The Girl He Forgot To Love

Eirlys Solmere (Age 11)

The rain started before it got dark, and it only kept getting heavier. It had only been drumming on the shop windows of the apothecary and Mr Faron had been wrapping her mum's medicine in an old copy of the paper, grumbling about the roads flooding again.

But by the time Eirlys reached the street, the gutters were overflowing onto the stones and the shopkeepers in the High street were whisking their signs and flower pots inside before the storm destroyed them. Wind blasted rain horizontally, stinging her cheeks and the whole town was a washed out grey mess streaked with smoke-dark shadows.

"Eirlys," Mr Faron called to her, "tell your mother that the cough mixture lasts three nights this time. And don't be walking about after dark, little bird."

She'd smiled at that as she walked away. Her smile had faltered when the next crack of thunder had rolled over the roofs of the town, a long deep rumbling sound that vibrated the iron ornaments fixed to the shops. She'd tightened her coat around herself, kept her head down and clutched the paper bag containing the bread to her chest.

The bread was still warm through the wrapping paper; Mum would eat a chunk before dinner and declare herself too full to have any more, and watch Elio finish it. Eirlys quickened her pace. The river didn't look right. It flowed softly beneath the market bridge when the weather was fine, and the shallow parts shone golden in the summer sun.

Then, in the storm, it had turned dark and heavy; water was pounding the banks hard enough for white spray to rise into the air in plumes and the branches that entered the torrent would disappear from view almost before she'd finished watching them fall.

Dad had always insisted they stay away from it when it looked like this but never explained exactly why. He made them promise during the rainy season each year. He looked serious enough that she'd just kept it into herself without argument. She'd glance at the water then look away. Another rumble of thunder went through the town. A splash. Heavier than rain. She'd heard the difference even above the drumming of the downpour and she stopped walking, stood still and listened.

Wind tore through the branches of the trees on the hillside above her, the river kept roaring past. She heard a short and guttural yell, almost lost in the noise of the water, but Eirlys had heard enough to swing her body around to the river. Something black, dark against the spray, broke the surface near the broken railings on the bank below her.

A boy. He sank again almost before she'd quite comprehended what she'd seen. The paper bag dropped out of her hands. The bread rolled across the wet stones, the bottle of medicine landed on the corner of the street and cracked, its dark contents spreading and disappearing into the rushing rainwater.

Without thinking, she ran. Her shoes had slipped twice on the road before she'd made the bank, and when she finally got there the boy was again closer to the rocks below her. He looked older now, his dark hair plastered to his face and he had his arm outstretched, reaching for the current, and then he had gone down as the water pulled him back under.

The river was thundering against the rocks with a force that seemed to shake the ground and the spray drenched her face. She thought about what her Dad said: the river never bothered to care how sorry anyone was afterwards. He sank again and didn't come back. Eirlys made a noise she didn't mean to and jumped.

The cold was an absolute shock. The current grabbed her and tossed her to one side before she knew which way up was. She hit rock with her knee sending agony rocketing up her leg and she kicked for the surface coughing violently as the rain filled her mouth.

The boy had drifted downstream again, she lunged towards him and swallowed more water, choked that up and thrust her hands into the current. The river jerked violently as soon as she touched him, pulling him away from her and then pulling him under.

He was a lot heavier than she had thought he would be. She hadn't considered that bit. She wrapped both hands into the back of his wet coat and tried to kick to the bank but the current just held them both stationary on the spot, pushing them downstream. Her grip slipped from his jacket; she grabbed his sleeve, lost it, grabbed again and held on while her fingers went numb, her chest burning with effort.

The water climbed over both of them as a wave broke, filled her mouth and her nose as she struggled to find the bottom. She choked then kicked hard at nothing and felt the current start to drag her, her feet found stone, she lunged and kicked up stream, dragging the boy across the rocky riverbed towards the bank and then out into the air, and dropped heavily to her knees beside him. She rested her palms against the rocks and breathed as the rain poured down on top of them both.

The boy did not move. Water was running from his clothing and pooled around his body between the rocks. He was around fourteen Eirlys thought, now that she could see him clearly. Blood trickled slowly from a wound above his left eyebrow, mixing with the rain as it ran down to his jaw.

She placed both hands against his chest and pushed, in exactly the same way as an old fisherman down at the harbor had explained once to an indifferent fish stall cleaner when Eirlys had been listening in from behind her mother sorting fish. Nothing happened. She pushed again and again, harder this time.

He coughed. He began to choke, splutter, jerking in a spasm all over, dragging his fingers feebly at the rock face below him. Eirlys rolled him onto his side, keeping a hand steady on his back as he gasped for breath and spluttered. Then his eyes opened. They were dark and unfocused, for the moment. They moved from his own body up to hers, and didn't leave. His hand, cold and stiff, closed around her wrist.

"Don't leave me," he whispered. It came out low and scratchy like stone on stone, afraid in a way that ripped her up inside.

Eirlys nodded, slick hair plastered to her cheek as rain dripped down both their faces.

"I'm here. I've got you. I'm here."

He looked at her as his breath gradually steadied, and she stayed. She didn't know what else to do now she'd actually got him out. She'd never thought any further than the getting him out part. Then sounds came over the storm from up on the hill, moving lights appeared between the trees at the top of the bank on the road.

"We found the bicycle!"

"Search closer to the river!"

"Cryan!"

The boy’s hand clamped tight around her wrist. Only his head turning, when his name was called. Eirlys looked up towards the moving lights. She’d always been intimidated by rich people, it wasn’t that she was scared, not exactly. More like they always looked disappointed or angry with her for things she hadn’t realised she’d even done and it wasn’t until they were yelling she knew which particular transgression it was this time.

The voices were coming closer, branches snapped in the trees further beyond the bank, and then the beam of the first torchlight sliced across the rocks; just before it fell upon them, Cryan’s grip on her wrist shifted slightly. He looked at her again, and something changed in his expression—a kind of stillness that suggested he’d had something to say—then his eyes closed.

Cryan Davies (Age 14)

The ceiling was made of white tiles, a long fluorescent bar of light running down the middle of them, and there a faint mechanical hum from somewhere he couldn't quite locate.

Cryan’s head felt thick, like something had been packed into the space behind his eyes while he was out, and when he tried to move his neck a dull, weighted ache spread from just above his left ear all the way down to his shoulder and he stopped trying.

There were machines beside him. He could hear them beeping. A tube ran from the back of his right hand up to a clear bag hanging from a metal pole, and the tape holding it in place had started to pull at the hairs on his wrist.

He had been in the river. That much came back in a lurch; dark water, the cold arriving so fast he hadn't had time to react to it, the current doing whatever it wanted with him. His bicycle. He remembered the back wheel skidding out on the flooded road above the bank and then the railing