Post by MJ Darrah on Mar 8, 2006 8:13:52 GMT -5
1
Right, so you probably want to start by getting to know what I wrote this about, otherwise you wouldn’t have started reading. Well to be honest I don’t really want to tell you, but I will anyway. You’re probably asking who I am and how much it sucks growing up. Well my name is Aiden and if you think about it, it doesn’t suck at all. Sure there’s a few things I would’ve liked to change. But, like your parents say “think how lucky you are. That your not one of those starving African children”. We honestly are.
Yeah, my name’s Aiden, Aiden Lawrence. I live in lovely old Essex in a stunning little town called Southend. Well, not in Southend, but one of the other little places around it. Obviously, if you lived here you’d realise how sarcastic I’m being. It’s a dirty, run down, corrupt town where the Chavs stand on the street corners at night. All smoking and wasted causing whatever trouble they can. If you looked out of the window from where I live, you’d probably see them, across the road by the kebab shop. You know the kind, tracksuits, endless amounts of cigarettes, girls in the shortest skirts you’ve ever seen. Even in midwinter they seem to get shorter, especially on Thursdays. Thursday was the day when all the Chavs went to this under 18s might club round the corner from. They all went down there, and there wasn’t a night where there wasn’t a fight, or some kid overdosed on heroin in the toilets and being taken away in an ambulance. The music there was terrible. Bassy and loud. The kind of loud you can’t even hear clearly. I’ve never been myself so I’m not meant to judge, but I’m 14, so I’m excused. The weird thing is that everybody who went complained about how bad it is, but they still went next week. That’s what I hate about people. Can’t make up their fucking mind.
So now I’m guessing you want to here about the old school. St. Michael’s School was just a normal school. Normal lessons, normal teachers, normal students. The only thing not normal about the school was the size. It was only a small cool with only a few hundred students. I even bet I could name all of the students with no problem at all. I hated it there, so small and plain. One thing I liked was the music block. And it was a pretty kickass music block. There were about 4 drum sets, 30 keyboards and a few very cheap guitars. They were bloody useless. Not that I could care. I couldn’t use the ones at school because I’m left-handed. I’ve been playing ever since I saw this kid, Jake Green, playing away in the recording studio in the first year. And I’ve turned out to be pretty good. I’m in a band with old Jake now. He’s one of those kids who can always get what they wanted without even trying. He has special powers, I swear. The problem with his power was that it got too his head a lot of the time. Say if you started liking a band. Jake would almost immediately say that he influenced you to like them. Arrogant bastard. Sometimes, we weren’t really in a band of our own. It was his band and he decided everything that was going to happen, naturally, because he played and sang lead. I played rhythm. Good rhythm. So now I’m the arrogant one. Our bassist some hyperactive kid called Damian Howell. He was seriously mental, but the funniest kid you ever saw. He started playing as soon as he heard Jake and me were making a band, and he got good pretty fast. He had this long black hair that covered one eye. Jake dyed his hair black and it was all spiky and everywhere. I had hair. I tried to make it look cool with straighteners and spiking it in some places, but whatever I did it went curly. And I looked like a total gimp. Now all that’s left is the drummer. Nathan Prince. He wasn’t what you’d call your average looking drummer. He was the smallest, most undernourished kid you ever saw. I’m not joking. He had this yellowy looking pale skin. He didn’t even smoke but he had the skin of a 40 year old that’d been smoking 2 packs a day for 12 years. He kicked ass on the kit though. His hair was so weird. It was long, brown and wavy. But the problem was he had a huge gap in the middle and you could see his whole little yellow forehead.
The school was pretty famous. Whatever happened at St. Michaels was always good enough to make the news. Headlines like “Small school, big stars” when some lanky guy made a record for hammer throw. That’s another thing I hate. Sports. There just another thing to make one guy feel great and about 30 others feel like shit. It’s not just the fact that I was useless at everything in it, it’s the way the ‘winners’ boast about how great they are or how shit you are. For instance, your playing football and you miss the ball. I always hear cries of ‘Aiden you’re fucking shit’. I always say back “I ain’t playing, fuck you”. I think I have some kind of stress problem I was nobody’s ever told me about. In junior school if someone punched my arm, even in a playful way, I would turn around and try and kill him. That school sucked. I was bullied badly for being smart, and the teachers didn’t do anything to help. They could do it, they just didn’t want to. What a thing to get bullied for. Being smart. I wasn’t even the smartest in my class. But, thinking back, I sucked at sport then too. My dad’s one of those guys who’d die for their football team. He seriously would. He’ll probably die screaming, “We love you Chelsea, we do!”. One time I asked him what the point in boxing was. He just looked at me with those tiny eyes attached to the big balding head and said, “just shut up and watch the match, you might learn something”. What was that supposed to mean anyway?
Now I’m gonna introduce the rest of our quiet little group. There was Toni Dalton, Jake’s ‘long-term’ girlfriend. I have to admit she was really pretty. She really was. She was tall for a girl but she was also…let’s say…appealing. Her hair was long and blonde, or did she dye it. It’s hard to tell these days, ya know. She loved Jake like anything. If I believed in love at this age, I’d believe that she loved him more than anything in the world. Jake, I wasn’t so sure if he felt the same, but you can’t really tell with any guys. They wont tell you though they. Although he came across as just another happy kid who’d destroy anything that stopped him getting whatever he desired, he could be quite quiet and secretive. There was another girl called Veronica. I wasn’t so close to her. Infact I still don’t know her last damn after all these years. All I know about her is she is very, very loud and an attention seeker. In class, when I was in deep thought about small things and wasn’t really paying attention to anything, she’d turn around and purposely hit me in the face with this endless, tied-back, brown hair. It hurt like hell. Got me right in the eyes. Jesus. Then she’d scream in my ear whenever the teacher was turned around.
“AIDEN!” What really bugged me is I got detention for it. She was crazy.
Here’s my favourite part, describing Madison. Her name was Madison Richards. She had black hair, or dark brown, I never looked into it but I know for sure it was dark. Her eyes were those dark, mysterious, soul-piercing eyes. The way she thought is one of the things that amazed me about the most. She seemed so selfless most of the time, always willing to talk to you and help you out with whatever she could. But like most people she needed help sometimes, but she was mature enough to admit it. She was truly amazing. You could stare at her face for hours; only she’d look at you with those eyes and probably kill you. I’m actually surprised I’m not dead yet. We both have sleeping problems. Well they aren’t really problems, but it’s still something to complain about in the morning. Our bad, too much worrying. What’s there to worry about? We all know the inevitable. The whole ‘circle of life’ thing. You’re born, you live and you die. Simple right? Wrong. She only worried about living, about making every day worth it, and I admired her for that.
2
So the real story all began when Jake and me went to get Damian to go hang out somewhere. Damian lived in a turn off from my road. You know the kind. Where the real posh and big houses were. Gotta hand it to Dame though, he sure did have a nice house. So I was walking up with Jake talking about cover versions or Toni or how much I need a girlfriend so I don’t look like a gimp when I hang out with them. Jake and Toni had been dating for around half a year. At our age that was pretty serious if you think about it. Dame and Madison had been dating for about 3 months. That’s something I forgot to tell you. I had around 4 ‘girlfriends’ in the time they’d all been together. They never seemed to last though. The longest was about 5 days. So they weren’t really girlfriends, they were just girls I went out with sometimes. That really sucked. And Jake was always bugging me about it.
We got to Damian’s front door. You could already tell they were rich. It was one of those huge, glass double doors with golden handles that scream ‘Yeah, we’ve got it’. And they had it like you wouldn’t believe. Anyway, I was about to press the doorbell, also golden and shimmering in the sun, when I noticed the door was already open. That was odd of Dame; he always liked to keep things secure because he always worried about his house getting burgled again. They took his favourite guitar; signed by someone like Jimi Hendrix, only not cause he’d been dead a long time. I can’t remember who it was signed by, but I know it hurt him bad when he couldn’t find it in the morning. But today, he must’ve forgot. I tapped the door hard so it would open without me actually having to go in there, incase there was something wrong. I couldn’t see any problem so I gestured Jake to follow me inside. We slowly and carefully entered the hall. Or was it a foyer? You couldn’t tell it was so big. We could hear him clambering about upstairs.
“Oi Dame get down here, we gotta go!” Jake called.
“Ugh, I’m coming, godammit.” He grunted in reply. Finally, he dragged himself downstairs wearing his black hoodie and drainpipe jeans. Now comes the beginning of the story, what this is all about. He got to around the last five steps, tripped and fell down them. Me and Jake run over to him laughing and generally taking the piss.
“Dame you twat!” I chuckled uncontrollably. Another thing about me, when you get me laughing you can barely stop me. Then I noticed something on the floor. I looked down and there were his cigarettes and lighter. Naturally, I picked them up and gave them back, but before I did that I took a cigarette, ofcorse. If I told you I didn’t smoke you probably wouldn’t believe me, but I only did it to piss him off.
“Give that back you wanker,” he grunted again, which was weird because he was normally quite well spoken “or I’ll come over there and break your face.” That really shocked me. He’d never said that to anyone in his life. He was hard, you gotta admit, but he wasn’t a guy who’d tell you before he did something. I leaned gave it back to him cause I was quite scared by then. He was acting like a nutter, it was so strange. Something I noticed when I was leaning over was a half empty syringe. Still with blood on the tip of the needle, like it had been injected wrong.
I picked it up and held it in front of his face.
“What’s this all about Damian?” I said, not knowing what else to think.
“Chill dude. It’s not what you think.” He defended. I didn’t believe him though; his voice trembled as he said it.
“What is it then?” I edged closer to him.
“Look man its not…”
“Shut up and show me your eyes.” I pushed his fringe out of his eyes and looked hard into them. They were as big as hell. I looked up at Jake and nodded.
“You liar, why are you doing this to yourself? Did you even think about Madison?” cried Jake, right into his face.
Damian just laughed.
“You’re funny when you’re mad.” He sighed as he poked my face. I grabbed his finger and twisted it away from me. He liked poking people. It was annoying.
So that’s Damian. I really didn’t know what to do. Whether to tell Madison or not. But what would that do? She’d find out anyway. She’d be in his room and she’d find another syringe or maybe something worse. She was sensitive about that stuff. She didn’t know what it really did but she knew it wasn’t good at all. She’d try to help him out, but god knows that wouldn’t work. Once he started something he wouldn’t stop until something else made him. Something else bad.
3
I thought back to what I saw that day every night from them. I thought I could’ve handled things differently and maybe Damian wouldn’t have gone off without telling us where. That annoyed me, the guilt. Me and Jake ripped on him pretty bad after that. I mean, we were allowed to. Such a stupid thing to do, drugs, if you think about it. Never a happy ending and never a real reason to start. It was the problem with this town, peer pressure. It was either that or the crap they teacher you in school. You know the stuff ‘Drugs are bad, m’kay’. But it helped. If nobody told you it was bad you’d be sure to do it eventually. Peer pressure ruled your life here. Not me, I never let it take control.
I think we were right to be worried about Dame. He could’ve been addicted for god sake. He could’ve been on it for a long time, that stuff. Madison had to know. Or did she already know? I wasn’t sure. You can always tell with addicts. They always change when they start. I figured Madi already knew so I phoned her up and told her to come meet us in the park.
“Oh and get Toni down here for Jake willya,” I said “He ain’t seen her in days.” She agreed to meet us in the park in about 10 minutes. She didn’t live too far from the rest of us, but we all live in a circle kind of. I lived on the main road, so loud at night you wouldn’t believe. Damian lived in a ‘mansion’ off my road. And a mansion it was. Around 30 cars and an underground garage. Jake lived on the road where the park was. He didn’t seem to care that his parents could see whatever he was doing and honestly I didn’t think they did. Toni lived near house, just round the corner infact. She had a great house. It wasn’t particularly big, around the size of mine, but we’ve had some great times around there. I wont go into them now though. Madison lived a few houses away from Jake. Nothing much interesting there, but it’s a good place to go and get drunk. Alcohol I didn’t mind, drugs I can’t stand. So yeah that was the circle.
I was sitting with Jake on the swings, gently swaying in the cold wind. It was a sunny day in the middle of December, a few days into Christmas holidays. That’s one thing I loved about England, the weather. It sure was crap sometimes. But you’d get the odd day in November that’s pretty warm and you’d see a butterfly, fluttering by. No pun, although that sounded quite funny. Well I thought it did so shut up. On the other side of the huge field that was part of the park we saw the girls emerging through the bushes.
“Oi oi!” Jake shouted over. Straight away he and Toni ran to meet each other. They basically ran and jumped onto each other’s lips. You’ve probably seen it in some cheesy romance movie. It was a cute thing to do in person though. Well it looked it. I walked up to Madison to say Hi and fill her in on what they were here for. The first thing she said was ‘where’s Damian?’, and I thought that was sweet. At that time I didn’t have the heart to tell her the whole truth but I just told her that he went missing. She already looked mortified so there was no hope of telling her that day.
Most of the day we just chewed fat and looked for him in our little ‘search parties’. Jake wanted to be with Toni and I had no problem with that, but I would’ve preferred to stay with Jake. It’s not that I didn’t like Madi, but sometimes I just felt really uncomfortable around her, like I’d say something that she’d take offence if I said something off-topic to her. It really sucked because you shouldn’t be like that with your best friends, not after this long. I’d only known her about 3 years, but I’d say that’s long enough.
We were exchanging stories about what we planned to do over the holidays. She said she was going to Brighton in the weekend before we ended up back at St. Michaels, to see her brother John. To put some flowers on his grave. Oh didn’t I tell you? John’s dead. Six months ago he got caught up in some gang war. He wasn’t in a gang, poor sod. Damian used to be in that gang, he still had some guns from it. I hated him for that. He was in it a long time before John was shot. He quit because the leader didn’t like his family. They tried to kill em at one point, but Damian kept them off with threats of suicide. He was an important part of the gang. John was in the wrong place at the wrong time, after that, the gang was extinguished.
I couldn’t hold it in anymore, I had to tell Madison the real reason she with me looking for Damian.
“Um, Madi…” I whispered.
“What’s up Aid?”
“Well you know Damian…”
“Yeah.”
I was really dragging it out that time.
“Me and Jake found him in his house this morning.” She stopped when I said that and looked at the ground.
“What?”
”He ran away after then.”
“I don’t understand, why would he do that?”
I paused. I was so scared about telling her. What would she do when she found out?
”I found a syringe after he fell down the stairs.”
“Oh god.” She went as white as a Goth on blood night.
“Don’t worry we’re gonna find out what’s wrong.” I could see her eyes filling up with tears, its not a really good sight, watching a girl cry. Hearing it was bad enough.
”It’s my fault.”
“Your fault, how is it your fault.” She sat down one of those wooden benches you find in the woods with the planks that go across.
“I broke up with him this morning.”
4
I stared at her for what seemed like days with the questions in my head. What made her do that? A few days ago when I was with them they seemed so happy together. Not normal happy. In love. Movie happy. This was the twist in the story. Whatever reason she left him for must’ve been important. Something he’d done wrong or worse, something she’d done and was guilty about. She was a very sensitive girl when it came to guilt. Couldn’t really blame her. Terrible thing guilt, especially when you’re not really used to it, like Madison. She was so innocent. But let’s stop going on about Madison for a minute and carry on with the story.
I stared at her and asked her why.
“You know about his old gang don’t you?” she questioned with anger.
“Sure I do. Didn’t you?” I replied, defending myself
“You know what they did after he left? You know how they killed my brother just like that? What’s fair about that Aid? Tell me now, what’s fair?”
”This isn’t about what’s fair or not. Damian left months before John died. You know John wasn’t involved. He was just another guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know what that gang is like…” She interrupted me before I could explain.
“Just another guy. My only brother was just another guy. Okay, I see what you mean by that.” She didn’t, incase you didn’t notice. She was always sarcastic. I sat down beside her again and put my hand on her shoulder.
“I know, I didn’t mean it to come across like that.” That was my curse; I never thought my sentences through before they past my lips. She just brushed my hand off her and faced away. She was crying again and it was my fault.
“Every time I looked at him, Damian, I saw John. He was just lying in the coffin, so cold and pale. It was horrible Aiden. That was the day I ended up staying at your house. I don’t think I’d have lived through the Wake. All those people laughing behind all the pain I knew they all felt. But they covered it up. I couldn’t. I loved him too much.”
I couldn’t do much after that. But one thing I did I regret. I held her cause I reminded her of the pain she went through. I kissed her forehead because I knew it could be even more comforting at the right times. But I think she took it a different way because as soon as I kissed her she calmed down and stopped crying. Thank god. She wasn’t one of those loud, hilarious, ‘I Love Lucy’ style criers. Tears just ran down her face and her lip trembled. But after I kissed her she completely stopped and looked at me. I was confused and looked back.
“What?” I enquired.
She didn’t say anything. Suddenly she lunged forward toward my mouth and pressed her lips against mine, kissing them. I didn’t stop her or pull away. I kissed back. I didn’t see a problem with that at the time. I wasn’t thinking about Damian, or John or any consequences. I was purely concentrating on making her feel better. This wasn’t about me. I know, terrible liar. I know she didn’t like me that way and I know that it didn’t mean anything to her.
Well since that moment lasted as long as it took me to describe it in long gruelling sentences, I wasn’t really paying attention with what was going on around us. I heard rustling in the bushes and someone running about but I didn’t really take much notice of that. It was that kinda park. Bushes, benches, trees, mud. More of a wood actually. I could’ve done a lot more that day if you know what I mean. I wouldn’t of though; I’m not that forward and I ain’t that disrespectful. I wouldn’t ever give a girl ‘the time’ on the first date. How low, seriously.
I walked her home after. I was still shaky from what we did. She said goodnight and I went the long way home. I felt like being alone after that. That’s not like me at all. I hated being alone. It was my biggest fear, but I think that affected me. I tried something new that I would never have done, so why stop there. It was a nice night. I froze my bollocks off walking home. But still a good night to walk. And think.
Anyway I must’ve been home for a few hours when I got a call from Jake telling me something very frightening.
“Aiden, he knows.” He yelled in some kind of low-pitched panicky tone. I paused for a second. Damian knew?
“Damian.”
“Yes, he saw you, from behind the bushes.” I paused for so long. I knew what he was capable of.
“Jake, calm down. What’s up with you?”
“Whad’ya mean ‘what’s up?’ Me and Toni found him up against some guys fence still delirious from this morning.” Again, I paused. What was a meant to do now?
”Right.” I said, cool as hell. Only I wasn’t cool. I was terrified for god’s sake!
“He ran off from us, told Toni about how Madison left him for being in that old gang. Only he wasn’t talking too good.” There was yet another great pause. There was so much I had to go through in my head now. What had I done? Only I knew what was coming next.
“He ran all the way across the park into some bushes near where you and Madi were.”
“Then he ran off.”
“Exactly.”
“Are you okay?”
“A few cuts and bruises but I put up with it fine. I made sure Toni got out of there.”
“Good. You want me to come over? I hate talking like this.” I hated phones, so impersonal.
“No, don’t leave the house. He’ll get you. Worse.” I stared out of my bedroom window after I had locked the door. I loudly whispered down the phone after that.
“What about Madison?”
“Oh shit, I didn’t even think about that.”
“I have to go out to see if she’s okay now.”
“Look mate, it’s been obvious how you feel about her since we all started hanging out. Especially since she got with Damian. I couldn’t stand another minute of you talking about her. That’s why I always bugged you about girls.”
“Hey shut up man it’s nothing to do with that. I still have to go and protect her. If he had his gun on him that time we’d probably all be dead. He’s probably got it now godammit.”
“She’s not worth it man.”
“You call yourself her friend?” I was screaming at that point. I just slammed the phone down then. I grabbed my coat and made the way to my door. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. Not my style.
Right, so you probably want to start by getting to know what I wrote this about, otherwise you wouldn’t have started reading. Well to be honest I don’t really want to tell you, but I will anyway. You’re probably asking who I am and how much it sucks growing up. Well my name is Aiden and if you think about it, it doesn’t suck at all. Sure there’s a few things I would’ve liked to change. But, like your parents say “think how lucky you are. That your not one of those starving African children”. We honestly are.
Yeah, my name’s Aiden, Aiden Lawrence. I live in lovely old Essex in a stunning little town called Southend. Well, not in Southend, but one of the other little places around it. Obviously, if you lived here you’d realise how sarcastic I’m being. It’s a dirty, run down, corrupt town where the Chavs stand on the street corners at night. All smoking and wasted causing whatever trouble they can. If you looked out of the window from where I live, you’d probably see them, across the road by the kebab shop. You know the kind, tracksuits, endless amounts of cigarettes, girls in the shortest skirts you’ve ever seen. Even in midwinter they seem to get shorter, especially on Thursdays. Thursday was the day when all the Chavs went to this under 18s might club round the corner from. They all went down there, and there wasn’t a night where there wasn’t a fight, or some kid overdosed on heroin in the toilets and being taken away in an ambulance. The music there was terrible. Bassy and loud. The kind of loud you can’t even hear clearly. I’ve never been myself so I’m not meant to judge, but I’m 14, so I’m excused. The weird thing is that everybody who went complained about how bad it is, but they still went next week. That’s what I hate about people. Can’t make up their fucking mind.
So now I’m guessing you want to here about the old school. St. Michael’s School was just a normal school. Normal lessons, normal teachers, normal students. The only thing not normal about the school was the size. It was only a small cool with only a few hundred students. I even bet I could name all of the students with no problem at all. I hated it there, so small and plain. One thing I liked was the music block. And it was a pretty kickass music block. There were about 4 drum sets, 30 keyboards and a few very cheap guitars. They were bloody useless. Not that I could care. I couldn’t use the ones at school because I’m left-handed. I’ve been playing ever since I saw this kid, Jake Green, playing away in the recording studio in the first year. And I’ve turned out to be pretty good. I’m in a band with old Jake now. He’s one of those kids who can always get what they wanted without even trying. He has special powers, I swear. The problem with his power was that it got too his head a lot of the time. Say if you started liking a band. Jake would almost immediately say that he influenced you to like them. Arrogant bastard. Sometimes, we weren’t really in a band of our own. It was his band and he decided everything that was going to happen, naturally, because he played and sang lead. I played rhythm. Good rhythm. So now I’m the arrogant one. Our bassist some hyperactive kid called Damian Howell. He was seriously mental, but the funniest kid you ever saw. He started playing as soon as he heard Jake and me were making a band, and he got good pretty fast. He had this long black hair that covered one eye. Jake dyed his hair black and it was all spiky and everywhere. I had hair. I tried to make it look cool with straighteners and spiking it in some places, but whatever I did it went curly. And I looked like a total gimp. Now all that’s left is the drummer. Nathan Prince. He wasn’t what you’d call your average looking drummer. He was the smallest, most undernourished kid you ever saw. I’m not joking. He had this yellowy looking pale skin. He didn’t even smoke but he had the skin of a 40 year old that’d been smoking 2 packs a day for 12 years. He kicked ass on the kit though. His hair was so weird. It was long, brown and wavy. But the problem was he had a huge gap in the middle and you could see his whole little yellow forehead.
The school was pretty famous. Whatever happened at St. Michaels was always good enough to make the news. Headlines like “Small school, big stars” when some lanky guy made a record for hammer throw. That’s another thing I hate. Sports. There just another thing to make one guy feel great and about 30 others feel like shit. It’s not just the fact that I was useless at everything in it, it’s the way the ‘winners’ boast about how great they are or how shit you are. For instance, your playing football and you miss the ball. I always hear cries of ‘Aiden you’re fucking shit’. I always say back “I ain’t playing, fuck you”. I think I have some kind of stress problem I was nobody’s ever told me about. In junior school if someone punched my arm, even in a playful way, I would turn around and try and kill him. That school sucked. I was bullied badly for being smart, and the teachers didn’t do anything to help. They could do it, they just didn’t want to. What a thing to get bullied for. Being smart. I wasn’t even the smartest in my class. But, thinking back, I sucked at sport then too. My dad’s one of those guys who’d die for their football team. He seriously would. He’ll probably die screaming, “We love you Chelsea, we do!”. One time I asked him what the point in boxing was. He just looked at me with those tiny eyes attached to the big balding head and said, “just shut up and watch the match, you might learn something”. What was that supposed to mean anyway?
Now I’m gonna introduce the rest of our quiet little group. There was Toni Dalton, Jake’s ‘long-term’ girlfriend. I have to admit she was really pretty. She really was. She was tall for a girl but she was also…let’s say…appealing. Her hair was long and blonde, or did she dye it. It’s hard to tell these days, ya know. She loved Jake like anything. If I believed in love at this age, I’d believe that she loved him more than anything in the world. Jake, I wasn’t so sure if he felt the same, but you can’t really tell with any guys. They wont tell you though they. Although he came across as just another happy kid who’d destroy anything that stopped him getting whatever he desired, he could be quite quiet and secretive. There was another girl called Veronica. I wasn’t so close to her. Infact I still don’t know her last damn after all these years. All I know about her is she is very, very loud and an attention seeker. In class, when I was in deep thought about small things and wasn’t really paying attention to anything, she’d turn around and purposely hit me in the face with this endless, tied-back, brown hair. It hurt like hell. Got me right in the eyes. Jesus. Then she’d scream in my ear whenever the teacher was turned around.
“AIDEN!” What really bugged me is I got detention for it. She was crazy.
Here’s my favourite part, describing Madison. Her name was Madison Richards. She had black hair, or dark brown, I never looked into it but I know for sure it was dark. Her eyes were those dark, mysterious, soul-piercing eyes. The way she thought is one of the things that amazed me about the most. She seemed so selfless most of the time, always willing to talk to you and help you out with whatever she could. But like most people she needed help sometimes, but she was mature enough to admit it. She was truly amazing. You could stare at her face for hours; only she’d look at you with those eyes and probably kill you. I’m actually surprised I’m not dead yet. We both have sleeping problems. Well they aren’t really problems, but it’s still something to complain about in the morning. Our bad, too much worrying. What’s there to worry about? We all know the inevitable. The whole ‘circle of life’ thing. You’re born, you live and you die. Simple right? Wrong. She only worried about living, about making every day worth it, and I admired her for that.
2
So the real story all began when Jake and me went to get Damian to go hang out somewhere. Damian lived in a turn off from my road. You know the kind. Where the real posh and big houses were. Gotta hand it to Dame though, he sure did have a nice house. So I was walking up with Jake talking about cover versions or Toni or how much I need a girlfriend so I don’t look like a gimp when I hang out with them. Jake and Toni had been dating for around half a year. At our age that was pretty serious if you think about it. Dame and Madison had been dating for about 3 months. That’s something I forgot to tell you. I had around 4 ‘girlfriends’ in the time they’d all been together. They never seemed to last though. The longest was about 5 days. So they weren’t really girlfriends, they were just girls I went out with sometimes. That really sucked. And Jake was always bugging me about it.
We got to Damian’s front door. You could already tell they were rich. It was one of those huge, glass double doors with golden handles that scream ‘Yeah, we’ve got it’. And they had it like you wouldn’t believe. Anyway, I was about to press the doorbell, also golden and shimmering in the sun, when I noticed the door was already open. That was odd of Dame; he always liked to keep things secure because he always worried about his house getting burgled again. They took his favourite guitar; signed by someone like Jimi Hendrix, only not cause he’d been dead a long time. I can’t remember who it was signed by, but I know it hurt him bad when he couldn’t find it in the morning. But today, he must’ve forgot. I tapped the door hard so it would open without me actually having to go in there, incase there was something wrong. I couldn’t see any problem so I gestured Jake to follow me inside. We slowly and carefully entered the hall. Or was it a foyer? You couldn’t tell it was so big. We could hear him clambering about upstairs.
“Oi Dame get down here, we gotta go!” Jake called.
“Ugh, I’m coming, godammit.” He grunted in reply. Finally, he dragged himself downstairs wearing his black hoodie and drainpipe jeans. Now comes the beginning of the story, what this is all about. He got to around the last five steps, tripped and fell down them. Me and Jake run over to him laughing and generally taking the piss.
“Dame you twat!” I chuckled uncontrollably. Another thing about me, when you get me laughing you can barely stop me. Then I noticed something on the floor. I looked down and there were his cigarettes and lighter. Naturally, I picked them up and gave them back, but before I did that I took a cigarette, ofcorse. If I told you I didn’t smoke you probably wouldn’t believe me, but I only did it to piss him off.
“Give that back you wanker,” he grunted again, which was weird because he was normally quite well spoken “or I’ll come over there and break your face.” That really shocked me. He’d never said that to anyone in his life. He was hard, you gotta admit, but he wasn’t a guy who’d tell you before he did something. I leaned gave it back to him cause I was quite scared by then. He was acting like a nutter, it was so strange. Something I noticed when I was leaning over was a half empty syringe. Still with blood on the tip of the needle, like it had been injected wrong.
I picked it up and held it in front of his face.
“What’s this all about Damian?” I said, not knowing what else to think.
“Chill dude. It’s not what you think.” He defended. I didn’t believe him though; his voice trembled as he said it.
“What is it then?” I edged closer to him.
“Look man its not…”
“Shut up and show me your eyes.” I pushed his fringe out of his eyes and looked hard into them. They were as big as hell. I looked up at Jake and nodded.
“You liar, why are you doing this to yourself? Did you even think about Madison?” cried Jake, right into his face.
Damian just laughed.
“You’re funny when you’re mad.” He sighed as he poked my face. I grabbed his finger and twisted it away from me. He liked poking people. It was annoying.
So that’s Damian. I really didn’t know what to do. Whether to tell Madison or not. But what would that do? She’d find out anyway. She’d be in his room and she’d find another syringe or maybe something worse. She was sensitive about that stuff. She didn’t know what it really did but she knew it wasn’t good at all. She’d try to help him out, but god knows that wouldn’t work. Once he started something he wouldn’t stop until something else made him. Something else bad.
3
I thought back to what I saw that day every night from them. I thought I could’ve handled things differently and maybe Damian wouldn’t have gone off without telling us where. That annoyed me, the guilt. Me and Jake ripped on him pretty bad after that. I mean, we were allowed to. Such a stupid thing to do, drugs, if you think about it. Never a happy ending and never a real reason to start. It was the problem with this town, peer pressure. It was either that or the crap they teacher you in school. You know the stuff ‘Drugs are bad, m’kay’. But it helped. If nobody told you it was bad you’d be sure to do it eventually. Peer pressure ruled your life here. Not me, I never let it take control.
I think we were right to be worried about Dame. He could’ve been addicted for god sake. He could’ve been on it for a long time, that stuff. Madison had to know. Or did she already know? I wasn’t sure. You can always tell with addicts. They always change when they start. I figured Madi already knew so I phoned her up and told her to come meet us in the park.
“Oh and get Toni down here for Jake willya,” I said “He ain’t seen her in days.” She agreed to meet us in the park in about 10 minutes. She didn’t live too far from the rest of us, but we all live in a circle kind of. I lived on the main road, so loud at night you wouldn’t believe. Damian lived in a ‘mansion’ off my road. And a mansion it was. Around 30 cars and an underground garage. Jake lived on the road where the park was. He didn’t seem to care that his parents could see whatever he was doing and honestly I didn’t think they did. Toni lived near house, just round the corner infact. She had a great house. It wasn’t particularly big, around the size of mine, but we’ve had some great times around there. I wont go into them now though. Madison lived a few houses away from Jake. Nothing much interesting there, but it’s a good place to go and get drunk. Alcohol I didn’t mind, drugs I can’t stand. So yeah that was the circle.
I was sitting with Jake on the swings, gently swaying in the cold wind. It was a sunny day in the middle of December, a few days into Christmas holidays. That’s one thing I loved about England, the weather. It sure was crap sometimes. But you’d get the odd day in November that’s pretty warm and you’d see a butterfly, fluttering by. No pun, although that sounded quite funny. Well I thought it did so shut up. On the other side of the huge field that was part of the park we saw the girls emerging through the bushes.
“Oi oi!” Jake shouted over. Straight away he and Toni ran to meet each other. They basically ran and jumped onto each other’s lips. You’ve probably seen it in some cheesy romance movie. It was a cute thing to do in person though. Well it looked it. I walked up to Madison to say Hi and fill her in on what they were here for. The first thing she said was ‘where’s Damian?’, and I thought that was sweet. At that time I didn’t have the heart to tell her the whole truth but I just told her that he went missing. She already looked mortified so there was no hope of telling her that day.
Most of the day we just chewed fat and looked for him in our little ‘search parties’. Jake wanted to be with Toni and I had no problem with that, but I would’ve preferred to stay with Jake. It’s not that I didn’t like Madi, but sometimes I just felt really uncomfortable around her, like I’d say something that she’d take offence if I said something off-topic to her. It really sucked because you shouldn’t be like that with your best friends, not after this long. I’d only known her about 3 years, but I’d say that’s long enough.
We were exchanging stories about what we planned to do over the holidays. She said she was going to Brighton in the weekend before we ended up back at St. Michaels, to see her brother John. To put some flowers on his grave. Oh didn’t I tell you? John’s dead. Six months ago he got caught up in some gang war. He wasn’t in a gang, poor sod. Damian used to be in that gang, he still had some guns from it. I hated him for that. He was in it a long time before John was shot. He quit because the leader didn’t like his family. They tried to kill em at one point, but Damian kept them off with threats of suicide. He was an important part of the gang. John was in the wrong place at the wrong time, after that, the gang was extinguished.
I couldn’t hold it in anymore, I had to tell Madison the real reason she with me looking for Damian.
“Um, Madi…” I whispered.
“What’s up Aid?”
“Well you know Damian…”
“Yeah.”
I was really dragging it out that time.
“Me and Jake found him in his house this morning.” She stopped when I said that and looked at the ground.
“What?”
”He ran away after then.”
“I don’t understand, why would he do that?”
I paused. I was so scared about telling her. What would she do when she found out?
”I found a syringe after he fell down the stairs.”
“Oh god.” She went as white as a Goth on blood night.
“Don’t worry we’re gonna find out what’s wrong.” I could see her eyes filling up with tears, its not a really good sight, watching a girl cry. Hearing it was bad enough.
”It’s my fault.”
“Your fault, how is it your fault.” She sat down one of those wooden benches you find in the woods with the planks that go across.
“I broke up with him this morning.”
4
I stared at her for what seemed like days with the questions in my head. What made her do that? A few days ago when I was with them they seemed so happy together. Not normal happy. In love. Movie happy. This was the twist in the story. Whatever reason she left him for must’ve been important. Something he’d done wrong or worse, something she’d done and was guilty about. She was a very sensitive girl when it came to guilt. Couldn’t really blame her. Terrible thing guilt, especially when you’re not really used to it, like Madison. She was so innocent. But let’s stop going on about Madison for a minute and carry on with the story.
I stared at her and asked her why.
“You know about his old gang don’t you?” she questioned with anger.
“Sure I do. Didn’t you?” I replied, defending myself
“You know what they did after he left? You know how they killed my brother just like that? What’s fair about that Aid? Tell me now, what’s fair?”
”This isn’t about what’s fair or not. Damian left months before John died. You know John wasn’t involved. He was just another guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know what that gang is like…” She interrupted me before I could explain.
“Just another guy. My only brother was just another guy. Okay, I see what you mean by that.” She didn’t, incase you didn’t notice. She was always sarcastic. I sat down beside her again and put my hand on her shoulder.
“I know, I didn’t mean it to come across like that.” That was my curse; I never thought my sentences through before they past my lips. She just brushed my hand off her and faced away. She was crying again and it was my fault.
“Every time I looked at him, Damian, I saw John. He was just lying in the coffin, so cold and pale. It was horrible Aiden. That was the day I ended up staying at your house. I don’t think I’d have lived through the Wake. All those people laughing behind all the pain I knew they all felt. But they covered it up. I couldn’t. I loved him too much.”
I couldn’t do much after that. But one thing I did I regret. I held her cause I reminded her of the pain she went through. I kissed her forehead because I knew it could be even more comforting at the right times. But I think she took it a different way because as soon as I kissed her she calmed down and stopped crying. Thank god. She wasn’t one of those loud, hilarious, ‘I Love Lucy’ style criers. Tears just ran down her face and her lip trembled. But after I kissed her she completely stopped and looked at me. I was confused and looked back.
“What?” I enquired.
She didn’t say anything. Suddenly she lunged forward toward my mouth and pressed her lips against mine, kissing them. I didn’t stop her or pull away. I kissed back. I didn’t see a problem with that at the time. I wasn’t thinking about Damian, or John or any consequences. I was purely concentrating on making her feel better. This wasn’t about me. I know, terrible liar. I know she didn’t like me that way and I know that it didn’t mean anything to her.
Well since that moment lasted as long as it took me to describe it in long gruelling sentences, I wasn’t really paying attention with what was going on around us. I heard rustling in the bushes and someone running about but I didn’t really take much notice of that. It was that kinda park. Bushes, benches, trees, mud. More of a wood actually. I could’ve done a lot more that day if you know what I mean. I wouldn’t of though; I’m not that forward and I ain’t that disrespectful. I wouldn’t ever give a girl ‘the time’ on the first date. How low, seriously.
I walked her home after. I was still shaky from what we did. She said goodnight and I went the long way home. I felt like being alone after that. That’s not like me at all. I hated being alone. It was my biggest fear, but I think that affected me. I tried something new that I would never have done, so why stop there. It was a nice night. I froze my bollocks off walking home. But still a good night to walk. And think.
Anyway I must’ve been home for a few hours when I got a call from Jake telling me something very frightening.
“Aiden, he knows.” He yelled in some kind of low-pitched panicky tone. I paused for a second. Damian knew?
“Damian.”
“Yes, he saw you, from behind the bushes.” I paused for so long. I knew what he was capable of.
“Jake, calm down. What’s up with you?”
“Whad’ya mean ‘what’s up?’ Me and Toni found him up against some guys fence still delirious from this morning.” Again, I paused. What was a meant to do now?
”Right.” I said, cool as hell. Only I wasn’t cool. I was terrified for god’s sake!
“He ran off from us, told Toni about how Madison left him for being in that old gang. Only he wasn’t talking too good.” There was yet another great pause. There was so much I had to go through in my head now. What had I done? Only I knew what was coming next.
“He ran all the way across the park into some bushes near where you and Madi were.”
“Then he ran off.”
“Exactly.”
“Are you okay?”
“A few cuts and bruises but I put up with it fine. I made sure Toni got out of there.”
“Good. You want me to come over? I hate talking like this.” I hated phones, so impersonal.
“No, don’t leave the house. He’ll get you. Worse.” I stared out of my bedroom window after I had locked the door. I loudly whispered down the phone after that.
“What about Madison?”
“Oh shit, I didn’t even think about that.”
“I have to go out to see if she’s okay now.”
“Look mate, it’s been obvious how you feel about her since we all started hanging out. Especially since she got with Damian. I couldn’t stand another minute of you talking about her. That’s why I always bugged you about girls.”
“Hey shut up man it’s nothing to do with that. I still have to go and protect her. If he had his gun on him that time we’d probably all be dead. He’s probably got it now godammit.”
“She’s not worth it man.”
“You call yourself her friend?” I was screaming at that point. I just slammed the phone down then. I grabbed my coat and made the way to my door. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. Not my style.