“I’m sorry, girl. I didn’t mean to ask a question about something that… Well, one that…” Why couldn’t I figure out how to word this without dropping something in like infertility. I could only imagine how much something like that would hurt, so saying it outright—that could be offensive, right?
Her bark of laughter shocked the shit out of me.
“Oh my God,” she wheezed, “you should see your face. Look, I don’t mind you asking me anything ever. If I don’t want to answer something, I’ll usually let you know, like the adult I am. I hate it when people just make shit awkward—like that vaguebooking bullshit. Why don’t people just bloody say it if they’re saying it in the first place? Most of the arseholes who vaguebook are ones who talk about how they have the rights to freedom of speech, anyway, but there they are posting their vagueshit online.”
I blinked as she spoke, not knowing what the hell she was talking about. I didn’t really pay any attention to social media because it all seemed like arguments and drama.
“How did we go from kids to awkwardness, to being blunt, to vaguebooking and social media?” I genuinely wanted to know. I had plenty of squirrel moments on a daily basis, but this just screamed squirrel.
“I don’t know, but I feel better for getting my feelings on it all out,” she sighed, smiling as she looked around us. “Right, so it goes without saying that what I’m about to tell you stays right here.”
Shooting her a dirty look, I agreed. “Yes, it goes without saying ever that what you’re saying stays right here. It also goes without saying that when you tell me something, that’s always the case.”
“Likewise. So, Mum died when I was fourteen in a hit and run. It was December, and we were on a pedestrian crossing on our way home from my gran’s house, and someone who wasn’t paying attention ran her over. She only had enough time to push me out the way before he hit her and then just carried on driving. My brother was with us, too, but he’d already crossed the road and was waiting on the other side.”
It might’ve been nine years since it happened, but you could hear the pain in her voice still like she was forcing the words out.
“Fuck,” I croaked, trying not to picture it in my head but unable to stop it.
“A driver stopped and helped us, and she was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Bromley, but they stopped her life support four days later. It took her another two to finally stop breathing.”
The only thing I could do at that moment was to reach out a shaking hand and hold hers tightly with it. I don’t know if it was sympathy, support, or both, but she held mine back with equal tightness as she continued.
“There was a traffic camera just past the crossing because drivers were dodgy bastards on that crossing,” she huffed out a dry laugh with zero humor in it. “The person who did it was eventually found and convicted and is currently still doing a nice stint at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.”
“Her Majesty’s what?”
“Pleasure. It’s a British mocking term for prison because Her Majesty’s Prison Service manages most prisons in England and Wales, so they just change the last word to pleasure.”
That was weird, but I guess it was kind of cool unless it meant that they were luxury places for criminals to serve a sentence.
“It makes them sound like luxury condos.”
“A bit, but I think the prisons are like ones here,” she shrugged. “Anyway, after talking it out with Dad, we moved in with my gran, Phyllis, instead of moving here. I was about to do the first set of school exams to give me the school qualifications I needed to do my final ones when I was eighteen, my sister was a year away from the ones we take at eighteen, and my brother didn’t want to be separated from us. It was a hard decision to make, but our lives were in West Wickham, and with the hit of losing Mum like we did, we needed ‘normality’ to recover.”
“That can’t have been easy from start to finish, babe. I don’t know how you managed to do it.”
Staring down at where she was still holding my hand, she mumbled, “It got worse.”
Worse? How much fucking worse does it get than that?
“What do you mean?”
“Mum’s neighbor was the Deputy Mayor of Bromley—the city the village we’re from is part of—at the time, and he was a total wanker.”
“I hate to interrupt you, Sadie, but can you just quickly explain about the village and city thing? I just want to understand what you’re telling me a bit more.”
Instead of looking irritated by the request and interruption, she looked relieved. “Sure. Some places have villages that are part of a city, but they also come under a county or borough. So, I lived in the village of West Wickham, which was part of a city called Bromley. Bromley’s in a county called Kent, but it’s a London borough, too, because it’s on the outskirts of London. Confused yet?”