She holds out her hand to me. And I take it. Clutching her soft palm to my own. She swings my hand, backwards and forwards through the cold night air. Thick with city smog. So dark I can barely see the thin silhouette of her tiny body as we tiptoe along the black tarmac. Our trainers grating on the frozen ground. She isn’t smoking, but a thin curl of hot breath escapes from her lips.
“What’s the time?” I ask quietly. I can’t see her face. We’re caught in the heart of those dark hours just before dawn when all the streetlights have clicked off. Inky black puddles and silent roads.
“It’s three am” she murmurs. Her face momentarily illuminated by the bright, cracked screen of her phone. Her pupils contracting. Her bottom lip grasped tight between her teeth.
“Where are we going?” I ask her. Questions slipping off my tongue. There’s no awkward silence anymore. And she answers just as easily.
“I don’t know.” She shakes her head a fraction, and out of the corner of my eye, I watch as she glances at me quickly. As though I’m somehow forbidden. For a moment, a tiny smile plays on her lips. But then she notices me watching her, and looks away, her eyes fixed back on the ground. Watching the white toes of her trainers smash against the tarmac. “You look beautiful-” she murmurs.
“What, I look beautiful in the dark, when you can hardly see me?” I giggle, squeezing her hand tighter. But I can feel her trying to pull away from me. Wriggling her hand out of my own.
“I’m being serious Kimberley-” Her voice catching at the back of her throat. I don’t know why. “You’re beautiful-” she repeats. And I look at her seriously, frowning.
“No, no, don’t say that Cheryl” I insist. Pulling her back towards me. I want to wrap my arm around her shoulders. Or around her waist maybe. I don’t know. But I don’t, I just hold her hand tighter. Suddenly, her lips are crashing against my own. Tasting of hot night air and stars. One soft, gentle kiss and she’s giggling softly.
“You’re so cute-” she smiles. And then she takes a step away from me, twirling around. Wrapping my arm around her waist, and then spinning away from me. Dancing across the pavement. Her arms held in front of her body, her back straight, shoulders down. Calf muscles stretching, contracting, screaming as she steps onto her tip toes. And pirouettes. Her hair flying away from her body. Until she becomes a blur. Landing with her knees bent, weight perfectly balanced. Muscles in her neck still writhing. As she looks over her shoulder at me and laughs as though her soul is burning, bursting, springing into flame. Grabbing onto my hand once again. Pulling me away. As she dances across the deserted road, spinning me around and around until I’m dizzy.
And a car flies past, red lights glaring. Swerving away from us. Sounding its blaring horn seconds too late. So close I can feel the hot air twist and blast against my skin as it races so close to us. Roaring engine filling up my world with senseless noise. Much, much too close. And then it’s gone. I’m stunned, shocked. Centimeters, seconds away from a gleaming car bonnet and a windscreen crashing against my skull. Certain, instant death. I feel nothing, but a blinding, animalistic fear. Shaking through my body like hot adrenaline, but somehow bitter. Cold inside my body.
But Cheryl just laughs, springing aside and into the middle of the opposite lane. Twirling me until I feel sick and I don’t know which way is up and which way is down anymore. The world spins, tips away from me as though I’m drunk. Twisting, turning, pitching away into oblivion. And just as I imagine that I’m going to fall, face down, smack hard onto the concrete road, she catches me. Her arms tight around my back, fingernails in my skin. Hugging me close. She laughs silently, but I know she’s laughing, because her chest rises and falls too fast. As though she’s crying. Maybe she is. Or maybe she’s laughing. Or maybe I don’t know the difference anymore.
“Mental, you’re fcuking mental-”
“I know. Do you care?” she murmurs, that smile still carving dimples into her cheeks. But I can see through the darkness that her eyes aren’t laughing. They’re as cold and as black at jet. Or coal. Numbingly cold. Burning me like ice on hot skin. She holds me closer. And I let her.
“Of course I care about you.”
“I know you care about me. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t care about me. Damn, I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t care about me.” We’re still standing in the middle of the road. It’s dark. No one would see us. We could be hit in a quick blur of blinding white light. We might not even hear the car coming. And it would be fast. And we would be together. I suddenly realise I sound like Cheryl. Maybe I feel like her too. Maybe I’m beginning to have a little Cheryl-shaped shadow clinging to the back of my mind, dripping honey and poison and sex-laden promises into my consciousness. I shake my head, like a dog trying to get water out of its ears. Hair falling over my shoulders.
“What are you asking me then?” I murmur. She stands on her tip-toes. Watching me. Watching me watching her.
“Do you care that I’m fcuking mental?” She asks quietly. I can feel the words crash against my skin.
I laugh. I hug her tight. And pull her out of the middle of the road. Out of harm’s way.
And together, we trip up the kerb, and Cheryl pulls me across the path. Towards tall, wrought iron gates and twisting railing, contorting with nameless, shapeless greenery to become a mass of darkness. As high and as thick as a brick wall. But the gates aren’t locked. Or at least, when Cheryl pushes against them, the railing digging into her back, the heavy padlock falls away and the gates clang open. The sound ringing through the darkness. The chain slithering to the ground like a heavy, dead snake. Noisy. And together we step into the park. Wet grass, dew frozen to the individual blades like icy diamonds.
“Seriously Chez, what are we doing? Can’t we just go home-”
“No, no, come on Kimberley-” she tugs me over the grass, our trainers squeaking on the wet grass.
“I’m tired-” I moan, and she just laughs. Her broken hand covering her mouth as she giggles.
“You’re sh!t” she laughs. “You’re so, so sh!te-”
“I’m knackered Cheryl, why are we here?”
She leans back, the wet bark of a tree cutting into her back. Skeleton, naked branches looming over us like thick spider-webs in the sky. Making her shirt damp, clinging onto her skin.
“Can you climb?” she asks quietly. I blink at her quickly.
“The tree? Climb the tree? You’re joking, right?”
“No-” and suddenly she’s lifting her left leg, her trainer slipping against the wet bark. Squeaking. And she’s pulling herself up, her bruised arms clinging onto the upper branches for dear life. Bruised muscles in her back stretching. It must hurt her, but she doesn’t flinch. Of course she doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t ever flinch because her whole body is burning in pain. But she cringes like a kicked, cowed dog if I raise my voice. Or if I move suddenly towards her. So I stay still. Watching her as she climbs. Precisely, carefully. Tiny shadows tracing under the taught muscles in her arms, straining from her bodyweight. Until she reaches the last branch that could hold her weight. And she pulls herself up one last time, scraping her chest against the bark. Sitting on it, perching high above me like a dark raven. And yet somehow she’s so pale. She glows. She doesn’t just sparkle. Or shimmer and then fade. She glows. Lighting up my little world like a fuzzy star that never dims. Clinging above me. Smiling down at me.
“Kim?” She murmurs.
“I’m coming-” I reply.
And then I follow her.
