Before My Eyes

The Barn

Raff presses the buzzer on Rizo's door when we arrive at the house. Nathan, who had told us his name on the walk home, was standing behind us, fidgeting with a piece of loose thread on his jumper.

Rizo swings open the door and immediately starts ripping into Raff. "Why the fuck would you fuck Maisie in my parents' bed. Are you that fucking sick?" She hasn't even noticed Nathan yet.

"I can't actually believe you. Do you not have any respect for this house? You're fucking disgusting." She's standing on her tip toes, but the top of her head is still only at Raff's chin.

He just laughs and nuzzles her face into his arms. "Naw I'm sorry Rizzie. It won't happen again." He pulls her back into the house with her face still squished against his chest.

I look back at Nathan, who's started leaning against the porch pillars. He follows me inside, obviously slightly dazed by Rizo.

"Oi, this is Nathan. We met him at the shop."
He butts in and says, "Yeah it's Nathan.. but you guys can call me Spike." Everyone's eyes widen. Lily runs up to him and hugs him, giggling. At least he got one friendly greeting.

We all return to sitting around the counter while Levi and Maisie fry up the stuff Raff bought.

"So, um... Spike. What do you do around here?" Raff asks him, stretching across the table for the juice. Lily has sat herself next to 'Spike'.

"Ah nothing much. Working in the shop, bunning in the field. That's pretty much it." He sits there nodding for a bit.

"Wow ok. Cool." Everyone falls silent for a bit and I look up to see Raff trying to hide a smile.

"Do you not go to school?" Maisie tries to fill the silence while she places slices of bread in the toaster.

"Nope. I dropped out after Year 10. Been working in the old coffee shop ever since." Everyone gives each other a look, which he's obviously oblivious to.

"Oh right. Well then that explains a lot." Raff says, nodding with a slight smirk. We all sputter with laughter. "What? What is it?" Still oblivious, he joins in laughing, bearing a huge spiky tooth.

I can tell Rizo's feeling a bit bad for him and probably still pissed off because she says, "Raff, go upstairs and change the sheets in my parents' room." He laughs at her and slumps off his chair upstairs.

"Where's this field you bun in then?" Levi leans onto the counter, frowning at Spike. "Quite near here. There's this empty barn there too where we sometimes camp out."
"We?"
"Yeah me and some friends from the town. It's a laugh, really."

I think about who his friends might be and then remember those girls from the supermarket. I rest my head down on the table while Levi and Spike carry on talking about this barn. All of a sudden people are leaving the counter and going to the door. Raff comes running down the stairs.

"What's this then?"
"We're going to Spike's barn. He's got shit there." I can tell that Spike's the kind of person to 'lend' draw, so we'll probably be sorted back in London for a while.

Once we're all out on the main road, Spike starts calling someone. "Yeah I'm on Parsons Road. Yeah. Coolio. See you." He puts the phone back in his pocket. "We're getting a lift there in a minute." There's a small pause.

"Coolio," Liam says. I have to bite my cheeks to stop myself from laughing.

Out of nowhere, a tractor sputters it's way down the road and stops by us. A scrawny, middle-aged man hops out and embraces Spike tightly. "Y'alright son. Hello everyone... C'mon then, hop in the back!"

I look over at Rizo and frown slightly. She laughs and takes my arm and we do what we're told. I choose a spot in between two dirty sand bags and Riz squishes in next to me.

After a short, uncomfortable journey of not being able to hear each other speak over the tractor's engine, we finally arrive at the barn.

It's actually quite cool. There's blankets laid down all over the hay floor and crooked stairs leading up to a balcony layer looking over the bottom bit.

Having said goodbye to his dad, Spike leads us all inside and opens a mini fridge full of beers. How many friends does he have around here?

He chucks the beers at us one by one. "Alright. What you wanna do now?"
We had all seated ourselves on the floor, Maisie draped over Raff and Lily edging herself towards Spike. She's probably into that goofy type country boy.

"Didn't you say you got some draw here, Spike?" Levi says. I hear Rizo mutter something like, "I fucking hope so" under her breath.

"Yeah, wait one minute." He jumps up and runs over to a pile of hay. He frantically digs under it to reveal a black back pack and opens it to take out the plastic bag. Ollie retrieves it from him and starts rolling the spliff.

"Oooh! I've got a good game!" Lily's eyes are wide and she's grinning more excitedly than usual. "Spin the bottle!"

"Yeah alright, but we're gonna need something else to excuse that. Ollie?" Liam raises his eyebrows at Ollie and signals down to his jacket pocket.

After passing the spliff to Raff, Ollie gets out the baggy of pills and passes it around. We all down one with our beers apart from Spike who 'prefers the natural hit of the herb'.

Levi downs his beer and puts it in the middle of the circle. "Who's first?"
"I'll go first! It was my idea." Lily leans forward and spins it. We all wait to see who it lands on. Liam.

Rizo goes next and gets Levi. Then Maisie and Lily. Me and Liam. Spike and Rizo. We're all a bit high by this point. Maisie sits playing with the curled tips of Raff's hair.

"Okay who's next. Raff?" He leans forward and spins it. We all sit there staring at it and I barely realise until it goes quieter that it's landed on me.

"Ahhh noooo," I look over at Raff to see him looking straight back. He's smirking and starts to laugh slightly.

"C'mon Mal, it's not like we haven't done it before." Everyone starts laughing a bit except Ollie who's just sitting there rolling another zoot.

Maisie laughs with everyone else, but then I see her smile fade slightly. "Wait what?" She's looking at Raff and then turns to look at me. Everyone's eyes widen dramatically and I can see them giving each other looks. I'd forgotten Maisie never found out about me and Raff.

"We went out last summer for a bit. I guess no one ever told you." Raff intertwines his fingers with hers. She smiles back at him. "Oh okay, right, cool."

The weird silence is quickly filled by Liam. "Alright. Mali's forfeit. Now you have to get with the next person you land on for 5 minutes straight."

I lean over, spin the bottle and concentrate my eyes on it until it slows to a halt. Ollie.

I look over at him and he gestures for me to come. I straddle him and he pulls me in closer, while I clasp my hands behind his neck. We start kissing and after 5 minutes I realise everyone shouting at us to stop.

We pull away from each other and he nods upstairs at the balcony. Standing up, I turn around to see Raff crawling jokingly to Liam and straddling him. He starts pretending to get with him. Liam joins in and everyone begins to laugh.

Raff turns to look back at me and smiles cheesily. I smirk slightly at him, Ollie's hands pulling on my waist, edging me towards the stairs. "Jealousy doesn't look good on you either, Raffity."

Maisie shifts in her spot a little. "Do you guys wanna go upstairs or something?" She points between me and Raff. I laugh awkwardly, but thankfully Raff goes to her and hugs her into him, kissing her neck.

"No, I would much rather go up there with you." A smile grows on her face and I can finally give in to Ollie.