A/N: RAH! Hehee, back again.
Chapter Eight
So Natalie and Mik go to the club, have a good time, dance, get drunk and throw up.
Karen Baines and Simon are across the room, but Natalie tries not to let them get her down. She attracts guys left right and centre, and Simon looks over a couple of times.
"Is that a little jealousy in his face or what?" asks Mik, jumping about like a mad thing.
"I dunno," says Natalie, spinning herself and her newfound male friend round so she could talk to Mik. "Hey look, where're they going?" Simon leads Karen out of the dance hall.
"You can get up to the roof," says Mik, "It's no big deal." Natalie looks over to where they disappeared and stops dancing.
"Come on," she takes Mik's hand and leads her over to the roof passage.
They climb five or six sets of stairs, following Simon and Karen until they reach the roof, where the two girls sit down by the top of the stairs to listen. Karen and Simon sit near the edge.
"Isn't it romantic?" asks Karen, leaning in to give Simon a kiss, but he's not too sure about it.
"Listen, Karen," he begins, but Karen smashes her lips down on his, and he forcefully pulls back from her.
"Karen, this isn't gonna work between me and you," he says. "And I know while you're drunk this isn't gonna make any sense and you probably aren't going to remember it in the morning."
"What?" asks Karen, oblivious to anything he had just said, swaying her arms about like a bird in flight.
"This isn't gonna work! I still love Natalie," Simon almost shouts. Natalie, from her and Mik's hiding place, gasps.
"He still loves me, he still loves me," she says to Mik and they jump around hugging, then acutely listen in to what else Simon is saying.
"Natalie?" Karen asks. "Natalie. Oh, Natalie!"
"Yeah, my girlfriend," says Simon.
"I am not your girlfriend," whispers Natalie furiously from ten or eleven feet behind him. "And you are not my boyfriend, you need to do a hell of a lot before you're my boyfriend again."
"You have a girlfriend?" Karen asks, and hiccups. "Simon, Simon, I've loved you ever since I saw you first, and it broke my heart when you went out with Natalie," Karen almost spits the name.
"Yeah? Well I love her, I love her, and if you can't get along with her, and like her, then I guess we'll never even be friends," says Simon, getting up and walking back to the stairs, Natalie and Mik shrink back from the light and hide in the shadows as he passes. Karen gets up, swaggering a little.
"Come on Nat, we can't leave her up here like this, she'll fall off the edge, it was quite irresponsible of Si to leave a drunk girl on top of a building," says Mik, getting up also and helping up Natalie. They hear a scream behind them and twist round, startled. Natalie runs to the edge of the building, where Karen is holding on for dear life.
"You talked too soon Mik," she says, resting on her knees and taking Karen's wrist to pull her up.
"Help me, help me, help me help me. Please," Karen sobs. Natalie pulls Karen's wrist, and takes the other one as she lifts it up.
"Why are you helping her?" asks Fred, now also leaning over the edge of the building a little too far. He falls off.
"Fred!" Natalie yells, and loosens her grip on Karen for a second. A second where she sees Fred get up from the sidewalk unhurt, as if he had fallen five or six inches. He looks up at Natalie and Karen, before they both shift a little further over the edge.
