In my head (Rachel, Danny)

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

Rachel rifled through her room, pushing aside clothes, piles of magazines, her bedside lamp with the dead lightbulb she hadn’t been bothered to fix, but she couldn’t find her phone anywhere.

She crawled under the covers of her bed, groping down the far corners of the sheets in case it had slipped down, but it wasn’t there either. Where had she put it?

She couldn’t remember where she’d last seen it. Maybe she’d left it at Zoe’s place at dinner the other night? Maybe in Cai’s car? But they would have found it and bought it back, surely. Did she have it yesterday? What did she do yesterday? Napped a lot and watched most of a season of America’s Next Top Model and ate peanut butter sandwiches while the rain hammered down on the windows, too wet and dark to go outside. Or was that the day before? Or both?

All the days lately were one miserable blob, punctuated by distracting moments with her friends, wonderful moments with Danny, and moments of panic like now when she couldn’t find her phone. Bad moments – when suddenly every failure was amplified and she was overwhelmed by the knowledge that she was shit, she was useless, she couldn’t even keep track of a phone and Danny gave her that phone and she couldn’t admit to anyone she’d lost it because only idiots couldn’t keep track of their phones and they’d all think she was stupid.

And one of them would probably buy her a new phone but the thought filled her with self-loathing because they shouldn’t have to, and surely they knew it. They’d run out of charity soon enough, and patience.

She cried till her face ached then lay silent and still on her bed staring out the window at the next tower block over. Her head hurt, a banging headache like she used to have in the old days. In her early teens, she used to get migraines all the time. The pain so bad it would wipe out days at once.

The first time it happened she thought she was dying. It was around the time she turned twelve, in the children’s mental ward in Plymouth. Her head hurt like a cold fire when she first woke up, and continued, fading in an out of severity for ages, months and months till eventually she only got a couple a year. And then, barely at all since she and her dad had moved back to London. She’d hoped she’d grown out of them – this physical hangover from near-drowning. Something wrong with her, deep inside her brain.

But a lot of her health had improved when she moved in with her freaky step-family. Wheat toast and fruit and burgers made of nuts and a house that was heated all year round and no mould anywhere. Her body had been great – she’d started the year being totally unable to beat Zoe in a race but before Danny was taken she could match her, even beat her occasionally. She wouldn’t be able to do that now. She hadn’t been for a run for weeks.

But it wasn’t a migraine – just a headache from crying too hard. The world didn’t fade out, though she kind of wished it would.

Rachel’s hand went to her throat, where the heart necklace that Danny and bought her lay against Cai’s silver cross.

She was supposed to go and see Danny today. Nap with him in his room. Be a sleepy rebel against the doctors who might forbid it.

Surround herself with the sights and sounds and smells of a mental institution, surround herself with doctors and nurses who were trained to spot the craziness in kids. Risk one of them looking at her and knowing how much of a shitty mess she was.

But Danny.

Danny would wrap her up in his arms and Danny would not run out of patience. Danny would just love her, and she couldn’t leave him alone in the hospital wondering where she was. He needed her.

She would not be entirely good for nothing if she was good for Danny.

Rachel heaved herself out of bed. It was horrible and she hated every moment but she kept her hand clutched around the heart and the cross, kept holding on every moment when she wasn’t washing her face or finding clean clothes. She and Zoe had done heaps of laundry last weekend but already clean and dirty were mixing together on her floor – mostly clean, though, since she wore her pyjamas every chance she got. Day clothes, not so much.

Just get to Danny, she thought. Be a miserable little shit but when he sees you he’ll smile and that’ll make up for how much you hate putting on shoes right now.

She even managed to brush her hair, put on some makeup. It all felt fake and horrible but she managed.

Rachel stared at herself in the mirror for a long time. She glowed at herself – she needed to dye her roots again and her skin looked like shit. She couldn’t make herself feel pretty, even though she’d nailed her eyeliner. “Fuck it,” she whispered to herself, adjusted the straps on her bag and left the bathroom.

There on the kitchen counter, charging merrily near the wall socket, was her phone.

Rachel froze momentarily before stomping over to it, yanking it out of the charger and stuffing it into her bag. Anxiety spiked in her stomach. She didn’t want to look at it, didn’t want to think about it. She banged the door of the apartment shut and went for the stairs instead of the lift – she didn’t want to feel trapped in there and she needed to keep moving. If she was belting down the stairs she could almost ignore the panicky shakes that were starting to jolt through her.

She didn’t remember plugging in her phone to charge.

It meant one of two things. Maybe the first option; which was her dad had found her phone somewhere and plugged it in for her, was more likely. Maybe. But it was more like him to try and teach her a lesson by letting it go flat as a way of reminding her to be responsible for her own things.

The second option was the scary one: that she’d plugged it in herself and forgot about it. But she couldn't remember, even when she tried picturing herself doing it. Which meant that she’d lost the memory somehow, so casually, and with frightening ease.

Which meant that things inside her head were getting worse again.