“What do you see in him, Soph?” He prodded.
“What do you mean?” She asked frowning, sitting up abruptly.
“Well, come on, think about it, he’s not exactly the slimmest or nicest looking person of them all, is he? And his personality… well… enough said!” Simon giggled.
“That’s a horrible thing to say!” She shouted angrily, “He’s been in and out of foster homes since he was six years old when his parents died in a car crash, and he can’t help what he looks like, anyway its what’s on the inside that counts, but you wouldn’t know that would you, being that shallow sort of person you are.” Her face was slowly becoming more swollen and crimson with every word she spoke.
“So that’s it then? You feel sorry for him don’t you? I’m not the shallow one!” Simon said. Maybe, that’s why he’s so messed up Simon thought to himself.
“No, that’s not it at all. How could you ever think that?” Screamed Sophie, and she burst into tears. “I can’t believe you’d ever even think I’d ever be so stupid, never mind say it.” Simon thought she was about to burst a blood vessel, he gestured for her to calm down. “NO I WILL NOT CALM DOWN!” Sophie screeched, “I love him, and that’s all there is to it!” She ran out of the room before Simon could say another word, slamming the door so hard that their mothers favourite Chinese ornament fell of the mantelpiece on the opposite wall and shattered, a sea of blue against the emerald green of the carpet.
“Great.” Simon whispered to himself.
Ten minutes later, Simon was crouched over the smashed porcelain trying to sweep as much of it up as he could with a dustpan and brush, before he thought to go and get the hoover. He put the brush away and went to the cupboard underneath the stairs to fetch it, just as his mother walked through the door. This was the last thing he needed at the moment.
“What are you doing Simon?” Came his mum’s soft Brazilian accent. She walked into the living room before Simon could stop her. She saw the specs of blue and white glistening on the carpet and the empty space on the mantelpiece. “Oh no, Simon, what happened?”
“I’m really sorry mum, I knocked it before and it fell of,” he lied, “I’m really sorry,” he repeated.
How did you manage to do that?” Asked his mum, disappointed, but he was saved from answering by the blaring blast if music that came from Sophie’s’ bedroom upstairs. “Have you two been arguing again?” she queried. It was easy to tell when they had been, because always, without fail, Sophie would go upstairs and play her music really loud, which was a cue for Simon to go and clear up their disagreement. “You go up and sort it out, I’ll clean this up. I don’t know how you managed it.” She muttered to herself as he ran up the stairs two-at-a-time.
Simon hated to argue with Sophie, and she hated arguing with him, so they nearly always made up straight away. He knocked on the door loudly so that she would be able to hear him over the music. She turned it down.
“Who…who is it?” She struggled to say, through sobbing.
“It’s me,” Simon murmured softly.
“Go away! I don’t want to talk to you,” she called, throwing herself back onto the bed and embedding her face in the pillow, stifling her cries. Simon opened the door anyway and stepped into the dimly lit room, which had a pink glow, given off by the lampshade.
Sophie was the cleanest person Simon had ever met. Nothing was ever out of place in her room and she rearranged her room and gave it a total clean out at least once a week. This time, the bed was to your right as you walked in, Simon walked over and sat on the end of it.
“I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly, picking up her teddy and fiddling with its ears. “I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
“Too right you shouldn’t,” Sophie said, sitting up and wiping her red, puffy eyes with the sleeve of her pyjamas, which were too long for her. “But I know you’re only trying to protect me, but I can choose who I want to be with.”
“I know, I know but you’re my twin sis aren’t you? And I know you’re too good for him. There’s something I don’t like about him.”
“But that’s why isn’t it? Because I’m your sister, male relatives never think boyfriends are good enough for you.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Simon said, “but you’ve got to admit he’s not the best of the bunch, is he?” he asked, “Sorry,” he added quickly.
“Well, maybe not but it’s only his past and everyone’s got one of them haven’t they.”
“True… but… never mind…anyway, I’m poppin’ down the shop, you want anything?” He asked, grinning.
“Err… I’ll have a galaxy caramel and a packet of…”
“Pickled Onion Monster Munch?” Simon interrupted, standing up.
“Yeah, how’d you guess?” She asked sarcastically. Simon laughed, opening his mouth wide enough so that it could have been easily mistaken for a black hole about to swallow its surroundings.
Simon was about five hundred metres from the shop, in his red and blue tracksuit and his Liverpool football shirt when he tripped and fell over. As he stood up, he noticed that he had marked the new trainers that his grandma had bought him two weeks before.
“Mum’s going to kill me,” he said aloud. He leant forward, licked his thumb and attempted to rub the mark off, when he heard a voice that was a bit too familiar for Simons liking. He looked to his right, to see Gary with his back to him, talking on his mobile phone. Simon darted behind the corner of the wall. He hated bumping into Gary, he knew that Simon hated him but he still acted all ‘pally’ with him just to annoy him even more.
As he stood behind the wall he heard Gary arrange to meet someone the next day at the local garage. It had been deserted over a year ago but was still used as a frequent meeting place for the local disruptive ‘heavies’. It was the place they sat in the dingy and damp darkness, getting drugged up to the eyeballs and getting so drunk that they didn’t know their way home until the next morning. It was the place where they plotted their next evil scheme and decided whether a certain person would be allowed to live to see another day.
Simon felt the anger bubbling up inside him, he felt his face becoming a furnace, he was just about to walk away when he heard, “Yeah, I’ll bring the pistol, it might come in handy,” followed by a deep, long, loud cackle. Simon couldn’t help himself; he darted around the corner, marched up to Gary and attempted to square up to him.
“You stay away from my sister, do you hear me?” Simon screamed, through clenched teeth, “If you don’t, I’ll… I’ll…”
“You’ll what?”
“Well you’ll just have to wait and see won’t you. I’ll get you back, don’t you worry,” Simon threatened, trying to sound scary, even though Gary was towering over him by at least a foot.
He turned on his heel, walked into the shop, picked up a bag of Monster Munch and a Galaxy Caramel, threw some money at the lady at the till and then jogged all the way home.
Still fuming, Simon opened the front door, hung his coat up and peered into the living room.
“I’m going to bed mum. Sorry about the ornament,” he said, forcing his voice to sound as normal as possible.
“Oh, it’s alright hun, goodnight.”
Simon climbed the stairs and knocked gently on Sophie’s door. He was going to have to tell her that Gary was still going to that awful place. She thought he’d stopped. He’d promised her he had. He’d have to make her see the truth about Gary, no matter how much she loved him. There was no answer so after the second knock Simon pushed the door open slightly. Sophie was lying, asleep; on her front facing the wall, her long hair was covering her hair.
Simon put the chocolate and crisps on her bedside table, moved the hair away from her face and adjusted her duvet. As he did, something slid off the bed and onto the floor, Sophie rolled onto her back but she did not wake. Simon bent down and picked up a small book covered in pink fluff, it was her diary. He knew he shouldn’t do it, but he just had to know what she was thinking. He turned to the entry she had written that day.
It said:
“Dear diary,
Today has been one of the worst days of my life. I fell out with Simon again, and again it was over Gary, and again he was right.
I feel so bad for arguing with him all the time when every argument we have, (about Gary anyway) he is right. Everything he says about Gary is true and he doesn’t even know the half of it.
Today Gary told me that he loved me and at first I was really happy because it was when we were on our own, so he wasn’t just trying to make himself look like a good boyfriend. I thought he really meant it, but after my argument with Simon, I realised it was another of his usual lies to wrap me around his little finger.
I hate Gary! It’s his entire fault that Simon and me fight. We hardly fight about anything else. Not only that, but I’m terrified of him, I know what he’s capable of, and I know that when he tells me that he’ll kill me if I don’t pretend that I love him, he’s telling the truth. He threatens me all the time. That’s the only reason I’m with him!
He knows I’m scared of him but he tells me that I have to act like I am obsessed with him around people, and I have to kiss him and stuff just to make him look good. But every time I kiss him I almost through up because he makes me feel physically sick!
Worst of all, I hate lying to Simon, he’s my brother and my best friend and I love him more than anyone, but I guess I’ve no other choice. I’ll have to stick with Gary. I’m stuck with him, well, at least until he gets sick of me, and I can’t wait for that day. I hope it’s soon.
SOPHIE”
Simon could feel more and more tears building up in his eyes and anger brewing in his stomach with every word he read. He sat down in the old, wooden rocking chair in the corner of the room to think…
“Simon, Simon,” he heard someone say in a soft whisper. He opened his eyes and the harsh sunlight flowing into the room from the window opposite almost blinded him. When his vision had returned to normal, he saw Sophie standing in front of him wearing her soft, pink dressing gown.
“Oh, hey,” Simon yawned, “Morning.” Looking around, he finally realised where he was as he saw the diary lying flat, but open on the floor next to him.
“What are you doing here?” Sophie smiled, bemused. Simon risked a hurried glance at the diary, hoping she wouldn’t notice, not knowing what to say. Sophie looked terrified.
“You… You… You didn’t, did you?” She said, her eyes filling up. He couldn’t look at her; he kept his eyes fixed to the floor. He was expecting the thunder of Sophie’s voice telling him how wrong he had been, but instead Sophie leapt onto Simons knee, sobbing with relief that someone finally knew her terrible secret. They stayed there rocking backwards and forwards for just over an hour, silent except for the occasional “Thank you God, Thank you,” from Sophie, her voice muffled by Simons chest, which she had buried her head in.
“Come on,” Simon said eventually, making Sophie jump, “We’re going to do something about it!”
“What do you mean?” She asked, sounding small and vulnerable.
“We’re going to the police station, and we’re going to tell them exactly what’s been going on for the last six months.”
An hour later, Sophie was sitting in the police station, accompanied by Simon, who were both telling the police everything from about the way Gary had treated Sophie, to conversations he had had about drugs and guns. The police found that he had a previous criminal record, which involved, amongst other things, burglary, theft, joy-riding, vandalism, disturbing the piece and had even been accused of murder, but was not found guilty, as there wasn’t enough evidence.
Sophie spent the next month hiding in her room, only coming out to go to the bathroom, too afraid to even go downstairs for something to eat. Simon had to bring food upstairs and eat with her. Gary had been around many times, banging on the door, smashing windows, in an attempt to see Sophie but he had not succeeded.
Eventually, they got a call from the police, saying that they had caught up with Gary and that he had been given an anti-social behaviour order. He had been tagged and could not step outside his house between 7pm and 7am; he could not drink alcohol or use drugs and could not hang around in gangs of more than three people. The tag prevented him from breaking his curfew, as in Simon’s opinion; even Gary wasn’t stupid enough to break the law right under the police’s noses.
He was told that he could not come anywhere near Sophie’s house or Sophie herself and so she finally came out from her room and started to slowly get her life back together.
Everything that happened had brought Simon and Sophie even closer together than they already were, and afterwards, they told each other everything, just in case.
“So I suppose we’ve got one thing to thank Gary for, eh Soph?”
“Yeah,” she sighed, “I suppose we have.”