We break, and break, and break. And break ourselves upon the beach
Its like a bomb went off in her head.
The consuming white noise of an explosion rolling though her ears as she mutely surveys the twisted wreckage of her factory. She knew this could happen, had imagined it with a sinking dread alone in bed at night only to push it aside. It was her duty to fix this, to keep the factory functioning long enough to make enough money to fix the roof, to keep her staffs lives from falling apart.
Her sister is bent over in pain as her family struggle to hold her up, emergency workers move with determination and the only coherent thought she can hold onto is that she could not have failed more spectacularly.
This, she thinks, is what happens when you give into selfishness running after Peter. She had taken her eye off the ball for a few hours and the world had literally fallen down in her absence. If only she had been smarter, if only she had protected the entire street then they all would have been spared this disaster.
If only she was a better person instead of reverting back to type drowning her problems in the first bar she came across.
But it had been so hard and she had been so alone. She had tried so hard to push her own anxieties aside. Put aside food and sleep to bargain and manipulate. Any sacrifice to hold everyones lives together. The long hours in that damn office till she couldn't see clearly through the pain throbbing in her temples. Roy somehow loudly fretting without breathing a word. Her friends concern was irritating, yet another thing for her to avoid and overcome. And yet the thought of moving out and getting her own space was something that made her feel queasy even before she had lied to Roy about the boat fire. They'd fallen into a comfortable routine while she had been ill and it was something she was reluctant to break.
There was a rising panic bubbling in her chest one night when Roy had left her alone to go bat watching. There was a muscle memory that made her skin itch and set her teeth on edge. Alone she was right back to the beginning. Bouncing from one disaster to another with no support or way out unless she pushed aside another wave of trauma. Compartmentalising to stay functioning, to not be defeated. But those long nights alone with her ostentatious décor, those were the times she could no longer keep up the facade. Those nights where the times she didn't not think she could survive.
She couldn't fall back into that place. Not when the factory had been doing so well. Not when she was so close to doing something right by Aidan. If it hadn't been for that damn roof. If she hadn't destroyed the trust she shared with Roy. If Peter had not decided to leave when she had silently come to depend on the quite impasse they had negotiated over the new year. Her life had been so close to being something successful and functioning but it was all such a delicate balance that she had worked so hard to maintain. Then Roy had lost his mother, Nick had brought stolen money into her business and Peter started using another woman to play mind games with her.
She hadn't been strong enough. She had let it all get too much and now she could barley see the wreckage through the dust particles and debris darkening the sky. White noise starts to bend into static, sharp and painful like voices inside her head that she can't quite make out. Her sister's mouth opens again to wail but she can't hear the sound and can't decide if she's grateful or not.
The hairs on her arms rise in goosebumps under the flimsy fabric of her jacket like her body was slowly reawakening. She hadn't dressed or planned on being outside for so long. There was an insidious bitterness to the cold with the warmth from the sun obscured.
They all should have been in the bistro, a family united by a wedding. She should be hugging her ecstatic sister and welcoming her new sister in law into the family. And now a rational, clinical part of her brain understands that it was now her duty to make her presence known and go hold her sister if only to keep her standing against her pain. To answer any questions about her factory and to make sure her father doesn't push himself too hard with his illness.
Instead she is unable to move forward watching the scene play out like some grotesque version of theatre. Like a nightmare where she was the cause but had no place in the effect. It was something she always tried not to dwell on but negotiating her place at the sudden centre of this new family was something she was most insecure about. They had reappeared in her life at a time of weakness before the truth came out so she had always felt out of control and wrong footed even before the DNA test and revelations.
At some point she had rationalised to herself that at the very least she had the opportunity to overcome the mistakes she made with her mother and with her other brother. She did not expect or know how to ask for parental affection from Johnny, she knew she would have been uncomfortable if he treated her the same way as her sister. So she stayed emotionally the outsider as she always had been amongst the close ranks of the Connor's. She could fix their problems, be the witty older sibling who had lived through so much nothing they could say would shock she had been unable to tell them when she was dying and she was still unable to ask for support with complicated feelings for her ex husband or the pressures of her profession.
When her father smiled at her there was never any real depth to the warmth in his gaze. She was a stranger to him even when she knew he felt guilty like biology would be able to erase years of absence. She had been a small child for him to watch guiltily from a distance, never quite seeing what life was like beyond closed doors. Then to be reunited as a seemingly capable adult. He missed the in between, everything that had shaped her and she was too proud and too private to tell that story. Not that he had ever asked.
They had reached a strange impasse where he could confess his deepest sins to her and she could rationalise them away and protect him from blackmail but he would never know her inside out. She had business clients she'd had longer and closer relationships with. Sometimes the distance between them manifested in awkward moments where she catches him looking at her like she's a stranger.
Still that distance had not protected them. She still truly believed she had lead to Aidan's suicide by adding the pressure of the factory upon him. That she had literally took a vital organ and failed to miss her brothers distress.
If anyone knew how it felt to want to die.
But there had been people around to keep her living and she should have done the same for Aidan. Part of her mind even felt responsible for Louisa's death all those years ago, something that darkened her thoughts when she drank too much. She might have only been a child but her siblings mother would still be around if the woman had not learnt of her parentage.
It was a thought she never planned on sharing.
Her mind was coming back to her in increments, all thoughts rushing back it at once. She had to get away before she could detangle the crescendo screeching for her attention. It builds and builds but before she can truly comprehend self preservation warns her to flee. For when the shock wore off she did not know if she could ever move past the destruction she had caused.
But she had always been a coward. Had always been the one to run and avoid her problems.
Her feet carried her to the cafe before anyone could notice or stop her. The lights were off and the door locked. Roy would not enjoy being able to do nothing but watch as the ghoulish spectacle unfolded tragically. He was a better person than all of them. She had to swallow a sob as she locates her keys within the confines of the too small bag she had clutched tightly to her chest. Her fingers didn't shake as she turned it in the lock but they felt numb and disassociated like they belonged to someone else.
It was as if the world had ended.
Once inside she did not even have the foresight to lock the door behind herself. Finally alone, finally away from the noise and the chaos, amongst the shadows of the stacked table and chairs she finds she can not go on any further.
Something breaks.