Effy's World ( Skins {UK}: Fan Fiction )

Chapter 1: Michelle

Stumbling as my coarse brown Chelsea boot scuffs the edge of a cobblestone, I head hastily along the street for my lecture in the Arts and Humanities Department of the University. I am late - of course - as usual these days.

York. It's nothing like we had said it might be - We, being a group I was once a part of back in Bristol. Living here for studies felt like one big holiday at first, but I now know that, upon my arrival back home, I will be a total stranger.

"Cardiff is better," Tony had sneered at me, - around this time last year - peering at me with some kind of satisfaction: the kind that made his eyes gleam with arrogance, that made you want to hate him with every pulsating vein under your icy skin inside your body.

God, I miss that loathing sensation.

Tony's problem was he knew that we loved him. And sometimes, that was either too much or not enough.

Bastard.

"Manipulative bastard," Cassie had dazed, with her dreamy, piercing eyes and false, toothy smile. "That has a lovely ring to it".

But I guess Cassie had to say that. She had to say something good about every single thing that we all fucking hated.

And we had to be okay with that. We had to pretend everything was okay.

Maybe Cassie was our superglue; she kept us together, even when it was all falling apart. Maybe that's why Tony liked her - forever pulling at our strings til one of us cracked.

Maybe.

"Poor Sid," I murmur in the November wake, clutching my steaming coffee. Just as he had been clutching onto his aeroplane flight-ticket to find Cassie in New York, (courtesy of Tony and I).

I think of Sid often. I wonder if he's showered lately or taken his beanie off, and whenever I wonder those things, I wonder what he thinks about me when I spring up into his mind.

The only one of us that was always there to spring up out of nowhere was Chris. He was never like Sid. Sid failed all of his essays - Chris never did any.

"Shit,"  I hiss, spilling coffee down my white shirt, but lectures have already started and I'm still 3 blocks away.

Fuck it.

A pang of sadness strikes through me, as Chris' voice lingers in my brain. With a little help from all of the pills he took, he was always smiling. Always.

God, I miss him.

God, - Chris - I miss you, you poor bastard.

Jal had been my bestfriend for years. Shy, studious, sexy . . . and a fighter. Sometimes I think she liked her flute more than me, but then again, I guess we all threw her straight in the deep end of the club atmosphere.

Our good friend Anwaar once said, "Jal and Chris each balance the boat. They bring each other up and keep us afloat." He was on a 'poetry-roll', as Maxxie called it, in the barl that night.

Even Cassie managed to advance from saying "Oh, wow!" to his remark. Instead, she laughed. Cassie actually laughed. Gleaming teeth, scrunched up eyes, head rolling back with her hair flailing behind her, softly.

What a sight that was; so new and exasperating to see Cassie beside herself with a genuine feeling of worth.

Happiness is such an underrated feeling; our group was a malgamation of loss, fear, regret and heartbreak, that drove us all together to somehow derive these emotions into a temporary euphoric state. We were eachothers' happiness.

And that's why I'm left with this... emptiness.

I loved them all. Really, I did. And that's why I couldn't wait to head off to York. I had to leave the loss and fear and regret and heartbreak. And with that, I abandoned my one and only source of true happiness.

I. Have. Nothing.

Oh, - and I still love Tony.

Absolutely Nothing.