Chapter 13 - whatever

Lucy's Bronze's POV:

January 2nd 2022

Christmas came and went. Keira had moved back in a few days before and we had a small, secluded day. I tried to keep things as relaxed and undisturbed as possible. 

Then came Boxing Day. Rosie was supposed to meet my family then, but she said she wasn't feeling up to it, so I didn't push it. She had previously been forced to do things she hadn't wanted to do and I didn't want to drag those memories back. I wanted it to be a fresh start for her, and for me. Lately, she hadn't really been up to much at all. At first, I understood. Her whole life had changed in the space of a month. It was a lot for a 15 year old to comprehend all at once so I assumed she was just taking the time to adjust and understand everything.

After Boxing Day, there was New Year's Eve. Janine and Lauren joined me, Keira and Rosie. We watched the fireworks countdown to 2022 on television and then went outside where we set off our own in the back garden. Nothing major seemed out of the ordinary with Rosie then. She was distant, but still joined in with the celebrations. After the fireworks was the problem.

We walked back into the house, and I went upstairs to put a jumper on. When I came back down, Rosie was sat alone on the sofa, drinking what looked like a glass of coke, scrolling through Instagram. Lauren, Janine and Keira were busy trying to figure out a new tik tok dance so I joined Rosie. I flopped down on the sofa and asked her, "you okay?". Her eyes stayed focused on her phone while she answered, "yeh, I'm going to go to bed in a bit". I switched my phone on to see that it was 00.56 AM. We had spent ages trying to get the fireworks to work and then when I finally figured it out , Janine kept making bad jokes about all of us blowing up , stalling me even further. I nodded and agreed, "good idea". I was laughing at the others fail at the most simplistic of dance moves. Rosie's eyes were fixated on her phone, she was texting someone while taking slow sips out of her glass. 

After a while, the others were so exhausted from dancing, so they joined us on the sofas. Janine and Lauren were strewn along one while me and Keira were curled up on another.  Rosie had moved and was now sat on one of the bar stools towards the kitchen are. She had a blanket thrown around her head and shoulders and was still texting someone on her phone. It was beginning to irritate me, and clearly I wasn't the only one, "Hey, Rosie? Tell your boyfriend to leave you alone and come join us" Janine called over towards her. She didn't know Rosie was gay, but I wasn't going to correct her, it wasn't my place. She swivelled round on her stool and turned to face us, she looked pissed off. Her face was barely visible beneath the layers of blanket. This only irritated Janine even more, "take the blanket down, i'm sure you wouldn't want your boyfriend seeing you like that" she joked, but I cringed at the mention of Rosie's "boyfriend". I wasn't sure how Rosie would react to Janine's innocent mistake, but she just calmly swivelled back round, continuing to text on her phone and drink out her glass. An evidently tired, and slightly drunk Janine got up and marched across the room towards her. She pulled the blanket off Rosie's head, and when she was trying to put it back on, she snatched both her phone and the glass of coke. A surge of panic and worry filled Rosie's face as she desperately tried to grab both of her items back. Janine enjoyed keeping her in suspense, dangling her things higher than she could reach. This was the most interaction anyone had squeezed out of her all night, so she was determined to keep it going. Rosie was helplessly jumping up trying to retrieve her items, but Janine was too tall for her. This commotion went on for a little bit, while me, Keira and Lauren watched Janine being chased around the open-plan kitchen-living area. Lauren laughed, telling Janine to run faster. After that statement, Rosie shot a look of daggers towards her. Suddenly, her playful anger turned into a fierce, harsh anger. She yelled at Janine, "can you just stop it?! Give my stuff back!". This encouraged her even more and she took a sip out of Rosie's glass. An enraged Rosie stopped in her tracks, almost as if she knew what was coming..

Janine also stopped in her tracks. Her playful, jokey smile dropped and a smile smirk pulled on the corner of her face, "so mini Bronze enjoys this type of drink, eh?". Rosie stuttered for a bit before Janine cut her off, "lost for words?". I decided that I had better step in. Rosie's face was as white as a ghost but you could still see the anger creeping up behind. I turned towards Janine and sighed, "what are you talking about? It's nearly 1.30 I really can't be bothered". She handed me a glass, shrugged her shoulders and just simply said, "take a drink and you'll see for yourself". I brought the glass up to my lips and without even tasting anything I knew what I was. Just to be sure, I took a small sip. The liquid burned the back of my unexpected throat. Vodka. Vodka and coke. Normally, there is a bigger proportion of coke to vodka, but here, it was so strong, it might as well have been neat.

I wasn't too sure what to do in that situation. I had never dealt with that sort of thing before and I wanted to take things carefully or else Rosie might have blown up in my face. Janine, however, wasn't helping. She stated, almost laughing that she was right for once, "I told you!". I shot her a look and she apologised, "sorry, take it away big Bronze". While me and Janine were talking, Rosie took the opportunity to stand up and head towards the door. I called after her, "get back here please". She turned round, walked towards me and stopped with her arms folded. I continued, "what the hell are you thinking? Do you know how dangerous that could be? How many glasses have you had tonight?". She rolled her eyes and casually said, "4, anyway what's the problem? It's new years" as if it was the most perfectly fine thing in the world. She was frustrating me. I replied to her, "you've been drinking pretty much neat vodka for the past 5 hours when I thought you were drinking coke. That's what the problem is!". She turned back around and began to walk away but I grabbed her wrist. Her entire body flinched and then shivered. That was the second time I had done that same action in an argument. She shook my hand away and said, "whatever". I wanted desperately to keep driving my points in, but it wasn't going to help anything. Janine however thought different, "don't walk away from your mother". This caused Rosie to whip her body round and shout out, "she abandoned me so why can't I abandon her. You're actually a joke". Keira tried to intervene by telling everyone to keep calm, but Rosie just shut her down, "oh for God's sake just fuck off". And with that, she walked out the room and stomped upstairs. However, there was something different in that last shout, a pain behind it.

After the events of New year's, Rosie seemed more distant than ever. She would hide away in her room for hours and would only come down for meals. When she came to training with me, instead of joining in, now that she was fit, she would go to the gym and just run. Almost as if she was purposely wearing herself out, so she would have an excuse for later that night when I suggested that we all watched a film together. She wouldn't talk to me or Keira. Even when me and her went for a run together or Keira took her swimming, she wouldn't breathe a word of what she was evidently going through. It was beginning to wear me down aswell. This wasn't what I wanted to happen when I introduced myself back into her life. I tried to talk to Steph about it but she just said, "you appeared in her life after 15 years, you can't expect everything to be calm and wonderful. She needs you to show her that you don't think you made a mistake in bringing her here". That last bit really hit hard. I had been so concentrated on how I was feeling about it all, I had ignored that maybe she thought I was abandoning her again. From her perspective, it must look like I couldn't care less about her because I wasn't pushing her to do things or go places or meet people.  

Rosie had stayed home today. I had gone in her room and stated that if she wanted to come, she had to be ready in 15 minutes. I received a tired sigh as she rolled over in her bed, covering her head in her duvet.  As Keira and I were getting into our car after training, I thought to myself, I can't let her slip any further away from me, I need to sort this. For the past few weeks, I had thought that giving her space would be the best thing for both of us in the long run. I was annoyed at myself that it had taken me this long to realise that it was only sending her deeper and further into a downward spiral. I had to fix this. I needed to fix this. 

As I walked up to my house alone, I could feel the weight of the unexpectation on my chest. Keira had decided that this was something I needed to do by myself so she had deserted me to go to Ellie's. My mind went travelling. Would I walk in the house and would she be bouncing with happiness? Would she be so lonely and low that everything had fallen out of her control? Would she be alone in her bedroom, feeling like the walls are caving in? Or would she be laughing uncontrollably at a stupid tik tok? I had no idea, but whatever it was, I was ready to deal with it.

Bracing myself, I stepped into my hallway. Immediately, my ears were drawn to the gentle pitter-patter of the shower running upstairs. This relaxed me a little, as I couldn't remember the last time Rosie had risen from her bed, never mind had a shower. There was a small part of me that was cautiously optimistic that maybe she had taken a turn for the better. I took off my shoes, placed them off to the side and walked into the kitchen-living area. The first thing I did was make 2 coffees. One milky latte, for Rosie, and one slightly stronger cappuccino for me. I was going to need all the strength I could get to handle the inevitably tough conversation that was looming up ahead. The shower stopped, leaving an invisible heavy silence. I didn't want to invade Rosie's privacy by going upstairs to knock on her door so I called her instead. The phone rang out once. Twice. Three times. The same sarcastic voicemail, "Hey it's Rosie, don't leave a message" . After four times, finally she picked up. A sigh of relief, I didn't even realise I was holding, left my body. 

RB: hello?

LB: hi, I've just got back from training. Can you come downstairs when your ready please?

RB: err..sure. I can be down in 10. Why?

LB: thats fine, there's just a few things I want to talk to you about

RB: ok...see you in 10

And with that, she hung up the phone. I tried to piece together my discombobulated mind in order to think of how I was going to approach the situation. 

Rosie's POV:

My mind was racing with what Lucy wanted to talk to me about. Was it about New Years? Was it about the fact I hadn't accepted Gareth Taylor's offer to trial me this Saturday? Was it that she had made the wrong decision in bringing me back here? Would she send me back? Where would I go? I couldn't go back there. My brain went off on a marathon, thinking of the worst situations possible. The hairs on the back of my neck were now standing up vertically. The tension in my muscles was building up. My palms were sweaty. I kept telling myself, get a grip Rosie, calm down. But it was easier said than done. Blood was now pounding in my ears. My heart was thudding it's way out of my chest, trying to bruise my newly healed ribs. My vision was disfigured, as if I was looking through those 4D glasses you get at the cinema. The level of anxiety was rising in my body. An unbearable lump had formed in the vast chamber of my throat. I screamed for someone to help me, but no noise came. I couldn't breathe, everything was happening too fast. I stumbled trying to reach my phone, my balance completely forgotten about. The voice in my head was still trying to tell me to calm down, but my body was slowly, silently drowning it out. The colour drained from my face, even my lips went from a pinky-red to an ashen grey.

 I felt like this constant, eternal pit of pain and suffering would never end...