Sorry. Okay, I'm just really sorry and I don't have an excuse I'm just a shite person. I would quite strongly advise that you never read anything I write ever again because I am shit. I attempted to make this chapter almost acceptable to make it up to you. Unfortunately, although I tried, it is still shit. To be fair to myself, I tried my best. I just found this scene really hard to write because feelings, and I wasn't sure how far I should take it. So I'm sorry. You can send me abuse if you want that's cool.

As always I haven't proof-read, so all mistakes are just cos I suck.

(Fuck it, no-one reads this anyway, thank god.)

Chapter 11

"I just want to be...successful." I say. I'm flat on my back on her bedroom floor. She's lying beside me, a half empty bottle of vodka between us. There's a pause, but no awkward silence, just her breathing and my breathing mixing together. Me and Evie. Evie and I. Us.

"Yeah? Doing what exactly?" Her voice isn't exactly sceptical, but it's not softly indulgent either.

"Making money." I reply quickly, and she laughs.

"And that's all, that's all you want?"

"I think so. I want to be rich enough to get out of here." I lift up my hands to gesture towards the ceiling. But I'm not sure if she sees. I'm not sure if her eyes are even open anymore. But I like the words, I like the way they make me feel as though one day all this could be real. "Rich enough to make people forget I exist. Unrecognisably rich."

"Marry someone rich."

"No. I want to do it myself. So it would be my money, not his."

"Oh." There's a pause. "Would you want to forget me?"

I touch my tongue to my lips. Trying not to think too much. "No, maybe not." I reply softly.

"What about you?" I murmur. I want to roll over and look at her as I speak to her, but I don't.

"I want something real." Her words are low, and she takes her time twisting them through her mouth.

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know, I haven't worked it out yet. I think it's like walking on sand Lo." And her voice is empty. Neither slurred nor thick with emotion. It's as though all the background noise has suddenly been wiped away, and there's nothing left in this whole world but me and her and the scratchy carpet we're laying on.

"What have you taken?" I start to laugh as I roll onto my side, so I can look at her. But she's staring up at the ceiling, her eyes oddly glassy. Thick tears clinging to her eyelashes. Her lips part as though she's going to reply, but for a long moment she's silent. She sighs, her chest dropping. And my laughter drops away and dies in my throat, like the feebly popping bubbles of cheap champagne.

"I haven't taken anything. I'm just drunk and talking shit."

"Yeah you are. Make me understand."

"It's like walking on sand. This whole damn...thing."

"What do you mean?"

"Like...like you think...you think it's stable, and it should be okay...it's real, and it's there, and on the surface it looks great, and then suddenly, as soon as you put any weight on it, as soon as you need it, everything below you shifts. And it's so hard to carry on going, doing it again and again. Do you know what I mean?" As she speaks she rolls onto her side towards me, so we're face to face. Very nearly nose to nose. I can taste the alcohol on her breath, and I don't forget for a moment that it's the booze talking. But I'm drunk too. God knows, I'm drunk.

"No." I murmur.

Her eyes flash over my face. Quickly. And then she tilts her chin down, in a stiff half-nod. And then she giggles.

"I'm talking shit aren't I?"

"Yeah." There's a pause. And I touch my tongue to my lips and look at her. Thinking about pressing my lips against hers, just to see if it feels the same as it did before. I try to shake off the idea, but it clings heavily to my alcohol-sodden brain, making it hard for me to think straight. And somehow, even though I'm not sure what I'm saying, I'm speaking. Words crowding from my mouth before I can stop them."Evie, I think, maybe, we should...we should talk about this."

"Talk about what?"

"You know, this...thing...this holding hands thing. This people talking about us thing. The way that you don't care what people are saying..." I finish the sentence in my head. 'The way you don't care how I feel.' But I'm careful not to let those words slip through my lips. Instead I tilt my chin down, because I want to break eye contact. But I find that I can't. I'm just stuck there, watching her as she watches me. And she reaches up, just brushing the very tips of her fingers across my cheek. As though she'd never touched me before.

And she hasn't. Not like this. This could mean something.

The thought makes me feel as though my heart is standing still, but racing away from me all at once. I'm suddenly hyperaware of my pulse.

And then she smiles, that lopsided smile. Which makes me question everything. Just the merest shadow of a smirk reaching her eyes. "Why would we talk when we could do this?"

And that's when she starts to kiss me. She presses her lips against my own. And for a moment I'm not sure if I can remember how to breathe. I don't move, frozen. My eyes open, my lips tremouring, but still. And her eyes are closed and her lips are careful, pressing onto my bottom lip. Her tongue just brushing against my lips. And that sends a thousand amperes though my veins. And suddenly I'm shocked into life. Closing my eyes. And god, I'm kissing her back. And...And I don't have words for this. No-one has ever kissed me like this before. I didn't know kissing could feel like this. I didn't know that kissing could be soft and gentle and make my heart flicker faster than a strobe light.

I only pull away when my lungs are burning for oxygen.

"Wow" I whisper. Trying not to gasp. I keep my face blank. She smiles at me. One corner of her mouth twitching.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." I'm nodding desperately. Trying to sort through my jumbled mind for something, anything, to say to her. To tell her how I feel.

But she's just laughing. Her laughter slightly higher than normal. Breathless, exhilarated. And now our lips are crashing together again. She's kissing me with fire now, hot, burning the roof of my mouth. Sending tremors down my back. Her laughter still fizzing against my lips. And she's pushing me onto my back, and I let her. For an instant, her lips pull away from my own, and it takes me a moment to realise that the tiny noise halfway between a whimper and a gasp escaped from between my own lips. And then she's leaning down towards me. Kissing me again, as though she means it. But for me, I tell myself that this is nothing, I don't mean it. I don't, I don't, I...don't know how to breathe any more. And her hands are playing with my hair, wrapping tiny curls through her fingers. She's giggling onto my lips. I think her eyes are opening.

And I'm lost in a haze, lost somewhere between drunkenness and something hot that I don't have a word for yet. Confusion threading through my veins, twisting up with adrenaline and arousal and alcohol. Because I'm so, so sure that I'm not supposed to feel like this. But I know that I do.

So I let her thread her fingers through my own. And I let her pull me shakily to my feet. And I follow her for three wobbly steps across her bedroom before the edge of her bed gently collides with the backs of my knees. I take a breath in.

Dangerously close to a gasp.

"You okay Lo?" Her voice is soft. Playful. I know she's teasing me. And I don't trust myself to speak, and so I just nod fervently and pray that she doesn't notice my hammering heartbeat. She glances over me. Her eyes smouldering, leaving my skin little more than paper-thin ashes. She nods a little, her eyes glancing up to meet mine for nearly a fraction of a second.

And then she's pushing me back onto the bed.

Time isn't working now. One moment my lips are shaking so much it hurts to breathe, and the next I'm leaving confident kisses down her neck. Kissing every exposed inch of skin I can find to press my lips onto. And I'm not sure of anything. The world is blurred and dark and a hazy rush of confusion. But here, right now, all I really know are her hands coolly unbuttoning my thin school shirt, her lips never leaving my own. Cool air suddenly slamming against my skin with as much force as a speeding lorry. Leaving bruising goosebumps and earthquakes in its wake. And I want to undress her too, god, I want to. I want to feel her skin under my hands and tug her shirt away from her body and...but she won't let me. She slips through my fingers like wine through water. Or maybe my hands won't stop shaking. I don't know. She's still kissing me and her lips are everywhere and her knee is pressing between my legs and I can feel my pulse throbbing and her hands are in my hair and I want to move my hips but I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.

But I do know that this is better than booze and better than drugs and better than the rushing high of success.

And this makes me brave. And suddenly I'm touching her gently. So softly I'm not sure if she even feels my fingertips brushing over the thin fabric of the hem of her school shirt. I'm not sure if she feels my fingertips racing over her cool skin. Ridges of ribs. Skin softer than silk and smelling of my own personal brand of hell.

But I know that she feels me trace my thumbs over the hot, lace fabric of her bra. Just touching her breasts.

Because she breathes in.

Sharply.

Snatching all the oxygen between us and using it to fill her own lungs.

And then she pulls away from me.

I feel as though I've been slapped in the face.

And then, a fraction of a second later, she does slap me.

And for a second I don't feel a damn thing.

"What the fuck are you doing Lo?"

And then I feel it all at once. Hitting me faster than a bullet. And lodging deep into my windpipe.

I'm blinking my eyes open. Gasping. Shirtless. Trying in vain to control my heaving breaths and shaking hands. I can feel my heart hammering in my chest. Feeling sure that she can see it through my skin. I'm desperately fighting back the tears that threaten to spill from the corners of my eyes. My cheek stings painfully, and more tears rush to fill my already damp eyes. .

I watch her silently as she rakes her eyes over me. Slowly now. Critically. From my stomach, hipbones pressing through my flesh, muscles screaming out, to the thin lines of my ribs and the thin black fabric of my bra. Over my curving collarbones, over the faint traces of her lipgloss slicked over my neck. Her pupils look small and oddly hard. Moving too slowly as she looks at me.

I've never felt this exposed before. I've never felt this confused or this scared or this hurt. I've never let anybody get this close. I've never been so close.

"What the fuck?" She repeats. Her voice even colder now.

"What?" I mutter, fumbling around desperately for my shirt. But I don't break eye contact, not for a moment. My hands feel numb. So does my face. I don't know what is happening.

"You were fucking touching me."

"You...were...you were touching me too." My voice is barely a whisper. Something inside me is screaming. I feel like crying.

"But...but..." she's stammering. I've never, ever heard her voice shake like this before. And then, a moment later, her stony facade falls back down behind her eyes. And she opens her mouth again. "You liked it. I can see it all over your face Lorraine. You liked it."

"I...I..." There was no point in denying it, she already knew. Oh god. I took a long, deep breath in, and then tried to make it sound as though it were no big deal. "Yeah, yeah, you know, I did."

"That's sick." Her voice is low. Acidic. Filled with something...oh god. Everything inside me curls up, and crawls into some cold corner. And that's when I look away.

"YOU kissed ME, remember?" I mutter. Angry. Hot. But I don't raise my voice. Instead, I concentrate on the twisting heat running through my body. I wriggle. Frantically scrambling away from her.

"I was just messing around." She shrugs. As though it doesn't matter. As though this was nothing at all to her.

And god, it was everything to me.

I feel sick. Sick, right down to the centre of my bones.

"Yeah."

One word. That's all I manage to choke out.

And I'm scrambling desperately from her bed. Pulling on my shirt. My hands shaking. And I'm stumbling across her room. Just wanting to put as much room as possible between myself and her.

"Lo-"

"Don't Evie, please." I breathe. I'm not sure if she even heard me. I hope she didn't. I don't want her to hear me pleading with her.

I just want someone to take away the dark confusion threatening to swallow me whole.
I leave.

On the back seat of the bus, slouched against the window. I watch the lights on the road below me flash past. Red, white, gold. Slurring together as I rest my head on the cool, vibrating window of the bus. Feeling the quick-fire vibrations of the glass drilling into my skull. Hoping it'll clear my mind, I concentrate on the meaningless noise. But I can feel all these things in my head, crowding to come out. All these things I should have said to her, all those things I'm supposed to say. And instead they just twist me up inside and make me feel sick. Because I've never felt this vulnerable or this scared before. I've never let someone kiss me like that, touch me like that, send white-hot shockwaves of arousal through my body like that. I feel uncomfortable. Too hot, too cold, too turned-on. Oh god. Oh. God.

And that's when I cry. Because my chest aches and my lungs scream and my lips burn and the white wet heat coiled somewhere below my stomach leaves me feeling sick with myself.

And so I let the tears roll unchecked from my eyes. Blinding me, numbing me, burning me. And it'd okay because I'm all alone, curled in the back seat on the top deck of the shuddering bus, and no-one is left to hear my silent sobs. Because no-one ever sees me cry.