The Deepest Cut (7 page)

We sat in silence for a bit, her smoking, me awkwardly holding a fag, which I was sure had gone out.

‘Adam.' Josie turned her body around to face me and crossed her legs up on the bench. She took a long pull on her fag and then blew it out slowly.

‘I heard about what happened to your friend,' she said.

My body froze, including my breathing and probably my pulse. Then panic took over and all my senses went into overdrive. My breathing and pulse raced and the blood must have been flying through my veins. I tried so hard to control it, keep it inside so she didn't see, but if she knew about me, about Jake and about what happened that night, any second, she'd tell me what a monster I was and how …

‘It's OK,' she said. She touched my leg gently. It made me back away.

I wanted to get up and run away. I didn't want to hear what she was going to say to me, how she'd already judged me.

‘I read it in the news, and then we had an assembly at school about it. They wanted us to know about it so we could stop it happening to us.' She paused. ‘I guess they wanted to warn us.'

They'd done an assembly about us at her school? Oh God, she knew everything. She knew what I'd done. I tried to breathe deeply and slowly to keep the panic under control.

She'd got her tobacco packet out and was rolling another cigarette. ‘I knew it was you when I saw your name go up on the board at the nurses' station, the day they brought you in.' She licked her paper and stuck it down.

She reached out her hand and touched my chin, pulling my head up to look at her. I flinched.

‘Adam, look at me?' She asked.

I caught her eye. I didn't want to, but she wasn't giving me any choice.

‘It wasn't your fault, you know that?'

I didn't want to talk about it. I shrunk down and turned away. Why wouldn't she stop talking about it? I'd been doing whatever I could to stop myself thinking about what happened, because it was like a really awful chain reaction. If I thought about it, even a little bit, the memories would start up. Then all the bad stuff would happen, feeling sick, not being able to breathe, getting all panicky, my heart racing, and my head spinning. Exactly what was happening now.

Josie was really staring at me.

I looked down at the cigarette in my hand which had gone out, but not burnt down. She held the lighter out at me and tried to smile.

I couldn't walk away from her. We were being supervised. I had to stay put. I had to be good, stay in control, not act insane or have any breakdowns or anything like that. If I kept calm, they'd let me out, I knew they would.

‘It really, really wasn't your fault,' she said. She lit her cigarette and took a huge pull. ‘I get it though, I do.' She blew out the smoke and batted it out of my face with her free hand.

I looked at the floor. Begging her, inside my head, to please just stop.

‘Right, fag break over,' Damian announced. ‘Let's all get back inside.'

Thank God. My breathing was so shallow, my pulse thumping, my back sweating, and I felt sick. Sick like I was about to throw up everywhere.

I held out the unfinished cigarette. She took it off me and threw it in the bush. She flicked hers in after it and walked next to me back through the keycode door. Inside I took the stairs two at a time and was first through the ward door as soon as Damian opened it. I couldn't get up there quickly enough. I just wanted to go to my room and be alone.

Damian took my arm as I tried to walk away. ‘Do you think you can handle staying out here for a bit, Adam?' He asked.

I was confused.

‘Just, you've been in your room all day. I think it will do you good to stay out here for a bit, if you think you're up to it?'

‘Wanna play pool?' Josie asked, grabbing two cues and smiling brightly.

Oh, God. I looked at Damian for an escape route.

‘It'll be fun. Josie's a demon, though. She can beat anyone,' he said, either ignoring or not understanding the pleading look on my face. ‘Go on. If you don't enjoy yourself, I'll let you have the chocolate bar I've got saved to go with my cup of tea later,' he said.

I didn't have a choice. I had to be good so they'd let me out.

I shuffled over to where Josie was setting up the pool table and picked up one of the cues. I'd only every played pool once before, in the pub with Jake and Nathan while we were waiting for my dad to turn up from the bookies with that week's food money. I was crap. I'd lost. Twice in a row.

Josie pulled her hoodie off and chucked it on the chair. My eyes were drawn straight to her arms which were covered in scars. Some were white, some were big and purple. Some were still scabs.

She chucked the chalk to me but I didn't catch it. My head still felt fuzzy from just being outside for the first time in ages.

She laughed as she bounced over and grabbed it from by my feet. She placed it in my palm and rolled her eyes at me. ‘I'm gonna whoop your arse if you can't even catch the chalk,' she laughed. ‘You wanna break?'

I shook my head. I watched as she leant over and broke the balls perfectly. She potted a yellow then looked up at me smugly.

She caught me staring at her arms. Her hand went up and rubbed them protectively. ‘You want to know?' She asked.

I was curious. She seemed so normal and strong and confident. Not the sort of person who would be locked up in this nut house and definitely not the sort of person I'd expect to do stuff like that to herself.

I went to take my turn.

‘I've been doing it for ages. My parents hate the fact I'm a lesbian,' she said, while I took my shot and missed. I was still crap.

She took another shot. ‘You're gonna lose, by the way.'

I shrugged. I didn't really care about playing. I was only there because Damian said so.

I lined up my cue, took a shot and missed.

‘When I came out,' Josie carried on, ‘my whole world was turned upside down. I had a girlfriend, you know, but 'cause I'm only seventeen, Mum and Dad thought it was just a phase, that I'd grow out of it. They thought grounding me would be the answer. Lock her up; keep her in there until she changes her mind. It's bullshit. They're my parents; they're supposed to love me no matter what, right?'

I didn't know if they were or not. My dad didn't love me no matter what.

She bent over and lined up her cue, ‘It's not like I killed anyone … Shit, sorry, Adam,' she stood up and looked at me. ‘Sorry.'

I looked at the floor. I knew she didn't mean it, but it still made me feel like I'd been punched in the stomach. The thing is you can't stop people saying words like death, killed, and dying. People just say them, then realise after and feel bad, but there's nothing really to feel bad about. They just said a word, that's all. I let her carry on.

‘I lost the plot, being locked up inside the house. I lost the plot, Adam. I went mental. I trashed the house, I threw stuff, I locked myself in the bathroom and slit both of my wrists.' She held out her arms.

‘I've been in here since,' she said. She bent back down, lined up her cue and smacked a red straight into the far right pocket.

‘Fancy grabbing us a hot chocolate?' She smiled. Her story was over, just like that. She told it all and didn't cry or panic or anything like that. I didn't get it. I didn't understand how she could be so calm about all those feelings.

I put my cue down. I didn't know where to get hot chocolate from. I looked around to see if there was a kettle or something.

‘Over there,' she said. She was pointing near the nurses' station where there was a hot drinks vending machine. ‘We're allowed three hot drinks a day from there, but we aren't allowed to take them back to our rooms unless we have a visitor with us. We have to drink them here. Go to the nurse and ask for a token,' she said.

I went over to the nurses' station slowly. My head was spinning again. I think Josie was trying to be my friend. I didn't need a friend. I was just keeping my head down, getting on with things, doing what they told me to do, trying to stay calm and act normal so they would let me out. The sooner they let me out of there, the better.

I didn't bother with the tokens in the end. I knew I should have stayed out there really, but Damian had only asked me to try. I'd tried. I went straight back to my room and got the pad and paper out from underneath my bed. The quicker I got all this down for David, the quicker they'd let me go.

When you've been friends with someone for ever, you never imagine them not being there. They're a part of you. Especially when you see them every day. Your life revolves around them and, everything you do and everywhere you go, they're right there with you.

That was us. That was me, Jake and Nathan. Where one was, the others weren't far behind. Except for one time in year eleven, before it all happened, right before our exams. For a moment, I thought it was all over.

It started on the day some year twelve boys lobbed my trainers up a tree by the bus stop outside school. If that hadn't happened, Jake wouldn't have got together with Kelly Dawson.

‘I'm'a go and get an ice pop,' Jake said as we got to the shops outside school. ‘Want one?'

‘Nah, I'm going to go to the chicken shop,' I said. I'd had double PE in my last two lessons and I was starving. I wanted a chicken drumstick and chips.

‘You're gonna get fat if you keep eating that chicken shit all the time,' Nathan said. ‘It's probably not even chicken, it's probably rat, or–'

‘Nath, man, shut up.' Jake nudged him in the side and shook his head. ‘Anyway, Ads, you know mum's cooking burgers tonight, yeah? Homemade juicy burgers with that Emmentalblahblah whatever it's called cheese, bacon, ketchup, tomatoes and …'

‘Yeah, I know, and I'm gonna eat them, but if I don't get chicken and chips now, I'm not gonna make it to dinner,' I said.

They laughed. ‘'K, meet you there,' Jake said.

Nathan went with him and I went to the chicken shop round the corner on my own. As soon as I got in there, I wanted to walk straight back out again because the place was full with the idiots from year twelve.

I stood at the back, so I didn't catch any of their eyes, and pretended to read the menu on the board over the counter. When the man asked me what I was having, I stepped forwards with my head down and told him.

I was embarrassed because my money was all in silver coins, mostly tens and twenties, but it was too late to back out because the man was already piling the chips into the box and fishing me out a drumstick.

I handed him the money with my fist closed, hoping the year twelve boys wouldn't see, but the chicken man tutted and pretty much threw it on the counter to count it all out. Really slowly.

One of the year twelve boys started laughing.

‘Trampy Adam with his coppers for his chicken,' he said.

‘And his cheap trainers,' another said, looking at my feet.

My face went hot. Jake and Nathan needed to hurry up. Jake would have been rummaging right in the bottom of the freezer for the best ice pop.

The year twelve boys were laughing loud. I was just about to run off, without my chicken, when one of them grabbed my foot and pulled my trainer off.

‘What even are these?' He asked.

‘No name, ooooooooh,' another said, and they all started laughing again.

I stood with my shoeless foot in the air. The chicken man finally finished counting my money and gave me my box of chicken, but I couldn't leave because they still had my trainer.

‘Can I have my trainer back, please?'

They all laughed.

One of them grabbed my other leg and I hopped backwards while he took the other trainer off.

I was just in my socks. One of them had a huge hole in which meant my big toe was popping out.

Their laughs made my stomach churn. I didn't move, or speak. I braced myself for their next move.

One of them held my trainers as another tied the laces together. When he was done, they all ran out the chicken shop laughing.

I followed them outside. Jake and Nathan were walking towards me, sucking on their bloody ice pops with stupid, confused looks on their faces.

‘Why haven't you got any shoes on, man?' Nathan asked.

Then they both clocked the year twelve boys with my trainers, running towards the bus stop.

‘Oi, what you doing?' Jake shouted. He handed Nathan his ice pop and ran after them. ‘Stop it,' he said, but it was too late. With a clean throw, my shoes were dangling from a branch in the tree.

The people at the bus stop were staring. Some were trying not to laugh.

I stood there with no shoes on, holding my box of chicken, completely mortified.

The year twelve boys ran off in hysterics.

‘Wankers,' Jake said.

I shielded the sun from my eyes as I looked up into the tree. ‘How am I gonna get them down?' I asked. My no-name trainers were dangling from a high branch. I had to get them down, I needed them. There was no way my dad was going to buy me new ones.

Jake took his school bag off, hooked it over Nathan's head, and rolled up his sleeves.

‘You're never gonna get up there, man,' Nathan said. ‘Let's just go back to school, get the caretaker to bring a ladder or something?'

I couldn't speak. The people at the bus stop were still looking. I had never been so embarrassed in my whole life.

An older man from the bus stop went over to Jake. He looked like a builder. He had on one of those sleeveless vests which showed off his muscly arms, dirty shorts, and those big builder boots. ‘I'll give you a leg up,' he said. His voice was really deep.