Authors notes- Something I wrote after Den's death because I didn't like the way the writers were going. The titlke is from a Queen Adreena song.
Kissing My Disgrace
Chrissie held her own sticky glass as the pubs customers finally stumbled out leaving her in the suddenly eerie air. With the lights turned low their amber glow softened the edges of tall shadows.
Without the rowdy drunks and leering, slimy men she should have felt calm and comforted but Chrissie tensed as she bolted the door. She jumped at every gentle creek of wood expanding or the muffled sound of trains passing. Alone was when she needed her façade the most, when she feared it would break the easiest.
Trying to hide in the normality of keeping a pub running day to day so that she could not quite hear a male voice in the back of her head. Telling her that she didn't belong. She was never brave enough to speculate on the voices owner. It was always louder in the hush.
Taking a large sip from the thick, clear liquid she grimaced absently as the warm burning sensation tingled on her tongue before sliding down her throat making it feel raw and then settling in her stomach.
"Its not a good idea to drink alone." Chrissie didn't understand why she did not jump at the familiarly feminine voice coming from somewhere behind her in the deeper shadows. After all she had thought she was alone in the pub for once.
"Yeah well I'm not alone now am I?" Chrissie did not quite remove the bitter undertone from her voice. Lately it had become harder and harder for her to keep up the friendly pretence.
Picking up the half filled bottle from the bar Chrissie looked around for another glass. Carelessly she picked up a nearby glass that was still filled with the residue of the last drink that had filled it and started to pour a generous amount of the syrup like liquid into it.
"Come on Sharon, why not join me so I don't have to listen to you moan."
She held the glass out to the direction she guessed Sharon was in. Her frustration grew as the quick motion made the drink spill on to her hand making it feel sticky and uncomfortable.
It had become a game for her, seeing how much she could let her friendly façade drop without Sharon or Dennis noticing. She was sure she could all but scream at Dennis and he would not notice. Sharon was another story. Sharon never let on that she noticed, a smile always on her face but Chrissie was sure the other woman could at least subconsciously sense her hostility towards her.
As predicted Sharon slowly emerged eyes fixed on the glass in Chrissie's outstretched hand with a look that could only be called disgust. Under the gentle light Chrissie could not help but notice how perfectly placed white blond hair seemed to take in the warm amber glow and become a different colour entirely. As if it was a blank canvas able to take on any colour, Chrissie could not help but find it unnerving.
Within the long silence Sharon glanced up to look Chrissie in the eye as if to calculate what was going on in the other woman's head. Sharon stared for a long moment; if she learnt anything about Chrissie it was not visible on her unusually dispassionate face. Just as Chrissie was angry enough to confront Sharon the eye contact was broken as the other woman took the glass from her still outstretched hand.
Glass in hand Sharon slowly walked past Chrissie to the other end of the bar the movement far too calculated for Chrissie's liking and was not something she'd normally associate with Sharon.
Suddenly Chrissie's gut was churning with sickening terror and her pulse quickened with a contradicting swell of excitement. 'Oh god, Sharon knows.'
She should have seen it sooner but her agitated mood had made her careless and less perceptive. But now she watched Sharon with extra interest. Even with her back turned to Chrissie there was a strange aura of calmness around Sharon. She found it down right scary. From Sharon she expected tears, revenge and a screaming match but not this.
Knowing Chrissie's view of her was obscured Sharon took a moment to gather herself. She watched the clear liquid in the grubby glass swirl as she held it at an angle so that it glittered in the subtle light. Although tempted to drink the alcohol she stayed strong reminding herself that she needed to be completely in control to stop herself losing the control, which was slipping away with every second.
"How could you?"
Sharon's voice was even and tight. In the silence Chrissie was not sure if she heard it or if it was her imagination. Sharon had not turned, nothing in her posture indicated that she had asked a question.
"How could I what?" Chrissie asked slowly faking confusion.
Chrissie saw Sharon's shoulders tense slightly at her deceit and she was sure that the other woman knew the truth. She was so pleased that she could get to Sharon. If it was a game Sharon wanted to play, Chrissie was no amateur.
"You know what." Sharon said turning around and fixing her eyes firmly on Chrissie's as if she was attempting to look into her soul and understand why.
"No Sharon, I really don't…"
"Cut the crap!" Chrissie quickly faded off as Sharon snapped before speaking in a quieter tone. "I know you murdered my father."
Hearing it spoken out loud Chrissie could not help but feel the blood in her veins turn cold. The first thought that ran through her mind was how. How the hell did Sharon find out after she had done so much to cover her tracks? Sharon was not clever enough to do it alone so who had told her Sam? Kat?
She took a second to look at Sharon and saw the anger burning deep in her green eyes making them turn a shade closer to black. Suddenly how no longer mattered. All that mattered was that Chrissie had been found out and no doubt her life was over. The idea was liberating, like she had finally been let out of her prison of lies. Finally she could say and do whatever she wanted because it was all gone anyway.
"Your father," She repeated with a bitter laugh. "Of course its all about you isn't it? Because Den meant nothing to anyone else."
She sat wearily on one of the bar stools. Although feeling finally liberated it seemed to make her feel drained, as if the extent of the energy she had been using trying to get away with murder had just been realised.
"Its not about me Chrissie. I'm not the murder here." Sharon's voice was scratchy with effort but surprisingly calm.
Sharon's posture was quietly defensive if you looked carefully enough. Her face was impartial mask but she could not hide the fire in her eyes as she stared right into Chrissie with wild anger just waiting to unleash itself. Chrissie had not realised Sharon had this in her; maybe she had underestimated the other woman.
"So I'm guilty, had been a long time before you Miss Marpled it all out. If you have to say your piece Sharon, just get on with it because I'd rather be locked in a quiet cell than stuck with you yapping." Chrissie rubbed the bridge of her nose tiredly as if to indicate a headache and prove her point.
Sharon could not help but let the surprise filter through to her face momentarily. She had expected mind games, for Chrissie to try to deny it all by any means. She had prepared mentally for it. After all these years of wearing her heart on her sleeve, constantly being fooled and manipulated by the people closest to her she expected more of the same. This quiet acceptance and almost self-destructive pantomime baddie act was not something she had expected.
Inside Chrissie's head it was all still a very dangerous game. She felt as if she was precariously balancing on the edge of her undoing. Her thoughts were complex and contradictory. So Sharon knew the truth, what did it matter? She had taken a life. Felt the warm of human life leave under her hands till there was nothing left but a cold shell. The feeling was like an adrenaline rush it made her feel invincible, she was not sure if she liked it or not.
"No, I'm here to hear what you have to say for yourself. I could shout and scream at you till I'm blue in the face; it would make me feel better, for a time anyway. But as soon as I realised that you aint heard a word I've said I'd be right back to where I started."
From her seat Chrissie responded by slamming her now almost empty glass onto the hard surface of the bar. The sound it made seemed somewhat more dramatic in the surrounding silence. Partially Chrissie enjoyed the way the sudden noise communicated her frustration, partially she was sickened at how similar it was to the sound of another solid object against a human skull.
She was a blur of golden curls as Chrissie suddenly rose and stalked over to stand close to Sharon using every inch of herself to leer over the other woman. Her eyes filled with anger and determination as was reflected in the way her mouth was pulled unflatteringly tight.
"You have a confession. What more do you want to take from me?" She almost growled, voice low and threatening keeping her eyes locked on Sharon's.
With a quick grim smirk Sharon replied unblinking in the intense stare. "What I took from you?" She repeated finding a dark humour in her disbelief.
"You've never given me anything. What confession? I've forced you to say the little you've told me so far and it aint anything I don't already know!" She breathed heavily out her noise with a slight ironic laughter. "How can you accuse me when you took my father away?"
"How could I take him away from you when I never had him!" Chrissie screamed before abruptly turning suddenly needing to put distance between herself and Sharon.
With her back to Sharon, Chrissie stared at the shadows that engulfed the walls of the room. Clenching her hands into tight fists she kicked a nearby chair leg not receiving the same satisfaction she would have done if the chair had been replaced with Sharon.
Sharon did not reply, or Chrissie just did not notice as she carried on her angry outburst.
"Little princess never wrong and always the one who's wronged. You never speared a thought to me did you? But I saw you; I always fucking saw you even before I knew you existed. There was always this distant glint in Den's eyes when he looked at me. It was you, it always was you with him."
"What?" Was Sharon's reply filled with shock and surprise at just how bitter the other woman's were towards her, it went far deeper than anger at being discovered, it scared her.
"When will you wake up Sharon?" Arms were now precariously flung around in some kind of insane dance. Chrissie felt out of touch with her own body, she did not even know how she had managed to turn round and meet Sharon's gaze once again. But out of control was good, the detachment of her thinking process from her physical form only urged her forward into letting her true feelings out.
"Everything that happened, what I did, Den, our marriage it was all because of you. Always keeping daddy close with the happy family routine. Its not healthy you know, the way you two were around each other."
Chrissie had been talking slowly and deafeningly making use of dramatic pauses, savouring the feel of the words on her tongue. But when Sharon attempted to comment on her last proclamation she threw a hand violently towards the other woman's face. Her words now laced heavily with her loathing as they fell from her lips at a more erratic speed, playing the moment for effect long forgotten.
"The Man I love is gone because of you. You might as well have delivered the final blow because you were the one that killed him! You insist in being the third person in my marriage and had to take my husband away with you when you left. Your nothing but a selfish spoilt bitch!"
Disbelief quickly faded from Sharon's face as she watched Chrissie breath heavily and turned to fiery anger she couldn't contain.
"You killed a man because he didn't just love you and you alone and I'm the selfish one? You're a delusional cow!"
As she started to shout Sharon let go of the façade she was barely holding together outraged at the other woman's clams. She knew she was not the guilty one here yet she could not shake the feeling that her last words to her father had been out of anger. She had thought disowning him would finally end the suffering that seemed to follow father and daughter, now merely seeing that she had only intensified it.
Brown eyes filtered into Sharon's memory spurring on her anger. Brown eyes that had pleaded with her to stay, that haunted her with their sorrow and devastation.
Narrowing her eyes Chrissie snapped back with anger greater to Sharon's only in its bitterness. "Den called out your name during sex once, it was our anniversary and he was grunting away on top of me fantasising about you. So don't you dare call me delusional!"
Chrissie felt the throbbing pain rather than see Sharon's hand striking out, the sudden force sending her face sideways.
"I don't need to hear this." She heard Sharon mutter. From underneath tight curls that had fallen over her eyes Chrissie saw the other woman place a hand over her mouth as if she was going to be sick.
Feeling as if she had won a small victory Chrissie let the temporary pleasure take over her other emotions. She straightened up, a smile coloured with smugness on her lips as she touched her tender cheek.
"What's the matter Sharon, heard something you didn't like?" She taunted knowing carefully timed words would hurt more than a slap.
The two women were back to staring at each other again, the darkened pub heavy with tension. Sharon let her eyes travel up and down the other woman's body not bothering to try to disguise as she wondered; who are you?
Emotions conflicted and changed quicker than the tide. Before her Sharon saw a woman she once considered a friend, now she was not so sure. Was this woman an enemy? A murder that took her father away? How could anyone change that much? Had their friendship and mutual respect been a lie all along?
Chrissie's face was twisted with built up fury, her eyes held so much bitterness it scared Sharon. Curls she once envied now seemed to resemble the wild snakes of a Gorgon than actual hair.
The sympathy was the thing that surprised Sharon the most. She saw how hatred had turned a beautiful woman into something repulsive. She was consumed by what she had done. A murder, she could try to be different things in her life, a pub owner a hairdresser, just a woman from Essex it did not matter she would always be a killer.
She was reminded of the haunted look in Dennis's eyes every time the subject of Dalton came up. How she would love to unburden him of the guilt and pain it caused him knowing that she could never fix him completely.
Then the pang of grief caused her throat to tighten. As soon as the truth was known she had planned her confrontation with Chrissie. Anger had made her numb to her grief.
They had had their differences she had even hated him after what he had done to her and Dennis. But in death it all became irrelevant all that mattered was that through everything Den had done nothing but love her and try to protect her. Their relationship might not have been considered normal but when it came down to it he had only wanted what any father would want for their daughter.
"You killed my daddy." Sharon choked tears threatened to fall making her eyes glisten.
"No," Chrissie spoke, eyes wide and fixed on her feet as she shook her head.
She had promised herself that she was not going to do this, that she was not going to let Sharon do this to her. She would not let herself be manipulated by the hurt little girl routine Sharon was pulling. She was the one who had torn their marriage apart; she was the one who had driven them both over the edge.
"I'm never going to see him again and he died thinking I hate him." Sharon carried on sadly as if she had not noticed Chrissie, locked in a torturous trail of thought.
Gritting her teeth Chrissie tried to fight of the sudden rush of nausea unable to comprehend the seemingly foreign emotion that twisted in her stomach. It was Sharon once again bending how she felt just like Den used to do. Pushing the queasiness away deeper inside herself she let the familiar anger and need for revenge take over.
"I just want to tell him I'm sorry." Sharon continued suddenly feeling very lonely.
"Shut up!" Chrissie screamed. The more Sharon talked the more she felt the new emotion grow unpleasantly. Feeling the power her self-riotous anger had given her was far simpler. Consciously she made a decision to hang onto it as she launched herself at Sharon in a blind rage.
Chrissie easily knocked the unsuspecting Sharon to the floor. She did not seem to notice the way Sharon's body jarred and turned in the air as she fell on a rickety chair. Chrissie's weight on top of her meant the noise as they hit the floor echoed just a little louder. Her hands rapped tightly around Sharon's neck as if by their own will.
Beneath her Sharon's eyes widened with a combination of fear and shock. With the air knocked from her lungs her reaction was slowed but she was soon fighting back. Hands automatically went to remove the ones around her neck only to find them locked tight.
Thinking only of escaping and survival Sharon brought her knee up sharply to Chrissie's side as the other woman leaned over her. Chrissie's grip loosened as she yelped in pain. Taking advantage of the situation Sharon pushed herself free.
Clambering to her feet as quickly as possible Sharon slipped on her stiletto hills slightly dizzy from Chrissie's attack. With wide eyes she whirled around once on her feet, attempting to protect herself from the other woman.
Sharon was not quick enough and only turned around to see a balled fist heading towards her. With not enough time to protect herself from the blow Sharon screwed her eyes shut in anticipation. First came the force of the blow sending her stumbling backwards towards the bar.
The familiar feeling of numbness only lasted a few seconds before her jaw exploded into aching pain. Flinching, as the throbbing travelled through her jawbone like an electric current before dulling slightly.
Before she had a chance to regain her composure Chrissie was coming at her again. Blow after blow hit her. There was nothing controlled or mythological about the attack forcing Sharon back till her back dug into the bar.
If she had a chance to think Sharon would have been terrified. She had never expected Chrissie to behave this manically. All she could do was try and shield her face as much as possible. All she could hear were Chrissie's hysterical grunts of effort and mumbled words.
After what seemed like hours Chrissie seemed to tire. Her blows became weaker and weaker but still she did not stop. Finally Sharon worked out what Chrissie was saying once her lack of breath forced her to slow down.
"Its all your fault, its all your fault, all… your…fault, all…"
Her raspy mantra seemed to be fuelling Chrissie. As if she was hanging on to her words to justify herself and actions rather than accusing Sharon. It became more and more erratic as the glisten of sweat grew on Chrissie's brow plastering stray curls to her head.
With lengthy gaps coming between sloppy blows Sharon took her chance and reached out for the other woman as she came at her yet again. Finding her hands somehow twisted in knots of curls she tightened her grip trying to regain her balance.
In response Chrissie stumbled, Sharon's weight pulling her forward. As her chant becoming unrecognisable once more as accelerated breathes broken its regularity. Chrissie's own hands sought out Sharon's hair trying to pull tightly and not let her hands slip through the annoyingly silky strands.
The symmetry of their bodies, backs rounded, arms outstretched, leaning forward, made them appeal ironically equal in status, the same. Appearances can be deceiving.
While physically getting weary Chrissie's anger kept her going. She had been bottling everything inside for so long. So much poison and she had to keep it all to herself, no cleansing confessions, instead it had been left to fester and breed. Thinking was confusing now, so all she tried to do was keep her head above water. One belief kept her going; the one consistent thing was her anger. She could not stop now she had to make Sharon understand how it feels to be abandoned.
"Its all your fault, its all your fault, its all your fault." Chrissie did not just mutter the words out loud but she kept the chant going in her head. It was the only thought that was safe, which made sense. If she allowed her mind to wonder Chrissie was not sure if she would ever be able to stop it.
With a surge of strength Chrissie broke their stalemate. Feeling an overwhelming bitterness to the other woman she felt like she could only express through it physical pain. Pulling hard with one arm Chrissie managed to slam Sharon's head on the bar that was appropriately still next to the two women.
It was so similar to her actions with the glass that the movement was almost frighteningly automatic, a quick and familiar way to deal with problems. Only this time she did not hear the sound Sharon's head made against the bar, the beating of her own heart and her repetitive thoughts were somehow louder.
From her position half on the bar Sharon was very still. Her eyes screwed tightly shut at the disabling pain that filled her head. Bright dots danced in front of her eyelids as her ears rung loudly.
There was something thick and sticky running down her temple. Figuring out that it was blood was the only thing that kept Sharon conscious. Slowly opening her eyes she attempted to stand on shaky legs. But the pub was spinning at a strange right angel that made it impossible to regain her balance. With unstable knees she fell unceremoniously to the floor.
Three Chrissie's were standing in front of her, burly through tears of pain. Sharon frowned trying to work out which one was real. One Chrissie was bad enough; three was enough to give her an even bigger headache.
"I'll never understand what the whole of mankind see that makes you so great."
Sharon had not seen any of the Chrissie's lips move but the sound had to come from one of them. The acrimony in the voice combined with a head injury made it sound particularly demonic.
"Your insane." Sharon muttered in return her voice starting to ground her. The room was no longer spinning but her headache was just as bad.
The three Chrissie's seemed to magically meld into the middle one as Chrissie stepped forward and knelt directly in front of Sharon. The lack of aggression in the movement was a sudden contrast and made Sharon feel uneasy. Maybe she had not really spoken out loud.
She studied Sharon for a long time, eyes deadly serious it was as if she was trying to see something in the other woman she had never seen before. Breathing was the only sound but it did nothing to break the ripe tension.
The two women were nose to nose. Sharon's breath was caught in her throat as she tried to regain her bearings and be ready to move at whatever Chrissie was going to do. She could not help but wonder if Chrissie was planning to kill her too.
Suddenly Chrissie's lips were on Sharon's in a messy closed mouth kiss. There was nothing loving about it. Instead the hard touching of lips was a strange clinical imitation of a lovers kiss.
Shocked Sharon sat perfectly still she had expected more violence not this. She watched carefully as Chrissie pulled back a finger absently on her bottom lip and her eyes locked on Sharon's.
"Just want to know what he saw in you." As she spoke Chrissie started to glance around her avoiding Sharon's eyes as if she was embarrassed.
While Chrissie seemed unexpectedly vulnerable Sharon abruptly pieced together a little more of the other woman's psyche she did not like it but at least now she was starting to understand.
"Does it make it easier?" Sharon asked her voice quiet and laced with genuine curiosity even though she already thought she knew that answer.
Their eyes met yet again, Chrissie silently regarding Sharon with clear confusion as the unexpected question caught her off guard.
Sharon never received an answer, she had not expected to. Ignoring the coppery taste of her own blood as it ran into the crease of the corner of her mouth she spoke again.
"Placing the blame on someone else," She explained in a slow voice as if she was patiently talking to a child. She was long past anger. Absently Sharon decided that the words tasted worse than the blood did. "Does it make it easier? Do you really believe that shit?"
Chrissie pulled away from Sharon, bouncing on the hill of her feet before she stood up. She stood uncomfortably choosing to look straight ahead rather than down at Sharon who still had not moved.
"It helps you keep everything together, facing day after day living in his shadow. But I bet there is still that nagging little thought in the back of your head."
Disbelief and anger at Sharon's sudden arrogance in her understanding stopped Chrissie actually taking in the meaning of the words. She sucked her bottom lip as if she was trying to stop herself from speaking, eyes burning into Sharon's.
Meeting her glare Sharon raised her chin defiantly a sad smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Guilt must come to the surface when you're here all alone with everything that's his. And all you can do is hope that he can hear you and understands, otherwise you'll drown in him."
As she spoke Sharon picked herself up from the floor, one hand clutched the side of the bar to steady herself on still wobbly legs. Her eyes stayed locked on Chrissie's as if searching for honesty.
And then the anger was taking Chrissie over again, dictating her actions. She wanted to shut Sharon up as much as she spitefully wanted to hurt her. Den was dead and gone it did not matter if he understood or not. Chrissie was the one left standing and she was not going to let his snotty daughter take that away from her.
Stalking forward Chrissie snatched Sharon's hair once again without even glancing at the other woman as she continued on her journey. For some reason she was not surprised when Sharon did not fight back like she had done before.
Head bowed, Sharon stumbled as one hill inevitably broke sending her to her knees. Chrissie half bragged Sharon the rest of the way to the storeroom as if she had not even noticed.
Throwing Sharon roughly to the concert the thump the other woman made as she hit cold ground sent a chill through Chrissie's body. Without wallpaper and furniture to absorb the noise it was louder and brutal.
Sharon landed where she wanted her, the patch of grey, contaminated with death just below it. Sharon landed clumsily partially aware of grazed knees stinging as they met the bone-shattering floor. From the way she sucked in air and looked grimly up at Chrissie, Sharon knew whom she was laying on.
"Den is gone! His nothing but a rotting corpse beneath you." Chrissie shouted. In the bright fluorescent lights she saw the mess of Sharon's hair clearly. After being pulled in different directions parts were broken and limp, no doubt her scalp was bruised. She felt a similar feeling of justice she used to get by ruining the soft hair of Barbie's.
"No, his everywhere." Sharon said simply, a sense of calm renewed as she looked up at Chrissie with scornfully pity. "In there your never going to get rid of him or the guilt, no matter how much you pretend it doesn't exist." She tapped the side of her head to emphasise the point.
"His just a man." Chrissie spat back defensively, flinching as her voice echoed in the bareness of the room. She wanted to make Sharon stop speaking but she couldn't seem to bring herself to act. Sharon's words were hypnotising just as they were devastating, but she still had the comforting fire of her anger.
"He was," Sharon agreed, her comprehension of the situation filled her with an aching sadness yet it was somehow an emancipation. "But you've made him into some more, something you'll never escape from."
"But I will because it wasn't my fault!" Chrissie's remark felt just as childish as it sounded yet she did not care.
"You hit him. You killed him." Sharon said firmly without missing a beat. The straightforwardness of the statement making it seem just a little more real, solid, and the force hit Chrissie squarely in the chest.
The nauseating emotion was back, twisting Chrissie's stomach into painful knots as un-cried tears made her eyes glisten. She shook her head in silent disagreement.
"But I loved him!" Chrissie did not recognise the anguish in her own voice.
And when had her hands started to shake? Speaking quieter as if she was trying to regain her composure she repeated herself. "I loved him."
"Did you? Or are you kidding yourself that you killed him for a reason. If you really loved him you still would. Love doesn't go away just because the person you love is dead. Its something you carry with you forever and sometimes it fucking hurts, but it never goes away."
Chrissie could not look at Sharon, her eyes darted skittishly around the room looking at anything but Sharon. Anything but look at what Sharon was lying on. She had somehow lost the power of speech. Not that it mattered, there were no way simple words could explain how she felt when she did not understand herself.
"You can't hide behind misguided anger forever, it's turning you into an empty shell."
A single tear trickled down Chrissie's face slowly but she did not notice as she stared into the distance, eyes locked. She did not see the grey wall anymore; all she could see was Den lying there and then her hand smashing the doorstep on his head.
Feeling the anger slipping away was terrifying. She had hanged on to it for so long that it was all that she had left. Chrissie did not know how to function with the pain it revealed in its wake let alone the gut wrenching grief.
It was both physically and emotionally painful, it was not a new sharp pain that filled her but a dull, constant, empty ach. The sort of pain that would not kill her but make her wish it would.
She blinked as if waking up after a long sleep, surprised to see the same wall she had seen before only know it seemed sharper, more in focus. It was no longer just a storeroom that she walked in daily but never really took much notice of. Now it was a tomb, now it was overwhelmingly important and couldn't be ignored.
Sharon lowered her eyes as she sat quietly, her nails digging into the concrete below her. The small gesture somehow made her feel closer to her father. She suddenly felt like a voyeur witnessing a private breakdown. The feeling of victory and revenge were fleeting compared to a numbing melancholy and sympathy.
They all had lost something because of what had happened. And too much had happened to purely place the blame on one person. Sharon's own regrets and grief tied her to Chrissie.
She knew what she had to do. It had been an impulse rather than a thought that lead Chrissie to this belief. Lowering her gaze to see her husband's grave. Sharon was a blur of blonde and black standing next to it. She must have respectively moved out of the way knowing what was coming. It took Chrissie's shell-shocked brain to realise that Sharon's blurriness was because she was crying.
Her stomach rolled at the prospect of really seeing what she had done for the first time her heart hammering in her chest telling her to flee. But she could not stop herself, she could not keep on running, she was just so tired.
Taking her time because she knew she'd have the rest of her life to attempt to make sense of what she had done, Chrissie took in murky colourless concrete, the way it crumbled in some places forming cracks. The grounds unevenness was accentuated by teary eyes making it look like she was looking at some artists abstract impression with big, angry dramatic streaks of grey and yellow.
Chrissie saw past the durable floor like a child who could see the monsters under their bed or in the wardrobe, only her monsters were real and their creation was her fault. She had metaphorically stored all her emotions, her fear and her guilt, right in the hole with her dead husband. Denial could never last forever no matter how much she had tried.
A loud sob was the first noise to break the silence, Chrissie was not even aware that it had come from her own mouth. She opened her mouth for a greedy gulp of air but she found she could not breath.
Her insides burned and her eyes stung with heavy flowing hot tears. It was all too much. How was she ever going to live with this much emotional pain? She thought she could just touch the darkness, she had never expected it to swallow her whole.
Chrissie wobbled on her feet before she fell forward and sideways at the same time. She did not even feel the gravel cut into her palms as they hit the ground. "Oh god." Her voice was thick with guilt, her tears made it sound like a sharp squeal and a raspy intake of breathe rather than actual words.
"Oh god, I'm so sorry." She whispered unevenly, placing a hand attentively on the grave in front of her. But it was not enough, how could sorry ever make up for what she had done?
She was feeling anger again but this time at herself, at what she had turned into. Self-disgust turned her already heaving stomach. She placed her other hand over her mouth, her skin wet and hot beneath her fingers. She did not think she would ever be able to stop the tears or even live through the next second.
Sharon thought about comforting the broken woman for a second. Her hand outstretched to her shaking shoulder but she pulled it back quickly, realising that comforting Chrissie was more to do with her own guilt with being the one who had incited this breakdown.
The bitterness set deep in her bones as she wondered how they had come to this. The whole pub had always been filled with memories for Sharon; it was the reason she had never been able to leave.
Now it was different like she was free of the spell that kept on pulling her back. Seeing Chrissie drowning in its trap had given her a new perspective. She still hurt and she would carry that pain with her for the rest of her life, but she would move on. She could only hope Chrissie could come to the same conclusion.