ELLIE ROSE MCKEE - TANGLED

Ellie is a writer from Northern Ireland. She has had a number of poems and short stories published and has been blogging for over ten years, since her time at university. She lives in Belfast with her husband, cat, and accidental chihuahua.

Tangled
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​Rick pulled into his driveway, turned off the engine, and rested his head on the steering wheel of his Jeep. His day had started off badly and the long hours at work didn't help. He’d been dreading coming home, knowing he’d have to finally start an uncomfortable conversation with his housemate, Christopher, but it just couldn’t be put off any longer. Well, not more than a few minutes, anyway – long enough to roll down the window and have a cigarette.
The smoking was a bad sign, even Rick himself knew that.  He’d managed to give up for six months before the stress of the morning pushed him back.
Susan had been there, at the house, standing in the middle of the rose bed of all places, near where the front wheel of the Jeep had now come to rest. Thorns had cut her bare legs and feet, so she had trickles and smears of blood all over.
Rick’s face had fallen when he saw her – he felt pity for her, at first – but then he got angry when she wouldn’t go. So now he had to have the talk with Christopher, and they’d have to decide what to do about her because enough was enough.
“Christopher, we have to talk,” Rick repeated over to himself before shaking his head. No. It was a bad opener. ‘Did you see Susan this morning?’ he could ask, but that was maybe too direct.
Raising his eyes from the cigarette, Rick surveyed the house. There didn’t seem to be any lights on. Maybe he could go in and shower before having to decide anything. Except that was a cop-out. It was better for him to be prepared. That much was clear when he’d found Susan with wild hair and wearing only an oversized t-shirt at seven–am.
Rick hadn’t known what to say. She had looked like she might cry, so they had just stood there for a minute looking at each other until a neighbour came out to collect the milk and Rick had tried to get Susan to move further into the shade where she wouldn’t cause a scene.
Fat lot of good that had done him.
Susan had wrenched her arm from his hand and started to yell and swear at him. Rick backed up and had raised his hands in surrender, but he was firm about telling her she needed to go; that she shouldn’t be there. And then she’d started up again about how she and Christopher were together; that she loved him, and needed him; that he knew she was there and didn’t mind.
That was when Rick lost it and started yelling back at her that she was a stupid, deluded cow, and how if she cared about Christopher at all she wouldn’t be putting him through this stalker bullshit.
She really did cry, then, and he felt like the biggest jerk on the planet. She was clearly mentally unstable. He and Christopher would probably have to notify the authorities and get her forcibly sectioned; get a restraining order, or something.
Rick flinched as ash from his cigarette fell onto his jeans and started to smoulder. He brushed his hand quickly over the patch to extinguish it and inspected the hole. It wasn’t big, but was enough to be the crappy topping on his craptastic day. He opened the door, threw down what was left of the butt and swung his legs out of the car to stamp on it.
Each of the smaller actions that made up the bigger action of walking to the front door – rolling up the car window, closing the car door and locking it, and putting one foot in front of the other – sent mental exhaustion deeper into Rick’s bones.
He had seen documentaries about asylums and didn’t want to be responsible for anyone being locked up in one. Sure, they probably weren’t as bad as they’d been in the Victorian era – he was pretty sure they weren’t even called asylums anymore – but there had been a thing in the newspaper the other week about how vulnerable adults were more likely to be abused when put into care or some shit. He didn’t want that on his conscience.
Susan used to be a really cool person before her obsession with Christopher started and her friendship with both him and Rick went to hell. Rick and Christopher had been best friends since primary school and Susan had been the one to plant the roses for them. They were a housewarming gift for when they moved in together right after uni. Except neither of them really cared to learn how to look after roses, so they were kinda wild.
Truth be told, Rick had fallen hard for Susan that very first day he saw her walking across campus with a huge smile on her face. He’d turned and asked Christopher what he thought, but he’d only grunted.  
Christopher hadn’t really ever shown any interest. Not only did he refuse to acknowledge any of Susan’s weird appearances at their house, he’d tried to talk Rick out of asking her out in the first place.
Two weeks into knowing Susan, Rick had been talking Christopher’s ear off about how much he liked her – again – and had again asked his friend’s opinion. This time, different from the rest for whatever reason, Christopher had shook his head and actually engaged with the topic at hand.
“I don’t think so,” he’d said. “She’s nuts.”
Rick had gotten indignant and asked exactly what he meant, and Christopher had shrugged and just said it was obvious. Rick thought he was being a prick at the time but now, well, look who turned out to be right. That same day, Rick had gone to Susan’s flat and asked her out regardless of what his friend thought. She’d been really sweet about it and said she was flattered but, ultimately, told him she was already with someone else.
And that’s when the lies about Christopher started. Susan said they’d been dating for “a while” but he’d wanted to keep it quiet. Briefly, Rick wondered if it might be true, but that didn’t make any sense. Christopher was already dating like three other girls, and – now Rick thought about it – he’d never really had a kind word to say about Susan. Maybe, he realised belatedly, this was why. Given what each of them had told him, he figured she’d tried it on, he’d rejected her, and she hadn’t taken it well so was now in some deluded fantasy land of her own making.
It wasn’t the first time something like that had happened. Christopher seemed to have all kinds of women coming out of the woodwork – especially the crazy ones – while Rick struggled to ever find a date. He sighed, considering again that was maybe for the best. “Better no girl than a crazy one,” Christopher always told him. And sure, wasn’t he one to know?
Rick figured it must be really hard on his friend to have to put up with stalkers. He assumed he felt sorry for the women, and was just putting on the callous act as some kind of coping mechanism. Whatever it was, it had to stop. Christopher needed to talk to Rick about this, and they needed to do something, because this was worse than any of the times before and Susan needed to be made to stay away before she did something really bad that she couldn’t come back from.
Resolute, Rick put his key in the front door and walked into the house, flicking on the hall switch and effectively flooding the whole open-plan downstairs area with light.
Christopher and Susan looked up, surprise on their faces.
Susan was naked, backed up against the sink, Christopher standing between her parted legs, his bare chest pressed to hers and mouth smeared with her lipstick.
They both looked away as suddenly as they had looked up.
Rick dropped his keys and swore, bending to pick them up. By the time he had righted himself and remembered to breathe, Christopher had disentangled himself from the embrace and walked the short distance to his bedroom, shutting the door loudly behind him; not saying a word or tossing any kind of backward glance towards Susan, who he’d left standing there, exposed and adrift.
All the scars on her legs were vibrant red.
Rick blinked after his friend and Susan burst into tears. He had to dig out an oversized shirt from the recesses of his wardrobe for her to wear and make her a cup of tea before either of them were composed enough for him to offer a lift home.  
Christopher’s bedroom door was locked and, apparently, all of Susan’s clothes were on his floor. Rick seethed as reality filtered through the sludge of his overworked mind.
“How long?” he asked, when he finally found his voice.
“Four months,” said Susan, her head down and voice shaky.
“Right,” said Rick, clenching and unclenching his fist. He definitely needed to have a serious talk with his housemate now. Because, of the three of them, there was definitely one liar and one deluded idiot, it just so happened that he’d got all the roles tangled.