Multiple Personality: Chapter One Part II

It was near Autumn when the aches had begun.
I had been walking to the university from the apartment I shared with Alice, when after a sharp turn to study a new shop opening on the other side of the high street my back had groaned in response. The morning in which I left the apartment following my baked beans dispute with Alice had been the third week running in which I had suffered.
As I had left the apartment and headed down the stairs, roughly covered with old, musty carpets modelling an array of stains and decay, I had made a note to finally secure a visit with the local doctors.
I had refrained from doing so beforehand in part due to my laziness, but also do my fear of the responsibility such an action would entail. It would be the first time, other than a solitary dentist visit, in which I would have to organise myself as an adult, without my mother’s guidance and help. Of course it wasn’t an immense difficulty, I had only to turn up and throw a date at them and then make sure I followed through and actually attended it, but it represented a maturity I had so far shied from.
As I rounded the corner of the apartment into the street outside, I was hit by the sudden icy winds of coming winter, and cursed myself for not expecting the worst of British weather and bringing a jacket.
My aggravation was short lived however. As I crossed the road and found myself behind a girl who was not only beautiful and friendly, but unlike my amazing roommate, single. For a few nervous moments I considered just walking a few paces back, but then pushed the idea aside for fear she would turn and get the impression I was avoiding speaking to her.
“Hey, Mary,” I called, clenching my fists as my voice wavered from a lack of too much use in the morning. I grimaced as she turned round smiling, and repeated myself, “Hi,”
She laughed and flashed me a toothy grin, “Still waiting on puberty Gareth?” she said, stopping so I could catch up.
“It’s amazing, but I think I have some sort of disease where my voice continually grows deeper, it’s actually quite hard to talk about,” I retorted, and she giggled back.
“Well, you’re so good at science, what’s this diseases’ name?”
I paused, then dropped my head in mock resignation, “You’ve got me there, I’m afraid,” I chuckled and caught a quick glance at her.
She was looking as great as ever that day, her blonde hair curling down to her shoulders, adorned with a small blue ribbon atop a plait. She had bright green eyes, unintentionally highlighted by some simple makeup on her part. She had a pale blue top and cardigan on, with some darned jeans dotted with a few holes to finish the look. I was never sure if she took time over her appearance, or just naturally suited whatever she wore, but I knew regardless she looked beautiful to me any day of the week.
“So how are you?” she said, catching my eye and studying me casually, “Any more back trouble?”
I suppressed a wince at that. Ever since I had remarked on it simply for conversation one morning she had mothered me much the same as Alice, saying I needed to get it checked over with a doctor before it became a long lasting issue.
“My dad had a bad back a few years ago, and he kept working on it,” she had said after I hadn’t got round to arranging an appointment in the first few weeks, “he just kept working and ignoring it and one day it gave out completely,”
The warning had done little to encourage me, even with the fact it was voiced my Mary. Although I didn’t say, unlike her father I wasn’t in the building scene and wouldn’t be hauling jackhammers around in the near future. Despite this, I still heavily regretted mentioning it to her, not only did it make me feel like an old man and comparable to her father in her eyes, but also regrettably and, with some vanity in mind, weaker before her.
“I’m fine, it’s still aching a little but I can just wait it out,” I replied, hoping to sound at least somewhat masculine. She shook her head and after a few preliminary acknowledgements of the usual greeting we soon fell into a conversation that lasted into the university.
I cherished the mornings I got to spend with Mary. As she took Politics I rarely saw her, and when I did she was next to always accompanied by her friend Katrina, who unfortunately hated me for some unknown reason.
We had just crested the doors of the main entrance, Mary debating the current policies of Labour, when Katrina had ambushed us and cut through our private atmosphere. After a cheery greeting with Mary, consisting of a quick hug and comment on dressing, she simply raised her eyebrows to me and I responded likewise.
“You’re late, silly girl,” said Katrina, in her incessantly fast voice, “I just got here on Brad’s motorbike, I swear that rumbling’s gonna-”
“Kat,” Mary said sternly, and they both erupted into a burst of laughter. I held back bile as I slotted into position of third wheel with oiled efficiency. As the conversation, quickly aided by Katrina’s record breaking speed of speech, soon turned to Brad and whatever breakthrough turn of events were happening in his life, I prepared to make a goodbye and head of to my first lecture.
Mary had, however, apparently noticed my presence despite Katrina’s vastly overpowering one, and quickly grabbed my hand as I threw a quick goodbye whilst Kat took a breath.
“Hang on Gareth,” she continued to hold my hand as she turned to a shell-shocked Katrina and quickly asked, “Wasn’t Bradley holding a party at his and his mates flat tonight?”
For a moment Katrina betrayed a hint of her dislike for me as she suppressed a frown, but she quickly carried on to confirm he indeed was.
“Fancy it?” Mary turned to me, and I had to force myself away from thoughts of the significance of her affectionate touch.
“Sure,” I burst out, feeling, perhaps only due to paranoia, that I sounded much too enthusiastic, “sound great,” I added coolly.
“Great,” Mary replied, then let go of my hand and gave me the time and place. I couldn’t refrain from smiling like a fool as I said goodbye to a rolling of the eyes from Katrina.
A date with Mary was definitely on the cards, lest her holding my hand was just a physical motion to prevent me leaving. I paced slowly to my lecture hall, not entirely focusing on the direction I went as in my heart-ridden state I pondered the meaning of her inviting me to the party.
I was so deep in my internal debate that I missed Jack walking past, a new friend who I’d met in fresher’s week after having to coax him down from halfway up a steel girder holding the lights at a night club as he ‘needed to test his aerodynamic abilities’.
He did a mock double take as he grabbed my shoulder when I almost passed him without any recognition. “Gareth, Gareth Reign?” I winced apologetically as he feigned to search my eyes, “It is you! Wow, you’ve changed so much, obviously I must have too otherwise you wouldn’t have blanked your best friend!”
I forced a quick smile at his pun. For a start he wasn’t my best friend, unfortunately it turned out he was actually quite irritating, and if it wasn’t for my kind nature I would have avoided him as soon as I grew too close to him. Jack was, like many other students, someone who had yet to hit even a microcosm of maturity, and so had retained the behaviour of a sixteen year old teenage boy most of us had moved on from during sixth form. He insisted on ‘bantering’ entirely for conversation, and on many occasions had abandoned his friends the second he fell in with a chance to ‘try out the family jewels’.
Deciding not to humour him today, despite my good mood, I simply threw a quick sorry and headed towards the hall.
The lecture took an age, the minutes dwindling stubbornly by on the clock as though they feared the hour in which I could leave. I usually enjoyed lectures with Mrs Carlo, a Spanish Literature teacher who had migrated to England five years back. She usually made lectures quite exciting, not only due to her over emphasis on even the most trivial point due to her accent, but also as most of the guys fancied her as a cougar.
Apparently she too noticed my absence in discussion, of which I frequently head with my ability to analyse and interpret even the subtlest points, and towards the end she made a point of targeting me amongst the hundred other students in the room. This unfortunately resulted in a few wolf-whistles from some others of Jack’s standards towards the back and a fiery blush from me.
It wasn’t entirely my fault. Mrs Carlo was a very attractive woman, and alongside this was the fact I hadn’t had a relationship of any real kind since I was seventeen. Mrs Carlo thankfully ignored it, unlike a time when she attempted to make light of a similar situation with a first year and said she’d be lucky to have him, ending in ridiculing throughout the rest of the year.
My final lecture of the day followed Mrs Carlo’s, and was with Dr Philips. Despite his vast knowledge of the subject, it was that which made his sessions intricate and to a weighted mind such as mine at the time, extremely draining.
When finally lunch had come around I decided to stay in the University rather than go back to the apartment. Not only as Alice had her boyfriend, Darren, round at the time, but as there was the possibility of snatching a few moments with Mary.
I brought a couple of sandwiches and a coffee and found an appropriate spot on a bench so as to spot anyone walking past. Unfortunately, Jack apparently took advantage of this and found me.
“Hey buddy!” he exclaimed as he neared me. With an inward sigh I made a meagre attempt to clear a space for him where my lunch had been, and he almost immediately crashed down next to me, propping himself on his elbows as he looked about.
“Do you always have to pose?” I grumbled, fidgeting as a group of girls walked past and took daring glances Jack’s way.
“It’s working isn’t it?” he flashed me a smile, and then took the sunglasses hanging from his shirt and propped them over his forehead. An immediate and not unusual loathing began to circulate in my mind towards him, and I felt myself dreading whatever he had to say, either due it probably being entirely self-centred and arrogant or, most likely, as needed something from me.
“I’m in the mood to-” he paused, and waved at a couple of girls. One of them sneered at him and he simply snorted and carried on scanning the pathway, “I’m in the mood to party, Gareth. It’s been,” he looked at his wrist, realised he wasn’t wearing a watch and looked to the sky as if for guidance, “about eighteen hours since I was last pissed. It’s not natural, such a lack of alcohol in my system,”
By this point I’d deemed the conversation pointless and had continued to idly search for Mary. After a few moments there was a sharp sting on my arm as Jack gave me a quick backhand.
“Gareth! Hello? It’s usually custom for your friend to respond when his friend is in a situation, isn’t it?” he said, speaking loudly so we attracted yet another few glances from the other students.
“Not if you’re friends an overgrown cock,” I murmured, but turned and raised my eyebrows at him.
“I said,” he began, however calmly as looked onwards, “Katrina’s boyfriend’s holding a party tonight. I don’t know how much you know but she definitely wants me,” I shook my head, and waited for the inevitable ‘favour’, “I heard you were going, Kat hates your guts, no idea why, that’s just life. You wouldn’t mind doing me a favour would you buddy?” he looked at me sideways on, clearly expecting nothing other than a yes.
“Depends what it is,” I said absently, trying my hardest not to look in the slightest concerned with what he wanted.
“Kat’s is a long way off, I’ll need you to give me and the boys a lift down,”
“Kat’s boyfriends is in the halls,” I replied, grimacing at the thought of spending even a moment with two other clones of Jack.
“Doesn’t matter. Chris needs a lift back up to his place at twelve anyway, so you wouldn’t mind staying sober again for us would you?” he finished with a click of the tongue, and then slapped me on the back as he rose.
“Yeah, actually I would,” I said, much more sternly than necessary. Jack heard this too, and turned back with a suppressed scowl on his face.
“What’s up your arse mate?” he said, frowning angrily.
“Look, I want to get pissed too, and the halls are a ten minute walk. Tell Chris he can get a taxi,” Jack’s race reddened, and for a moment I felt a fear begin to dwell in my gut. Being vain as he was, Jack made frequent use of the gym on campus, and compared to me, who turned up to the gym simply to get a money-off voucher at the vending machine, he was well within his power to beat me senseless.
“Besides,” I added quickly, and hating myself for it, “the Ford’s in the shop anyway,” I lied, and Jack shook his head almost in disgust.
“Then why didn’t you just say that in the first place?” he growled, and skulked away.

I spent a good hour getting ready, cycling through my entire wardrobe of clothing before settling on one of the first shirts and jeans I had picked out. The encounter with Jack had barely perturbed me; it wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last time it had happened. I did however make a resolution to stop seeing him so often, and hopefully break contact all together in the future. There was no time in my life for someone like that.
As I sprayed on the leftovers of an aftershave from two years back I’d managed to make last, Alice burst through the door with her boyfriend, Darren, both balancing an array of shopping in each arm. Darren threw down a small coffee table, to the ensuing scolding of Alice, who then eagerly set about placing it exactly where she had assumedly planned for it.
That was yet another perk of living with Alice Spring, she came from a particularly wealthy family, which was why I hadn’t paid for anything outside of clothing and bedding for myself, she even brought my toiletries! For some time I’d been saving what meagre amount I could in preparation for a gift to her at the end of her course at the University, although little could display any more than a token of my appreciation for all that she’d done for me.
“Looking smart mate,” gasped Darren, red faced from the exertion of hoisting the table up the three flights of stairs, “Found yourself a date?”
Alice flitted past him, almost immediately dispersing the shopping bags into their rightful places.
“Leave him be,” she cooed, tutting as Darren threw me a wink and slapped me on the back, “I’m sure Gareth’s well within his ability to fetch himself any girl at the Uni,”
Unsure whether to take this as a compliment or an act of mockery from Darren, I simply gave myself an once-over in the mirror by the door and headed out.
Despite the bravado surrounding Jack’s earlier request, after an array of texts from him I had relented to give everyone a lift the mile or so to the campus halls. I’d decided it was better to leave the car there and catch a bus home and simply pick it up in the morning than to get on the wrong side of Jack and his oaf-like friends.
As I pulled the car out from round the back, I found Jack and two others sat on the wall outside, cooing a parade of female students starting their night out. I let loose a quick bib, and the three filed boisterously into the car, throwing a few, ‘cheers’, and ‘thanks mate’s’ at me as they did.
“You lads got any cash?” said Jack loudly, looking us over from the passenger seat.
The other two, James and Martin, shook their heads, one of them mumbling about how they’d had some ‘pre-drinks anyway’.
I felt Jack look purposefully towards me, but I shook my head as I concentrated on avoiding numerous groups of fellow students marching into the town centre. As Jack slammed his hand onto the dashboard and shook his head I quickly added, “I’m pretty sure Brad and his mates are sorting out the booze, plus Kat’s invited so many people it won’t be hard to find some,”
After a quick deliberation Jack let loose a quick laugh and rolled down the window to some passing girls.
“We’re getting drunk ladies!” he roared. I took a deep breath and held it, urging my car to break speed limits so as to get there and lose my passengers in the crowd as soon as possible.
I pulled up to the kerb about fifty metres from the halls, the parking spaces already overflowing and more cars arriving as I did so. There must have been a good few different parties happening in the halls for it to be so busy.
Jack, James and Martin had already started to make their way towards the building as I locked up the car, having to walk round and shut a door that one of them had carelessly left open. As I did so a car flew past and I spun round sharply with surprise. My back let loose a wail in response, and I pounded a fist into the top of the car.
“Brilliant,” I muttered through clenched teeth, as I tried to push aside my building anger in anticipation of the night.

I was met with a building mass of bodies as I stepped out of the lift, which was packed full itself. A mixture of pungent aromas from an array of men’s and women’s aftershaves and perfumes wafted into my nose. For a moment nausea passed through my stomach, however it soon passed, the student veteran that I was.
For a whole ten minutes faces washed by in a blur as I began to search for Mary. It may have seemed desperate and definitely not the casual appearance I was aiming to achieve, but I could do little to fool myself into believing that she wasn’t the only reason I had come.
As I waded through the crowd of people I took in the usual student house party scene, a constantly swaying horde of dancing bodies, couples kissing fervently and an incomprehensible amount of alcohol consumption.
When I had first entered into University life, I had tried to take on the general aim to live wildly for three straight years so as to last you for the rest of your days, however I could never move past the feeling of superiority over the majority of ‘primitive’ colleagues I had ascertained with my old friends, after a lack of invites to similar social event s in sixth form.
However that night I decided to let myself go, and after a good twenty minutes I had drunk a fair amount of mixed drinks and fought off a swaying girl demanding I impregnate her.
Finally I heard my name called over the roar of the music and other shouting people, and turned to find Mary weaving through the crowd with apparent ease towards me.
“Gareth?” she smiled as she looked me over, “You look good,” she shouted, giving me a quick hug. I held her waist as she released me, and her smile broadened at the touch.
“You look amazing, as ever,” I shouted back, and she suppressed a slight blush. For a moment we stared at each other, whilst inside I was searching for something more meaningful to say than simple small talk. She beat me to the point, however, and took me by the hand to lead me through the crowd. “Let’s go to the kitchen,” she called back over her shoulder, and I nodded dumbly in response.
As we entered she shut the door behind her, and the blare from the speakers Brad had set up instantly fell away to faded hum. I propped myself against the counter as Mary made her way over to the fridge.
“Fancy a cold one?” she asked, fishing out two Budweiser’s and handing me one.
“Thanks,” I said, grabbing one of many bottle openers scattered across the counter.
“Where’s Kat then?” I asked, looking back towards the door.
Mary shook her head and pointed to the ceiling. I smiled as I realised what she meant, and Mary sighed as she propped herself in a similar fashion next to me.
“Trust her and Brad to throw a party and not even go to it themselves,” she chuckled, taking a sip of the lager and coughing as it foamed over.
“Smooth,” I laughed, grabbing some kitchen roll and quickly saving her top from the leaking bottle.
“Thanks,” she said, giggling as she slipped back slightly.
“How much drink have you had?” I asked, holding a hand out to steady her. She stared at me for a moment then laughed again.
“It looks bad but not much. Guess I’m a lightweight,” she murmured, leaning in towards me. For a moment I considered throwing in a comic remark, but decided not to interfere with the moment and let our lips touch. The kiss was, however, short-lived, as at that moment Jack burst through the door and made for the fridge.
He’d evidently had more to drink than me, as he stumbled once and didn’t even realise we were there until he turned around, struggling to open a bottle with his teeth. I threw him an opener as he opened his mouth in a mixture of mock and genuine surprise.
“You two!” he gasped, gulping down a mouthful of beer, “Get in there Gareth! It’s about time you found yourself some pussy,” he laughed, slumping down on the counter behind Mary. I instantly tensed up, and Mary felt it too in my touch, as she frowned up at me then looked back at Jack.
“I could’ve had her, you know,” Jack continued, looking purposefully at Mary, but speaking as though she wasn’t there. “All she’d need’ be a little greasing up with the ol’ Jack special charm and then…” he reached out a laid a hand on Mary’s rear, and I immediately pulled her back, squaring myself up to Jack.
“Oh!” he laughed, looking over my shoulder at Mary, “he thinks he’s a big boy now!” Jack stood up tall, pushing his face up close to mine, “What do you honestly expect is gonna’ happen here eh?” he shoved me hard in the chest, and I flew back into the closed door. Mary gasped, but before she could react I picked myself up and threw a punch at Jack, rage boiling over within me at being humiliated and emasculated in front of Mary.
Unfortunately, the drink had taken effect on my rotary skills, and I watched helplessly as my fist fell short and Jack returned with a punch of his own. Pain flared through me as the world spun about, and after a moment of blackness I opened my eyes to find myself on the ground.
I was just in time to see two guys pulling a roaring Jack away out of the door, and Mary kneeling down next to me looking worried. Trying to form words in my drunken and disorientated state, I reached a hand up to Mary for some unknown reason, and faded again into blackness.