Living is a problem because everything dies.
The sky was a murky indigo blue by the time her taxi pulled up outside her building. A new day threatening to spill over but the darkness still holds on. She wants to be inside with the curtains tightly shut by the time the sun rises, she had never resented a new day so much.
As she escaped the confines of her seatbelt she leaned back for the shortest moment and tried to make her muscles relax. They seemed to refuse her command and remained as tight and jumpy as they had the whole silent way home.
Although the driver peered at her through the mirror he was smart enough to remain silent. Janice and Ken had taken a broken Leanne home and she could not even bring herself to look at Nick. She very nearly asked if she could travel with one of them but the words stuck in her throat. It was not her place.
She paid the driver and nodded her thanks sharply. Somehow she had managed to clutch onto her bag all night, it seemed more than ludicrous now. She opened the door and was immediately knocked back by the chaotic chorus of bird song. It was not right, nothing about it was pleasant or life affirming just a jumble of clashing sounds.
The world outside was bitter and for the first time in hours she remembered she was cold in her inappropriate outfit. But then even if she had known she doubted she owned anything tram or fire proof. It was odd to be at a stage where she really should consider investing in some. In the strange blanked gloom of the pre dawn twilight she could hold herself together. When the harsh light of the sun touched her world she would finally have to start to believe and feel and grieve. She was familiar with the upcoming parts so she was quite content to shake numbly for the time being.
She slipped a little on worn heels, legs unstable and painful and she realised at some point while rushing around on the cobbles she has pulled more than one muscle. The alcohol kept her mind and reaction sluggish enough that she could maintain some sort of equilibrium. The world outside her building was uneventful and almost uninhabited at such an early hour. These people's lives had not been changed irreversibly in just one night.
It was common knowledge where she worked and at a more sociable hour she wondered what questions her neighbours would ask, how they would gossip and stare. The nice but overly smiley older couple from down the hall had tired to tell her she was lucky after she was almost burned alive, trapped by her estranged husband. She had still been covered in bruises and limping and she had not felt lucky. She would not be able to face them right now not when once again she was the one left behind, she was alone.
It felt bizarre and unnatural that the world would carry on when she closed her eyes and all she could see was destruction. A sound close to a strangled scream escaped her throat as the taxis engine roared to life and left her truly alone and finally spurred her into action. The walk to her home was clumsy, solemn death march of meandering lines. The stairs echoed shrilly beneath her heels and rolled like sharp gunfire on the walls around her.
She drops her keys three times before she manages to undo her own front door and wishes she hadn't. She wishes she gave up and collapsed on the landing in drunken unconsciousness because this was not home. Not any more and maybe it never was. Sometimes she did not understand why she stayed, people died and left her and she stayed in the flat they shared as if there was enough left. But none of it had ever been truth; both her marriages were set upon foundations of lies and had ended in spectacular bursts of tragedy. And yet she remained but the coffee machine was Paul's, the wallpaper change had been Tony's idea and the candlestick holders a present from Liam.
And now as she shut the door firmly behind herself she wondered of the physical evidence of change Peter had left in her world. But there had not been enough time, he had never been hers not even in the way she had Liam. So maybe his absence was marked in an absence of her own. He had thrown away all her alcohol, poured bottle after bottle down the sink and she had tried so hard to make him proud of her and tried to resist temptation so she'd kept it that way. It's why she had gone to the Rovers first unable to face being alone with a clear head.
Absent, gone there were a lot or words but she could not bring herself to use the d one. Not while Leanne's agonizing screams of grief still haunted the silence. She had headed back to the room when she heard the familiar chaos that came with death. She watched from the doorway as the doctors shook their heads despondently and Leanne broke within Ken's stoic embrace.
And once again she had not belonged. She was left alone with more grief than she thought was humanly possible.