Soul Shattered Phoenix

Relationships are gruelling.

I wouldn’t know how I’d keep on existing without them, but Fuck they’re hard work aren’t they?

So many ups and downs and twists and turns in here. Fracas amidst celebrations. Blissful companionship intertwined with fraught tensions between inner circles and cliques.  A world I’ve never really understood or much cared for, but somehow always found myself caught up in unexpectedly, and it never ends well.  I don’t do well with exclusivity or blind loyalty.  I don’t respect dishonesty or masked characters hiding behind kindness, which always end up stabbing you in the back.  So submerging myself into a defined friendship creates inevitable chaos as I unintentionally break the unspoken rules that I do not understand and never quite seem to get right.

Rebecca has hidden away mostly in her room as she said she quite often would. She just missed out on the part explaining she does this after she drops a shitstorm on the house, and she just hides until it blows over. Something I thought I could relate to, the need for retreat and isolation, turns out is not the same after all. Mine is always out of necessity, not that Rebecca’s isn’t, but it appears her catalyst is shame more often than not.  She keeps snapping me though, asking if I’m OK.  I respond, but briefly. I’m cautious now I’ve seen more of her, not like that, but since that night, I’ve seen a different side of Rebecca. 

Felicia is Felicia. 

I don’t know who she is more upset with, Adele, Rebecca, or Rebecca’s daughter Lauren.  A whole world of things have happened that I am trying to explain, but I simply can’t put them precisely or succinctly enough to encapsulate it all.  But I’ll give it my best.

Friday.   The end of another long week, marking my third week at the refuge.   I received a call from Felicia (I must remember to tell her I hate phone calls).

“Can you meet me out front?”

“Are you OK girl? Where are you?”

“I’m OK, can you meet me outside out the front and bring my tin?”

“Sure, I’ll see you in a second”

She didn’t sound OK at all, but Felicia was an emotional girl, and it didn’t sound too distressing,  so I grabbed my bits together.  We had discussed the possibility of heading in to town today anyway, now was as good a time as any.  It just takes me a minute to pack up my bag on my wheelchair and make sure I have all my emergency things with me.

I headed outside,  but no sign of her, I parked myself in the empty space on the double driveway outside the refuge so I could rummage through my bag for my phone.   As I pulled around in the space I heard Rebecca’s youngest Zack cycling up towards me and Rebecca was walking down the pavement towards the house. Felicia was also headed out the door, head down, sunglasses on.   This could go one of two ways.

Rebecca and Sophie remained civil and I tried to busy myself discreetly, but also be a calming and safe prescence for both of them to interact. Felicia was riled, and I was waiting for some kind of explosion to happen  at any minute.

Just as the intrusive thought came rolling into my head, Gwenne appeared at the front door, bag and keys in hand, looking even more distressed than she had the past two weeks just past. 

“Felicia I need to have a word with you. I’ve just come from Lauren’s room and she says you’ve been in there being aggressive, and she’s really upset.” The words just came tumbling out and almost echoing across the cul – de – sac type area of the street we were all gathered across.  I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing and hearing. 

Felicia of course pointed out that this was a complete falsity and would have meant that she would have had to push past Lauren in order to enter the room, and she was not about to be stood and accused of that. Certainly not from a minor that had just insulted her in the minutes before.  I knew this because just before Gwenne had burst onto the scene, Rebecca was already apologising for Lauren’s rudeness on her behalf.   Lauren, who had been left unsupervised had answered the door to Felicia, who was asking after Rebecca. Lauren, who was only twelve years old, but could easily pass for sixteen, looked her up and down, sneered and jibed “she’s not here, what do you want her for anyway? You’re weird!”

Felicia, astounded, had called me at that point and asked me to meet her outside.   So here we all were, out on display in front of the whole street, me wondering how the hell I get wound up right in the middle of these things, unfurling before my eyes.

“Well, Lauren’s really upset, I’m going to need you to calm down Felicia” and as she finished her last words she jumped into her car and fled away from the house, just as any of the women living here would have done in order to get here.

I just watched, amazed, disappointed,  a little terrified and a feeling of abandonment all over again.  I turned and looked up at Rebecca and Felicia who were just as speechless by what had happened as I was.

“We’re headed to town.” Felicia announced and started walking briskly away from the house.  I followed nervously.  This was not what I signed up for, but here I was. “What the hell had just happened? Felicia had yelled something in the crossfire to Gwenne earlier about other accusations involving drinking and smoking.  I had to find out what had gone on.   Was I implicated somehow? Fuck. This is the last thing I need.  I’m on thin enough ice as it is, and no one has a clue why, I can’t afford to be getting myself into any more trouble and creating attention.  I can’t risk losing it all.