Page 20 of The Moon Also Rises
“Yes, by letting us capture your mushroom head and throwing you in jail… Yes! Like that!” Radia yells as she finally grabs me with her piranha plant.
“Boom!” Roxie’s celebrations fill my ears.
I’m not surprised. My attention began wavering not long after they began casually discussing my absence from their lives.
“Okay, that’s my cue to go,” Radia says. “You should also both go do something else that isn’t hanging out online at eight o’clock on a Friday night.”
“Ugh, but that would mean talking to people,” Roxana groans.
“Yeah, people suck,” I agree but it sounds much weaker because it’s not true. I don’t hate people at all. I just don’tknowany people in London, at least not anyone who is unfamiliar with how I spent the last six years of my life. And honestly, I don’t want to see anyone who does know. The questions I would have to answer. The explanations I would have to have. It’s still beyond me.
I know that a lot of this is because I didn’t finish the rehab I joined after I left RemiX. Barely one week in, I left and fled to the UK to see my family. At the time nothing would have stopped me doing that, because it was in rehab that I found out my father had died.
Did I think my father would live forever? Honestly, yes, part of me did and this brings me some illogical reassurance. Because if I really thought that then it can go some distance to excuse how I cut my family off. Maybe I always intended to return to them? Maybe I always assumed there would be time to do that? But in the next breath, I am quick to self-correct. I didn’t cut my family off with the intention of rebuilding that connection at a later date. When I was in RemiX, I was all in. I believed in what Gee and Michelle were saying.
I believed in Gee, my one-time best friend, and I believed in Michelle, my one-time girlfriend. I believed in them until I realised it was starting to cost me my sanity.
“You want to keep playing? Rami?” Roxana’s voice slices into my thoughts. I realise Radia has already gone and I’m not even sure I said goodbye.
“I don’t mind. Do you?” It would be very helpful if she did. I really don’t want to be alone with my thoughts right now.
“Not really. I’m tired and tomorrow’s Saturday so I have to be up early to work,” Roxie says with all her trademark honesty and directness, a quality that took me a little time to adjust to when I returned from LA, but now I love it. I envy her it, in fact.
“Then go get an early night,” I say, trying to ignore the stab of disappointment I feel that I now have more hours alone to kill.
“Are you sure?” Roxie asks in a quiet voice. “I hear what you’re saying to me and I want to believe it. Like, that’s what my brain is telling me to do, but Mom was telling me the other day how you sometimes say things just to make us think you’re doing better than you really are, so maybe I’m missing a cue or something.”
The fact my nineteen-year-old sister is trying so hard to figure out if I’m okay is not just upsetting, it’s downright depressing.
“Go get ready for bed, Roxie, I promise you I’m fine. I’m tired from work and tomorrow I’m going to do a long run and maybe sort out my records, so I should get an early night too.”
“Oh, the records part sounds fun, but I’d rather stick toothpicks in my eyeballs than do the running part.”
I smile to myself thinking how it’s the other way round for me.
“Goodbye, Roxie. Big hugs to Mom.”
“Bye, Rami. See you Sunday.”
“See you Sunday,” I say back and let a small smile land on my lips. The weekend is not completely empty. I will return to my family home on Sunday like I do every week. It may not count for much considering my previous actions, but I do hope travelling back up to Birmingham to see my mother and Roxie, sometimes accompanied by Radia, is appreciated.
After shutting down the games console, switching the TV off and sliding my headphones off my head, I stand up and walk to the guest room. I open the door and stand there for a long time just taking in the view of countless stacks of cardboard boxes, each one filled with vinyl I amassed over the years, starting with the not insignificant collection my father used to DJ with.
Fun fact. Staring at boxes does not unpack them.
Unpack.Ugh. I hate that word. It was thrown around far too frequently during my time in RemiX and while I didn’t dislike it much at first, by the time I started hearing it again at rehab I had an almost physiological response to it.
And yet I know I do still need to unpack. Both the small mountain of boxes that practically fill my spare room and everything that happened over the last four years I was in California.
But where do I start? Or rather which one do I start unpacking first? The boxes or the mental load?
Neither is an appealing prospect and both will demand energy from me I’m not sure I have, despite having plenty of time. But do I want to spend that time sifting through too painful memories? Do I want to pass that time recalling just how much I miss DJing? Do I want to spend hours touching records my father used to play, many of them ones I would hand to him when I used to accompany him on his DJ gigs in our local pub? Do I want to dive into the endless well of grief?
It's not even a question of if I want to. It’s a question of if I’m capable of doing it. And I have an easy answer to the question. No. I am not capable of doing that. Not yet. So, I turn around and close the door behind me. I’ll find something else to fill the time with. Something that doesn’t hurt as much. Something that doesn’t remind me of the mistakes I made, and all the things I lost. It’s only a little disconcerting that the first thing that springs to mind is getting my tux out to take to the dry cleaners tomorrow so it’s ready for this wedding I’m going to with Jake.
It’s only a little puzzling that this event, happening next weekend, prompts an excited twist in my stomach and a little energy to go and polish my shoes. It’s only a little strange that whenever the dark memories threaten to return as my lonely evening progresses, I remind myself of next weekend and it makes me feel a little bit better.
PART TWO – FIRST QUARTER
