Rehabilitation

34

The next day we were all sat on a bench outside the community centre. A group of people wearing these dull coloured clothes that looked like the type of clothes old people wore, were all sat crowded around this girl on a stretch of grass.

"I used bad language all the time, I called my mum a...'a fat bitch'" She said. All of them gasped, "But I'm not like that anymore. I'm a good person." They all applauded her.

"That ain't normal," Nathan said and then he took a drag of his cigarette.

"She went to my school," Alisha said, "This one time, she's doing this boy I know, in her dad's car, yeah?" Alisha began, "She gets off him and sits on the gear stick. She's on there for, like, 20 minutes, literally..." She began moaning and moving back on fourth on the bench to demonstrate. The bench shook beneath us all.

"Try that in your driving test, you are definitely getting a fail," Nathan said.

"Or a pass," I said smirking.

"And maybe some kind of internal injury," Nathan said.

"They look like a fucking cult," I said looking back at the small crowd.

"It's the same as some girls on my estate, no one's even getting pregnant anymore," Kelly said. I held back a laugh, Nathan saw and smiled at me.

"What about your friends?" Kelly asked Simon.

"I believe that's generally referred to as a "paedophile ring"," Nathan said before Simon could reply.

"I'm not a paedophile," Simon said glumly.

"Yeah? You'd screw your own sister for a slice of cheese," Nathan said.

"I don't even like cheese," Simon said.

"That makes it even worse, you sick bastard."

"Shut up Nathan," I nudged him on the arm and took the cigarette from his hand.

A boy and a girl walked past us on the bench and Nathan called out, "Oi, why are you all dressed like retards?"

The boy spoke, "There's a meeting in the community centre tonight. You should come along and find out. All of you." He looked directly at me, glancing at the cigarette in my hands. I frowned at him as him and the girl walked off.

"This is weird," Curtis said.

We were waiting for Sally to show up, of course she wasn't going to, but only me and Simon knew that.

Nathan found a ball and began kicking it about, he was like a little kid sometimes. I stood up too and went over to him.

"How's your new place?" I asked, trying to sound cheery.

"Oh, yeah, It's brilliant!" Nathan said, not taking his eyes off the ball.

"Good."

"Why? Missing me?" He smirked.

"So what if I am?"

He looked up from the ball.

My gaze drifted back to the group that was sat on the grass. Another girl was now stood up and they were all focused on her.

"As most of you know, I'm Rachel and this is a Virtue meeting," She spread her arms wide indicating the meeting. "We believe that drugs and smoking and foul language should be a thing of the past. If you know anyone who behaves like this, encourage them to come to our meetings and together we can change. We can be better."

Jesus christ.

"I said it before and I'll say it again. Cult," Nathan looked over at them as I said this.

The girl standing up-Rachel-looked over at us all and eyed us for a moment before continuing her speech.