Gemini Falling (4 page)

I reload my schoolbag, put my shoes back on and then, just as I said I would, I put on eyeliner and lip gloss. The lip gloss mixes with the traces of blood, blurring together to make a pleasingly rich colour.

When I’m packed up and ready to go, I coat my hands in soap from the dispenser but don’t use any water to rinse them off. With my head ducked down, I run out of there and through the school gates. I don’t have far to go and I am ready.

*  *  *

I chose the park because it’s the perfect location. It’s on my usual route home and only five minutes’ walk from school. It’s slightly set back off the main road, but there’s an alleyway around the back of it that’s pretty spooky and usually deserted.

It’s five minutes to five and I’m lurking in the alleyway. I put my schoolbag down next to me, and drop as hard as I can onto my knees, grinding them into the gravel and trying not too think too hard about the hygiene implications. I mess up my hair and rip my school shirt so that it’s untucked from my skirt and half the buttons have come off.

I rub my soapy hands as hard as I can across my eyes, so that they sting and start overflowing immediately. My fingers come away streaked with the eyeliner that I only put on a few minutes ago. It’s strange – it’s the wrong way around, but forcing myself to cry makes me actually cry. I suddenly feel overcome with it. There’s no turning back now.

I can feel that I’ve succeeded, mission accomplished, and I wish I could see the final effect for myself. I am way too far into this to stop and think about the full reality of what I’m doing. I peer around the corner – I can see Josh’s little green car parked on the road, so I guess he is already here.

I take a deep breath and stagger around the corner, as if I’m confused and disorientated. Through my tears, I emerge into the blurry green of the park, and I can see Josh sitting on a bench. I wonder if I’ll collapse before I get to him.

‘Josh…’ I croak, my voice genuinely coming out thick and pained.

My eyes are really streaming, so the scratches on my face sting, and I’m feeling pretty battered. Maybe I did too good a job; the panic rises in me as I suddenly realise I might have taken this too far.

‘Lexy, oh my God! What happened? Are you OK?’

Josh leaps up from his seat, and his hands feel warm and solid as he helps me to sit down.

‘I’m fine. I don’t know…’ I crumple weakly onto the bench, feeling boneless, his hand still holding onto my arm. ‘I mean, I’ll be fine. I think.’

I don’t have to put on an act, as I had feared. My head is genuinely spinning and my words are all over the place.

‘Lexy, what the hell happened?’

‘I… I’m not sure. I was walking over here to meet you and I cut through the alleyway – it was stupid of me; it was probably my own fault.’ I pause to look at him and make sure he is not agreeing with this. ‘Someone came up behind me and grabbed me. They pushed me down to the ground. I think someone was kicking me; I’m not sure. I didn’t really see them. They must have just run off in the end. I wasn’t really sure what was going on.’

His thumb rubs the inside of my arm through my thin, ripped school shirt.

‘You’re shivering. Come on, let’s go – my car’s just over here.’

He keeps hold of my arm as we walk, and opens the passenger door for me. He has to move a stack of books, a hoodie and a pair of trainers from the seat, chucking them in the back, before I can sit down.

‘Come on, let’s get you home.’ He pats my knee very carefully.

‘No! Please. I mean, I just… I really don’t want to go home.’

‘OK, OK… I suppose I could take you back to mine.’

‘Thanks, Josh. I don’t know what I would have done without you.’

He starts the car and looks grimly ahead while I curl up and face him from the passenger seat.

‘I’m sorry about all this,’ I say pathetically. ‘I really do need to talk to you about something, like I said.’

‘Yeah?’

I don’t know whether he’s losing patience with me or just concentrating on his driving, but I feel a sudden panic that I can’t mess this up like everything else. I can’t ever seem to do anything right, not even when I try my very best to make as spectacular a gesture as this.

‘It’s about Sorana.’ I make my face and my voice as concerned as I can, as if I’m saying this reluctantly because I only want to help. I’ve practised it in my head but it feels different now and I stumble on my words. ‘I mean, she and I aren’t exactly best friends or anything – as you know – but I’m really worried about her…’

‘I don’t get it. Why would you be worried about Sorana?’

His interest has obviously been caught by the mention of Sorana, which instantly gets my back up. I have to concentrate on keeping my voice neutral and not to fly into a furious, jealous rage. I must have him, is all I can think – he’s so close I could touch him. I have to stop myself from saying it out loud.

‘Well, have you
seen
her lately?’ I force myself to ask instead.

Answering his question with another question – I might as well find out what I can.

‘Not really, I suppose,’ he admits, sounding guilty about it. ‘I mean, we’re sort of friends but it’s… Oh, I don’t know. We don’t exactly stay in touch all the time.’

‘So you obviously don’t know her new best friends, Elyse and Melanie – they’re twins; they
came out of nowhere and started in our class halfway through term. They’re really weird.’

‘Well, Sorana can be pretty weird herself,’ he says with an awkward laugh.

‘Don’t be nasty – she’s not
that
bad,’ I reply automatically, trying to sound kind, then instantly realise my mistake – he was joking, and now I sound like a worse bitch than ever.

‘I didn’t mean it like that – forget it.’

‘Anyway, Elyse and Melanie – they’re
really
weird. Not just weird; they’re seriously bad news. They’re into loads of dark stuff, and they hang around with all these dodgy older guys. I think Sorana’s got really caught up in it all – she basically does everything they tell her.’

‘That doesn’t sound like Sorana. She usually does her own thing.’

‘Exactly. She’s changed,’ I say bleakly.

There is a pause. I cower back in my seat and wonder if I should say something else. It doesn’t matter what the correct answer is, because I can’t think of anything to say anyway. Why am I so fucking lame?

‘These guys Sorana’s hanging around with,’ Josh says eventually. ‘Are they anyone we know?’

‘I know there’s this guy Gareth,’ I say, a bit too eagerly, ‘and he’s got a stepbrother called Jago or something – I’ve heard them talking about it. They sound really dodgy.’

‘Well, I suppose Sorana can do what she likes,’ he says, a bit too defensively. ‘It’s not really anything to do with me.’

‘I just… I thought you might like to know, that’s all.’

I sound so stupid and I suddenly want to cry. I wish I’d never done any of this. It’s never going to work, because the problem’s still me.

I can’t help it. I do actually start to cry, twisting my head away from Josh and looking out of the window on my side. I manage not to make a noise but my shoulders won’t stop shaking.

‘I’m sorry. I guess we shouldn’t really discuss all this when you’re probably in shock. I’m not surprised you’re upset,’ Josh says kindly, patting my shoulder. ‘We’re nearly home. My mum should be around. She’ll know what to do; she’ll look after you.’

I don’t know why I assumed his place would be empty. If possible, my heart sinks a little further. If not for my depressing house and drunken mother, I could have taken him back to mine. I should have just swallowed my disappointment and let him take me home, admitted defeat. If only we could be alone somewhere – I suddenly have a feeling that parental involvement is going to blow this up to more epic proportions than I had foreseen.

My legs are still wobbling when we get out at Josh’s house. I straighten up my shirt and try to wipe my face as much as I can with my grubby hands before we go inside.

I’m surprised that his house looks pretty normal and, despite everything, I feel a spark of excitement at the idea of getting to see where he lives. I don’t know what I expected – then again, it’s sort of a relief to see how normal his life must be. It must be one of the reasons I like him – I wish my house were as nice and normal and lovely as this. A standard suburban semi with his mum’s bright yellow Mini parked outside, his younger brother visible through the front window watching TV, the noise of a happy family when you open the front door.

‘Mum!’ Josh shouts as we squeeze into the hallway and step over several pairs of trainers and wellies.

‘In the kitchen, darling!’

The kitchen is light and cosy, the radio blaring and the smell of toast in the air. I expect Josh’s mum to be like a mum from TV – baking, Boden, Nigella-ish. I’m taken aback when I see a woman with bright pink hair in an Elvis quiff, wearing a leopard-print dress and purple high heels, dancing along with a hip-hop track on Radio 1.

‘Hiya, sweetie – I didn’t realise you had a friend with you,’ she greets us, not really looking, and then her face falls as she catches proper sight of me. ‘Oh my God, what happened?’

In one swift move, she turns down the radio, puts the kettle on and puts her arm around me as she ushers me into one of their mismatched kitchen chairs.

‘Joshua, don’t just stand there – make a cup of tea for… Sorry, what’s your name, darling?’

‘Lexy,’ I say in a tiny voice.

‘OK, Lexy. I’m Josh’s mum; call me Tina. Lexy, what’s happened to you? It’s all right, just have a sit down.’

‘I… I don’t know. Someone grabbed me when I was walking back from school; I didn’t see who it was. But I was trying to tell Josh in the car just now, I think it might be something to do with these girls at school who’ve been kind of ganging up on me and my friends. It’s not that big a deal; I’ll be fine. Honestly.’

‘This is very serious; look at the state of you. You poor thing.’

‘Here,’ Josh says, putting vast mugs of tea down on the table. ‘That’s yours, Lex – I put two sugars in it. She’s not fine, Mum – this
is
serious. I was meant to be meeting Lexy in the park, and someone attacked her on her way there and they’ve obviously really beaten her up.’

‘Lexy, darling, I know you must be really shaken up, but I think we need to talk to your parents. Are they at home?’

‘No,’ I lie, feeling worse with every word I say. ‘My dad’s at work and my mum is probably out. In fact, she definitely is.’

‘Well, of course you can stay here until they get home – you can stay for dinner or whatever you’d like. But we really ought to talk to them. Perhaps I can give them a ring?’

‘No!’ I blurt out, and then try to tone down my visible panic. ‘They’re hardly ever around, to be honest. I don’t think they’ll be much help. It doesn’t matter. I’m fine.’

‘Sweetheart, I think you must be in shock; you’ve had a really nasty experience. This is not OK; you have been assaulted and you’re obviously hurt. Let’s get you cleaned up – finish your tea and we can go up to the bathroom. Then I really think we should talk about telling the police. Whoever did this, schoolgirls being attacked in alleyways on their way home from school is no small matter.’

She sounds so sure, so comforting – so like a mum. I should do what she says. After all, it’s fate. Here I am at Josh’s house and he can’t just ignore me now. I want to stay here; I should just do as I’m told.

I finish my tea and let Tina lead me upstairs while Josh stays in the living room with his brother. She’s so kind, I am starting to believe that everything she is saying about me is true. Poor me, I’ve had a terrible time and I should be looked after. I’m just relieved not to be going home.

I relax into it as I let myself believe that I have no choice in what happens from now on. This is not my fault. I catch Josh looking at me as I walk up the stairs after his mum, and I know
that everything is going to be all right.

CARINA™

ISBN: 978 1 472 05475 3

GEMINI FALLING

Copyright © Eleanor Wood 2013

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