The heat wave seemed to be making everyone seriously cranky but yet she was finding herself in better spirits than she had been in for the last four days. Days were becoming day and nights again and not endless torture.
She lay in the garden, soaking up the sun in her bikini wearing next to no sun cream to maximize the tan and the bikini meaning there'd be very small tan lines, and as she lay there she couldn't help but thinking back to where this whole thing had started.
The night that changed everything was now just under 32 years ago but only now had things surfaced again when on a night out with Gerry she came face to face with the heart of the problem. Gerry was clueless over what had sparked such a sudden change but now for the first time in their relationship she'd not spoken to him in 4 days.
It'd been 32 years, well just under, since that night, the night which ultimately shaped her life regardless of the face she'd promised herself it never would. The night which inspired her to go into policing because of the horrible police officers that visited after that night, she decided that's what she wanted to do but she'd make people believe that it's be okay. She'd be one of the good guys but it was the only good thing to come out of that night.
It was the night of her 18th birthday, she was an August baby meaning that all of her friends were already 18 and her boyfriend was nearly 20. This meant that the night was spent celebrating in several nightclubs legally but the night had ended in a way none of them could ever have imagined, a death.
Christina was Sandra's best friend, they'd only met in sixth form but immediately they clicked, whenever they were together all you'd hear was giggling. They'd been planning Sandra's 18th for months when it came around and all plans involved drinking far too much alcohol, mostly shots and alcopops.
The night had been fun and as planned far too much alcohol was drunk so no one had noticed when Christina had disappeared or even when Joel, Sandra's boyfriend, had disappeared. It wasn't until the next morning when the police had arrived that she discovered that Christina had hung herself, as much as Sandra tried though she couldn't recall the events of the night before.
It was a week after when the post mortem came back, which confirmed the cause of death but also revealed that Christina had not died a virgin and thanks to DNA and Joel having a sting of convictions for burglary she knew it was him who had slept with Christina. As upsetting as it was knowing her boyfriend had slept with her best friend she knew that wasn't it. Christina was from a strict Catholic family and wore a chastity ring so she knew Christina would never willingly have sex until after marriage. Now all the pieces fit together, she'd known there'd have been a big reason behind Christina's suicide and it wouldn't have been a light reason.
The police had never accepted this and said teenagers break their chastity promises on a daily basis but she'd known that this wasn't the case. She'd not spoken to Joel since and he'd kept his distance, which showed a guilty conscience. It took ages for her to get over Christina's death but eventually she'd managed to put her grief to one side. That was until 4 days ago when on a night out with Gerry she'd spotted him, that was enough to bring all the grief and the guilt of bringing Joel into their life's back then.
Now though she lay in the garden sunbathing with a revolting flavored alcopop she felt happy, it was like a full circle but this time it was a beginning, she finally felt happy again, like some sort of justice had been served. Joel's family had been killed on a level crossing and yes that was sad but it was like karma had come back around because now Joel was hurting, now he knew how it felt to lose the people close to you. This was the stuff of Sandra's dreams back 32 years ago, that justice had been served and now she realized that life was a dream; just a funny kind of one.