Ruairdh was never an artist and I don’t ever remember him having a particular way with words, but reading his grief-filled letter broke me, then put me back together again.
He hadn’t left me, not in the fire — turns out he tried to walk through the flames to get to me — and not a second since. Ru had never let me go, not even when he thought I’d left this earth and died in the fire. His confession of guilt, begging to turn back time and insist I stay with them all those years ago, to sleep downstairs instead of in my room away from them. He spoke of his regret and how he wishes he’d known it would have been safer to stay attached to his side. Then what broke me and my hardened feelings towards him was his promise never to forget me, all written beautifully beneath my name.
I’d sobbed the entire way through reading it, then when I’d read and reread until my tears had finally dried up, I sat clutching the tear-stained paper like it was my lifeline.
All these years I had thought the worst of him, of them both. I’d thought he cared more about saving himself than me but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
‘There are more.’ Vish says, cautiously breaking the silence.
‘Wha… what do you mean, more?’ I sniffle.
Scratching his dark brown hair, his teeth clamped together, deciding if it is worth telling me or not. ‘Ru wrote to you every week, darling. Every single week.’
He couldn’t have, surely that would be too much.
‘He may be an asshole, and half the time he has no idea how to express his feelings properly.’ Vish awkwardly chuckles, ‘I mean how the fuck he pulled Fauna I have no clue…’ I scowl at the mention of my best friend but he has a point so I stay quiet. ‘But he loved—loves you. You’re his baby sister, Isla. And it has torn him apart these past years thinking he couldn’t save you.’
‘I thought he left me,’ I whisper not wanting to say the thought that has plagued me aloud.
Vish crouches down beside me, expression torn. ‘If you want to hate anyone, hate me.’
Confused, I furrow my brow not following his meaning.
‘I knocked him out the night of the fire. I dragged him away from the house. I am the reason we left you there.’
Vish was the reason they left me alone to fend for myself?
‘I didn’t know what to do, darling. Please, I promise you. If I’d known you could have gotten out, I would have been right up there with him, but the fire was up the stairs. We tried to get through it but Ru looked like he was about to burn alive. He wasn’t listening, he wouldn’t leave. I had no choice.’
His eyes swell with unshed tears, the clear night sky shining on the watery surface.
‘The cunts that started the fire were outside waiting for us… I … I had to get Ru away and safe and I promise you, as soon as I did I went back to get you but the house was completely ablaze. The flames were at your window …’
Vish’s hand covers his mouth and a tear finally spills over his lashes, quickly streaming down to his chin.
‘I climbed out, hurt my ankle when I jumped.’ I explain, ‘I’d heard a group of people out the front shouting about seeing someone so I ran. I guess I left you too.’ I finally admit not only out loud but to myself. ‘I’ve blamed you both for leaving me. That night, I got picked up by the army and I’d always thought that if you were with me, that wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have been alone. I was in so much pain with my burns…’ I run a finger over the scarred flesh of my hand. ‘So I turned that pain into resentment for you both.’
The admission churns my stomach. Selfish, that’s what I have been. I’ve spent this time thinking I’m the only one who has been hurt when they have too. We were terrified kids back thenwatching our neighbours and family die around us. They weren’t to blame for my suffering, no one was.
‘I’m so sorry, Isla. We should have never left you alone, not with what was going on.’
It’s easy looking back on it now to say it was a stupid and reckless move. Why, in a time of such violence and death, would you leave a child alone upstairs, but the world was different back then.
‘How were any of us to know what would happen to the world?’ I shrug, knowing deep down that although it was a traumatic and life-changing situation, none of us is to blame. We were kids living sheltered lives, how were we ever to know what would happen.
We sit in silence, for a while watching the starlit sky as the hours tick by.
A shudder eventually takes over me, the chill finally getting to my bones, now that the adrenaline of my emotions has calmed down.
‘I think I should go back now.’ I announce, standing.
Vish nods, his eyes still rimmed red.
Our steps are the only sound as we make our way back in silence, neither of us finding any words of comfort as we each process our trauma.
The hall is warmer, more welcoming this time as I enter it. Maybe it's to do with the lighting or perhaps it's to do with the big doofus standing outside of my bedroom door for the second time today that warms my heart.
‘Were you planning on knocking, or staying out there all night?’ I ask.
