Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Fliss

I'd been sleeping but Matty had tripped outside my bedroom and hit the door, swearing at the top of the stairs. After that I'd just been lying there, starring at the ceiling, vacant but not vacant enough to shake the sad and strangeness lingering in my bones.

Every time we'd tried to get happy we'd failed, at least thats how I felt and now with the echoes of Rhys and his cruel words leaking through the floorboards from downstairs I was beginning to wonder if the mean cycle we seemed swept up in, wasn't just something we did to ourselves.

Thats why I decided to call the police.

I was dialling the 9's before I'd even really thought about it, all I could think of was the sudden surge within me. This sudden need to just do something.

"Hello?" I was shaking, anticipation I suppose, not even listening to myself as I asked for the police, as I tried to voice my fears and get it all out. As I tried to construe the urgency I felt.

I didn't know that Kitty had been overwhelmed with the same sense of urgency, I didn't know that as I spoke Rhys was taking it out on her too.
I didn't know that when I crept from my bed to hesitate at the top of the stairs Saffron was nursing another black eye, another cut on her cheek. I knew she was holding back tears, only because I was too.

I didn't realise what I'd done until I heard the sirens, until the momentary silence and a sudden exclamation.

"Saff put tour shoes on!"

I didn't realise I'd been right until I watched him drag her through the living room and out into the back garden, through the gap between the bars of the stairs where I crouched down out of sight, hiding like a child.

Katie answered the door and when I saw her sitting at the bottom of the stairs watching on with her fingertips in her teeth I slipped down the staircase and sat beside her, resting my head on her shoulders.

"Was it you?" She asked, her voice barely breaking a whisper.

"Uhuh," I breathed back, "I didn't know you went down..."

"I can't believe I did," she said with a small smile, almost amazed.

"I feel that," I mumbled watching an officer approach Saffy, watching another hover behind waiting on Rhys and his next move.

I tried but I couldn't hear what they were saying, couldn't really see the look on Saffs face, couldn't really tell what Rhys was thinking until he started the crack and crumble and break down again. Screaming in the back garden at the grass.

"You bitch you bitch!" He cried out, his vocal chords fraying, I pictured tears, streaking his cheeks. "You bitch!"

And suddenly neither of us were sitting down, suddenly we were up like a shot, about to dart and fight him off our best friend by ourselves, but something stopped us by the patio door. An I visible wall, common sense.
Suddenly we were watching him kicking as he was dragged away, struggling against the grip of two policemen.

Suddenly we were holding onto our best friend, arms around her, smothering her in soothing notions and apologies. That was all I could do when I felt her shaking against me, apologise.
She was so upset. So pale. So shell shocked.

She still had red marks around her neck.

"Saffy sit down," said Kitty as she stroked her back, "cmon we'll have a drink, we'll be alright,"

"Yeah," I nodded along though I was struggling a little myself, "itll all be alright," I sighed.

The police had left, they'd spoken to her on her own, and she'd stepped back inside with a face like a ghost. Her expression didn't seem like it was her own. None of us knew what to say.