We were just kids: The beginning of all beginnings

Saturday Morning

"Leah"

What is someone from school saw us?
What if they laughed?

"Earth to Leah!"

What if they told the whole school?
What if the whole school laughed?
Oh Leah, snap out of it!

"LEAH!"

"Dad I'm coming!" Caught up in her own thoughts, Leah hadn't realised that Ste had been calling her name for the past five minutes.

She picked up her phone that lay beside her on her bed. It refused to turn on for a few moments, before giving in. Stupid thing.

13:03

Damn it I'm late.
Leah tucked in her laces and shoved her phone into the back pocket of her jeans - there wasn't enough time to mess about with her laces, besides, she couldn't do them up anyway.

"Dad thought you weren't coming, I said you may have drowned in the shower, jumped out the window. Dad told me to shut the hell up. You don't look wet. You don't look very dead either" Lucas remarked.

Lucas was Leah's annoying, very annoying younger brother. Lucas tended to be an irritant, but no matter how much they argued, Leah loved her younger brother and after their mum passed, she felt like she needed to be a maternal figure for Lucas, despite only being two years older than him.

"Did you want me to be dead?" Leah asked, she knew by her brother's face that the answer was no. She smiled at him, before leaving through the door that Ste was no-so-patiently holding open for her.

———

"You said one o' clock. It's ten past. Your late! And it's your business!" Nancy was stood up, but not upright, she was leaning against the old trailer tutting.

"Alright, alright keep your hair on!" Ste exclaimed. He was annoyed with Nancy, as always, but having known each other since they were teens, he wasn't at all surprised, Nancy held a tight schedule.

Nancy rolled her eyes and sighed, but it wasn't a 'I swear I'm gonna kill you one of these days' kind of sighs. Instead, it was much more of a 'you're annoying, but it's kinda funny yet I don't want you to see that I laughed' sigh.

She told Charlie to behave himself and that she'd be at The Hutch if he needed her. Charlie laughed, reassuring her that he'd be no trouble, but a look of concern spread across his face when he noticed that Nancy's eyes were full of pain. He knew that she was ill, but she wasn't going to die, was she? And anyway, she couldn't be as bad as she was a mere couple of weeks beforehand, when she was confined to a wheelchair, right?

Nancy, seeing her nephew's concern, told him she was fine, and forced quite a convincing smile, before leaving through the small alleyway that had seen too many dodgy deals in it's days, dragging her folded wheelchair behind her.

"Right you two" Ste clapped his hands together "take these and I'll be back in five" Ste grabbed two oversized aprons from inside the old trailer; each plastered with the words 'The Hatch' in bold pink letters - Cindy's idea, of course.

Charlie and Leah looked at each other in disgust, no way would either of them ever been seen dead in those aprons.

"A problem?" Ste asked

"I am not wearing that! They're awful! I mean, look!"

Charlie could see that the thought of wearing such things horrified Leah more than himself, so he intervened.

"Well actually, Ste, there is" he began "The problem being that" he paused, thinking carefully about his response "as you can quite clearly tell, Leah's hair is very, very long"

He wasn't wrong, Leah's blonde locks fell to around her hip.

"I believe that she should be wearing a hair net,  for" he hesitated, before giving Leah a sly smirk "safety reasons"

"You know what Charlie" Ste added, trying not so hard to cover his smugness "I think you're right" he agreed.

Leah rolled her eyes. Ste always told her he was pretty sure that her eyes would roll away one day, and she was pretty sure that he was thinking this by his breathy laugh.

"I'll be back with that hair net" Ste chirped, before leaving the two youngsters stood by the trailer.

Thanks a lot Charlie.

"You're welcome" Charlie beamed.

Did I say that out loud?

Leah wasn't too sure. It was either that, or Charlie could tell what she was thinking just by her facial expressions. And she didn't want the second one to be true.

This is gonna be a long day.

She really thinks I can't hear her, ey.

Tbc..