Pacifier

🌙Van🥀**

I crossed the city as the grey sheet above clouded over. It smelt like it ought to rain but it was too cold for that. Too warm for snow, too cold for rain. The mist rolled in like dry ice as I drove downtown and then out to the villages.

The only places I knew I would be able to get any answers now.

The Jones' house was in a quiet little spot on the edge of the village, first one you came to when you followed the winding lanes out of Manchester. Tucked away from all the rabble of the city.

It was a nice little place, quiet, the kind of place nothing ever happens. A safe place, away from everything.

I'd always been a little jealous of Si and Liam Jones, two lads I only knew because of Lyra.

They went to the same school as us in the same dingy city but at the end of every day they jumped on the bus and this was the place that it had taken then.

We always thought they were dead posh, when Lyra came home talking about her boyfriend Si we'd not been sure whether to believe her at first.
Surprised that the likes of us could catch the attention of a lad from the village. A nice lad, with good prospects. Clean cut of hair on his head and school uniform that hadn't belonged to anyone else before it belonged to him.

But they hadn't really been "posh" their little house in the village was a council house just like ours, and the village was just a cheap prefab spillover town. They might have been able to afford fresh school uniforms but they were just like us. they just couldn't walk to school. 

Now as I knocked on that little blue door I was reminded of all the times me and Bondy and Larry had snook around the back, trying to get a peak of his sister up to no good.

"Sorta thought one of yous would turn up one day soon," said Liam stepping back from the doorway to let me in, "didn't think it'd be you though Van, you look rough..."

"As houses mate," i smirked stepping inside, checking over my shoulder as he closed the door. Wondering who had seen me arrive and who was waiting for me to leave.

"I don't know all the answers you're looking for," he said, leading me into the living room where his mother's chair was empty and I was left anxious, wondering where she was. "She's out Van, relax, says she wonna be bullied by some gangsters, specially not lads from the west end," he chuckled.

"She's probably safe," i said, "i dont think the Reids are really interested in you," i said but Liam shook his head and when he did I was surprised because he didn't look like he was disagreeing with me.

"No," he said smirking, "do you know more than i think you do or are these all educated guesses?" he asked, "you wanna drink whilst you're here lad?" he asked then, hands on his knees as he pushed himself back up out of his chair.

"Ta mate," i said nodding, taking the opportunity to stand myself, wandering around the little sitting room, smiling softly when my eyes settled upon what it was that I'd been looking for.

It was a photo which sat in a little frame above the fireplace, it was one of those nasty 70s electric fires, cut into the wall with the metal grates over them, you could see false orange glow through the bars as the room heated up, and today that false orange glow ebbed and reflected in the glass of this little picture frame.

It was Si and Lyra, a little Polaroid of them out on the lawn, taken in the midst of a heatwave. He had his arms around her waist. His head on her shoulder. His curly hair blown in her face by the wind. And the two of them were beaming.

"I like that one," Liams voice made me jump.

"It's the only one youve got," i said a little flatly, "only one anyones got actually," i said, feeling regret clot in my throat though it hadn't been me who had tried to destroy all evidence of her.