The Ones We Left Behind

TW: mentions that a character was abused in the past, but no descriptions during the story.

Freya trudged along the wet-ridden cobblestoned streets, trying not to slip or step into a puddle. She looked up from her phone screen for a second to cross the road, and sighed at the grey sky, casting down upon the dreary small town she’d lived in all her life. Every day felt exactly the same. She couldn’t wait to quit her job and move out of town. She’d been saving up for as long as she’d realised she didn’t have to live here forever.

               She looked back down at her phone to check how long she would have to stay at her job until her shift ended and took another step forward.

               ‘Shit!’

               She dropped her hand to look at what had caused her shoe and sock to soak. Oh great, a bloody puddle. And it’d gone up her trouser leg and made her jacket wet too. This was just typical, wasn’t it? Only a puddle in this town could have soaked basically her entire lower body. What a perfect way to start the day. If she wasn’t angry, she’d probably just cry.

               ‘Are you alright, miss?’

               Freya turned around. A young woman, of around the same age as her, stood there. She had light brown skin with crocheted hair, and she was wearing a white cardigan and long, sky blue skirt. She was someone whom Freya had never seen before- she knew that- but something tugged on her memory. This woman reminded her of someone. How odd. Freya knew everyone in this town. Or at least she thought she did.

               ‘I’m okay, thanks,’ Freya said, frown dissolving. She smiled. ‘I’m sorry, what’s your name? I don’t remember seeing you around before.’

               ‘I just moved here,’ the woman said. She chuckled, and Freya noticed dimples form and disappear just as quickly. She didn’t know anyone who had dimples … except this idea that this woman reminded her of. She tried to hang on, but every time she thought she was remembering, the details slipped away. She was left with a weird longing, like she recognised her but had no grasp on when, or where, or how. Freya’s heart ached.

               ‘You look soaked. Do you need anything?’

‘Like what?’ Freya said.

‘Well … I don’t know why I said that, actually,’ the woman said. ‘It’s not like I can offer you a towel or a change of clothes or anything.’

Freya laughed, the woman smiling sympathetically.

‘Well, see you ‘round,’ the woman said, and she strode on the street past her, looking pleasantly at everything around her.

Freya watched her, dumb founded for a few moments. She glanced down at her phone; oh, she would be late for work if she didn’t hurry up. Freya walked, briskly now, forgetting about her wet feet and legs, her subconscious lingering on the woman she’d just met, but felt like she’d known all her life.

Freya sat at home in front of the TV all evening, trying to wind down before bed. The only problem was she couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds. Her mind kept wandering back to the encounter earlier.

               She hadn’t even got her name in the end. Who was this mysterious woman?

               Her mum walked in with two cups of tea in her hands. She set them gently on the coffee table and gave Spot, their dog, a little stroke before sitting down beside her.

               ‘What’s the matter?’ She said, stroking Freya’s arm.

               ‘Mum, have you met the new woman yet?’

               ‘What new woman?’

               ‘The one who just moved here.’

               ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Oh.’ Freya’s mind replayed the encounter in front of her for the hundredth time that day.

‘What, have you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘… And? What was her name?’

               ‘That’s the thing; she didn’t tell me,’ Freya said.

               ‘Oh. Well, if you bump into her again, make sure to get it off her.’

               ‘Yeah.’

               Freya fell silent again.

               ‘Freya?’ Her mum asked after several moments.

               ‘What is it, mum?’ She said, whipping her head around and looking into her mum’s eyes.

               ‘You haven’t been yourself for a while now. Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?’

               Freya’s heart fluttered. She thought she’d been hiding it well. Her mum could probably see how much she itched to leave this life behind, this town. She only needed to save up enough money to move. She wanted a life full of excitement, mystery, adventure, not misery and monotony. Her stressful, and sometimes boring, job was just getting to her now.

               Her mum had provided for Freya her whole life. She had been the strong one when Freya’s dad died. Her dad and her had done so much together. Had been so close.

It was time for Freya to be strong. To stop complaining.

Freya, feeling the tear threatening to escape her eye, quickly turned back to face the TV.

               ‘I’m okay, mum, thanks,’ she said.

Her mum gave Freya a last squeeze and picked up the TV remote. ‘Let’s watch something else, shall we?’

Freya didn’t bump into the woman for another week. It was almost a shock because she’d been dreaming about her, not only when she was asleep but also when she was awake, trying to piece together all the emotions that were flooding her. What puzzled her about the memories that were coming back, was not that she was gaining them about the woman, but rather pieces of her childhood after her dad died.

               Freya walked into the yoga class with a brand-new mat that she’d bought off Amazon just a few days ago. She’d realised she needed to do something other than work. When she’d been younger, before her dad died, she had been involved with swimming, martial arts, ballet and went round to her friends’ houses all the time. When her dad passed away, so unexpectedly, she couldn’t concentrate on anything. She took so much time off school, stopped all her clubs, and had never gone back. But now that she was 19, it was way past time for her to start living again.

               She stood awkwardly at the back, wondering where to sit, when she spotted the new woman on her mat chatting to the instructor at the front. She didn’t want to be that close to the front, especially for her first time, but, for some reason, this woman felt so familiar, so … like home, that she already felt comfortable around her. Freya knew that made her insane, but she almost didn’t care.

               ‘Hello again,’ Freya said, waving at the woman.

               She lifted her eyes and with pleasant shock on her face, she tilted her head to say ‘Hello’ too.

               ‘So, you never gave me your name,’ Freya said.

               ‘Penelope,’ she said, blushing. Even the name and her blushing seemed familiar. A distant memory floated in and out of her consciousness too quickly to make sense of it. ‘What’s yours?’

               ‘Freya.’

               ‘You doing anything after class, Freya?’

               ‘No, I have nothing planned.’

               ‘Do you think you might want to grab a coffee?’ Penelope said.

               ‘Sure,’ Freya said, eyes widening.

               ‘Okay, let’s start this class,’ the instructor boomed, and a hush fell upon them. ‘We will be starting in a comfortable position, lying down on our backs.’

Freya was sitting opposite Penelope in the café, sipping her very bitter coffee, which was scalding her mouth. It was mid-morning, and her body felt so much more relaxed, like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

               ‘God, I feel so relaxed that I might pee myself,’ Freya said.

Penelope started laughing. Freya joined in to cover. She hadn’t realised she’d said it aloud. How embarrassing.

But even Penelope’s laugh triggered a memory from her childhood. The sound was ringing in her ears.

               ‘So, tell me about yourself,’ Penelope said, smile fading, after taking a sip of her Americano.

               ‘Well, I live with my mum. I recently finished school and I’m working for as long as I can stand so I have enough money to move out of this measly place,’ Freya said.

               ‘Wow, surely there’s more to you than that.’

               ‘I mean, I’m just not that interesting of a person,’ Freya said, shrugging.

               ‘I don’t believe that for a minute,’ Penelope said.

               Freya let out a little laugh, shuffling in her seat.

‘Is your dad on the scene at all?’

Freya’s face fell.

‘Oh, I didn’t mean to-’

‘No, it’s okay,’ Freya said. ‘I should talk about him. It’s been long enough.

‘He died, when I was 8,’ she said. ‘We were so close. We did everything together. My mum was the one working long hours, so he ended up quitting his job to look after me.

We played football so much in the garden. Went to the cinema. He took me to lots of places. And when we got my dog, we went on so many long walks. It was such a shock, because he never showed any signs until it was too late.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Penelope said, looking visibly uncomfortable. She looked down at her coffee and shifted in her seat.

‘Thanks,’ Freya said, frowning. But then she smiled as memories came rushing back as if she’d opened a floodgate. She was hit by exerts of so many good memories, so much laughter and joy, before it had turned south. It was the best feeling, forgetting about the illness. Just focusing on the fun times. Why hadn’t she done that before?

‘You seem … lighter, somehow,’ Penelope said.

‘I am, thank you for that,’ Freya said. ‘So, what about you?’

Penelope blushed, looking down at her feet, and Freya felt something else click in her brain. But before she could connect any dots, Penelope spoke.

‘Oh, I’m not interesting at all. Normal childhood, mum and dad and a sister, and moved away as soon as I could.’

‘I’m not convinced,’ Freya said. ‘Everyone’s experience is different. What do you enjoy doing? What’s your job? Why did you pick this town to move to? Tell me everything.’

‘Um, I just like yoga and I guess this was the first one I found,’ Penelope said after hesitating. She looked around her, at everywhere but Freya.

‘What’s wrong? What aren’t you telling me?’

Penelope’s eyes settled on the door. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’

She got off her bar stool so rapidly that it made a horrible squeak as it came into friction with the floor, and Freya’s face screwed up.

‘Penelope?’

Penelope glanced into Freya’s eyes before withdrawing, and Freya gasped as she finally understood why Penelope had seemed so familiar to her.

‘You are- you were- Patrick,’ Freya said.

Penelope gasped, almost sounding like a sob. She turned and rushed out.

Freya was overwhelmed with shock, sadness, lots of different feelings, and guilt for not recognising sooner. For pushing her to give her past.

She realised that if she didn’t go now, Penelope might never know that Freya wasn’t there to hurt her. She wanted to help her. Reconnect, become friends.

Freya shoved her phone into her bag and took off.

She stepped out of the door and saw Penelope ahead, running in the direction of the town exit sign.

‘Penelope – please- wait-’ She panted, chasing after her.

Penelope stumbled and fell to the ground.

She kept getting closer, and once she got almost close enough that if she had outstretched her arm, she would’ve been able to graze her, she put her hands up, to show she meant peace.

‘I’m not here to exploit you, to blackmail you or anything,’ Freya said softly. ‘I’m just here to say … sorry. We were friends once upon a time. I hope we still can be.’

Penelope shuddered, and then stood up. She searched her face, as if to see if Freya was telling the truth.

Freya suddenly remembered a hilarious memory, the first time she had laughed for ages after her dad had died.

‘Do you remember when we tried to make those cupcakes for the school bake sale that one time?’

Penelope’s eyes glazed over for a second, and then she lit up, as if it had just come to her.

‘The time we forgot to add the sugar?’ Penelope said.

‘Yeah, that was it! And we wondered why people were spitting them out in the bin next to us after taking a bite,’ Freya laughed.

Penelope smiled. ‘That was good fun. We still managed to sell out though. I don’t know how.’

‘I think people just took pity on us. And it was for charity, after all,’ Freya added.

Penelope started walking back the way they came, and Freya stepped in line.

‘My mum-’ Penelope started. Her voice broke.

‘It’s alright. Take your time.’

‘My mum would hit us. Me and my sister. All the time. And my dad just stood there, doing nothing, every single time. Well, he would actually walk away whenever he could see she was getting into one of her moods.

‘My parents never accepted me. My sister was sympathetic, but she couldn’t do anything, not while we still lived under their roof.

‘My mum got sick. She got so ill that she had to live in the hospital, and my dad moved out to be by her side. My sister had just reached 18 at that point, and I was 10. So, she adopted me, and we got out of there as quick as you could say ‘Go’.

‘I only came back once I found out that they’d both died.’

They had reached the outside of the café again. Penelope looked at Freya in expectation, and Freya didn’t know what to say. It was so much sadder than she’d ever thought.

She also realised why she hadn’t been able to remember Penelope before she had started opening up about her dad. Before she had started to accept it. She’d blocked a lot of her childhood out, after he’d died. For such a long time, she hadn’t wanted to remember.

But now she did.

‘I’m sorry that happened,’ Freya said.

Penelope nodded. ‘Thanks. But at least I have my sister. And now you.’

Freya smiled, also realising that she didn’t need to rush to get out of here. She had a friend now, someone to push her, to keep going to yoga with. Someone to share laughs with when she was getting downtrodden by her job.

Somewhere that she could relax.

‘Shall we?’

Penelope nodded.

Freya stepped back from the pavement and into the cafe, the sky now turning blue and the sun breaking out through the clouds. Freya grinned at Penelope. Penelope grinned back.

‘Two hot chocolates, please.’