A/N: Thanks everyone for reading

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Friday morning.

"Any of that coffee left, Tim?"

I shrug in response, don't look up.

Curly picks up the coffee pot, pours the last dregs into his cup. "You been up long?"

"A while." Which is about the biggest understatement ever, considering I've been sat here for most of the night.

Flinch a little as he scrapes the chair across the kitchen floor and sits opposite me. My head's not the best.

Not after all that drinking. Or last night's fuck up.

Last night that's been running on a constant loop through my mind since I chased out the building after Leigh. That I find myself going over yet again as I sit here wishing my brother would fuck off and leave me to torture myself a little more with quite how badly I've screwed up this time.

"Wait up."

"Go away."

Leigh won't look at me, just carries on walking quick as she can across the parking lot of Buck's towards the street. With a few long strides I catch up to her, catch hold of her arm to stop her and turn her to me, confused as to why she's still wearing her work clothes now and why her eyes seem red and sore like she's been crying long before she got here. Before anything I've done to hurt her.

"Leigh…Will you listen to—"

"Christ, Tim, don't make me laugh," she snaps back, anything but amused. "I must be the biggest idiot ever thinking I actually meant something to you, that I could trust you. You've probably been doing shit like that behind my back every damn time you were out someplace without me."

"No. There ain't ever been no one else."

She snorts with laughter. "Sure. Until the one time I really needed you, to have you tell me that everything would be alright. You do that. With her."

"Why? What the hell's happened?"

"Doesn't really matter now does it?"

And she doesn't elaborate, just falls back into uncomfortable silence as I find myself trying to excuse what I've done.

"I thought you weren't going to turn up."

"Well that much is obvious."

"No, I mean I thought you were done with me. That you didn't want me no more. Can't exactly blame me, not when you've been changing things and cancelling our plans all the damn time lately."

"But I promised you I'd be here, Tim."

"Yeah, I know." And there's not a lot more I can say, 'cause I'm well aware that all the reasoning that had made so much sense to me only a short while ago as I downed another drink sounds nothing short of fucking ridiculous now.

"So the one time I'm late you don't think that something might have happened to me or that I'm sick or even something so simple as I might have missed the damn bus home from work and be running late or nothing? No. You decide I'm ditching you?"

Leigh stares at me, waiting for me to answer, but I can't get the words out, just shrug as she continues to speak.

"Do you really think that little of me that you believe I'd actually do something like that? That I would ditch you without a word? Maybe it's time you stopped judging everyone else by your own low standards, Tim."

"Leigh, I'm sorry, I never meant for this to happen."

"Well perhaps you should have thought about that earlier then?"

"So that's it—we're over? You know she doesn't mean anything to me."

"What and that's supposed to make it okay?" She sighs, her voice real quiet now. She doesn't even sound angry any more, just resigned to the fact this has happened, and I don't know that this isn't worse, kind of wish she was still yelling at me. "And I reckon you made that decision for the both of us, don't you? Told you back at the start that I wasn't prepared to be one girl amongst the many. Guess I should have listened to my friends about you after all."

Christ, nothing today has gone right and I'm feeling utterly out of my depth. Want to tell her that I'm sorry, but the words don't come out like that. Instead my frustration takes over. And even though I know it's only going to make things worse I can't seem to stop myself, from digging at her, trying to shift the blame and make sure she's feeling as bad as I am right now.

"Yeah?" I sneer. "Well you're not entirely innocent in this either, sweetheart. You've been messing me around for fucking weeks now. You really ain't nothing special, Leigh—you're no different to all the other easy broads round here, can't believe I wasted so much of my time on you."

"Well, looks like you've done us both a favour then, Tim. Least you won't have to bother to pretend that you give a damn about me no more."

She's trying to prise my hand off of her where I'm still gripping her arm, but my attention is elsewhere, drawn across the lot to some guy who's heading in our direction.

"Everything alright here, Leigh?" The all too familiar voice of Miller cuts across me as she glances round. Can't miss how relieved she is to see him standing there watching us over the roof of a car.

"Yeah. I was just leaving is all. Don't think there's anything left for me to say."

Nick looks at her, at me, back to Leigh. "So how about you take your hands off of her then, Shepard? Let her get on her way."

"Whatever." And even though it ain't exactly a surprise, I'm still disappointed that she takes that step back away from me so quick, raises her hand to rub the spot on her arm where I've been holding her.

"You sure you're okay?" Nick asks as he notices what she's doing.

Which is a fucking joke, 'cause he fucking knows me better than to think I'd actually hurt a girl like that. Least I hope to God I didn't hurt her, don't need to make this any worse than it already is.

"Yeah. I just need to get home."

"Go get in my car then. I'll take you now." Nick glares at me, like he's daring me to stop her or challenge him, as she nods and goes to open the car door.

"Leigh, wait—"

"Not interested Tim, so why don't you drop it, go... oh, I don't know. Why don't you fuck off back to Nancy, seeing as the two of you are such good friends?" She jabs her hand back towards the building and Nancy who's standing on the front porch with a couple of her girlfriends, smirking at me. Christ, what the hell was I thinking earlier, thinking she was a good choice.

I take a step closer to Leigh. "But—"

"I don't know what the hell's been going on here—" Nick steps around the car towards me as I interrupt him.

"So why don't you butt out and mind your own damn business, Miller?"

Pair of us have managed to rub along these past two months, getting by, mostly by pretending that the other ain't around. But not now. I can't ignore him interfering in this. So I take a step in his direction, square up a little, figure he still can't be all that strong, can't be all that long since he got the cast off his arm, that he won't exactly be in a hurry for a fight. Only if that's true he hides it well as he watches me intently, like he's waiting for me to do something.

"Get in the car, Leigh, I won't be long."

"Nick, please, he's not worth it…"

"...Tim?"

"What, Curly?"

"I said what happened to your face? Leigh didn't hit you did she?" Curly asks, evidently trying to supress a smile. "Wouldn't surprise me if she could throw a decent punch, what with who her old man is."

"No, Curly, she didn't fucking hit me. It was that asshole Miller. Couldn't fucking stop himself from interfering, took me by surprise is all."

Another fucking broken nose. So much for me thinking he wouldn't start anything. Took me enough by surprise that they were already in the car and pulling out of the parking lot by the time I realised what he'd done.

"So what the hell are you gonna do now?"

Rub my forehead again, grab another couple aspirins and wash them down with the last of my coffee, wish this damn headache would fuck off too.

"Spend the day working on making some easy money. You want to skip school, give me a hand?"

"Yeah, sure. But you know that ain't what I meant. You going to go find her and apologise, see if she'll have you back?"

Find myself considering going over there, trying to talk to her again.

But maybe it would be best to forget the whole damn thing. I'm not exactly known for admitting when I'm wrong, plus there's plenty of other girls around and it ain't exactly like I've ever struggled to find someone before. Probably be best to move on, put the whole sorry mess behind me.

"Nope."

"Really?"

"Not going to happen Curly. Was just as much her fault as mine. If she'd done what she'd said she was gonna do then it wouldn't have been a problem. Don't need some stupid broad thinking she can make a fool out of me."

Except that despite my bravado I don't actually want to forget it, find someone else, forget about her.

And now I sound like something out the problem pages of one of Angela's trashy magazines. Jesus. Reckon all the guys would be flat out laughing at me losing it like this and stressing over what some girl thinks of me or whether she'll ever even speak to me again.

"Come on, Tim, you ain't in the bar now needing to keep up a front for the guys, she ain't like that and you know it. Thought you really liked her. Must have done, to spend so much time with her. Got to have been a couple months at least?"

Three months, nearly four, longest time I ever spent with one girl, but I don't bother to correct him, can't think about that right now. Running my hand through my hair, I wish he'd leave it, hate the way he can always seem to figure out what's going on in my head.

"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think, Curly."

"Yeah, right. I mean sure she was fucking mad at you, can't exactly blame her for that. I mean, Nancy West, you gotta be crazy picking her over Leigh. But surely you can talk her round? If you want to? Thought Tim Shepard always got what he wanted."

I shrug again. Wish things were that damn easy.

Instead I spend the next couple of days robbing car parts in the day, drinking in the night, and kidding myself that things are better this way.

So that by Saturday night when I wind up in my third fight of the day, then wind up spending the night with some random girl who's spent the whole evening flirting with me, it seems I'm doing a pretty good job of convincing everyone that I'm over Leigh O'Connell—everyone except myself, anyway.