Page 32 of Blackout

‘It’s been a long time. I think it’s time to get it off my chest.’ I never realised until now how tightly I’d held on to that night. It was time to let it out and let it go.

‘Okay, Harley.’

Silence filled the cab of Zach’s truck. I took this moment to gather my thoughts while Zach waited patiently for me to speak.

‘I can’t tell you how many times we made this trip as a family, and that trip ten years ago was meant to be like every other time. Down to check on my grandparents, make sure everything at our bakery business was okay and be back before the end of the holidays.’ I stared out the window as I recalled what had happened over those holidays all those years ago.

‘My dad was driving. We were on our way home from Melbourne. We all knew how long the trip was so we settled into the music from the playlist on my dad’s phone, and we would sing along. Sometimes together, sometimes on our own. We sounded great, and we were happy. Our road trips made me fall in love with music, and my dad was always encouraging Addison and me to sing, especially if we wanted to continue singing lessons and entering competitions. I loved to sing, but I’d always hoped my dad would teach me guitar. He said he would but we never found any time to play.’ I stopped for a breath. This next bit was hard, and Zach felt my hesitation. He reached over for my hand to wrap his fingers around mine. I loved how easily he read me; he knew exactly what gesture made everything feel okay.

‘I don’t know what happened that night. We’d had a good run, no interruptions, and then all of a sudden our car was out of control. It spun around so many times, I lost count. The screams were so loud and my heartbeat so fast, I thought it would explode.

‘Our car finally stopped against a tree on the driver’s side, and that’s when the screams stopped. Dad’s head rested on the driver’s side window, and both Mum and Addison were unconscious. I managed to pull Dad’s phone from the centre console and called triple zero. I tried really hard to stay conscious, but at the sound of the sirens, it was too much. The shock and my injuries took over, and I blacked out.’

There were tears in my eyes now, and Zach squeezed my hand and kissed my palm. My heartrate was wild, but with every breath in and slow breath out, I managed to get my heartbeat and how I was feeling under control.

‘Harley.’ Zach whispered my name into the silence as I paused, but I hadn’t finished yet. There was so much more to explain.

‘That was the first time I ever blacked out, and after that night, whenever my heart raced out of control, I would black out. I have blacked out twice since that night. Most of the time I’m too exhausted for my heart to beat that fast, which is why I’ve thrown myself into work since then.’ My words had tumbled out in a sob as tears fell down my face.

‘I woke up a couple of days later in the hospital. Mum and Addison were okay, just minor injuries, but my dad didn’t make it. He had hit his head too hard. I couldn’t fall asleep after that night; it became too hard. Hearing the screams in my dreams were the worst. They played on repeat every time I closed my eyes. I avoided sleeping then, and turned myself into an insomniac. The only time I ever rested was when the exhaustion was so bad I passed out, most of the time it was in the office of the bakery.’

‘Fuck, Harley.’ I heard Zach say, the frustration evident in his voice. Then he gently asked, ‘No one in your family ever talked about the accident or your insomnia?’ Zach’s eyebrow shot up as he looked my way.

I shook my head in Zach’s direction, and he took his foot off the accelerator and brought his truck to a stop on the side of the freeway. He took my face in his hands, and my eyes closed as Zach kissed my lips. He held his lips to mine, and I let whatever this was that we shared calm me, soothe the pain I had in my heart from everything I had lost. I wanted to treasure this moment forever, but there was still more to explain.

‘Why?’ escaped through Zach’s lips before I had a chance to continue. His concern was evident in the one word he spoke.

‘I don’t know why no one talks about my dad. It’s like that topic is off-limits. As for my insomnia, no one knew about it except for my grandfather. Physically, Mum, Addison and I were okay, just minor injuries. I was fifteen, and Addison was almost fourteen. But my grandparents saw us as children rather than teenagers. They are old fashioned, and we had a strict routine to stick to. And my dad wasn’t mentioned again. My mum never left her bedroom, looking back maybe she didn’t know how to cope. I remember she slept a lot of the time and was highly medicated. I didn’t make many friends at my new high school, and I wasn’t close to any of them to confide in why Mum, Addison and I were living with my grandparents. No one but my family knew about what happened to my dad, and I guess it was too painful to talk about him.’

I opened my eyes to Zach’s forehead against mine. I took his face in my hands and just like the few times he had shown me tenderness, I kissed his forehead. Talking about that night with Zach and explaining my disappearance ten years ago soothed a part of me I didn’t know needed to be alleviated.

‘Babe, I’m so sorry about your dad. It sounds like you have been through hell.’ Zach wiped my tears away from my cheeks with his thumbs. ‘I remember for as long as you lived next door to us that your dad would cook a barbeque on Sundays, then he would play his guitar while you and Addison would try and pick which song he was playing and sing along with him. I would watch from my bedroom window and try to guess the song. Sometimes I wanted to yell out the answer, but I didn’t want to interrupt your family time.’

Mum, Dad, Addison and I would make such a racket I was surprised the whole town couldn’t hear us. Zach’s memory of my dad made me miss how wonderful a man he really was. ‘Everything changed after that, Zach, and not always for the better.’ The words I told Zach were the truth. I didn’t get to see Zach again, so yeah, not always for the better.

Zach kissed me again gently and returned his focus to the road. He put his truck into drive, and we were on our away again. After a few moments of silence, I felt comfortable enough to continue to recall what had happened next.

‘The day we left the hospital, my dad’s parents picked us up and took us to their house. I don’t know if living with my grandparents was meant to be temporary or not, but we never left. I don’t know if Mum accepted my grandparents’ offer to help or if they just took over caring for all of us. By the time we had settled in at my grandparents’, my mum had shut out the outside world. I guess she didn’t want the reminders of my dad around her. My grandparents organised everything for Addison and me, our clothes, our bedrooms, even the high school we would attend. Addison and I didn’t even get a say. We were too young to make our own decisions, apparently. One day led to the next and city life became normal, and I knew Mum, Addison and I would never move back here. Maybe Mum thought it would be too painful for all of us.’

‘The day the movers packed up your house was the worst day. I knew you wouldn’t be back, and it made me wonder if we would ever cross paths again,’ Zach admitted.

I was shocked. I never knew someone came to pack up our house and store it away. I know it made sense to pack up the things in the house we’d rented and let someone else live in it. But Addison and I were never asked if we wanted any of our things. No matter how many times I’d brought up wanting my things, my grandparents had always said no. I’d always wondered if my mum even knew that our house had been packed up and stored away. Out of sight, out of mind, and never to worry about it again.

‘No one showed up at my grandparents’ house with our stuff, and to this day I don’t know what happened to it.’ My grandparents had a lot to explain, I had come to realise. I may have only been fifteen and grieving my dad, but I lost more than him back then. I lost my friends, my personal belongings, the comfort zone of a country town, spending time together as a family, and I also lost Zach and the time we could have spent together.

While my grandparents supported us for five years after the loss of my dad, it wasn’t until I had started managing the bakery and Addison had finished high school that Mum, Addison and I moved out of our grandparents’ house. Mum moved into her own house and slowly found her new normal without my dad. I moved into the house my grandparents gifted me when I became a manager of the bakery. Addison had had other ideas on what she wanted to do when she’d finished high school, so she was on her own.

‘That must have been horrible to have to start over like that?’

‘School and work, that’s all it was.’ There wasn’t ever much time for anything else, unless I’d snuck away to be rebellious. The insomnia made that easy.

‘Work?’ Zach asked me, and I guess he didn’t know that I’d worked my life away from my first night at the bakery.

‘Yeah, just the days that end in Y.’ I repeated the same words Zach had said to me. Wasn’t that only yesterday?

‘Very funny, Harley.’ Zach’s words filled the space around us.

‘My grandpa found out about my insomnia and let me go with him at night to the bakery, and that’s how I learned to bake. When his shift was over, we would sit in his office, and by that time most nights I was so exhausted I would fall asleep on the lounge while Grandpa did his paperwork.’