"C'mon Lucy," Alice sighed, growing frustrated with her friend, "Just lighten up and enjoy the night! It's been an amazing concert! I don't know what the hell your problem is!"
"I am enjoying it…" Lucy trailed off quietly as she nervously picked at her nails.
"Don't look too pained about it!" Alice grumbled sarcastically as she messily applied her eyeliner.
Silence. Alice broke off from hurriedly applying her makeup in the grimy mirror and shot an annoyed glance in Lucy's direction. Lucy refused to meet her piercing gaze; instead she let her head droop slightly and continued to fretfully examine her nails.
"Lucy," Alice growled now and the hostility in her voice shocked her feeble friend into raising her bowed head, "I'm fed up of you tonight! All you've done is worry and fret and moan and complain…"
"But I wasn't compl…" Lucy timidly tried to interrupt her friend's rant but was cut off immediately.
"I thought you'd love to come and see The Beatles with me!" Alice's voice sounded somewhat desperate now and it was apparent she had finally lost her temper, "Do you have any idea of how long I had to queue up to buy these tickets! Do you have any idea how much they cost me! What are you even scared about? We're just gonna go to the bar and have few drinks and hopefully hook up with one of the band members! It's that simple"
"But Alice," Lucy whimpered feeling hot tears stinging in her eyes, "we're too young to be even here in the first place! And if my mum wakes up and finds me missing from my bed at 2am in the morning she'll murder me! It's too risky, I want to go…"
"Y'know what Lucy?" Alice almost screeched as she threw her makeup back into her satchel moodily, "You can sod off home while I go get laid!"
The foul tempered teen angrily stormed out of the toilets leaving a somewhat bewildered Lucy shivering and afraid. She stood in complete silence for what seemed an eternity, frozen to the spot and stunned like a rabbit caught in headlights.
"I don't know the way home…" Lucy feebly called after Alice, secretly not wishing to be heard.
She felt her legs tremble and a few hot tears streaked down her flushed face. Sometimes she really hated Alice. Sometimes she struggled to grasp at reasons why she even viewed Alice as a 'friend'. Lucy found the fellow 17 year old slightly intimidating and often felt repressed by her. She wasn't like Alice. She didn't enjoy going out on the town without her parent's knowing her whereabouts. She couldn't understand how Alice could possibly categorise being chatted up by lustful strangers and then being taken advantage of in some stinking alley as fun. Alice had lost her virginity aged 15, yet Lucy hadn't even experienced her first real kiss; she would always shy away from boys who hinted the even slightest interest in her.
"Slag" Lucy grumbled breathlessly as she finally plucked up enough courage to stray from the filthy toilets and try locate her friend amongst the crowd that steadily grew in the local pub.
The pub was filled with loud-mouthed, middle aged men who were knocking back beers effortlessly and teenage girls (obviously there purely for The Beatles) who shamelessly swarmed around the band members as they entered the overcrowded room and chattered excitedly amongst each other. The stench of sweat and alcohol burned Lucy's nostrils. She flinched with every yell and drunken roar that erupted from the mass of drunks that surrounded her. Feeling exposed and vulnerable as she slipped past the mobs of rat arsed forty year olds, the young girl timidly pulled her leather jacket closer against the exposed skin around her neckline. The thick sleazy atmosphere of the place hung around her head like a cloud of soot and left Lucy feeling unclean. Her eyes frantically searched for Alice, yet were only met with the stomach churning sight of seedy old men, eagerly eyeing her fragile young body with hungry eyes. She had to get out of this place. She had to get home before anyone realised she was missing. But how? How could she possibly return home safely alone?
I need to find Alice!