Non Pratt - Trouble

I’m having trouble working out where these two fit in. That’s why I keep glancing over — nothing to do with the legs that Hannah’s got on display.

“Drink?” I hand Rex another beer and remind myself exactly how bad it would be if I opened one for myself. No one wants to meet Drunk Aaron. I’m familiar with his work and I think it’s best he stays safely tucked inside a sealed can. Safer for me, safer for everyone else.

I’m bored. Katie’s off with Mark Grey and I’m giving her ten more minutes before I leave without her. With Tyrone joined at the face to Marcy, the only entertainment left is playing bitch tennis with Marcy’s lot, but with their best player out of the game it hardly seems worth it. Besides, I’m not in the mood.

I check the time on my phone. Katie’s been gone over half an hour. Seriously, how long does it take for Mark Grey to get off? I send her a text telling her I feel sick and I’ve gone home. She has a spare set of keys — this isn’t the first time this has happened. In fact, it happens almost every time we go out.

Halfway down the path to the back gate I hear footsteps behind me. I keep walking, listening as whoever it is draws near. Please be Tyrone, please be Tyrone, please be Tyrone…

“Hannah?” Not Tyrone. Fletch. Of course. He’s in front of me now, his head cocked to one side, looking me in the eyes, a grin not far from the surface. “Going somewhere more private?”

“Yes. Home,” I say, not quite looking at him.

“Yours or mine?”

All of a sudden I feel so tired that I want to curl up in a little ball on the path and go to sleep. But I’ve got to suck it up.

“I shouldn’t have come over to yours again on Tuesday,” I say and I sense his smile fading. “It was a bad idea.”

“That’s not what you said at the time…” He starts to run his hand under the hem of my skirt and I feel a slight buzz at the touch, my willpower wobbling. The way he feels as his body edges closer to mine isn’t so bad and the sound of his breathing — slightly too heavy as if he can’t wait to reach me — is a turn-on. I open my mouth as he draws closer and let him kiss me with a lunge that makes me gag. This boy needs some serious training in the tongue department.

There are footsteps as someone hurries past and I find myself hoping that it wasn’t someone from school.

Stepping back, I put enough distance between me and Fletch to catch the flash of anger on his face. “Look, I’m sorry…”

“Yeah. Whatever.” The words land at my feet as if he’s spat them and, as he walks away, I fight back an urge to shout out the truth — that he was a pity shag, someone that couldn’t disappoint me because I expected absolutely nothing from him. It was what I needed.

Next time it’ll be someone I actually want.

When I return from a trip to the bushes, Tyrone punches my shoulder like I’m one of the guys. He’s clearly drunk, since he introduces me to his girlfriend, Marcy, and tells me she’s a model for the third time that night, then laughs when I tell him that. Now I’ve been deemed “funny”, almost anything I say gets this reaction — understandable given the company he keeps. His friends are practically interchangeable. All on the basketball team, all in Tyrone’s thrall. Beyond Rex the only one I could pick out of a crowd is Mark Grey, and that’s only because he’s the size of a house. He went missing a while ago with Katie Coleman, which Rex seemed inexplicably aggrieved about.

I find an empty table where I can sit and rest for a moment. Socializing is tiring.

A voice I don’t recognize says, “Hey,” far too close to my ear for my liking. Glancing round I discover Marcy sitting with one hip propped on the table. It’s easy to see why she’s a model. She possesses an angular, almost alien, beauty, all cheekbones and jawline — the kind with no warmth. As far from my type as it’s possible to get.

“Er, hi?” My voice sounds like it’s yet to break and I clear my throat.

Marcy edges close enough that she bumps her arm into mine. For an alarming moment I worry that she’s going to sit on my lap, but she doesn’t, for which I am grateful — Tyrone would have a hard time seeing the funny side of that.

“Just wanted to say hello properly,” she says.

I hadn’t been aware that the ones we’d exchanged three times already were inadequate.

“You’re cute.” Marcy is not the kind of girl that calls me cute. It unnerves me. I glance round, but the nearest person is Rex who’s too busy texting to notice I’m in need of rescuing.

“Thank you,” I say, then, stuck for anything more insightful, I smile and say, “So. I hear you’re a model?”

And that, it seems, is the right response. Marcy talks to me of the woes of modelling, brushing her fingers on my forearm to emphasize points barely worth making and flashing me too many dazzling smiles. Once she’s made me sufficiently uncomfortable with her attention, she leaves, blowing me a kiss over her shoulder.

I hiss Rex’s name.

“What?” He finally looks up from his phone.

“What was that all about?” I ask. He still looks blank. “With Marcy?”

“Oh.” Rex finally catches on. “Marcy. Don’t take it personally. She’s making sure you know how hot she is. Just tell her she’s gorgeous three times in a row and she’ll go away. Like the Candyman but in reverse. And fitter.”

For the first time tonight I laugh. I’m not sure about me, but Rex isn’t so bad. The table fills up as others take up my offer of free beer and there’s quite a crowd of us when Fletch comes over, looking alarmingly smug.

“Where’ve you been?” someone asks.

“For a walk.” Fletch retrieves a can of cider from his pocket and takes a slurp. Wiping his hand across his mouth, he says, “That’s better. Needed to get rid of the taste of pussy juice.”

I blanch. Who talks like that in real life?

“Take it you didn’t go for a walk on your own?” Rex says.

I know he didn’t — I walked past him and Hannah on my way to take a leak.

“I left alone, I return alone.” Fletch makes a zipping gesture across his mouth. Then he makes an unzipping gesture by his crotch and mimes pushing someone’s head there, laughing. It takes a moment for me to realize I’m the only one who isn’t joining in.

There’s a shout of “Bullshit!” to my right but whoever it is gets drowned out by accusations of jealousy.

“Hannah’s got standards you know…” Fletch says, swigging his drink.

“Low ones!” one of the basketball guys says.

“Not low enough for you, mate, given how far you got last term!” Rex shouts back and the pack laughs some more. It’s like watching a nature documentary.

“Careful, that’s Fletch’s girlfriend you’re talking about,” someone warns.

Fletch curls his lip. “As if I’d actually go out with a girl like Hannah!”

“But you’d let her suck you off and tell everyone about it?” I say, concentrating on the crisp packet I’ve just folded into a triangle. This has nothing to do with me. I have no idea why I’m so irritated.

“Eh?” Fletch looks at me, suddenly noticing the new guy. For a second, I wonder whether I’ve stepped over the line, but Fletch just laughs. “Man, I’ve done a lot more than that with her. It’s Hannah Sheppard — it’s what she’s for.”

I really do not like Fletch.

Today sucked ass. I told Mum I’d get my homework done whilst I was at Gran’s but, when I got to the home, Gran was having a bad reaction to her new medication and wasn’t her usual self. It seemed better to chat with her and read out bits of gossip from the magazines I’d brought rather than haul out some French verbs. I know she wouldn’t have minded — she quite likes me doing my homework while she potters about in the little apartment — but family comes first. School work comes somewhere below taking my make-up off at night and exfoliating once a week.

When Mum picked me up she asked to see my homework and we had a fight. She told me if I couldn’t get my school work done then she wouldn’t take me to see Gran every week. I went mental until she said something about talking to Gran. I shut up after that — Gran would be on Mum’s side. Anyway, I’m doing it tonight whilst Mum and Robert are out and I’m babysitting Lola. We’re in the sitting room and I’m halfway through when the doorbell goes.

“Can I get it?” Lola asks, eyes wide and pleading. She loves stuff like that, answering the door or the phone and checking the mail. Sometimes I send her letters so she’s got something to open. I cut little windows in the envelope and make the letters look like bills. It means Lola can pretend to study her mail seriously, like Mum and Robert do, except I make the writing really big and decorate the paper with stickers and glitter.

“You can if you pull your top straight, Lolly,” I say and I listen as she runs across the hall and fiddles with the chain on the front door.

“Have you looked out of the side window to see who it is?” I call.

“Yes. It’s a boy.” Helpful.

She opens the door and there’s a murmuring voice that I can’t quite hear before she thump thump thumps back into the room.

“It’s for you.”

“Did you ask who it is?” Lola shakes her head. There’s a reason why you shouldn’t send a five-year-old to open the door.

I sincerely hope it isn’t Fletch.