Roses Are Not Red

Iris

The rain pelts against my back, penetrating my cordura jacket. It's only fifteen minutes' walk from the college back to my house, but with my trainers slowly becoming miniaturised ponds, it seems to take a whole year before I'm standing in the porch, shaking like a dog. Dad's irises, which often looked like bruises to me, are sitting by the door, freshly watered. I step into the hallway, depositing my sodden trainers on the radiator as I pass. The house is perpetually on the move, as if it Is crafted from muscle, not brick. A friend of Dad's designed it, utilising the limited space to create a large open plan kitchen which seeps into the conservatory, snaking back to the living room. I peek into the garage, since that's where the fridge is kept. In the dark, it looks a little too much like an Egyptian sarcophagus. Turning away, I set my bags down in the hall. Call out.

"Dad? I'm back." Both of us keep odd hours, so we normally leave messages dotted around the house to let the other know what we're up to. Tonight, I find nothing. No neon orange post-it notes, no crumpled pages torn from a 2020 planner. Nothing. The kitchen is half-submerged in darkness – the evergreen tiles cloaked in pitch. Our chequered tablecloth, upon which sits a near-empty fruit bowl, is pristine as it has ever been. I glance around the room, then stride to the back door. It's locked. My breath catches. Where is he? He's never out this late and he always leaves a message. He's always been with me, always drifting around me like a ghostly hound. A Familiar, I think. That's what they're called. Not that I'm much into fantasy. In fact, I can't remember the last time I read a book. Why waste an afternoon reading when you can sit down with caramel popcorn to watch a film?

I remember when Dad took me to the cinema for the first time. Me holding his hand so tightly I was afraid I'd split his skin. He only smiled and bought me a box of multicoloured sweets, so many that straight after the film, I spent an hour in the toilets, vomiting. I can't remember what we went to see, only that Dad held me during the moments I wanted to leave because I was terrified and that he laughed with me when the good characters triumphed at the end. He was the one who'd bought me my first hockey stick, though I'd acquired many more since then. He'd presented it to me on a scorching Saturday afternoon, when I was sitting on a bench, my legs dangling above the pavement. Across from me sat the Astrocturf from a college that, at the time, I didn't think I was smart enough to go to. Students, fearless warriors in shin pads, were racing about the pitch, some moving in tandem, others shifting like serpents from one end of the turf to the other. It was like watching a dance. Often violent, often crammed to the brim with lewd, war-like cries, but a dance all the same. Dad must have seen that I was watching and half an hour later, he returned with my very own hockey stick from the sports shop in town. I clutched it to my chest, beaming. My smile was so wide I think I might have split my teeth. Dad smiled back.

He is my best friend. The only friend I need.

And, I remind myself, he isn't where he should be. He isn't here, poised over the back of our upbeat television, trying to untangle the wires. We don't often sit and watch shows together, but when we do, it is a parade, a spectacle.

My shoulders slump. He isn't here. I can't hear the floorboards creaking, so he isn't upstairs either. Biting my lip, I wonder if he'd left a message of his whereabouts upstairs. But then why hadn't he texted me instead?

Stalking up the Verdigris steps, our interior decorator's choice, not ours, leaves me weak at the knees when I find nothing. The landing is clear, save for the wicker wash basket I made on an craftsman's course when I was twelve. Dad's bedroom is off-limits, but then so is mine. He knows better not to leave any messages in my room. The main body of the landing is occupied by the door to the bathroom, which is closed. I open it. Nothing. No one. The last room is Dad's study which, when I ease open the door, is freshly hovered; the lilac carpet seems to resemble the coat of a Percheron. His desk is free of all papers and his laptop sits adamantly in its case by the desk chair. The chest of drawers, which lies below the shelves depicting books on accountancy, has been recently dusted. But no message. And no Dad.

Frantically, I race to my room, hoping that he broke the rule. Instead, all is find are my walls drowning in ice-hockey posters, most of them from the Leagues in the U.S. I've always wanted to go the America, to play a league. I can't ice-skate well, which is an issue, but surely they'll let me play field hockey. Or lacrosse. I practice that at the weekends with a trainer. Dad thinks I'm at study support. Even though lying to him feels like I'm licking acid from a flask, I know he would never support me. He'd support me with anything, but certainly not that. Not the sport that Robbie had loved.

My legs buckle. Suddenly, I'm on the floor, drenched hair almost twisting around me like flames being doused. Dad didn't break the rule; he didn't leave a message in my room. It would break me if he came in here. If he saw the bed. The bed where the duvet is scrunched in the far corner, where the mattress is free of sheets and covered in tears from my nails at night. I can't remember the last time I invited anyone over. No one else has set foot in my room since Robbie. I bite my tongue. I can't keep thinking of him, of what happened to us, of what should have happened to me. Thoughts like that become led weights, anchoring themselves to my shins. The scar on my abdomen begins to burn with a phantom. Robbie, I wonder, staring at my torn pillowcases on the bed, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I look up, my eyes racing to reach the mirror which I keep covered with one of my teal scarves. I can't look in the mirror, otherwise I'll see him. His hair, crimson as my own. Only, his eyes were not reckless smatterings. His eyes were the perfect blue – both of them like twin oceans. Mine are merely twin mistakes. Shaking my head, crawl to lean against the door. My legs instantly curl to my chin. I don't know how I long I sit there, but, eventually, the front door cracks open. Rushing to my feet, I swing downstairs, enveloping my Dad, who soaked to the skin, in a monster hug. Like the ones Robbie used to give, his hands larger than a bears.

Dad reels back, wobbling on his feet. He isn't wearing a waterproof, but rather a black jacket which might as well be made of clingfilm. I pull back from the hug and shove him lightly.

"Where were you?" I ask. Dad smooths his hair back from his face. Unlike mine, his skin is peach, not pale, while his eyes are green. His hair is a rusty brown. He offers me a wan smile.

"I was visiting Robbie," he says. I step back; he might as well have slapped me. He knows I can barely hear his name without wanting to crumble to ash. I can't ever see him again. I can't. How Dad manages to leave the cocoon of our terrace to visit him, I can't fathom.

"I was worried," I mutter, almost to myself. Dad shrugs off his jacket, placing it on the radiator in the hall. He faces me then, his eyes hooded.

"Have you visited him yet?"

I don't answer.