Let The Sun Rain Down On Me... in Chapter 8 : Time to Heal

I am currently living a nightmare. I am living my nightmare; the life I swore blind I would never return to, a town I swore I would never return to, yet here I am.

21st April 2010.

Lunchtime-ish.

The sun was out and it was oddly warm. You wouldn’t have thought it was April, I often think this all happened in late May as it was such a sweet day. I’d spent the morning in classes and had strolled from Uni to the office. That should have been enough to tip me off that shit was going to go down. I’m not a walker, but then I hated getting the bus too. It wasn’t so far but as I crossed the threshold a chill ran through me. There was weird atmosphere; tense, cold and unforgiving. I got to my desk and started setting up but nothing would work. The phones were down, the internet too. Bettina appeared in a cloud of her trademark cigarette smoke and proceeded to huff and puff,
“Kit, there’s no money left” she sighed from her desk. I thought I misheard her at first.
“What? Check petty cash, what are we needing? Coffee again?”
“No Kit, there’s no money left, they cut the phone lines this morning. We can’t pay the bills, or the wages. I’m sorry.”
The room started to spin concurrently to the way my head was spinning, I felt sick. What the fuck?
“What? How? The books say we’re breaking eve…oh my God.” The realisation hit me in one great strike, she’d been falsifying the accounts behind my back.
“I’m really sorry Kit…”
“I asked you if we were going to be letting people go last fucking week, you told me we weren’t, you promised everything was fine. You stupid fucking bitch, do you even realise what you’ve done? Do you realise what you’ve implicated me in?” I don’t realise that I’m screaming at her until her husband pops his head in to check if everything’s ok.
“Kit, I thought…”
“You thought fuck all, you didn’t fucking think, not for one fucking second. Not for one FUCKING SECOND!” I can feel heat within me rise to my eyes, tears are burning my eyes, I refuse to let her see me cry. I grab my stuff and run out the office for the last time.

As I burst through the doors, the sun hits me at the same time as the realisation that I’m unemployed. I start to put one foot in front lf the other, I’ve hit auto-pilot, I’m going through the motion with no idea as to where I’m going. The tears are now streaming down my face and I’m aware of my fathers voice, at somepoint in my march towards the unknown I have rung him, I’m trying to tell him what’s happened but I can’t; I can’t form breaths let alone words and all he can hear is me gasping for breath as my heart shatters because unknown to me at the time, my sub-conscious is completely aware that this is the beginning of the end.

22nd April 2010

Lunchtime-ish.

I roll over to a cold pillow, my head is fuzzy, my arm awash with dirty, smudged stamps, giving me half a clue as to where I thought the treasure must have been the night before. Staring at the ceiling I start to remember but did it actually happen, or was it just another Jäger-dream? Slowly the day before rewinds in my mind.

In my emotion fuelled haze I had walked the 5 miles from the office to my front door where I broke down in a heap, sobbing. Big tears, real tears, with each sob a piece of my soul ran down my cheek. I had dared to dream, I had dared to try and acheive, to better myself, and this was what I got for it. All of a sudden there was a screech of tyres, the slamming of a door and I was being scooped from the pavement. Daddy had found me. He carried me inside and sat me down. He tried in vain to calm me down, he needed to be able to understand, to this day he still doesn’t understand what has truly happened. No-one does.
He did what Daddies do, he tried to get me to stop crying, he tried to get me to eat, and he stayed with me until I passed out before putting a blanket over me and leaving me a note asking that I ring him when I woke. I didn’t ring him. Instead I had a bath, I got ready and I went out on the lash. I was back where I started, so I figured that what was needed was a job, and so in every bar, every club I spoke with every publican I knew from back when I had worked in the pubs and clubs in my teenage years.
I check my phone; 18 missed calls, all from Daddy. Various text messages from friends, potential lovers and potential employers. Two job offers. I knew which one I would take instantly. I knew the manager of old, he had tried to poach me several times before. I would start on Friday.

This was a step in the right direction, maybe all was not lost after all.

Last updated December 20, 2017