A.N.: A longer one, this one is also a Debbie chapter. The division may not be strictly even, mostly it will be on a chapter by chapter basis based on my digression as to who would be more fun to write for that scene. Next time will be a Jasmine chapter however.

DJ

Fight: Debbie

I was pushing Sarah past the pub when I saw them together. Daz had just come out of the shop, a bottle of booze tactfully hidden under his sweater. He presented it to her and they walked off towards the pavilion together.

I stopped. There was the burning in my stomach again. What was this, jealously? No, I don't think it was. I honestly didn't care if Daz hung out with her, I just thought she was a little too posh for him to be fancying and toadying to.

He'd done nothing but talk about her for the last few days. Jasmine showed me how to play the organ. Jasmine could tag along to Hotten with us. She'd done nothing but convince me that she was just a sheltered, spoiled posh kid. I'm going to help Laurel teach a literacy class for farmers.

It was the way she looked at me, I think. Every time she saw me, she'd pause then her shoulders would scrunch up and she'd duck her head as if trying to pull back into her shell. Like she wished I wouldn't notice her. I didn't understand it, what had I ever done to her? Or was it Sarah? Or was Daz telling her stories? What right did she have to judge me?

These questions made me wonder and wonder and made me realize something. It could not go on forever this way.

So I followed them.

"What's going on?" I called as I approached the bench they were sitting on, leaving the bugger on the path. "Where'd you get that booze from?"

And there it was, right on cue: the fearful tuck-in and head turn away. What was her problem?

"The shop." Daz answered me, examining the bottle.

"You got served? Whatever." I shrugged, still pointedly ignoring her.

"I nicked it, didn' I?" Daz snapped at me, taking a swig. There was pride in his voice, laced with a hint of irritation.

I glanced at Jasmine. She was sitting neatly on her hands, her expression almost coy. "For her?" I asked. "She's been here five minutes and she's got you on the robber already? Cheeky cow…"

Her head drooped. So pathetic.

"You can go now." I told her. She just looked at me, still not saying anything. Well, at least she wasn't all tucked up inside her shell.

"What are you doing with her anyway?" I asked Daz. "You're not that desperate are ya'?" Couldn't he see she wasn't interested? And even if she was, she'd be so boring.

"I'm sorry I intimidate you so much." Jasmine spoke up suddenly, rising to walk up to me. Oh, so she did know how to talk.

I sighed as she stood across from me. "What?"

"Well, I mean you're so threatened by me," she said in that snotty posh accent of hers. "That's what all this is about." She had her hands folded neatly together in front of her.

I pretended to think about it. "Yeah… you keep telling yourself that." I gestured down the hill. "Run along."

She glanced after my hand as if contemplating it then turned right back to me. "You know it's sad really, but I totally understand." She said, in what could almost pass for pity if it hadn't been so belittling. "Your life is so…"

"What?" I interrupted, wondering if she'd actually dare to say what she really thought. She was scared of me, I knew.

"Well," She said with painful bluntness and for once, not a hint of shyness. "Pathetic."

I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. "Go on." I wanted to hear what she thought of me. Why she refused to associate with me. Why she was suddenly finding she had so much to say to me.

"Well, I mean here you are, stuck with a baby you never wanted," She began, putting one hand on her hip. "That must be pretty awful for a start…" She mocked, making a face at me. It took a lot to keep my face impassive as my stomach clenched. "And I can't imagine you're going to do well at school with everything, so…" she smirked. "It looks like you're stuck here forever." Now that she had started, it seemed she didn't know how to stop. She let out a laugh. "You know I really can't imagine anything worse than being stuck in this boring village, where everyone thinks you're just another stupid teenage mum."

My mouth seemed to have stopped trying to fight back. I hadn't expected this from her. "You think you're so clever." I managed to choke out, by some miracle without sounding tearful.

"I mean even your own mother didn't want to stick around this place!" She exclaimed.

I stiffened. "You don't know what you're talking about!" I spat.

"She didn't even want you!" She said to me. There was something in her voice. Something I couldn't place but that sounded very familiar.

"You are so going to regret saying that…" I said in a low voice. My stomach was burning worse than ever. "I should have smacked you the first time I saw you."

My eyes were stinging, my breath seemed to be getting caught in my chest. Now I knew what the burning in my stomach was. It was anger. Fury. She could be rather cheeky when she wanted to. And nasty. Her words hurt me. Because they were true. Because she'd been here for such a short time, met me only twice and already knew all this about me.

But I wasn't done. No way was I letting her get one over on me. I could figure her out.

"Look," Daz piped up suddenly, his voice slurred by the booze. "there's no need to fight. I don't mind being shared."

I'd forgotten he was there, she had commanded my entire attention. "Shut up Daz." I told him. Why did he think this was about him?

"Shut up." She echoed.

I turned back to her. What right did this posh kid have to boss him around? "Don't tell him to shut up."

"Well you did." She countered.

"Yeah, I know him you don't." I snapped back. "You've been here for five minutes."

She scoffed. "Yeah, well it's long enough to make you jealous."

"Oh, see?" I shouted, throwing my arms in the air. "There you go again, thinkin' you know everything." I put a lid on the anger, channeling it. "Well you don't." She'd had her turn mocking me, now it was my turn. And I wasn't going to give her anything. "What makes you so special anyway? Where's your mum and dad?" I asked, remembering that she was here with her uncle. No she was staying with her uncle. She was here alone.

She squirmed. I had her now. "Couldn't they be bothered with you?" I taunted. "Is that why you go to your posh school, so they don't have to see your ugly mug every day?"

"It's not like that…" She said stubbornly but I saw tears gathering in her eyes. Her face was blank, tough. She was folding in again, but this time it seemed more like a defense. Like she was trying to close herself off from me and my words.

There it was. Her weak spot. "Innet?"

With that single word, it was clear I'd gone too far. She stiffened and I saw the shell crack for the first time. "No. My mum's coming back!" She shouted, her stupid, posh voice laced with anger and fury.

I lost it. The anger I'd been fighting so hard to control broke loose. I slapped that pretty face of hers. To my surprise, she did not fall on the ground and whimper pitifully like I expected her to. She hit me right back. My face stung from the force of it.

"You're so dead!" I screamed as I tackled her.

She hit hard but was rather useless in a fight. She just lay there while I tried to rip her hair out, covering her head and curling up on herself, trying to hide in her shell again. I shook her violently, desperate to make her shut up, to break that pretty, posh face of hers and make her realize: you're nothing. Nothing!

What the hell did she know? Everything had always been handed to her. She'd never know the feeling of abandonment, of having nothing, no one.

In the end it was Laurel who pulled us apart, Daz having found the booze didn't quite agree with him after all. Laurel kept a tight hold on Jasmine as she shoved me away, keeping herself between us at all times.

I grabbed Sarah's bugger and stomped off towards home, my cheek still stinging and my head aching. The fire in my stomach had not subsided and I barely made it home, through the door, past Lisa and up the stairs to my room before the tears came.

I curled up on my bed, rubbing my cheek softly as tears fell on my hand. She hit hard.

I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened, turning it over and over in my mind. She kept invading my thoughts, her words echoing in my skull: looks like you're stuck here forever… she didn't even want you…!

But wait. I froze as her face at that moment froze in my mind. Those eyes, the way she'd said the words. I finally realized why they seemed so familiar. It was the same way I'd said them, so many times. All the times I'd turned my own pain on others with words.

I sat up, leaning back on my headboard. I slowly went over everything I knew about Jasmine, everything I'd seen today that changed all that…

Shy, reserved. Parents who didn't want her around, not a friend in the world. That moment when she'd insulted me about mum… I'd seen it. She'd been looking into a mirror, looking at someone who knew what it was like. She knew it too. She'd figured it out the moment we first met and she'd been scared because she knew. She knew what it was like and she didn't want to be hurt by someone like me.

Fresh tears began to fall.

What had I done? She was just like me. That momentary flash of herself, the person hiding under the shell had vanished again the moment we'd stopped fighting. But I'd seen it. Deep down, I suppose, she was very similar to me. Broken. Abandoned. Damaged. Coping. Hiding.

Despite my aversion to the feeling, regret was rising within me. I was sorry I'd slapped her. I was sorry I'd made her cry.

Perhaps Jasmine Thomas wouldn't be such a bad person to have around…