Author's Note : Thanks for the reviews so far! I really appreciate them. Now, it's back to Kirsty's POV. Obviously I don't own the song at the start of this (it's way too good to have come from me!) Richard Ashcroft does and it's called "The Miracle". I also don't own the characters as much as I wish I did! Please read and review!!

Long Road

It's gonna be a long, long road

Gonna be a million paths to sow

Gonna be trouble on the way

Gonna get your fair share of the pain

And there's gonna be laughter and joy

Gonna be friends that you're gonna destroy

And there's gonna be family that don't exist

And there's gonna be people that you wished you'd never missed

Sometimes I think that working in a supermarket is one of the worst jobs in the world. The customers look straight through you as if you're not even there. They're too busy trying to work out whether they'll still have enough money left for a drink later on or where they can hide that pack of cigarettes so their boyfriend won't find it. Sometimes you'll get chatting about mindless things like the weather or the price of sliced bread nowerdays and I feel like every second, every minute a year is being added on to my age in that disgusting gingham overall they make us wear. Still, it's a job, it pays for the rent and gives us some kind of security. Besides, I'm not going to be working here forever. I'm going to night classes, see, and I'm going to get qualifications and then a really well paid job so that we can have a proper house. Besides, I've worked in worse places.

When we first got away from Summer Bay, Kane found us jobs at an orchard picking oranges. It was fun at first and we even got accommodation thrown in. Okay, so it was a shitty little room but I thought we could manage there. I'd do anything, sleep anywhere, just to be with him. At night he would hold me and I felt so secure. I could just imagine Mum's face if she knew we were sharing a bed. But it wasn't like that. Not then. He wouldn't rush me into anything. We would just hold each other and talk and make plans for the future. We have all these little in-jokes. Weird things that if anyone else heard they would think we were major dags. Sometimes I would miss my family. I'm not completely heartless you know. I even thought about phoning home once or twice. Espeically when Kane was late home and I could hear voices outside. Once someone even tried the door. But I just kept thinking we have to keep going, we can do this. Besides, what would I say? What could I possibly say after all the hurt that I've caused them. It's beyond words. Completely beyond words. Then Kane would get back with something to eat and I could tell from his eyes that he was tired and worried but he'd still try and smile for me.

"I wish I could give you better than this dump." He would mutter as we ate our chips.

"I don't mind, I've told you. I don't want you to give me things. We work for them, together." He'd kiss me and I would taste the salt on his chips and it was all so perfect. I wouldn't have given it up to be back in my own bed. Despite the cockroaches and the weird smell and the shared toilets.

We had to leave the orchard. Things were getting way too creepy and Kane said he didn't like leaving me alone there. I could tell he was thinking of taking me back to Summer Bay. He thought that every town was going to be like that. Every room we stayed in was going to be dark, every job we had was going to be shoddy. So I made a point of sitting up front with him in the car. I talked and talked about how there was so many jobs, so many possibilities, we just had to look for them. We just had to settle our eyes in the right place. Here's something about me, when I want something, I want it so bad that no-one can stop me. There's no going half-way, there's no giving up at the first hurdle. I have an aching inside of me sometimes and it won't stop until I've got what I want. It's like with Kane. I tried so hard to stop it. Those of you who think I was being selfish, that I fell in love with Kane just to hurt Dani and that no matter how much I loved him, how much it hurt I should have stopped it for her sake. You can't tell until you've been there. Until you've lain awake at night sobbing. Until you've listened to somebody's stories, got underneath their skin, looked into their eyes and felt that all your wildness, all your bad points, all your good points, all those little ways that no-one knows about, can be contained within them. And taking in all of theirs too, keeping a person within yourself, no matter where they are. Even if I had stopped it for her would that have been being kind to her? Everyday I would have looked at her and thought of what she took away. I know it's not her fault and I know that it was Kane that made the mistake in the first place but you can't choose who you fall in love with, neither can you switch those feelings off or stop yourself from feeling bitter towards the person who forced you apart.

"So... where do you want to go?" Kane asked, the day we left the orchard. He had pulled over and was sitting there, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

"Lets just drive." I said, leaning back on to the car seat, feeling totally relaxed. "And stop wherever we feel like."

He shook his head and laughed. "Sometimes I think I better drop you off at the mental asylum and escape while I still can."

I had pushed the seat right back so I was lying horizontal. "Do you think they'll put me in a straight jacket?"

"And you'll be locked in a padded room." He turned the key and started the engine.

"But you would come and visit me, right?"

"Nah. I'd be too ashamed of my mental girlfriend. I'd be on the first train out of Australia."

I pulled my seat upwards again and clicked my seatbelt into place and after giving him a hard slap for his fake disloyalty I looked at him seriously. "You weren't going to take me any further, were you? You were gonna drop me off in Summer Bay and go off without me."

"No..." He gave me a guilty glance then stared intently at the road ahead.

"Don't lie."

"I... I sometimes think you're better than this sort of life." He said and I could tell that saying all this was making him uneasy from the way his knuckles were turning white as he gripped the steering wheel tighter and tighter.

"Well, don't." I leaned into his shoulder. "Nothing is better than you and me, okay?"

"Okay." He put one arm around me and we snuggled up together. This all happened three weeks ago and now we're in this new town and everything is slotting together. I work at the supermarket and Kane works at the factory. We have got a flat together and at night we go to evening classes. It's busy, so busy. But there's always time for us because we make time. There's the weekends and the nights. I feel like a different person. Adult. New. Fresh. But there's still a bit of the old left in me. The bit of the fourteen year old girl who wants to go to school and chat to her friends and not have any worries except whether she's going to make the football team. But I can control her. She's barely alive, feeding on these moments at the supermarket when everything is so dull and routinely boring.

It was one of those days when I found myself throwing up in the staff toilets. It had been happening a lot throughout the past week or so and I had also been feeling sort of strange. I thought it was nothing at first, just a bug or something. But it was that day, leaning on the grey wall of the cubicle, holding my stomach through my the disgusting red checked overalls they made us wear, that I realised it might be something. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and took a few deep breaths. I had that horrible, dizzy sick feeling and I just needed a few minutes to get myself together.

"Kirsty?" I heard high heels on the tiled floor. "Are you in there?"

Wearily I sighed and stepped out of the cubicle to face my boss. She was twiddling with a strand of her short red hair, obviously annoyed because I had left the check-out unmanned. I decided if she had a go at me I'd have one right back. She had always made it obvious that she thought I was unreliable because I was supposedly just eighteen, straight from school. Imagine how it would be if she found out I was only fourteen! They never doubted me when I told them my age. A couple of the other girls even asked me to come out for a drink with them. She glared at me and then her green eyes softened a little and she put a hand on my arm.

"You look terrible. What's the matter?"

"Sorry Elaine, I just felt a bit ill. I..."

"Yes, you're very pale. Why don't you get yourself cleaned up and then go home? I can't have my staff working in your condition." She hugged her clipboard closed to her and paused in the doorway on her way out. "And don't come in if you're feeling bad tomorrow. I'd rather you not be here at all than keep running off to the toilets."

"Okay." If I didn't feel so bad, I would be pleasantly surprised. Elaine was the sort of boss who thought nothing should stand in the way of working. It was annoying really seeing as it was only a crappy supermarket on the edge of town, it wasn't like they needed all the help they could get.

"It's probably a bug or something." She added, "There's a lot of it going about."

My hands shook as I splashed cold water on myself. Was it a bug? It didn't feel like one. I wiped the tears from my eyes. I was only fourteen and we always use protection. I couldn't be, could I???