Grief is like an ocean

It’s been a while! Another short extract from the first of the Goblin Launderette series. As usual, feel free to share (especially with Twitter dying) and ignore grammar and typos. This is early draft! Don’t forget you can also find me on BlueSky and I’m on Mastodon now.

As she’d expected, Em found Lex about a hundred metres or so from their camp. He was sitting on a fallen tree in a nearby clearing with his cloak pulled tight around him, looking up at the stars. The fire wood he’d been sent out to find was piled neatly at his feet. At the sound of her approach, he glanced in her direction and then returned to looking at the sky.

“Sorry. I just needed a minute. It’s all still just so…”

“It’s okay.” Em said, pausing at the edge of the clearing. “We all understand. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I can go if you’d like?”

“No.” Lex replied, after a short pause to think. “Actually, would you mind staying for a bit?”

Em nodded and joined him. They sat quietly together for a while, just watching the stars.

“Does it ever go away?”

Em looked over at Lex. His face was turned away, but she could see now that his cheeks were moist with tears. Without thinking, she pulled a tissue from thin air. Leaning over, she placed a hand gently on his shoulder to catch his attention and offered it to him. Lex accepted it gratefully and blew his nose. Then, looking directly at her now, he asked the same question again.

“Does it ever go away? This feeling of… incompleteness. Like someone has reached deep into your soul and pulled out a chunk of you. This… sadness. This loss.”

He blew his nose again. Em summoned a fresh tissue and handed that to him as well. Lex nodded his thanks.

“Have you ever read any of Cian Petri’s books?”

Lex looked at Em in slight confusion.

“Bear with me here,” She said, gently. I’ll make sense in a bit. I think. I hope. Anyway. Have you?”

“The ‘Wandering Wizard’? Guy who travels the world and writes books about the things he sees?”

“That’s him.” Em confirmed. “Well, I first discovered his books when I was about ten years old. Found one in my school library and I was instantly hooked. I mean, obviously right? Travel. Monsters. The whole lot. Right in my wheelhouse and all true, to boot.”

“I mean, true is probably stretching it. Doesn’t he claim to have travelled with a talking cat for a while?” Lex asked, a slight smile playing across his lips for the first time in a while.

“Okay, mostly true.”

“Sorry. Go on.”

“Well I took that book home and could not put it down. So that was how my dad found me when he finished his shift downstairs in the launderette that day - perched in the living room with my head in a book. He asked me what it was and I told him. And he went wild.”

“As in he got angry?” Lex asked.

“No! The opposite! Turned out he loved Wandering Wizard stuff. He took me down to the back room of the launderette and there, high on the shelf, was every Wandering Wizard book so far. I’d just never noticed them before.”

Em placed her arms behind her and leaned back on the log, savouring the memory. It was one of her favourites.

“Well from that day onwards, Wandering Wizard books became one of our things, you know? Whenever a new one came out, he’d buy two copies - one for me and one for him - and we’d read them together. Sometimes out loud to each other, sometimes just sat in the same room. Even later, when we seemed to argue more than we talked, those books remained one of the few things we could always go back to. The Wandering Wizard books became, and have remained ever since, my favourite books in the world…”

She turned and looked at Lex.

“…and I have not been able to read one damn word in any of those books for over three years. Can’t even see one in a shop without breaking down.”

Em realised her own eyes were getting damp now. She summoned a tissue for herself and dabbed at them.

“I don’t understand.” Lex said, quietly.

“Grief is an ocean, Lex.” Em gently replied. “One we have no choice but to sail upon. Over time it calms, and you learn to navigate it. Sometimes you even think you have it mastered. But then suddenly, out of nowhere, great waves of it rise up in storm and smash you on grief’s shores.”

“I can go whole days sometimes now without thinking about dad. Hell, I can even have conversations like this and not cry. Mostly!” She laughed. “But those books. My favourite books. His favourite books. Those bloody books, Lex. They’re one of my storms. I discovered that the first time a new one came out after his death. Can you believe that? Of all things it’s a stupid, unimportant book series that can break me every time.”

Em took a deep breath, as if drawing strength from the crisp evening air.

“What I’m saying Lex, is that no. The grief doesn’t go away. I’m Sorry. I wish I could tell you that it did. But it doesn’t. You will learn to accept it and weather it. Sometimes you will be overwhelmed by it, but it will always be there.”

“And that’s okay Lex, because it’s normal.” She continued. “It’s okay to feel whatever way you feel right now. Tomorrow you’ll feel different, and that will be okay, too. Grief is stupid and weird. So is loss. But you can’t feel loss without there having been love. Grief is a legacy of love and it’s that love that you have cling onto, when it hits you hardest. And remember - you’ll always have us, your friends, here to talk to when you need us as well.”

She paused, and looked at Lex. For a while he was silent.

“You know,” he said eventually, with a snotty chuckle, “you’re quite good at this ‘God of Empathy’ thing…”

Em laughed and stood up. She began to pace round the clearing.

“I’m not a God, Lex. They’re dead. I’m just a Divine. And besides, I think most of that advice was just from plain old Emzin, who misses her dad. Not Empathy, who I didn’t know I was until he was gone.”

“Well whoever it was, do they do hugs too?” Lex sniffled, standing up.

“Hugs too!” Em laughed, walking over and pulling him tight. They stayed locked together for a while.

“Ready to head back?” Em said, eventually. “The others will be getting worried about both of us now.”

“Yes… wait… no.” Lex replied, quickly changing his mind. “Em, can I ask you something first? You don’t have to answer if you decide you don’t want to.”

“Sure.”

“Did you get to say goodbye to your dad properly?”

“Did I…” The question caught Em off guard.

“It’s okay!” Lex said, quickly, noting her change of expression. “Don’t answer. Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I just-”

“No, it’s fine.” Em said, waving away his worry. “You just… It’s just not something I like to think about much.”

She sat down on the log again. Lex slid down beside her.

“The answer is no. I didn’t.” She continued. “When I left for uni, we didn’t part on the best terms. We never really spoke much after that and then… he was gone.”

Em took a deep breath again, and wiped away a tear.

“I don’t have many regrets in life so far, but that is one giant whopper of one right there. I never got to say goodbye. Just to tell my dad one more time that I loved him.”

Lex nodded.

“I think that’s at least somewhere I’m lucky.” He said. “The last time I spoke to Sheriadne, my sister told me that she loved me. I said the same back, mostly without thinking about it, but I still said it. It’s a small thing, but…”

“A good thing.” Em agreed, with a small smile. “Shall we-”

“I guess what I’m saying,” Lex added, before she could finish, “is that recent events have made me realise that leaving things unsaid… particularly when you love someone, is a bad idea. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Um, Lex…” Em said, filled with sudden awkwardness. “Look, I’m flattered but-”

“Not me, Em.” Lex laughed, loudly. “I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about you! You and Chloe.”

Em blushed a deep shade of red.

“I don’t know what you mean…” She stammered.

“Em, you remind me of Sheriadne in so many ways. You care deeply about the people around you. She did too. You have the same, deep fire in your eyes when you see injustice that she did. From the moment we first met, you reminded me of her. You even move and act in the same way sometimes. Frankly it’s a bit uncanny.”

He smiled.

“And you have the same tell.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” Em protested.

“When we were growing up, there were very few ways I could get under my older sister’s skin.” Lex continued, a devious but triumphant smile now spreading across his lips. “But one of them was by teasing her whenever she fell in love.”

Lex spun his finger in the air, next to his head.

“She’d twirl her hair round her finger, you see? She’d do it whenever the person she was crushing on got near her. Twist it up tightly, nervously, and then release it. Didn’t even realise she was doing it and you do the same. Not around me. Not around Alan. Not around Tiffany, but Chloe…”

He made the twirling motion again. Em sighed in defeat.

“Okay fine. Does everyone in the party know how I feel about her?”

“No, don’t worry. You do a good job hiding it.” Lex replied, more gently now. “And I’m not going to tell them. Or her.”

“Thank you.” Em was relieved.

“I just think maybe you should tell her yourself. Don’t leave it unsaid, Em. Don’t end up regretting that as well.”

“But she’s my best friend.” Em said, placing her head in her hands. “What if she thinks less of me?”

Lex put an arm around her shoulders.

“But Em, what if she thinks more?”