My Kind of Woman

14. Tastes Like Wine

--Hope everyone is keeping safe! Thank you for the support and kind comments! I try to stick to uploading within a 3-5 day range, but I usually just upload when I finish writing a chapter. I realised though while stuck at home that can seem like a million years, so I'll try to be more frequent! --

"I'm sick."

"You're what?" I whined into my phone, sitting up on the toilet seat during fifth period. I kept my feet up off the bathroom floor as to hide myself, despite me yelling into the phone. Jackie hadn't been in all day nor answering her phone, so when she called, I dashed to the bathroom to answer.

"Sick, Fish. I've had a fever since last night and I'm exhausted." Jackie rasped. "I think I might die."

"Don't say that, I thought you did, you know?" I grumbled, hugging my knees to me with one arm.

"Good to know someone really cares, I told my dad and he said 'oh well' and went off on his golfing trip thing. I don't know. My mom's here and she's been overfeeding me and worrying." Jackie said.

"Well, you've got her and me." I smiled to myself. Her and me, me and Mio. How childish.

"If only you were here." She mumbled.

"Shall I come?"

"Really? Would you?"

"Of course, I've missed you all day."

She paused. "Right now?"

"Right now." I grinned.

"Don't you still have lessons left?"

"Yeah, so. I'll go." I slid my feet off the toilet and stood, smoothing down my skirt.

"What if I get you ill?"

"I get ill, it's not the end of the world." I slipped out of the stall and then out the bathroom door and into the hallway. It was barren with everyone being in their classes.

"Which way you gonna go?" Jackie asked.

I crept past the faculty office, whispering into my phone, "the back way."

There was a spot, further round the back of the school building, where the fence split at the base, obscured by a growth of tall weeds. When Jackie and I first became friends, I showed the opening to her and we used to sneak out during lunch and buy non-cafeteria food. We hadn't used it since the weather got worse and it was more suspicious to be lingering around outside the building. I pushed out the back doors quietly and hurried to the spot.

"They probably sealed it up now," said Jackie, "you'll have to jump over or go to class."

"Well, I'm not going to class." I tossed my bag over the fence and fished through the weeds. And lo and behold, the slit was still there. "Bingo, it's still here."

Jackie gave me a little cheer of encouragement as I crouched down and pulled it back so that it opened. Then I passed through. The opening took me along the fence line and out into the school parking lot. Where my tights stretched over the bump of my knee, two patches of dirt had stained the material, making it appear that I'd just been kneeling in the mud all day.

"My tights are ruined." I grumbled into the phone, trying to brush it off before it stuck. I pulled my bag onto my shoulder and began to walk around to the parking lot.

"I'll let you borrow some clothes when you get here, so hurry."

It was getting colder and colder. No signs of snow yet, but I didn't dismiss the idea. The sky was never-endingly grey, the colour stretched over the trees and the lake and right out of Twin. By the end of the school day, it appeared like night, and at the time I snuck off on my bike, that grey sky was already deepening in hue. The wind whipped up under my shirt and snaked inside my coat, it threw my hair away from my face and neck. I pedalled harder and harder.