Page 11 of Vying Girls
She ducks her head and spits on the ground, chest heaving with deep breaths. Oh yeah, she’s about to hurl alright.
‘Get it over with then.’
‘Can’t.’
I roll my eyes, suddenly pissed off. Why is she even here? It’s like the night birthed her, the devil tossing me a trick.
‘Fuck’s sake. Get here.’
I grab her to me, bending over her back to wrestle my fingers into her mouth. The only warm thing about her. She cries out, muffled around my hand, fighting my hold.
Gritting my teeth, I hold her harder. When I reach the back of her throat, she gags, body convulsing. I pull out just as she vomits, a gooey concoction of whatever poison she’s imbibed tonight. I curl my lip, stepping back to the wall. Fucking gross.
Still gasping, she wipes at her streaming eyes. Reminds me of this morning. I started my day with her and here she is to end it.
‘Better?’
She shrugs, folding her arms around herself as she shivers. ‘Dunno.’
She seems better. More alert. More of that wariness I expected in her gaze when she looks at me. Did she come to give me a seeing to? Thought’s laughable.
‘I think you might be mentally disturbed.’
I bark out a laugh. ‘You what?’
‘Really.’ She draws in a shuddering breath, cuddling into the wall. ‘I think you need to see someone.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ I turn my shoulder to the wall, willing to indulge her. ‘But wouldn’t that be a kindness? Therapy, some kind of help. Wouldn’t you rather reprisal for me? Isn’t that why you’re here?’
She frowns, eyes falling shut. She’s at risk of passing the fuck out here. ‘What?’
‘You believe in fate, don’t you? You did before?’
‘When before? Why have you been saying all this weird shit? All night, it’s like…’ She brushes sodden hair away from her face. ‘Dunno what it’s like.’
I hum, inching closer. ‘Would you like to?’
‘Like to what?’
‘Know. Be cast into the light.’
She frowns again, eyes searching mine. She looks fairly concerned, to be fair. ‘Are you high?’
I tut, putting space back between us. ‘High on something.’
I don’t expect her to follow, but she does. Idoublydon’t expect her to mould her body against mine, pushing me into the wall with her paltry strength.
‘Nic,’ she says, so seriously I want to laugh, ‘why do you care so much about me?’
Care?Why do I care about her, not why do I hate her? That’s a new one. I don’t like it. It denotes something soft, something other than what this is. I don’t want to think about caring for Tilda. That’s something I firmly closed the door on, way back when. It’s deadbolted. Never to be opened again.
I can hear a knocking on it though. Some ghost from the past begging to be let out, to be avenged. I add another lock, another two locks.
Her face is tipped up to me. Her bottom lip trembles with cold, shiny and slick from the rain. I thumb a drop off her cheek.
‘I don’t care about you, Tilda, you stupid fuck.’
She huffs out a breath, bathing my face in it. She wilts a little and I resist the urge to grab her back. But then I hear the others, Haz’s coarse voice, Elly’s supporting one, and force myself to relax.
