Driftwood

[Red Ranger 1]

Seems like Roo's adapting better to the return to civilisation than Matt. I don't know if we're meant to worry he's done something stupid, I don't think you'd do that this early in the story... The fates of all the other characters are intriguing (Oscar has a girlfriend?I'm saying nothing...), I especially love the idea of Zac and Leah adopting a child.

[Ludub]

1 minute ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

Seems like Roo's adapting better to the return to civilisation than Matt. I don't know if we're meant to worry he's done something stupid, I don't think you'd do that this early in the story... The fates of all the other characters are intriguing (Oscar has a girlfriend?I'm saying nothing...), I especially love the idea of Zac and Leah adopting a child.

Haha! Oscar doesn't have to be gay in all my stories!  I wanted to have a go at inventing a character of my own, so... enter Callie. And, no, I hadn't intended you to worry about suicide, that's not what's happened. Thanks for reading 

[KittCatt]

Great chapter!

It's interesting how much has changed since Roo and Matt have been 'away'.. For both Roo and Matt, as well as the others in the bay. I especially like Kyle and Billie  And Leah and Zac's adoptive daughter  

Worrying that Matt's not coping well to this chaotic world. And Roo seems to want to keep busy in order to cope. It must be so hard adjusting to life now, and it's not that surprising Matt didn't really want to leave. The flashback showed how different life was and even the dynamic between the two were different. Very well written.

I look forward to more 

[Guest]

Great chapter 

Loved Alfie and Maisy playing together.

Poor Matt not coping.

Loved Kyle and Billie's relationship

Update again soon

 

[pembie]

I really think you should think about writing a novel that was really good.. You seem to have done a far abit of research with the legal money stuff while Matt and Roo have been away.

Seems like Matt and VJ are both craving a different life. Matt wanting to get back to the island I'm wondering if he will get to go back at all.. and then there's VJ wanting to maybe getting back with Billie..

The flashback scene was great too..I bet food that's been cooked on a stove would taste quite different to campfire food.

[Ludub]

12 hours ago, KittCatt said:

Worrying that Matt's not coping well to this chaotic world. And Roo seems to want to keep busy in order to cope. It must be so hard adjusting to life now, and it's not that surprising Matt didn't really want to leave. The flashback showed how different life was and even the dynamic between the two were different.

Thanks KittCatt!  I think both of their reactions are understandable and probably equally worrying. Matt withdrawing from life seems like the more concerning behavior because we tend to think that people who are the life and soul of the party are doing OK, but neither of them are really coping. Roo is surrounding herself with people to avoid dealing with her feelings. In some ways Matt is being more honest. Their relationship has changed since they've come home and that has been unavoidable. How they deal with that is still to be seen...

8 hours ago, pembie said:

I really think you should think about writing a novel that was really good.. You seem to have done a far abit of research with the legal money stuff while Matt and Roo have been away.

Thanks Pembie!!!  That's so kind of you to say! I might do at some stage. At the moment I'm just treating this as a hobby but we'll see. I'm not sure how accurate all the legal stuff is but I did look up a couple of cases of missing people turning up again, and apparently getting everything sorted from a legal point of view can be an absolute nightmare. It's not just as simple as turning up and saying 'hiya, I'm back!'. Anyway, my story, my rules, haha!  

9 hours ago, Kristen said:

Loved Kyle and Billie's relationship

Yeah, I always kind of felt that that was a missed opportunity. I think they could have been cute together and I'm just not entirely convinced about VJ and Billie (I don't dislike them together, which I'm a little surprised about, it's more that I'm just not a huge fan of the circumstances in which they got together). I think Kyle and Billie just had particularly bad timing and they could have revisited that a little further down the line (y'know, if Kyle hadn't got himself banged up). Anyway, it wouldn't be Home and Away if everyone hadn't swapped partners (like a game of pass the parcel) in the four years that Matt and Roo had been away. Life moves pretty fast for a small beach town! Lol! Thanks for reading Kristen  x

[Ludub]

Thanks again everyone for the incredibly kind comments. Really hope you like this chapter! 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

Matt sat on the beach, digging his bare feet into the sand, and stared out across the water. He picked up his ringing phone and gave a sad little sigh as he looked at the name flashing up on the screen, and then turned off the sound. It was Roo calling for the fifth time… He couldn’t bring himself to answer it because he really didn’t know how to explain to her why he couldn’t come to the party. He just couldn’t.

He’d been on his way home, hoping to have a nice little family dinner with Roo and Alfie, when he’d seen everyone arriving just ahead of him. Evie, and Oscar, and Billie, and Kyle… He’d stopped abruptly in his tracks, watching these happy people walking through his door, and all he’d wanted to do was walk away. They were people that he knew very well. People that he liked! He couldn’t really understand why he couldn’t bring himself to follow them inside. They’d all just looked so comfortable in each other’s company and the thought of having to make small talk with them had made him feel incredibly panicky. He’d felt his chest tighten just at the thought of having to smile and make casual chitchat like everything was okay. He just couldn’t do it. He wasn’t up to being sociable tonight at all. A barbecue with half the town was the last thing that he wanted, especially with no warning. The smell of barbecued meat had drifted on the air towards him and he’d realised in that moment that dinner had already been taken care of. He gave an exasperated sigh and shook his head at how foolish he’d been. Of course it had already been taken care of! He didn’t get a say in anything anymore! He’d spent the afternoon fishing, just like on the island, and he’d wanted Roo and Alfie to sit down with him outside and eat together like they used to. Just the three of them, together as a family, eating together and enjoying each other’s company. He’d thought they could maybe even build a campfire and pretend that they were at home on the island. Looking down at the string of fish that he’d been carrying so proudly up until this moment, he’d actually felt a little embarrassed, and blushed bright red. He’d been excited to get home because he’d caught Alfie’s favourite and he’d wanted to see that excited little face of his when he got to show it to him. But the realisation that life was never going to be the same as before, and that they would never eat in that way again, had just hit him like a ton of bricks. They’d never ever be grateful for their food in the way that they’d had to be on that island. Food would never be scarce again, or something that they had to worry about, so it would never be a reason for celebration. No-one could be excited or grateful for something that they took for granted. There was something so very sad about that. He stood for a moment and breathed in the scent of barbecuing beef on the air. It made him feel a little nauseous. That was the smell of a world that he’d left behind four years ago and that he really didn’t feel a part of now. It wasn’t where he belonged!

With that he’d turned on his heel and left, and here he was now, sitting on the beach on his own, and feeling thoroughly miserable. The fish that he’d caught were bundled up in a plastic bag that he’d found on the way here, but he wasn’t even sure what he was going to do with them. They’d probably be rotten by the time he went home. What a terrible waste! They’d been nice fish too…He and Roo would have killed to have a catch as good as that on the island, and Roo would have been kissing all round him in excitement, and promising to reward him later. A catch like that would have been cause for such celebration! Alfie loved his fish, and he’d have been smiling from ear to ear and watching intently, as Roo gutted them and wrapped them in a leaf to cook over the fire. They’d loved their dinners together and filled their evenings with stories and songs. He figured that it’s what it must have been like for early man. People had been building fires like these and sitting around them in small groups like this for thousands and thousands of years. Life had been so simple there and yet so much more fulfilling. He couldn’t deny that it had been tough as well. Incredibly tough, with an ever-present threat of starvation and death. But, in many ways, it had been so much better than this! Modern life had lost so much! He thought back to the last dinner that they’d had on the island and smiled bitterly at the thought of having a dinner like that here. He’d found a pretty small crab that night, and gathered some of the purple seaweed that Alfie liked, but he hadn’t managed to catch any other fish that day. It hadn’t exactly been a feast, but they’d managed to make a sort of saucepan from a piece of metal that had washed up on the beach one day, and the crab and seaweed had made a decent enough soup. They’d really enjoyed it, especially Roo, and he’d entertained Alfie with that song ‘Under the Sea’ from the Little Mermaid. In his mind, that last dinner on the island had become emblematic of how perfect their life had been there and how lacking their new life was. If he were to return this evening to Summer Bay House with a paltry little crab and a handful of seaweed, his little family would simply turn their noses up and go look in the fridge for something better. He couldn’t blame them really when the fridge held a veritable feast of flavours and textures that would be so much more intense than that soup. Of course there was something better in there! But something about it didn’t sit right with him. This constant mindless eating, often in front of the TV, and with little to no interaction, was so very sad. They’d all become so over-privileged and ungrateful in only a couple of weeks, and that realisation made him a little angry. He could picture the scene at the house now, with lashings and leavings of food everywhere, in a grotesque display of plenty, and the thought of that made him feel a little sick. Those lovely people eating in his garden tonight had probably consumed more calories than his little family had in a year! He wasn’t sure how he could ever adjust to things here.

He pulled his knees up towards his chest, hugging his arms around his legs, and hiding his face. He let out a huge sigh as he watched the last surfer leave the beach and it began to grow dark. His phone was buzzing in his pocket for the umpteenth time, and he knew that he should answer it, but he just couldn’t. He wondered at himself and how much of a weirdo he was becoming. What kind of man ignores phone calls from his girlfriend so he can sit on a beach on his own and not eat burgers at a family barbecue? What on earth was wrong with him?!

 

*****

 

“Is that Matt?!” asked Andy, motioning with his head towards the beach as he walked with Josh along the beachfront. They’d just been for dinner in Angelo’s and they were headed back to the house to have a few beers together. It was beginning to get dark so all he could really see was a guy huddled on the beach, on his own, with a mop of curly hair and a beard.

“You’re asking me?!” laughed Josh, shaking his head at him and rolling his eyes, “Blind guy here, remember?!”  

“Yeah, sorry” mumbled Andy in an embarrassed sort of way. He sometimes forgot that Josh couldn’t see his hand gestures or facial expressions. He shook his head at himself, thinking that he should have learnt by now. It had been five years! “It looks like him though.” he said, squinting into the distance.

Josh stopped and faced towards the beach as though he was looking for him too, “It’s a bit late isn’t it? Are you sure it’s him?”

“Uhhh… I think so…” said Andy, walking over to the railing to get a better look. Andy strained his eyes a little more to try to make him out a bit better in the fading light. Recognising the T-shirt that he’d seen him wearing a few days ago, he said, “Yeah, it’s definitely Matt… Do you wanna go talk to him?”

“Yeah, maybe just me, though, yeah?” said Josh, looking a little worried. “He’s going through some stuff at the moment and I think… I dunno… I might try to talk to him?”

“Okay, Mr Psychologist” laughed Andy in a teasing tone, as he reached out and guided Josh’s hand to his arm so he could lead him down onto the beach. “I’ll show you where he is.”

Andy led him down to where Matt was sitting and then headed on towards the house without saying hello. Matt was so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn’t heard them approaching. “Matt?” called Josh, scanning the area in front of him with unseeing eyes, and listening for any sound of movement. He still didn’t like being on the beach with its expanse of shifting sands because it always made him feel a little disoriented. “Matt?!” he called again, feeling a little nervous when he didn’t get an answer.

“Oh!” exclaimed Matt, jumping a little at the sound of Josh’s voice behind him. He turned and saw Josh standing a short distance behind him on the beach and staring around him in a lost sort of way. “Hey!” he said, calling out to him loudly to make sure that he knew where he was, “Over here! Six steps”. Josh walked slowly forward and stopped beside him, putting his hand out tentatively towards him. Matt reached out and took his hand, guiding him to the space beside him, and Josh sat down carefully on the sand. “What are you doing here?!” asked Matt, turning and giving Josh’s knee a little pat.

“Andy saw you down here” said Josh, folding up his cane and feeling relieved that Matt was talking to him. He was on the beach, alone in the dark, after all. People didn’t do that when they were in a chatty mood! He could just as easily have bitten his head off and stormed off, leaving him alone on a beach to find his own way back. “I could ask you the same thing…” said Josh, laughing a little nervously, “I mean, it’s getting dark, isn’t it? What are you doing down here on the beach?”

Matt shrugged and looked back out at the darkened water, glistening now under the moonlight, and mumbled, “I dunno…”

“Did you and Roo have a fight or something?” asked Josh, furrowing his brow at him in concern. “Are you hiding or something?”

“No… not hiding exactly” he said quietly, rubbing his face in his hands and giving a little sigh, “It’s just… Roo decided to have a big barbecue at the house tonight… and… and… It’s like she’s invited half the bay… She didn’t even ask me…There are so many people there… and I just can’t deal with all those people! ...I can’t talk to people… not anymore…” He turned to look at Josh for a moment and wondered why he was able to talk to him so much more easily than anyone else. He couldn’t even explain this to Roo! Was it really just because he was blind, or was it because of Josh’s job as a psychologist. Maybe it was both? He just seemed so much more understanding, and non-judgemental, and not having to look him in the eye really did help for some reason. Whatever the case, he was glad that Josh had found him tonight. He needed someone to talk to right now. Things were getting on top of him and he felt like he was moments away from a full blown panic attack. He hated that feeling of tightness in his chest that had become all too familiar since they’d arrived home. It was a horrible feeling, like suffocating for no reason. Blowing out a big breath as slowly as he could, he pulled his knees towards himself, and hugged his arms around them again. “I don’t know, Josh… I think… I think, maybe… maybe there’s something wrong with me… like PTSD or something? …I just can’t seem to get it together.”

“Matt, you’ve been through a lot…” said Josh, putting his hand out and giving Matt’s shoulder a squeeze. “You lost everything and everyone… and you thought that you were going to die.” he said, shaking his head in wonder. “You and Roo spent four years with no-one to talk to but each other… You don’t think that might affect the way you deal with people?!... Isolation is a form of mental torture, Matt. It’s not a minor thing… You’ve been through more than most people can imagine!”

“Yeah, okay, but I can’t just keep being this big a weirdo!” he said, looking at Josh with fear in his eyes, “…I’m going to make everyone hate me”. He couldn’t stand his own behaviour, and wished that he could act differently, but he genuinely felt that it was out of his control. “I’m gonna be that weird guy that people point out on the street and tell their kids to stay away from… ‘Oi kids, don’t go near that man with the beard! He’s an odd one!’” He gave a big sigh and ran his hand through his hair with a bitter little smile, “…I just want to feel normal, Josh!”

“Hey, you are normal, Matt!” said Josh, shaking his head at him. “…I think you’re being too hard on yourself! Coming back here is such a big change… It’s scary and overwhelming… And I think it’d be pretty weird if you weren’t feeling like this.”

“Roo isn’t!” snapped Matt, frowning down at the sand and blinking back the tears that were threatening to form. “She seems perfectly fine with us coming back here… and she just wants people around her all the time… and I mean all the time! …I hate it, Josh! I hate it! …I’m getting so antisocial and I know that just isn’t normal! …I don’t want Alfie to have some weirdo loner for a dad… or for Roo to have to deal with ‘this’… I just… I just hate this! …Y’know, my garden is full of… it’s full of really nice people tonight, really nice people, and all I had to do was walk through that door and go say hello… I could be sitting there eating burgers with a great bunch of people… people who care about both me and Roo… I could be doing that right now!” His whole body had begun to shake and Josh could hear the tremble in his voice as he spoke. “Instead, Josh? Instead?! I’m sitting here on the beach with an empty stomach and a bag full of raw fish… It’s just not normal! …It’s pathetic, that’s what it is!”

Josh nodded thoughtfully and blew out a big breath. “Everyone deals with things in different ways, Matt… Maybe Roo seems okay because she wants people around her all the time, but she might actually be struggling just as much as you are?” He tilted his head in Matt’s direction in a sympathetic sort of way, and asked, “Have you tried talking to Roo about how you feel? How you really feel?”

“I can’t” said Matt, chewing his lip and staring off at the horizon with a look of anger on his face, “I just can’t.”

“Why not?” asked Josh, shrugging his shoulders and raising his eyebrows at him, “Seriously, why not?”

“Cos… cos I feel pathetic enough as it is” muttered Matt, wiping angrily at a stray tear that had rolled down his cheek. “I don’t want her to know what a weirdo loner I am… what a total waste of space…”

“You’re not a weirdo, Matt! And you’re not a waste of space!” he assured him, shaking his head at him a little sadly, “You have to stop beating yourself up all the time… You don’t have anything to be ashamed of! The way you’re feeling is normal! Take it from me, it’s normal! …I’m serious! If you came to see me and I was dealing with you in a professional capacity, then I would tell you that everything that you’re feeling is normal. It’s something that you can work through… but talking is important. The more you talk, the better you’ll feel… I know that’s easy for me to say but it’s true…” He ran his fingers through his hair and smiled in Matt’s direction, “It um… It helped me come to terms with things… It’s why I do what I do…”

“I don’t think talking is going to fix this” mumbled Matt, shaking his head and screwing his face up in a pained sort of grimace as he tried not to cry. “You’re the only one I can talk to about this… and I don’t even know why!”

“It’s really good that you feel that you can talk to me, Matt” said Josh, giving him a sympathetic little smile, “I’m happy to be a listening ear anytime you need me… or I can help you get a counsellor, an official one, which might not be a bad idea at all… But, Matt, I do think that you need to be honest with Roo… You need to talk to each other… You need to try to help each other through this…”

“I can’t” whispered Matt in a broken sort of voice, as the tears started to stream down his cheeks and he wiped at them angrily with the sleeves of the hoodie tied around his waist.

“Yes you can, Matt” said Josh, nodding at him adamantly, “You can… and you will… because you’re stronger than you think… And you have something special with Roo that you need to hold on to.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start” said Matt, shaking his head and hugging his arms around his knees again.

“Just tell her what you told me” said Josh, shrugging his shoulders again. He turned to stare out towards what he supposed was the horizon, trying to remember what the ocean looked like at night, and smiling a little wistfully to himself. Talking things through with his counsellor had helped him so much in the early days when he’d hit rock bottom. He knew that he probably wouldn’t have pulled through, and gotten his life together so well, without the help of counselling. He remembered that feeling all too well. He remembered what it felt like to be so totally overcome with a sense of hopelessness that he couldn’t envisage any kind of future for himself. It’d been a terribly bleak feeling, and it had been so all-consuming at times that he’d felt that he couldn’t breathe properly. He’d often felt like he was slowly suffocating, lost and alone in the darkness, but he’d come out the other side eventually.

Life was good now. He had a job that he found fulfilling, he’d learnt to cope with his blindness pretty well, and he even had a strong relationship now that he never would have imagined happening. Meeting Tamara again at the rehab centre after all these years had been a big surprise for everyone, but he’d hit it off with her immediately, and they’d just grown closer and closer. Who could understand what he’d been through better than someone who’d been through it themselves? They just got each other, and being with someone who was blind as well was just so much easier from a practical point of view. Things hadn’t been working so well with Evie because what little they’d had in common before the assault seemed to have gone with his vision. Outside of the bedroom, there just hadn’t seemed to be much that they could do together, and they’d been finding each other incredibly boring. He’d broken it off with her once he’d realised that he had feelings for Tamara, but things had actually ended relatively amicably. They’d even managed to stay friends. Going out with a girl who was both Kyle and Casey’s ex hadn’t been without its problems though. Kyle had been a bit strange about it at first, especially when Tamara had stayed over the first time, but he was with Billie now, so he’d just had to get over himself. He and Tamara made each other happy and that was all that really mattered. If someone had asked him about Tamara a couple of years ago, he couldn’t have claimed to know her that well, but now she was the most important thing in his life. It was strange how things worked out! They’d even been talking about getting married and having children sometime in the near future. Life was unpredictable sometimes!

He just hoped that Matt would find his way through all of this too, and learn to be happy again. “You need to work through things together.” he said, patting Matt on the shoulder again and then pointing out towards the water, “Just like you did out there on the island… This is just another challenge.” He laughed a little and added, “If you can survive a shipwreck, a big hunk of steel in your side, and four years on a desert island with no food and no shelter, then you can definitely survive Summer Bay!”

Matt laughed a little and nodded his head. Josh was right. He was going to have to talk to Roo about what was going on with him if he was going to have any chance of fitting back into this world. They’d gotten each other through some truly terrible times on the island, so maybe they could get through this? He gave a heavy sigh and took his phone out of his pocket. Twelve missed calls from Roo! He knew that he’d have to go home soon and face the music… He was going to get such an earful!

 

*****

 

Matt walked back through the door of Summer Bay House, looking incredibly nervous and apologetic, and gave a little sigh of relief when he realised that everyone had already gone home. Roo was sitting on the couch with a sleeping Alfie in her arms, and was clearly nodding off a little herself.

“Roo?” he said softly, as he knelt down beside her and touched her gently on the knee, “Roo?”

She opened her eyes, and jumped a little, looking at him in a startled sort of way. “Matt! Where the hell have you been?! Do you have any idea how worried everyone has been?!”

“I’m sorry” he said, tilting his head at her apologetically. “I just couldn’t” he said quietly, blushing up a little red and looking down at the floor in a shamefaced kind of way, “I just couldn’t do it.”

“You couldn’t do what?!” she snapped at him in a whispered voice. Alfie was sleeping in her arms and she was trying not to wake him, “Couldn’t come home?! Couldn’t let me know where you were?! Couldn’t care less that I was scared silly?! What?!”

“I uh.. I…” he stammered, looking into her eyes for a moment with an immense sadness, before looking away again, “I couldn’t… I couldn’t face all those people… I can’t… I can’t talk to people… I can’t…”

Roo tilted her head at him a little pityingly and took hold of his hand. “You could have told me that” she said in a softer more sympathetic tone, “I would have understood.”

“I’m sorry” he said, looking up at her again and giving her a sad little shrug. “I just… I uh… I panicked, I guess.”

“Please don’t do that again, Matt!” she pleaded, shaking her head at him in an exasperated way, “I mean, you really frightened me!”

“I know, Roo… I’m so sorry! It was so selfish of me…” he said, gently stroking the hair on Alfie’s little head as he snuggled in on Roo’s chest. “I won’t do it again, I promise.”

Suddenly he heard footsteps on the stairs and he glanced out to the hallway, thinking that they didn’t sound like Alf’s heavy footsteps. He looked at Roo a little quizzically as the nerves in his stomach took hold. Someone must have stayed behind from the barbecue and now he was going to have to make meaningless chitchat, or worse still, explain to them why he’d done his disappearing act. Why hadn’t Roo warned him?!

“Matt!” squealed Maddy as she appeared in the doorway. Suddenly she’d thrown her arms around him and was hugging the life out of him. “Oh my God! Matt! I can’t believe you’re here! It’s amazing! I mean, I knew that you were back and I knew that Roo was back…” she babbled in an excited sort of way, “but it’s so weird! I mean, it’s like you’re literally back from the dead!”

He glanced down at Roo in a startled sort of way as Maddy continued to squeeze him tight. Roo just smiled a huge white smile and shrugged her shoulders at him. “Maddy’s back from her travels” she said, as Maddy let go and flopped down on the couch beside her, “…and she wanted to see us so she came straight here! She’ll be staying with us for a few weeks! Isn’t that great?!”

[KittCatt]

Great chapter!  

Continuing to really enjoy Josh and Matt's friendship  I'm really glad Matt has someone to talk to, and Josh is right, he needs to talk to Roo. Poor Matt though, i hope he is honest about his feelings- i think Roo would be supportive and they would be able to help each other. And now Maddy's here! And i like the idea of Josh and Tamara too  

I look forward to more 

[Inactive User]

Had been catching up with the last two chapters

Liked the idea of these couples e.g. Kyle/Billie, Josh/Tamara, Brody/Evelyn, Oscar/Callie 

Nice to see Maddy back for a few weeks 

Liked Josh and Matt's friendship

Update soon please xx

 

[Guest]

Great chapter

Really liking Josh and Matt's friendship.

Update again soon