Pacifier

\\ Isabelle //

Larry met me by the school gates.
He waved his hand in a slow hello and when I got close enough that I could see him sullen expression I noticed that his cheeks were hollow like mine and his eyes were dark. Tumultuous.

We walked quietly, he tried to ask me questions about my day, tried to fill the stiff silence with conversation but I'd done enough talking. I never wanted to say another word to anyone again.
The guilt lingered on my tongue and left a bad taste in my mouth.

When I was young I remember hearing Vans father threatening one of his girls through the bedroom walls. He'd called her worm tongue, accused her of spying for the Reids. Accused her of treachery and dishonesty. He'd said her betrayal would cost her her tongue and I'd listened, petrified, through the walls whilst he cut it out.

And that was how I felt now.

I deserved the same.

The city was slate grey and cold but the chill of the wind was nothing to the chill which ran down my spine, which ached in my ribs as we walked and I dwelled on the thought.

When we got home that evening all the lights were down low. The Balcony was dark like my mood. The windows were drizzled with rain like my hair and my cheeks and the simmering smirk of a hello I gave my brother when I pushed past him on the staircase and locked my bedroom door.

I stood under the shower but I didnt turn it on and when I realised I'd been too preoccupied with my melancholia to change out of my clothes I let out a sad little sigh and shrunk down against the shower tiles, sitting on the floor with tears in my eyes.

I heard someone tapping on my door, heard Larry call my name first, then Benji a little later.

I watched the sun going down and the shadows of my furniture waxing across wooden floor, and as they stretched out the shadow behind my closed curtains grew darker and darker still. Just like my mood.

"Izzy," the third voice was Camille, she didn't knock, she simply spoke my name through the keyhole. I pictured her leaning up against the door frame careless as you like, only half tuned into her surroundings. She didn't really care if I answered or not, she didn't really care if I let her in.
But she persisted all the same.

"Let me in doll," she sighed her voice like honey spilt, i could smell the smoke from her cigarette drifting in. "Before your mardy brother and his mates catch me," she said and i wondered whether she was smiling or smirking or nothing at all.

Still, something about the needless warmth in her voice lifted me to my feet and dragged me to my bedroom door. Something in the way she cracked half a grin when I slid the latch and let her in, made me glad that I had.

"atta girl," she smiled slipping in quietly, shutting the door carefully.
I wondered who had sent her here to distract me.
Had anyone sent her at all.

She made her way inside and surprised me when she kicked off her shoes and produced a bottle of whisky from behind her back.

"If the boys are allowed to lie around in their pants all day drinkin when they've had a bad day, why can't we?" she winked wriggling out of her jeans, discarding them too before sitting down at the center of my rug in only a tshirt and her panties, black lace on show when she raised the bottle to her lips, my brothers jacket rising to reveal her milky white skin.

Camille was a smokey blonde, with stormy eyeshadow around her eyes and little else, just grey rainclouds and murky green eyes. Her cheek bones were sharp and she was oh so cool when her tongue licked the resin of her drink from her bottom lip.