When I woke up I felt warm arms around me. It made me think of times before that I've been so close to somebody. It made me think about my mum. It made me want to go and be on my own for a minute.
As I tried carefully to peel Alyssa off of me, she woke up.
I sighed. "Hey."
Sometimes James felt like a boy I could love. Like, really love. Then other times he felt like a total fucking stranger.
We had slept in, so we were late checking out of our room. As I slammed the money on the table the receptionist from the day before raised her eyebrows. "It's an extra thirty pounds for late checkout."
"Fine." I said, getting yet more money out and adding it to the pile.
"That's a lot of cash." said the receptionist.
"We robbed the bank." I said. "Keep the change."
We didn't really know where to go after that, and James wouldn't make a decision, so we ended up wandering around. There were more fields here than in our area, so we went exploring.
"We could get a train to your dad's." James said from behind me.
"Maybe." I said. What if he didn't want to see me?
"Well, shall we?" James suggested.
"What?" I frowned.
"Get a train... To your dad's." He said.
He probably wouldn't even recognise me.
"Are we still going there?" James asked.
"Yeah, obviously." I snapped. "We should lie low for a bit, wait a couple of days before we get any trains or anything."
"Why?" He asked.
"Because we robbed a guy, James." I walked ahead.
"He assaulted me." James said.
"Doesn't matter." I shrugged. "We should go off the grid for a bit."
"Isn't your dad's off-grid?" James asked.
"Why are you so obsessed with my dad?" I wrinkled my nose.
"What? I'm not." He held his arms behind his back.
"He's miles away. We need to find somewhere nearby. Somewhere nice. It'll be like a mini break." I suggested.
We walked towards the first group of houses we saw. They had swimming pools, nice cars and huge windows. One didn't have any sign of life, so we broke into the garden. It was amazing.
"Holy shit." I started looking through the windows.
"How do you know?" James asked.
"Know what?" I didn't stop what I was doing.
"That this one's safe?"
"No obvious burglar alarm. A load of dust so no cleaner to worry about. Post: at least a week's worth." I picked up a rock.
"Is breaking and entering the best way of lying low?" He asked.
I shrugged and threw the rock through the front window. After climbing in, with James following faithfully, I looked around the downstairs. Everything looked expensive.
"Cool." I unzipped my jacket.
There were loads of books around. James picked one up from a shelf where they were all the same. All blue with a title of 'Existential Exit.'
There was a photo of a man on the back of it. James showed it to me. "You think that's him?"
"Who?" I asked.
"The guy that lives here." James suggested.
I looked around. There were photos of that man everywhere. "Yeah, obviously. Bit uptight, isn't he?"
"He's a professor." James said. I stuck my chewing gum over the man's face in one of the photos.
"Whatever, it's fucking weird having a photo of yourself." I opened a cupboard in the corner to reveal an array of alcoholic spirits. My jaw dropped. "Hey. Look what I found."
James didn't say anything as I took two large gulps from the largest bottle. I sometimes wonder if I should just become an alcoholic. It means you've always got something to do.
Alyssa didn't have much respect for people. Or people's stuff.
After she had made me take a sip of Vodka, we explored the rest of the house. We made our way upstairs into the bedroom, and I stood in the doorway and watched as Alyssa closely inspected everything.
"I reckon this'll do." She said.
"Yeah." I agreed.
"We can just chill here, plan our route, take our time." She nodded.
"Yep." I agreed.
She looked like she was trying to think what an adult might do in that situation. Alyssa looked up. "Should we go downstairs and have a glass of wine?"
"Yeah, okay." I shrugged. "You hungry?"
"Always." She looked at me.
I made dinner and she poured two glasses of wine. Instead of sitting at the dining table, Alyssa decided that we would eat by the pool.
Alyssa put her fork down. "Well, that wasn't as shit as I expected."
I shifted uncomfortably.
"It was actually really nice. Thank you." She said. My chest warmed slightly and I smiled to myself. Alyssa frowned. "How'd you know how to cook?"
"Taught myself." I thought about the meals I was offered as a child: cakes, brownies, fries, burgers. It was either learning to cook, or type two diabetes.
"We should do the washing up." Alyssa suggested.
She stood up, picked up the plates, and dumped them into the swimming pool.
We went inside and I sat on the sofa as Alyssa went over to the record player. After a few minutes of angrily yanking it around, she figured out how to get it to work. An old country song started playing. Alyssa started dancing. I took a huge gulp of vodka.
She danced over and took the bottle from me, taking some sips before continuing her dance around the room.
Some people get embarrassed dancing. I don't. I think it's when I feel most myself. I get embarrassed talking. Well, after talking. When I realise I've said something stupid.
"We should do this naked!" I called. Something like that. I looked over at James, who was sitting on the couch staring at me.
As a rule, I didn't dance. But it was hard to say no to Alyssa. I half-smiled as she dragged me into the middle of the room. Standing deathly still, I watched her dance around for a bit before she handed me the bottle. I took a few larger mouthfuls this time.
"Hey, close your eyes." She instructed.
"What?" I frowned.
"Close your eyes." She said. "I promise I won't look."
I watched for a second as she closed her eyes and then started dancing. Quickly, I took another sip from the bottle and put it down before closing my eyes. Although it was embarrassing at first, I started hopping around to the sound of the music. After a second I sort of forgot my nerves and started enjoying myself.
Cautiously, I opened my eyes to catch a glimpse of him dancing. He was moving around like a weirdo, his long floppy hair bouncing with him. There was a genuine smile on his face and his eyes were gently closed. He'd obviously never danced before.
I thought he was properly beautiful.
Smiling, I reached out and started spinning him round. He grinned and spun until I grabbed him by the shoulders and stopped him. I wish he'd kiss me on his own will, but he never started anything so I reached out and kissed him quickly on the lips before pulling away.
He stared at me with glassy eyes for a moment before leaning in and kissing me gently.
"Come here." My stomach felt hot and I grabbed his hand, pushing him down onto the sofa. "Undo your belt."
Reluctantly, he did as he was told. Whoever said boys are obsessed with sex hasn't met James.
I got down on my knees in front of him and fiddled at his underwear to get his dick out. He was frozen still, staring straight ahead, but he was kind of hard. Kind of.
Before leaning down, I looked at him for a second. I really hoped I wasn't bad at this.
Carefully, I put my mouth around the top of his dick. It was warm and had a weird sort of taste to it, but I pushed my head down slowly. He made a weird noise.
I looked up. "Is this okay."
His face was bright red and he nodded quickly.
I continued bobbing my head up and down on his dick until he took a deep breath in and started babbling. "Stop, please could you stop?"
"What?" I said, wiping my mouth.
"He was putting me off." James pointed at one of the photographs of the owner of the house. The one with my chewing gum stuck on it.
I stood up, disappointed. "I thought you said that you wanted me."
"I do." He said.
I did.
"Liar." I felt my hands shaking with anger before I stormed out. "Fuck you."
"Alyssa!" I heard him call behind me as I picked up my jacket and slammed the front door.
I tended not to feel things. For a long time, I was good at it. Good at feeling absolutely nothing. I didn't even have to try. I just, didn't.
It was getting a bit darker now, into the evening. I went into the garden and picked some yellow flowers from a plant pot. After searching the house for a vase, I came to a cupboard filled with a weird amount of cleaning supplies. I selected a vase from the corner and put the flowers inside before closing the cupboard and walking back into the lounge.
Being with Alyssa had started to make me feel things. She made me feel things. And I didn't like it at all.
I was wandering around the streets for ages, half-lost and half-tipsy. As much as I was trying to blank James out of my mind, my shirt smelled a bit like him. It was nearing night but there wasn't an orange sunset, everything was grey.
The world was fucking bleak.
I guess I tried to do things to forget that it was. Keep busy, keep blind. I thought that was what me and James were doing, until he just let me down.
On my walk, I found a dead pigeon. Road kill, probably. I found myself staring at it until a voice behind me piped up.
"Don't look at that."
I turned round. A man who was slightly older than me stood with his hands in his jacket pockets. His skin was dark and he had curly-ish hair. "Hey." He said.
"Hey." I blinked at him.
We started walking together. He made boring conversation. "How old are you, then?"
"Seventeen." I didn't look at him.
"Yeah, right." He laughed. I got my ID out and showed it to him, frowning. He smirked. "You look better in person."
I did, actually. My mum said it was my secret weapon, which I think is kind of rude but I see her point. I wrinkled my nose. "Fuck off."
"So what was your name again?" He asked.
"Alyssa." I told him.
"Alyssa..." He repeated. "Cool."
"What's yours?" I asked.
"Topher." He said.
"What kind of a name is Topher?" Sounded stupid to me.
"It's short for Christopher." He looked at me.
I rolled my eyes. "So why can't you just be called Chris like a normal person?"
Topher laughed and shook his head. "Dunno. Guess I'm a twat."
I liked that.
My feet stopped where they were. He stopped walking when he realised I had, and looked at me. I walked over and planted a kiss on his lips.
"Do you have a girlfriend?" I pulled back.
"No." He said.
"Boyfriend?" I don't know why I was shaking, but I was. Maybe I was shivering from the cold.
"No." He wrinkled his nose.
I kissed him again.
We ended up walking back to where James and I were staying. Topher looked impressed. "Whoa. Is this your place?"
"We're squatting." I told him.
"Who's we?" He asked.
I opened the door, grabbing Topher's hand. We stood in the lounge doorway. James got up from his chair, clutching a vase of dead yellow flowers in his pale hands.
"James, this is Topher." I took my jacket off and threw it on the floor. "And we're going upstairs to have sex."
And I dragged Topher upstairs.
We got into the bedroom and I pulled my shoes off. Topher hesitated. "What?" I asked him.
"This isn't being filmed, is it? Are you actually underage and somebody's going to leap out of a cupboard with a camera and be like 'Catch a Pedofile!'" He shifted nervously.
"For god's sake." I snatched my jeans off. He stood still, fully dressed. I groaned. "Come on then!"
After what looked like some words of internal encouragement, he took his clothes off.
I folded up her jacket and put it on a chair, then put my knife back in my shoe. I thought about killing her.
Alyssa had thrown me a curveball. I had to bide my time. So I decided to have a look around. My search began in the lounge cupboards, under the photo of the owner of the house.
I could hear Alyssa giggling upstairs and it made me feel sick.
In a big white box there was a camcorder. I took it out and sat on the sofa, opening it up to see what footage and images were on there.
There were loose photos in the box. Pictures of women: bound, tied up and bruised. Each image had a name written on it. 'Petra,' 'Ruth.' Names like that. My heart sank. Each woman in each photo was covered in blood.
I put the photos down and picked up the camera. As soon as I pressed play my ears were filled with screams and I only had to watch two seconds to realise I was watching a murder. Multiple murders.
My shaking hands slammed the camcorder shut.
"Shit..." I whispered shakily to myself. The photo of the owner of the house stared at me from across the room. He... He was a murderer.
Topher was on top of me and we were kissing. He pulled back. "You're cool, Alyssa. You're really fucking cool."
"Thanks." I felt a bit sick, my mind thinking about James downstairs. Were those flowers for me?
Topher kissed me again. I opened my eyes and he started leaving a trail of gross, wet, intrusive kisses down my neck. It was no good. Just no good. Thanks, James.
I pushed him off and sat on the opposite side of the bed. "I'm sorry."
"What?" Topher asked.
"I changed my mind, I'm sorry, I'm not into this." I shrugged.
He hesitated before crawling over to me. "Are you kidding me?"
"Nope." I shook my head.
"That's not fair." Topher looked at me.
I wrinkled my nose. "Erm, yes it is."
He touched my shoulder. "Please, Alyssa, I think you're amazing."
"Well, then respect me changing my mind and fuck off please." I swiped his hand off of me.
Angrily, he got off of the bed and snatched his shirt up from the floor before stamping out of the room. "There is a word for girls like you!"
"I'll bet." I called to him before lying back on the bed and staring at the ceiling.
It feels like sex can go from something you want to do to a punishment really fucking quickly.
Footsteps beat down the stairs and I looked up. That guy was standing there. "She is a fucking prick-tease bitch!"
"Right, yeah. I'll tell her." I said quietly as he left the house.
I went upstairs to find Alyssa. What I found was a closed bedroom door. Carefully, I knocked.
"Alyssa?"
"Go away!" A voice said from inside.
I went and got one of the murdering houseowner's books from downstairs and then sat in the bedroom doorway and read it for hours. It was boring and full of words I didn't quite understand. Tomorrow I would have to show Alyssa the camcorder videos.
I waited until she fell asleep before creeping into the dark room. The knife pressed against my ankle bone in my shoe as I looked at her body. It was still. My heart beat against my chest.
When her eyes were closed, Alyssa looked a lot less angry.
Slowly, I crouched down next to her and fought off a smile. She stirred in her sleep. I lay on the hardwood floor next to her and looked at her hand which hung limply off the bed. Hesitantly, I reached up and touched her soft hand with my fingertips.
I felt warm.
A door creaked downstairs and my heart leapt into my throat. I dived under the bed. Footsteps wandered around the kitchen, the lounge, and then the stairs. I felt like screaming. They went into the hallway, and the bedroom door opened. The light turned on.
Alyssa sat up like a bolt. All I could see was two leather shoes standing in the doorway.
"How did you get in here?" A well spoken voice asked.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
"I'm sorry." I had never heard Alyssa sound so terrified.
"It's okay." The man said. He put a long metal rod down against the wall. He must've been holding it as a weapon in case we were armed men or something. "It's okay, you just gave me a shock that's all. Are you in trouble? You needed somewhere to stay?"
Alyssa was frozen.
"That's alright." He said. "You on your own?"
"Yes." Alyssa said.
My jaw dropped from under the bed. She was protecting me! She didn't need to do that, she-
"Okay." The man closed the door and walked towards the bed. Alyssa shifted. "You made a bit of a mess downstairs, didn't you?"
His voice was sinister and dark as the night outside. I could feel Alyssa trembling through the mattress. The man bounced slightly as he sat on the bed, as if he was testing it.
"You've been eating my porridge as well, Goldilocks." He said, before laughing quietly.
"What?" Alyssa breathed. She moved, as if she were about to bolt out of the room.
"Sh, sh sh." The man said. "Just stay still."
I heard him touch her over the blanket. Her little voice squeaked. "Please don't..."
"Don't what?" He sounded firm. "Hey, you're going to make this difficult."
I heard her start to cry.
"Oh, are you a virgin?" He asked.
"No." She sobbed.
He slapped her in the face roughly and they started to struggle. The bed moved as he got on top of her, and I heard her scream and I... I just snapped.
I didn't really know what had happened until I stood back. There was blood squirting all over the room, all over Alyssa. The knife in my hand was covered in blood. My whole body was shaking. The man got up, holding a splurting wound in the side of his throat. He looked me right in the eye, with a look of pain, betrayal and straight-up confusion. I was as confused as he was. Slowly, limply, he collapsed backwards onto the ground in front of me. I stepped forward to look at him. Everything was silent. Blood started to spread out all over the floor in a creeping slithery puddle. I stood there, opened mouthed, agast.
Shakily, Alyssa came and stood next to me, her white shirt and pale face soaked in fresh, red, liquidy blood. We both stood looking at the dead body on the floor in front of us. I opened my mouth hesitantly.
"Are you a virgin?" I asked her, my voice thick and terrified.
"Yes." She said quickly.
"Me too." I said.
"Yeah, no shit." She snapped. We looked at each other and then back down at the body. I had tears streaming down my cheeks and I could feel my nose running. Next to me, Alyssa felt stiff and surprisingly unafraid.