Not Alone by Sarah K. Jackson

Author:Sarah K. Jackson [Jackson, Sarah K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2023-03-07T17:00:00+00:00

21

Five Years and Four Months Ago

I heel the last tent peg into the ground, swaying – the tight prickling sandpaper feeling of my lungs inhaling and exhaling making me feel sick and weary. I feel watchful, in case it gets worse, like it was in the first few months, when I dreaded each cough – terrified of one day seeing blood on my hands – lungs hot, tight and splinteringly painful.

It’s dark now, but I can feel the dry crisp grass beneath my boots. Hitchin is a few weeks’ slow, breathless trudge behind me. I’m tired of dead brown grass and leafless dying trees, everything withering and winking out, brown and black, the sky an unsettling thick grey haze that blocks the sun. And still that dry, unpleasant chemical taste to the air. I feel about ready to choke on the death everywhere.

I can hear the group that I passed lower down the hill – only male voices seem to carry to where I’m standing. I wonder if some are friends that survived together. That hope burns inside me, of what I’ll find when I get to Mum’s house in Birmingham. Please. Let her be alive.

It feels safe to be within calling distance of those voices, like we have some unspoken agreement that proximity is comforting. I have this urge to go down to them and tell someone about Jack. More than anything I want my mum to put her arms around me. But even a stranger’s acknowledgement of it would mean something. To have some sympathy and understanding for the awfulness. There’s been no one to share my pain with, no one to say things out loud with, and now I fully understand why they call it bottling up your feelings. I feel ready to burst. But I don’t know how to begin. So I climb inside the tent, finally pulling free of my mask, the heavy exhaustion in every limb from the day’s breathless walking like a thick smothering blanket over the grief.

The swift grind of the zip, from bottom to top, wakes me, but I feel so groggy that I don’t even open my eyes.

I do to the crinkle of the groundsheet as my sleeping bag is yanked out, my legs tangled up inside.

‘What the fuck are you—’ I find my croaky voice only to be smacked across the jaw. My face throbs. Numb pain grows in my gums, something warm running from my nose. His face is a blurred shape in the dim twilight. He’s shouting, but I can’t focus on the words. His skin is rough and greasy as I struggle, like that of a teenager, but his voice is deeper and hoarser – damaged. He’s tearing, pummelling, but it dawns on me that he doesn’t know what he wants.

His boot slams into my stomach, crumpling me.

‘Stop!’ I’m wheezing, trying to suck air in, then coughing and gasping, my lungs becoming hot again like they were months ago. I try to protect my chest. His hands are in my hair, yanking my head back onto the hard earth.

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