This is not my fic I would just really like to have it on my phone. Feel free to read it and check out who wrote it thats-all-i-wrote.tumblr.com
I hear a muffled crash and breaking glass. I hear a sharp, stifled scream. I shove the remnants of my toast into my dry mouth and then thank god that Amy isn’t here to hear our new neighbour’s argument. My little sister is currently being forced into her new school uniform by our mum, and from the exasperated tone of our mum’s voice she’s putting up a pretty good fight. Our new kitchen is much smaller than the one we had at our last house and every surface is covered in cardboard boxes with labels scrawled on in thick black pen.
Another crash on the thin wall separating our kitchen from the flat next door, and now a man’s voice, raised in anger “YOU FILTHY LITTLE-” I close my eyes and try not to listen. I feel as though I’m prying and witnessing something shocking and indecent. Maybe I am. I look down at the toast crumbs on the chipped china plate and try to distinguish any patterns amongst the discarded crumbs. At the old house Amy would have put them on the bird table before she left for school. Now she’s in the tiny bedroom we’re expected to share, crying in my mother’s arms. I sigh and glance down at the shipped plate again. It must, like so many things, have got damaged when we moved.
I slowly, reluctantly get up and grab my brand new schoolbag. The leather is stiff and cold. I throw it onto my shoulder and check that I’ve got newly cut key in my blazer pocket. Next door I can hear a woman crying and I think vaguely about the domestic abuse lessons we had at my old school. The ones when I sat at the back of the class with my friends and talked, not even bothering to pay attention. I sigh.
“Kimberley! You’re going to be late!” my mum calls, and I stand in front of the mirror, studying my reflection for an instant before replying.
“Yeah, it’s okay. I’m going now.” I call back. I pull open the stiff door, and it creaks horribly.
“Be good, have a good da-” I slam the door.
I pause. I lean on the concrete railing and sigh, feeling the early morning breeze on my skin, not yet clogged up with fumes from commuter’s cars. And I allow my reluctant breath to be taken away by the view. Our top-floor flat looks out over the skyscrapers of the newly redeveloped city, over the river and the bridges, to the sprawling suburbs and dark patches of parkland beyond. One bridge arches in across the river in dark steel and another is white and elegantly curved, like a rib puncturing the city skyline. Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The city that is exactly 100 miles away from the place I grew up but was expected to become my new home.
I kick at the concrete railing with the toe of my old, beat up converses and wish that I wasn’t fifteen. I wish that I was twenty-five and pretty, and confident too. I wish that I could wear my hair up and not bite my nails all the way to the quick. I wish that I wasn’t so scared to start a new school. I wish that I was old enough to make my own decisions. I wish that I didn’t have to-
“Don’t *Ducking* touch me!” A girl screams.
I whip round, my hair flying. A door slams. Hard. So hard that the knocker continues to ricochet against the wood, creating a pointless, hollow sound.
On the doorstep next to ours stands a girl, barely older than myself. Her chest heaves and her eyes are closed. There are new, angry red bruises on her wrists and older ones too, blushing purple now. But she’s beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful. Flawless olive skin and cascading, impossibly dark curls all falling over her shoulders. Cheekbones to turn a supermodel green with envy slice through her face, creating curving shadows, so sharp you could cut yourself on her perfect bone structure. She’s dressed in a black leather jacket and a skirt so indecently short it could barely be called a belt, with black high-tops on her feet. Oh god, her legs go on forever-
Her eyes snap open, almost as though she can feel my eyes burning onto her skin. For a second they show a pure, almost animalistic fear in their molten chocolate depths. In shock I take a step backwards, feeling the rough concrete scratch against my calves. I feel my lungs begin to fill as I gasp-
“What the *Duck* do you think you’re looking at?” she sneers suddenly, her eyes becoming blank, hard. As though a window somewhere in her mind has been snapped shut. Her lips curl into an expert sneer as her eyes dissect my appearance, from my scraggy nails to my already slightly messy hair. I know she sees a scruffy fifteen year old child dressed in school uniform that was too big for her because her mum still insisted on buying her clothes to ‘grow into.’ She saw a girl not yet able to lose quite all her baby-fat. A girl who was shy and awkward. And I know in that instant that she must hate me.
Self consciously I raise a hand to my mouth, no longer chewing on the nail, but tugging on the skin itself.
“Nothing” escapes my lips. My voice sounds pathetic, scared. Almost more scared than I feel. I can hear my own voice echoing away in my head as I store it to be picked over, blushed and even cried about later. My heart beats too fast, too loudly, and I feel convinced that she’ll be able to hear it pounding away inside my chest.
“Good” she retorts.
Oh god, her accent. Her rough, quick, common Geordie accent. Her voice. Her self-assured swagger as she looked at me for another long moment and then turned walked towards the stairs. I watch the long, lean muscles of her thighs work as she walks, the way they contract and stretch. I catch a glimpse of what may be a dark tattoo sprawling along her thigh, but then again, it might be more bruises. I raise a hand to my neck, attempting to loosen my school tie a little. Suddenly the morning feels hot and airless. Someone has sucked all of the oxygen out of the air. My mouth is impossibly dry, my tongue hot and heavy. My palms are sticky, my stomach churns with the thought of walking into a schoolroom full of complete strangers. And every time I blink I see the sneering girl, burned by embarrassment into my eyelids.
