Steph & Lara

Well, there I was. Sat in the corner of a plain white room that, somehow, despite the vast emptiness, smelt of old women who baked gingerbread for their grandchildren. I’d never imagined myself to become what I was. Although Steph and I seemed content on the little worn sofa while her Dad slept upstairs, I felt a sense of sadness lingering in the air. It was as if every junkie who had ever stepped foot there had left a kind of mark on the place; a fingerprint on stainless steel, or a bad taste that couldn’t be removed, no matter how much mouthwash is used. Emptiness was everywhere around me, so I lit up a spliff to fill it.

“It alright to smoke?” I asked, already taking a drag to set it burning, because I was used to smoking around her. She frowned and nodded reassuringly. Her hair looked dull that day. A while ago, not more than two hours, we had been sitting in the old church doing the same thing when two men, regular customers, walked in. They sat next to us and smoked crack. I wasn’t used to this whole ‘hard drug’ thing, so not surprisingly my inner body reacted in shock, which I quickly subdued.

I sometimes think of the relationship between Steph and I as ‘us sitting together’, just with different settings: us sitting together in a church. Sitting together on a bench in the park. Sitting together at a party. Sitting together over a vault of hot, boiling lava, with sharp blades swinging at our heads, like something from Indiana Jones. What I mean is, the place makes no difference; as long as we’re together, we’re safe.
I looked at Steph for a long time after I’d finished the spliff. It had hurt my throat. A sliver of light beaming in from a slit in the closed curtain fell across her face. I noticed her eyes had three tiny strands of velvet green in each, amongst a pool of faded blue iris. I wanted to dip my hand in it and swirl it around. Her lips looked painted against her face, which was paler than I’d ever seen it before, and washed out. It looked as if time was taking its toll, although she was only nineteen. My face had come so close to hers that had it took me a while to realise she was staring back at me, so I smiled.
It made me consider what ‘makes’ a person. When I picture Steph, I see her eyes. I don’t see her in her entirety, her legs or arms or chest. To be able to address her hand as ‘Steph’ would be difficult. We take to the eyes because it is what we perceive and are perceived with; two objects in the socket of a skull that filter light and function unconsciously. Strange, really. But thinking about this made me realise how insignificant I was and that I was all too real and that made me panic, so I shut my eyes and burrowed my face into her fleece. She pulled away and, noisily, unstuck the Velcro from her college bag.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She said nothing. I looked at the TV, which was playing the film Holes, and scrambled around for something to say.
“I think the book is way better. Stanley’s not even fat, like in the book.” I paused, “I sound like some old person, right?” I gave out a short, unconvincing laugh. I tried to suggest the start of a conversation, with no avail. “You getting another can are you?” Steph nodded tiredly and the can clicked and hissed. I was asking obvious questions and feeling bored and ignored. I reached for the TV guide and started scanning down the page. There was a movie on at ten featuring some actress I’d had a crush on growing up. Then talk shows clashing at the same times, then the soaps, and sports I had no idea about. All crap.
I set the guide back down on the table gently, continuing the natural silence of the place, and sighed.

“Lara, we need to do something.”
Her voice, weak and sad, yet wonderfully precise, stood out like a flute in a valley. I nodded, as if for her to continue. She rested her face in her hands and I wondered if she'd expected me to know exactly what she'd meant. It became too quiet again as I realised her cheeks were wet and she was still frowning. She looked away but I turned her face gently towards mine again.
“Come on, what’s wrong?" I asked, part of me wanting to help, but part of me afraid to.
I paused to wipe her eyes, “Have I done something wrong?” I tried rubbing her shoulder, but that felt awkward to me so I stopped. I’d always hated being on the receiving end of someone who’s upset – not because I’m a selfish bastard, but because I don’t feel like I do a good enough job of comforting someone. She bit her lip and didn't answer for a long time.

“No. You haven’t" She hesitated and picked at a thread hanging from her sleeve. "It’s just I hate living at that place, Lara, I really do… I can’t stand it any more. It's different for you, you can go home at the end of the day." Steph broke her gaze away from mine, "I... Can I live with you? I want...” She broke off with a great sniff of snot that had built up in her nose from crying, and I brought her close to me.
“It’s going to be alright.” I whispered. I felt the soreness in my throat again, which was only made worse by my own suppressed tears. I kissed her forehead and felt her smooth hands tighten around mine.
Steph looked up at me with glassy red eyes and asked, “Why don’t you ever cry?”. I shrugged.
I didn’t reply to this because I didn’t know. I didn't cry - ever. It was just something that I couldn't let myself do. I thought about this as we sat cradled in each other’s arms, and she let out a long, warm breath against my neck.
There was a sudden banging at the door. It opened slowly and her dad’s head arced round the corner. His face looked unwashed, and I caught a waft of urine. He looked from Steph, to me, and then back again, his knee trembling and with restless hands.
“I really need to be getting on with stuff, Steph.” He said, with a twinge of a whine.
What he really meant was, ‘You’d better be off so I can sell some heroin. I hope you had a lovely time’

We immediately got up and the atmosphere changed. I got my coat and bag and Steph gathered the empty beer cans to throw away. It was like leaving some sort of formal dinner, with handshakes and hugs, and kind exchanges of smiles - although we were leaving a crack house.

As we walked down the little road we tried to keep out of sight, and decided to go through the church graveyard so as not to be seen by any of the police. The funny thing about the police around that area (or perhaps in general, but I do not know) was that they would only bother to question us if they really had nothing better to do; they all knew us and what we were involved with, and I had acquired the knowledge of several of their full names. The one who I remember most was PC Howard. George Howard: The prick of all policemen. He was fired from his job and got six months after I reported him for rape. Not me, but for a friend. When I was in middle school I had a friend who would walk to and from school with me. Her name was Stacey - a lovely, fresh-faced girl who was obsessed with horses to the point where I would shout at her.

One day Stacey and I decided to have a race to her house. She lived with her mum in a two-bed 'old people estate', as I liked to call it. She was ahead of me a few meters(I used to let her win, because she was bad at sports), her footsteps echoing sharply, and as she turned the corner of the backstreet I heard her call out. There was a kind of scrabbling sound and, worried that she had fallen, I rushed around the corner after her. I was greeted by a figure nearly twice my height, who I recognised as one of the policemen that usually patrolled the streets joining our school. Stacey was brushing dry dirt from her jumper, and there was a large hole on the knee of her black tights.
“Ya prick!” She threw, “Why’d ya push me over? Prick!”
The policeman looked around shiftily,
"Say it again." He dared, "Go on."
"Stacey," I started, but was drowned out by Stacey gaily shouting 'prick' over and over again. She looked back at me and winked.
I knew something wasn’t right, the look on his face. I thought he was going to laugh. He told her to 'Get the fuck over there' and grabbed her. I took a step back and he twisted her arm around, making her yelp. He said that if I moved again he'd do it to her other one, so I stayed still. Then she just wilted to the floor like a rag doll. He bowed his head and looked at me, sneered, then wiped his forehead with his free hand. I'll never forget the look he gave me - it made my blood chill.
“Watch her.”
I stood there like the walls themselves, watching. I couldn’t think about anything, I just watched her hair with empty eyes, the dark blonde hair I’d straightened for her, soaking up the oily puddle.
When he was done he left her lying on the floor. She was still silent and unmoving, staring at the wet pavement under her nose.
He fumbled around with the zip on his trousers, and told me that if I ever told anyone what I saw they'd put us both in prison, because I didn't do anything to help her, and he was a policeman. I didn't speak to him. I just stood there with my fists tight, ready to hit him if he came anywhere near me. He turned the corner again, whistling, and as soon as I couldn’t hear him I bent down to help her up.
But I couldn't touch her. It was the way she was laying, she looked helpless and it frightened me. I couldn't bring myself to believe what had happened. Pinpricks of rain stung my cheeks and arms, and I thanked God for trying to wash away reality.
She didn't move but her eyes were open wide, with the kind of expression a dog gives before it's hit by a car. I remember spitting on my hand to clean grit out of a cut on her eyebrow, and then running as fast as I could to the police station. I had to squint to see where I was going because the rain had started to get heavy, and I realised I shouldn't have left her on her own. I shouldn’t have done a lot of things. Or rather I should have done something. What kind of a friend was I? I believed what he had told me, though, but I didn't care. I thought, if I got in trouble for getting him locked up, that was fine with me. They sent an ambulance to the place where I said she was, and she was in hospital for three days. I never went to visit. I don't know what happened to Stacey after that; she left school and her parents moved somewhere else.

"Lara? I said are you hungry, because we could get a Chinese on the way?"
I startled slightly. I had been deep in thought about what Steph had told me earlier. I wanted her to live with me, too, but I lived at the YMCA which had a long waiting list – and what kind of a place was that for her to live?
"I'm fine." I replied, a little more casually than I had wanted.
She slowed her pace and put her hand on my back, "Maybe you should eat something. You haven't eaten anything today. And what did you eat yesterday? I worry when you don't eat, you know.”
"Really, I’m not hungry." I looked at the sky, which was more silver than grey. "Can we talk about something else?" I was starting to feel self-conscious, so buttoned up my coat, noticing a large cigarette burn near the left breast pocket.
"Oh, shit, this is my best jacket!" I fingered the rough edges of the circular burn, crumbling away the black ash.
Steph looked at it sympathetically for a second, and then I noticed a cheeky glint in her eye.
"Ah well," She said, "at least it’s easy-access." We giggled as she jokily attempted to grab my breast and I pretended to tackle her.
"You're a dirty - old - pervert!" I shot, batting her away from me.
"I'm only nineteen, and I'm not old, you're young. And I'm stronger than you." She smirked, "And I’m not the one who's ticklish!" I gave in to the torture of being pinned against the church's cobbled wall and tickled.
"Steph, don't - people will think something kinky's going on - and we're near a church, it's like, against the law!"
She stopped and laughed, a little out of breath.

"Come on, let's go."

These few words determined everything that happened next. Sometimes I wish some wonderful twist of fate had left us where we were, exactly in that same moment. Time would repeat itself ceaselessly, preventing what would soon be. Protecting us. Steph and I would still be in that moment, together against that cold stone wall. The wind would still be ringing past our ears and setting free those absconding locks that licked the air, like fire.

She took my hand and, unknowingly, led us to something dark. Much darker and more terrible than we could have ever imagined…

We walked together closely, shadowed by the trees and darkening sky. I looked at my watch. It was getting on for ten-thirty already. The tickers were supposed to be Mickey Mouse’s whiskers, which made me feel as if I could hold back some of my childhood for safekeeping by wearing it. I watched as Steph glanced down at it disapprovingly, and smirked. Turning into the next street, we came along a stretch of road that led out of the town. There were several small buildings speckled along the sides of the road, of which were mostly occupied by squatters. This part of town had been virtually abandoned, as had the road; a new main road was built that led into the main cities, and the local council had promised to sign over the unused one to extend surrounding fields in future months.