slut - heartbreak high

seven; fine line

"oi, ant!"

ant looked up from his phone to see harper riding up the footpath towards him. "what're you doing here?" he asked.

"goin' home." she shrugged,

he frowned and squinted at her, "don't you live in daceyville?"

she momentarily looked away before answering, she'd been doing that a lot lately. "yeah, but, i'm staying with an aunt."

"oh, cool." he nodded, "gummy?"

he held out the tin he had and she got off the bike and walked over, "is it thc or..."

"either that or prenatal vitamins." he shrugged as she sat down next to him and took a bite out of one. "why'd you shave your head?" he asked and ran a hand over the blonde fuzz.

"i dunno. 'cause i wanted to." harper said, looking away, "why're you sitting out here, and where's tia? 's she hiding in a bush with a gun?"

"she's at darren's, would definitely have hit one of us if she knew i was talking to you." he scoffed, "i'm hiding. mum's still mad about the whole map shit." ant looked over his shoulder to check that no one had snuck up on them, "i don't even know how anyone found out about tia and i. that was private stuff, and i know neither of us said anything to anyone else about it. and i got one wristy."

harper looked down to avoid the guilt that flashed through her, "yeah, but it was worth it, right?" she laughed when he agreed, to ignore the blatant fact that it was her fault that more than half of the names on the wall had been written.

considering how even ant spoke about how tia liked her privacy, she was surprised that she hadn't been entirely curb-stomped. but harper had given up caring about what amerie and tia wanted.

"is that why you and amerie aren't friends anymore." he asked and she looked away again, "i don't blame you, what she did was pretty dumb."

harper looked down and thought back to that night with the girls, blinking away the brutal argument tia had quickly forgiven her for, the drugs, carelessly leaving tia alone -even though she'd thankfully been found by spider- and she the eshay's and everything with her father.

she didn't want to remember any of it. she didn't want to care.

"i think you should go." ant said, looking down too. they could both feel their separate guilt thickening the air around them, "tia's my best friend, so..." he muttered, knowing he'd have to tell her about talking to harper later. so she nodded, got up and left.

tia's mother had her at eighteen. her father, marco, was a 'businessman on a motorcycle' as bo called it, and hadn't seen his daughter in more than a year now.

this wasn't uncommon or surprising though, it was the same throughout her childhood. up until her teens he seemed to be able to sporadically appear every few months to gift her a bunch of crap and then piss back off.

on special occasions her bank account would receive a very large deposit, and a man or two whom claimed to know her father would check in on her and send 'dad's love'.

she had needed him in her life, a father, he was supposed to be there to protect her from everything bad that had and could happen. but he wasn't, so the bad things happened, and she kept on living.

her mum was enough.

she'd singlehandedly raised tia until her brothers had come along and their father began to 'co-parent' every fortnight.

the twin's father was a good man, but he had another family and very recently married a twenty-something year old blonde, despite the fact that bo was bordering on eight months pregnant. which also meant that tia would once again be helping raise another child.