Broken - II

II - Raindrop

She's being followed.

She can see them watching her as she walks along the rough cobblestones. She doesn’t want them to turn around, she doesn’t want them to know that she’s seen them, that she knows they’re looking at her. Paranoia grips her waist, pulling her violently into a vicious circle and twirling her round and round in a frenzied dance. Let me out. Let me out.

She’s crazy, how can she think like this?

She shakes her head to clear it of the poison and carries on walking. Just get home. Hurry up and just get home. Her paces are faster, jerkier. They know. They’re speeding up, jostling, laughing.

“Oi, Jade!”

She deflects into an alleyway, and mentally slaps herself. She can now see the shadows unravelling out of tenebrous corners and twining themselves around her.

“Oh God.”

She says it out loud.

The shaft of light beaming out from the entrance of the alleyway obscures.

They’ve caught up.

They circle her like blood-thirsty vultures, overly eager to feast on their prey. She winces as she recognises the five boys cornering her. She struggles to put names to faces, but her mind blurs into a flurry of unintelligible words.

One of them approaches her – Tom? Harry? Michael?

He is tall and thin; when he looks at her his mouth curves in a disdainful smile. He stares at her enigmatically and she struggles to interpret his look. Scorn? Derision? Lust?

He says something and his friends explode into loud, raucous laughter. She knows that the joke is directed at her but she cannot hear it. Her ears are pounding with blood and...and...

Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t-panic-don’t-panic-don’t-panic.

He slams an arm down on her trembling shoulder and she jumps. She feels fragile, breakable, as if she could be shattered into a million pieces.

“Hey Jade. You know what I want?” More laughter barks out, weaving its way along the ridges of the tense atmosphere.

Her feet are rooted to the hard ground and her limbs have been paralysed. She can hear the wild sound of thunder, a cruel echo of dangerous beauty.

He traces a line down her arm and then his long, grasping hands start running down her body. A flash of lightening ripping through the darkening sky diverts him. She ducks and starts running blindly through the mean, sharp rain that stars to hit down on the crude stone. She gropes with her shaking hands along the walls, through the shadows.

She catches her foot on something and trips, falling headlong on the hard ground. Tears spurt into her eyes and she sees him crouch down beside her. Her face and ears start burning up and her face is throbbing with a strike that has not been dealt.

“Uh-oh! You’re clumsy, aren’t you?” he says in a low, scathing tone. He places a firm hand on her leg and begins to move it upwards. She lashes out, not looking to see whether she has made contact or not, and flees out of the alleyway and onto the street.

She runs and runs, uncaring of the rain soaking her clothes and the people staring. She bites her lip, the teeth piercing through a layer of soft pink skin. A crimson drop appears, stinging harshly as it hovers momentarily before making a quick descent. It mingles with the other raindrops running down her cheeks, translucent and clear. It doesn’t pollute them. It is too small to make enough of a difference.

She collapses on the curb, gasping for breath. She runs shaking fingers through her bedraggled hair, trying to make sense out of the network of strands intertwining and knotting together. Calm down. Calm down.

“Jade?”

It’s a girl from her school, peering down at her through the rain.

Oh God. Oh no. Please go away. Please go away.

“Jade? Are you okay?”

The girl is looking at her, a mask of pity plastered over her face. Katie? They were friends, used to be friends, once.

“Jade?”

“Go away. Please go away.” Maybe if she says it enough times, then it will happen. Maybe if she says it just the right amount of times then everything will be alright and all her questions will be answered and it will stop raining.

“Go away. Please go away. Go away. Please go away. Go away. Please go away.”

“Jade. Stop being like this.”

“Go away. Please go away. Go away. Please go away. Go away – “

Katie sits down next to her and shakes her gently. “Jade. Stop it. We miss you. Please, can’t you just stop it and be yourself again?”

“Leave me alone.”

Katie looks at her for a long time, her eyes wide, unblinking. “I did leave you alone. I thought you’d get better. But you’re still doing all this. You have to stop.”

She explodes with frustration. Cold waves of fury splash over her. “You’re telling me to stop? You think I like being this way? You think I’m doing this on...on purpose? How do you think it feels to...to be taunted by people you haven't done anything to, every single day, because of this stupid, stupid...”’

“Who are you, Jade?” Katie touches her shoulder lightly and brushes a strand of hair back from her hot forehead.

The kindness breaks her. She implodes. She starts shaking again and starts to rock herself on the hard curb. She has never felt so defeated.

“I don’t know.” Tears spill over her lashes, lacing her cheekbones. “I really don’t know.”