring, gentle, thoughtful, kind person I've ever met, and if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I would never have believed she was capable of laying a hand on anyone else, drunk or sober. She loves Ross. Or did, anyway. I lie there, wondering how she's feeling, then realise it's my job to pick up the pieces, and get out of bed. 

She doesn't turn up all morning. I shower, get dressed, help Bea with the breakfast and washing-up, and sit at the scrubbed kitchen table with some summer prep work from school for an hour or so. I find it hard to concentrate; I lower my eyes to the page and it becomes Ross' face, white, shocked, hurt.

At half eleven, I walk the forty metres down the lane to Astrid's house. It's still overcast, muggy, the sky still presses down, constricts me. It must rain soon.

I tap timidly on the Riordans' front door, and it's opened by Sandy. She smiles when she sees me and gives me a hug, but her eyes are tight with worry.

'Good morning, Violet! I'm so glad you've come. Maybe you can convince my stubborn daughter to get out of bed.'

'Is she okay?'

Sandy shrugs, heaving an enormous sigh. She leans against the doorframe. 'Who knows? She went out last night and didn't come back until we'd all gone to bed. This morning she's just lying there staring at the ceiling. I haven't got anything out of her, she just groans whenever I ask her anything. Do you know what happened?'

'Um,' I say awkwardly. I don't want to tell Sandy what happened. Her disappointment would make Astrid feel even worse. 'Some trouble with Ross, I think.'

Sandy raises her eyes to the heavens. 'Not that stupid boy again! I've told her and told her to stop letting him mess her around, but you know what girls are like, they won't listen. No offense, Violet.'

I think of her prejudice against Ross. I don't have much sympathy for him, either, but he was an absolute mess last night, and he really sounded sad when he said he could never be with Astrid, like the whole world was resting on his shoulders. Maybe it is. He obviously has problems. Commitment issues to say the least. I wonder if it's Ross I should be comforting instead of Astrid, and an image pops into my head of eighty-year-old me running between them, trying to sort out their problems. Surely there must be an end to this, one way or another.

'Um, Sandy? Could I go and see her?' I ask, and Sandy moves aside to let me in.

'If you need anything, just let me know,' she calls up the stairs after me.

The Riordans' house is as different to Bea's as it could possibly be. Neat and tidy, colour coordinated, matching cups and bowls in the kitchen, immaculate cream carpet. The family photos lining the stairwell are taken in a photography studio against a blank white background, and obviously staged, four happy people with four perfect white smiles living a perfect life. Bea's photos in frames bought at charity shops capture real memories. Astrid's whole hippy vibe doesn't fit in here at all. Maybe that's why she comes over to see Bea and I so much. I wonder if she does that when I'm not there, and think of Bea and Astrid sitting at a table together, drinking tea. What would they talk about? It strikes me that they're both lonely in their own way, they both have that in common. Ross rejects Astrid at every turn, and Bea's husband is dead.

I knock tentatively on Astrid's bedroom door, second on the left opposite the bathroom. She groans and I take that as a "come in", so I creak open the door and stick my head round it, wary of what I will find.