This Still Happens

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Revelation I: Etta

Angie comes to our form room after the final bell. She arrives so soon—such a tiny matter of seconds—that I think she must have run from her own—Year Nine—classroom to ours, and waited outside the door, to catch hold of my sleeve as Char and I come out at the end of the school day.

"Need to talk to you," she signs, "It's important. Will you be free to chat at home?"

I glance at Char, remembering she mentioned something about popping up to Kirk Yetholm for a spot of tea with both of us—Angie, too—and I try to make my eyes ask if she's mind postponing.

Angie and Char get on well, but... Angie's eyes are open too wide for me to kid myself that everything's fine.

But Char seems to read my mind, and, with a nod, she signs, "We can go for a spot of tea some other time."

And if I weren't so surprised at her sudden clairvoyance, I might be more startled by her stepping aside—and giving up an evening of tea—for me and Angie to have a conversation, however important.

It's strange, though, that she's so sure a conversation between me and Angie is gonna take that long. It's not that we can't chat for hours on any given topic, but... we don't tend to spend all those hours talking about private things, let alone a whole evening.

"Thanks," Angie signs, smiling at charm

"Am I still OK to walk home with you two?" Char asks.

"Of course, of course," Angie replies, interrupting her with a light touch on the arm. "It's not the sort of thing you, like, need to know. And it's not the sort of thing I'll be able to explain if so want to concentrate on where I'm walking. Roots and so forth."

Char and Angie and I all laugh. It's not going to be forgotten easily, that day Angie was trying to explain a long, overly complicated book to the two of us, only to get to the most exciting bit of the climax, and crash into a lamppost.

Bad sister though it makes me, I laughed then as well, once I'd checked Angie over for concussion.

Needless to say, even though I'm going to say it, because I'm basically just Gordon with better hair and fashion sense, we don't have deep meaningful conversations which were walking anymore.

So it waits until we get home.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

Angie sits down on the top bunk—hers, of the two we've always shared—and pats the space by the ladder, indicating that I should come up and sit with her.

Her brown eyes—always larger than mine—seem even larger than usual, and, as I take my place in front of her, I realise she's lined them in sable coloured kohl, and layered on several coats of brunette mascara, which strikes me as odd.

Angie hardly ever goes for a full face of makeup, especially not for school.

Maybe she was even wearing lipgloss or lipstick earlier. I'm not sure. Her lips are tagged and chapped, with a little patch bright red showing where she's obviously been chewing the skin. Biting the skin. There's an anguish to the red that demands to be described as bitten or gnawed or savaged, not chewed or nibbled or picked-at.

Her hands tremble, as she lifts them to sign, "I've got something to tell you. And you're not to tell anyone I told you, but—"

My stomach crashes into the mattress beneath me, and I'm struck with the horror than Angie doesn't realise how much danger my friends—and I, and, oh, God, maybe even she as well—are in. "If it's Lena's girlfriend, I don't want to know. The fewer people know who she is, the better."