Trust No Bitch: Part 2

Gemma Akintola

"Come on, Mata! Get on your knees, son! This bloke!" Gemma struggled to raise her head to look up at Josh, her head resting on his chest, as he gestured at his TV. "If I saw him in the street...Hi, I'm Josh Young, nice to meet you, now let me introduce my fist to your face." And he mimed a punch. "Soldiers getting paid less than 10 grand a year and this absolute cretin..." He faltered as he caught a glimpse of Gemma's blank face. She wasn't even sure why she'd gone to Josh's flat; it wasn't like she could get any words out. The thoughts of her brother Sonny in prison kept stealing them away. All she'd managed to tell Josh was the bare bones of the story, avoiding mentioning the Supplier's role in it all, mostly through grunts. "Is it your brother?" He asked, pausing the football and running a hand through her hair. She just nodded and Josh bit his lip. Normally, as turn ons go, that was up there with him taking his top off but she was uninterested. "I don't know what to do to help...I just, I wish I could do something. I know that everyone thinks I'm a prick and uh, that's probably a fair assessment, but I do care a lot about my sister and brother. I can understand what you must be dealing with right now." He said quietly. "Do you want me to make you a cuppa?"

"Nah, you're alright. I have to go and pick him up from the station in a minute to take him home. He's allowed to stay there until the trial." Gemma explained, unravelling herself from Josh's arms. "They want to take it to youth court." She elaborated as Josh looked on, puzzled. "God, my mum and dad were expecting me home yesterday and him with me. I had to call them up and tell them he decided to stay at mine for the night so that they didn't worry but I couldn't tell them what had really happened. They're going to go batshit on him when we tell them."

"Will they believe him?" Josh questioned, standing up and pulling her closer to him. "He sounds like a good kid, yeah?"

"Yeah, he is. But so is Isaac and they didn't believe a word that came out of his mouth about the whole drug smuggling thing. I mean Sonny told the detective that he didn't do it and that somebody else must have put the ring in his bag but he clearly didn't believe him and the shop owner wants to press charges so..." She sighed, the noise verging on a breathy sob. "Lately, everything's just been going to shit. My race, on New Year's Eve, the National Indoor Athletics Qualifiers...I know you said you wanted to come to support me, but I feel like it's probably best if you don't. There's no point in coming all that way to watch me lose." It was like a guessing game: what would the Supplier take next? Would they tie her shoe laces together just as she was pushing off, pay one of the other runners to jab a sneaky elbow into her side as they ran along side her, just go right up to her and shove her over and nobody see it because it felt like whoever the Supplier was they were fucking invisible? Should she tell Josh? After all, he had encountered the Supplier twice, once after they threw the acid at Gemma in the restaurant toilets and another time outside the club the night of Alice's birthday, after they'd attacked her. If she started ranting about some serial killer in a halloween mask at least he wouldn't think she had gone insane.

"Gemma..." Josh said tiredly, pressing her body against his chest. "I wouldn't have rigged that representative vote if I didn't think you deserved it. As much as it kills me to admit that somebody else might just be that little bit better than myself, you are the best runner on the team. Our coach nominated you to go to the qualifiers for a reason. You're going to own that shit, like you always do." Gemma spluttered at that; had she owned the skin peeling off her arm on a restaurant bathroom floor? She definitely didn't feel like she had. "What? It's true. You don't see it, but trust me, I do." Josh remarked. Despite her desolation, Gemma reciprocated the hug, marvelling at how she always fit so perfectly into the shape of his body. As if they really were made for one another, the crevices in her body coordinating with the protrusions in his. But then again, she'd never believed in that kind of shit anyway. She couldn't. Not when both the brothers she'd always believed were destined for great things were locked away through no fault of their own. One's future depending on the bang of a gavel, and the other's on the kindness of potential employers and their ability to look past a 3 year drug smuggling sentence, which Gemma wasn't guilelessly optimistic enough to believe existed.