Trois

Regret

I sat under the balding oak

With frostbit toes and a halo of dew

It made me sad

Thinking of you

The brittle skin of that heaving trunk

Two letters etched into its flesh

A T and an S

With a cross scratched through

Perhaps they could place our portrait

Right next to my parents

The latest edition to the gallery wall

Of things that could have been

But never were

When I was seven my parents divorced, I remember my Father sneaking into mine and Summer's bedroom when he thought we were asleep. He knelt down beside my bed, gently pushing my hair out of my face with his big, calloused hands. He was what Summer called a gentle giant, towering well over 6 foot with a slightly pudgy beer belly and a rough tickle of stubble. An intimidating man of few words that worked with his hands and knelt down beside my bed in tears the day my mother asked him for a divorce.

"I'm sorry Lex," I heard him whimper, sliding his fat thumb over the top of my head. "You two are the real loves of my life. And nothing will change that." I felt a familiar prickly kiss on my forehead, and I knew things were going to be different. "I love you."

Four months later, in the seat he used to sit, that was molded with his heavy frame, sat a new man. A wiry man with small teeth and a bad comb over, who never smiled and never took us fishing.

David was sitting in the kitchen when I returned home, his face was permanently twisted into a constant state of disapproval, his thin lips were always pulled in a tight line and he would always lean his face down when he stared at you, looking over his glasses instead of through them as they slid to the tip of his nose. He didn't flinch at my presence, didn't look up; simply pulled his ceramic mug closer to his lips, taking a sip before turning the page at the newspaper he only pretended to read.

"Alexa? Alexa is that you?"

I could hear my Mothers quick shuffled footsteps before I saw her. She stood in front of me, grey haired and teary eyed as she enveloped me in a tight squeeze.

She looked significantly older, my mother was not the kind of woman to be seen without her roots touched up, or without a layer of red lip stick, so to see her looking frazzled and wrapped up in a dressing gown at 2 P.M. was almost unnerving.

"You need to make an appointment at the salon Sally, your grays are coming through," I said forcing out a mechanic laugh.

She chuckled, wiping at her eyes before hitting me gently on the side of the arm.

"Now where have you been? I feel like you've been avoiding being here, I know it's been tough, but we need to come together as a family."

I groaned, biting back my tongue to stop myself hissing "what family?" before glaring at David- the world's most boring man.

"Sorry, I'll make more effort to hang around, I promise."

"Good! Now it's a Saturday so how's about I book us a table down at the Lighthouse tonight, get a spot of dinner. It'll be nice."

I desperately wanted to say no, in fact the words had already formed in my mouth before I caught sight of my mother's sad eyes. God knows I'd rather a root canal than a dinner with David but that pang of guilt in my chest became too much and I felt my head nodding and before it was too late the words: "that sounds nice" had escaped my mouth.

If I could have sucked them up and retracted them I would have but my mum let out a gleeful squeal and I knew my fate was sealed.

The Lighthouse was a restaurant down by the shore nestled, not surprisingly, next to, Point Cavalier Lighthouse. A place infamous for attracting friendly stoners and horny teenagers in cars.

It could have been such a pretty place had the tacky interior and views of high teenagers down by the dock not interfered.

The Lighthouse was owned by Tamara Gould's family, when Summer had died we had been promised free meals for as long as we needed, which after two weeks and two meals at the Lighthouse proved to be enough, for Nancy Gould at least. She met us at the door, sharing her best sympathetic expression with my mother, who despite having coated her lips in albeit too much red lipstick still looked terrible.

She said something about giving us the best table in the house, which just so happened to be situated next to the large bay window that framed the perfect view of both the beach and Avalon's loitering youth. Despite it only being 7PM I could already see a congregation of freshman emerging down by the water.

I had never been one of those kids, the kind that told lies about staying at friends' houses to meet up with boys and get drunk.

Summer had been, I don't think she necessarily wanted to be, but that's just how life had been molded for her.

Three years ago she would have probably been sitting on one of those rocks, acting coy while her friends made out with stupid boys.

Today her ashes were washed under waves and she became a part of the sea, like she had always wanted.

Our Father had bought us a book of Hans Christian Andersen stories when I was five years old, I would beg for the Snow Queen to be read at bedtime while The Little Mermaid was Summer's favorite. I used to tell her a tale with such a sad ending couldn't possibly be her favorite.

She would shrug and tell me she thought it was beautiful- she always did have a knack for finding tragedy beautiful.

I wondered whether that was the reason she became one.

She told me that she thought the way mermaids died was magical, to become part of the sea. So when we were sprinkling her ashes I made sure to stand on the wharf and make sure she had the chance to become sea-foam too.

"Well, what's everyone having then?" My mom asked, after it had been silent for too long.

I shrugged and ordered a prawn cocktail. A dish I was abundantly indifferent towards, however knowing David was paying and would mutter something barely audible about paying full price for a half-eaten meal gave me a weird sense of satisfaction.

Sally got a Caesar salad and a bottle of cheap wine, she knew David hated wine. David ordered a plate of fish and chips, making sure to ask the waitress at least three times what kind of oil was used.

She told him canola every time.

I imagine he was the kind of customer the staff went out back and bitched about, I fantasized about one of them spitting in the glass that he would eventually pour his wine into and pretend to like, perhaps saying something like 'that sure is a dry Shiraz'.

But no Shiraz would ever be as dry as David's conversation.

I really wasn't sure exactly why I hated him, I just knew I did.

It was something about the way his thin grey hair clutched to the end of his head, or the way his blank expression never warmed, or the way he had taken over the role of my Father without so much as an audition, a role he was not nearly qualified enough for.

"You know Lex, you've been hanging out an awful lot with Miles lately," Sally said, in that same annoying tone that although technically a statement regarded itself as a question.

"I've always hung out with Miles." I replied, sipping at the cool lemon water in front of me.

"I know that, but I mean, you've been friends for a while and he's a lovely kid-"

I knew where this was going.

"Let me just stop you there. I'm not sleeping with Miles mum, he's my best friend."

"Alexa! Honestly, who said such a thing?" Sally said, placing her long fingers against her chest dramatically.

"Sorry, I must've read that insinuation wrong, perhaps you should ask me things straight out like a normal person." I mumbled.

It was hard, loving someone and feeling terrible for hurting them, but yet being so undeniably frustrated by them that it's all you could seem to do.

That was mine and Sally's relationship.

I loved her, but sometimes I could not stand her.

Summer always was more patient, or perhaps she just genuinely enjoyed her company, I had never quite worked it out.

But I was hot and fiery and it remained much harder for me to bite my tongue.

The table had fallen silent again.

"I'm not seeing Miles Mum, he's just a friend." I said finally.

Sally smiled meekly. "I'm glad, he's a good friend."

Conversation fell into a slump once more, and I felt myself nervously sipping at the sour lemon water and pulling at the hem of my skirt.

The family dynamic had been greatly affected by Summer's absence. Where she would once happily chirp in the gap between me being hot and temperamental and Sally being offended there now lay only silence.

"Have you spoken to Francesca or Tamara?" Sally asked after some time.

"Not really," I said simply, not sure how to elongate the sentence so I didn't appear moody or brattish.

Why was it always such an effort for me? To not appear moody or brattish, when Summer sailed in fresh like a warm breeze of easy to get along with.

"Perhaps you should call them, see how they're doing."

Why did she always say the wrong thing?

She never used to, when I was a child I used to think she was so calm and wise, her words were soothing and soft and lulled me into peace even when I was most distressed.

But now, warranted or not, I couldn't help but search for ulterior motives behind every word she spoke.

"Why should I call them? They've hardly gathered around me for support."

"That doesn't mean you can't reach out Alexa."

"It doesn't mean I have to either."

"Wouldn't it be nice to have friends-"

Sally stopped, she looked to be biting back something she realized would only cause a bigger argument.

"What? Friends? Popular friends? Pretty girl friends? Friends like Francesca and Tamara… I'm not Summer. As disappointing as it may be for you, you're stuck with me."

"I never said that Alexa."

"You didn't have to." I muttered.

The food arrived not soon after, I spent most of the time moving my food around while David side eyed me, half participating in idle conversation with Sally who was deep into a story about her experience at the grocers last Tuesday.

I couldn't help but feel my mind drift away, before dinner I had read over another page of Summer's journal and had come across a particularly interesting line.

It was another poem, another glimpse into the world that she kept so hidden.

There were two letters that at first I assumed represented our parents- it was a poem about their divorce right?

The initials confirmed it, S for Sally and T for Tristan.

But after Miles' comments about Andrew not being the only boy in Summer's life, I began exercising the idea that perhaps the S stood for Summer and the T stood for this mystery guy.

It wasn't too wild of a theory, but as of yet I couldn't think of anyone who would fit the bill.

I was dragged out of my thoughts by David's dull tone.

"Alexa, your mother and I have something we want to ask you."

Oh God.

"Yes, Alexa," Sally began, nervously.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Well the thing is, we know you must be going through a lot right now, and we don't want you to deal with it alone. So David has kindly offered to pay for you to… talk to someone."

What?

I stared back blankly, which only seemed to make Sally fidget nervously even more.

"We think it would be good for you." David finished.

"I think it's a waste of money." I replied curtly.

"We've looked into it and the woman is quite good. Three sessions, it's all I ask."

"Whose peace of mind is this really for?" I retorted back.

"Please Alexa."

"Fine."

***

The Saturday night meeting place, as always was Miles' bedroom, I wandered in carelessly- naively expecting to find my best friend and nobody else. Miles sat at the end of his bed, some shitty dubstep track playing in the background while he took a rip at some makeshift bong crafted from a soda bottle.

"Gross," I said, waving my hands around the smoky pot engulfed room eager to make my disdain as obvious as possible. Although my disdain must've grown clearer the moment I caught sight of who else was there. My face fell into a frown.

"Hi Thomas," I muttered through grit teeth.

The tall boy sitting beside Miles turned and looked up at me through the long strands of black hair that fell in his eyes, he had been strumming at a guitar but now sat, pushing his hair out of his face and smirking at me like I was something amusing.

"Could you at least feign some enthusiasm?" Thomas chuckled back.

I shrugged, "I'm not a convincing liar."

Thomas was Miles' other best friend but my contempt for him was not rooted in some immature friend jealousy, but rather the fact that a little over half a year or so earlier Thomas, being the first ever boy to do so, had broken my heart.

Before the incident, the three of us had been inseparable, labelled the three musketeers by dull teachers and the Trio of Trouble by Miles' parents.

For Halloween one year we decided to go as one of our favorite trios, the Harry Potter gang, we hadn't organized who was coming as who, so all three of us turned up as Harry. Being eight years old we were all a little bit upset with one another but when Miles told me I had to change because a girl couldn't possibly be Harry Potter Thomas jumped to my defense and said I could be anybody I wanted to be.

That had been the beginning of it, the beginning of the period in my life known regrettably as the Thomas Miller phase, spanning a lengthy six and a half years of excruciating un-reciprocated feelings.

"So how've you been Evans? I haven't seen you since-"

"Since Summer's funeral. Oh wait- you didn't come. Thanks for bringing it up though." I said sharply. I knew I was being unfair, Thomas had wanted to be there but I had hoped my admittedly unreasonable verbal assault would be enough to shut him up.

I'd let the room be saturated in awkwardness just to avoid a conversation with Thomas Miller.

"I think you'll find you're the one that brought it up Evan's. Are you that desperate to avoid talking to me you'd play the dead sister card? – I thought higher of you."

I rolled my eyes, unfortunately seven years of friendship resulted in Thomas being able to read me better than those stupid William Burroughs novels that he loved pretending to read so damn much.

"Whatever," I muttered.

The night had mostly been spent in the confines of Miles' room, not an unfamiliar occurrence. Thomas had nicked a bottle of whisky from his Dad's liquor shelf, and as usual Miles had the six cans of cheap beer he openly took from his family's refrigerator every Saturday night. I had a can of diet coke and a sour look on my face. So far I had endured three attempts from Thomas to convert us to fans of a new band he'd just found, a half hour discussion about the sexual orientation of Frodo and Sam and three rounds of a truly refined game known as 'who would you rather fuck?'

From which I had learnt Francesca Marsh was immensely fuck-able.

"You two will die virgins."

"Oh c'mon Evans, live a little!" Thomas pleaded, his face all screwed up- a reaction I imagined was caused from the jet-fuel like liquor he was pouring so carelessly down his throat. "Take a swig, you might like it."

"As salivating as that single malt whisky stench is, I don't particularly want to stay all night in this room."

"Thomas, where did you say the party was?" Miles asked.

"It's at Tamara's place."

"Tamara lives like three streets over, we can walk! Your sober driving skills are not required Lex!"

I groaned, "If you would have told me this earlier I could have stayed home and watched like two episodes of Fargo."

I stood up to leave but Miles stopped me.

"Where are you going? I didn't mean it like that, I mean you don't have to stay sober and pretend to have fun." Miles said desperately trying to convince me his intentions were honorable.

"I wasn't pretending. I was quite obviously not having fun."

"Let loose, have you always been this uptight or has it come with old age?" Thomas chuckled.

I responded with a glare and pulled the whisky bottle from Thomas' grip.

I should have known it would burn, the scent alone felt like it eroded away any sense of reason.

"Jesus. That's gonna burn."

I let the whisky spill down my throat, the taste wasn't pleasant, it was sterile and tasted exactly how Mr. Clements smelt. I coughed, holding my throat dramatically as I reached for my coke, never had carbonated syrup tasted so heavenly.

Thomas laughed and patted me gently on the back "good sport."

"That was disgusting! Anybody who says they like the taste of whisky is lying."

"Tell that to my father," Thomas replied, taking another swig as he winked at me.

"I can't drink that." I said, my eyes were red and watery from coughing.

"Don't worry you can mix it, I have Coke in the fridge," Miles said, springing up, he left before I had the chance to stop and let him know I'd rather just walk home.

My body felt strangely warm and my limbs were experiencing that kind of lightness that came with a direct hit of alcohol. I lay on my back and stared up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the fact my body felt like it was being lifted away by a bouquet of balloons.

"What's this song called? I like it." I asked.

"You would," Thomas replied.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You like anything acoustic and vaguely sad sounding."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"I don't know. Maybe it says something about you."

"What's it called?"

"Pink Moon."

"I like it."

"You said that already."

I sighed, rolling onto my stomach I noticed Thomas was staring at me.

"You used to only write sad love songs Thomas. I remember they were beautiful and intricate and now all you do is create weird sounds with your computer."

Thomas laughed, it sounded genuine; he had a way of masking himself behind this happy, easy-going guise. But his laughs were never real.

"It's called producing Alexa."

I shrugged, "whatever, I preferred you in that band."

Thomas opened his mouth to reply but Miles interrupted, emerging from the doorway holding a bottle of Pepsi.

"No luck with the Coke, but I mean it's all the same right?"

"How dare you bring us that filth!" I yapped, feeling significantly less anchored to the ground than I had before, the lightness in my limbs had spread to my head.

"Exiled!" Thomas exclaimed.

Miles rolled his eyes and proceeded to pour three glasses of whisky Pepsi, that were 1 part soda 3 parts whisky. "Don't start that again."

When we were ten Thomas and I created a game called exile. The game, though fun for us, was less so for Miles- who remained less a part of the game and more a target. It was a simple concept, whenever Miles would do something stupid, which was more often than not, Thomas and I would look at each other. Cunningly exchanging glances and cocking brows before we would shout in unison "exiled!" Thomas would murmur something along of the lines of 'not fair' or 'what'd I do?' and being the cruel pre-teens we were Thomas and I would refuse to talk to him until he exiled himself for five or so minutes, or until we felt he could be included again.

The moments without Miles were moments I yearned for as a young girl with a crush so severe I had begun writing Thomas' name in invisible ink on the wall beside my bed so often I knew it better than my own.

The ink would dry transparent, leaving only a faint glimmer of evidence behind, the words remained hidden only visible when I shone my special purple light.

Summer would often ask what I was writing and I would tell her curse words before hiding the light deep in the drawer beside my bed, under my copy of The Prisoner of Azkaban and under the picture of us Miles had drawn for me. One day, after successfully writing Thomas' name thirteen times, I left to use the bathroom and returned to find Summer crouched on my bed, light in hand reading my barely decipherable scribbles. She looked at me, cherry faced, blue eyes as wide as plates.

I remember feeling my heart sink, a cold wave washed over my body- the realization that my secret was no longer mine.

"Get out! Get out! Get out!" I screeched, lunging over the bed towards her, grasping at her small hands to retrieve my special light.

"Ouch," she yelped as I frantically tugged and pulled at anything I could.

"Give it back!"

Eventually I stopped pulling to retrieve my pen and started pulling because I wanted to hurt her for knowing.

"I'm sorry, here!" She replied, I heard the plastic purple light hit the wooden floorboard with a small thud, I knew she didn't have it any more, but I was still angry. I continued flailing my limbs about on top of her anyway, pulling at her long blonde hair and landing my dainty fists against her sides, screeching like a maniac as I did it.

"Alexa, what are you doing?"

The last thing I remember is my mother carrying me out, I was hysterical, inconsolable and tremendously terrified that somebody had found out my darkest secret. I couldn't imagine the embarrassment that would follow. Thomas finding out, surely he would be disgusted by it all. No more playing together, no more quiet moments, no more friendship- it would be me who would be exiled, and not just for a few minutes, but for forever.

It took my mum a full hour and a half to calm me down again, truthfully I think I was just exhausted from crying. She tucked me back into bed, awfully forgiving towards someone who had just attacked their sister with nails and teeth. I lay in bed, almost asleep when I heard a soft voice whimper through the silence.

"Alexa."

It was Summer. I pretended to be asleep.

"You know I'd never tell anyone. I promise."

I glanced over at Thomas sipping his whisky and cola. Same crooked smile and dimples, same long dark hair that fell in his eyes just like it did when he was ten years old. I picked up my glass and swallowed the contents whole.

I'd need that.