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I opened my eyes and groaned as the sudden brightness pierced my brain. I slammed a hand to my forehead as if it would slap the hangover out of me and I rolled over, burying deep into my covers.
"You're awake!" I heard Effy say softly from beside me. She was sitting on the floor where she slept, snuggled into her sleeping bag with some aspirin and a glass of water in her hand. She was an expert when it came to the morning after a drunken night with too many teenagers and loud music that felt like it was still pounding in my ears.
"I'd thought I'd be sleeping much longer than you, seeing as you were konked out here before the party even started. And I got some pretty shitty sleep seeing as she put me on the fucking floor. I mean, what sort of person makes a guest sleep on the floor? And then the two of you are in that double bed as if you own the caravan!"
I rubbed my hand over my face and tried to avoid eye contact with the window. That sun outside was just too painful. "Effy, she sort of does own the caravan," I remarked.
She threw her pills into her mouth and chugged the water back as I said this and then slammed the glass down on the floor. "So?! You don't! It's just not fair. She never liked me. As if I've done anything wrong!"
"It's hardly like you like her either," I commented.
"Well I haven't any reason to!"
I closed my eyes and stretched my back out. I could hear Beth making coffee in the kitchen with her dad, the boiling of the kettle and the clinking of cups, and then her laugh that could cheer anyone up. "I like her," I said softly, more to myself than to Effy. Effy would only argue with anything I said.
I rolled over so my back was to the window and dared myself to open my eyes again. Ahh, it wasn't so bad this -
I jerked upright in the bed, my eyes fixed on the sleeping figure in the chair right across from me, less than five feet away.
"Effy? Why is he here?" I asked, smoothing my hair slightly.
She followed my gaze to him as if he were a homeless person. Or a freak. It was hard to tell.
"The boy stayed here all night! He was asleep when we got in and Beth insisted it would be rude to wake him and make him leave. I wanted to beat him up cos he had a better place to sleep than I did. Fuck sleep, he has his whole life for that!"
She continued talking but I blanked out and just watched him. One of his legs was folded underneath him and the other was sprawled out so his foot was on the bed, almost touching me. His arms hung limply over the arms of the chair and his chest rose and fell heavily. His mouth was half open and I smirked as I caught some drool on his chin. It all looked awkward and uncomfortable, but there wasn't anything about it that wasn't adorable. His hair was ruffled up and pieces of it were standing up and I wondered what he was dreaming about. How far away his mind was right now, even when he was right next to me.
"Man, he can sleep, huh?" Beth said cheerily as she nudged the door shut behind her, two cups of coffee in her hand.
"This is ridiculous," Effy huffed and she rose up and stomped across the room towards him. She leaned forward and rose her hand up. I flinched, knowing from far too many sleep ins at her place what was coming next. She slapped him across his cheek. Hard.
"Effy!" Beth gasped, but his eyes were wide open now, his whole posture awake as his foot jerked off the bed and he sat upright. He groaned and put both hands to his cheek, wiping the drool off his chin sheepishly on the way.
"You've some arm there!" he exclaimed, shock in his eyes as he woke himself up.
"Could you really not have found a more gentle way of doing that?" Beth demanded, disgust in her face. I wasn't used to seeing such a negative expression on her.
Effy just shrugged. "That's the way I roll."
"Roll softer," Logan groaned, rubbing his cheek.
"Here," Beth said, putting a cup of coffee down on the locker beside the bed. "I figured you'd be awake by now." I picked up my cup and took a sip, remembering that Effy hated coffee because it gave you bad breath. "Will I go and make you a cup?" She asked, turning to Logan who was now wincing in pain. I sniggered at him and he grinned back at me.
Beth, not waiting for an answer, left to make another cup and Effy followed her, her tiny silk shorts pyjamas still on her. She wasn't any less confident that there was a boy around. She knew she looked sexy in the morning.
I put down my cup as Logan took his hand away from his cheek. There was a red mark from Effy's slap.
"Ouch, that looks pretty bad," I winced, sitting up and leaning across to him, ignoring the feeling that my body was in shut-down mode. I put out my hand and gingerly lay my fingers on the red marks. His cheek was burning.
"Please, I have a very high threshold for pain," he said, waving one hand as if it were nothing.
I laughed. "Don't lie to me just because you got hit by a girl."
He looked up at me shyly and I felt my heart sink a little. "Okay, you got me. I think she just killed my face."
I laughed again, pressing my cool palm against his cheek. His face went serious and he looked me straight in the eye. I started to forget what I was doing.
"It's nothing like what happened to you last night though," he said softly and I felt one of his hands encasing my other one and squeezing it gently.
I narrowed my eyes and tried to remember, but it was all black. "What happened last night?"
He squeezed my hand once more before letting it go. "Nothing, you just drank one too many."
I nodded and rolled my eyes, feeling my head pound against me. "I don't usually drink so much. I can't even remember anything."
"What's the last thing you remember?" he asked me, pushing my hand away and leaning forward so it felt more like he was taking care of me this time.
I thought back. "Oh! I remember someone hitting me with a ball . . . And I knew this guy! . . . He was the guy from the swimming pool, Stephen I think." I sat back on the bed and crossed my arms, proud I could remember something.
Logan's face seemed to harden when I mentioned his name. Then his eyes softened and filled with something that looked a lot like pity and he eyed me up and down. Maybe it was pity? But why? And then I remembered I was pissed last night. People do idiotic things when they're drunk.
"You bastard!" a voice shouted outside and our heads spun in the direction of the window, even though the sunlight hurt.
"You've some nerve showing up here! And the day after? You prick!"
The vocie was angry. I mean, really angry. As in about-to-turn-crazy-ninja-and-attack angry. And the voice was familiar too. It sounded like . . .
"Darren," Logan muttered and we looked at each other, before racing for the door and running down the steps leading up to the caravan, past her parents who watched flabbergasted as a young good looking boy that they hadn't seen coming in flashed past. Effy and Beth ran out after us.
"Darren! What is it?" Effy called over, but he ignored her, his glare fixed past us.
He was walking hurriedly down the road, his shoulders squared and his jaw clenched. We followed his stare to the end of the road where Stephen was walking down towards him, a similar expression on his face. He had a bruised eye, as if he'd been hit the night before.
A cold feeling washed over me at the sight of him and I couldn't explain why. It was as if I felt frozen and I couldn't move. I couldn't even open my mouth to talk.
"What did you say to me?" Stephen shouted.
"You know what I said. And I'm not gonna let you walk away with what you did. You're sick. SICK! How could you do that to a girl. To Ronnie?"
I felt Beth and Effy look at, confused. I was confused myself. I suddenly felt sick. And it wasn't the hangover.
"You're just like your dad you know," he spat. He was close to Steven now, squaring up to each other.
"Take that back, you prick! You don't know my father!" he spat back, his strong Liverpool accent slurring into itself.
Logan grabbed my hand again. I didn't need to look to know it was him.
"I hate when people fight. I hate violence. And this is over me," I murmured softly, and I knew he heard.
"You're just like him. Rape runs in the family; yeah? Well look where he is now!" Darren shouted.
It was like the whole atmosphere went from bad to worse. It was cold now, like everyone had been stabbed with an icycle as realisation dawned on everyone. It was like something was triggered, something clicked. Effy's jaw dropped, Beth gasped and I started to piece together last night. I felt Logan tense beside me and he dropped my hand again.
He looked at me first, as if saying sorry.
"Sometimes you deserve to be fought for," he said, and he leapt forward onto the road between them, clenched one hand into a fist and drew his arm back. I could only imagine the impact as he pounded his fist back into Stephen's face so he was down, falling back on the ground. Logan unclenched his hand and shook it out. Him and Darren looked down at him for a while, and then walked away, Logan pulling out his mobile on the way.
And then I remembered. I remembered everything.