The Voice Within

“I’ve already checked out your schedule, and with my amazing sweet talking and puppy eye skills I managed to make sure you have all your classes with me! Well except for math, which you’ll be in with Chase anyway so that’s all cool. We just have to make sure that you don’t interact with, well… just about everyone else. You’d be surprised the complete nut heads you get at this school, anyone would think it’s a loony bin and that’s just the…” Kat stopped mid sentence when her mobile rang, making Ronnie bump awkwardly into Chase who was walking just ahead of them. Ronnie mumbled a sorry before leaning against the nearby brick wall and sighing heavily. Kat talked almost as fast as she walked, all the way too school it had been a nonstop endless chatter about god knows what. Ronnie rolled her eyes only to look up and catch Chase staring at her. He was laughing at her, nodding at Kat to show his understanding of how she could sometimes be a bit much. Ronnie smiled uneasily back, unable to look at him without her mind flashing back to the embarrassing scene in the kitchen.

“I’m so sorry babes, I think I’m going to have to cut,” Kat said apologetically to Ronnie as she held the phone away from her ear for her second. She gave her a quick perfumed full hug before turning away, and walking a couple metres down the pavement to finish her conversation in private. Ronnie frowned after her, confused at the sudden turn around.

“Don’t worry about Kat. She always does that,” Chase said as he lit a cigarette.

“Why? Where’s she going?”

“No idea,” Chase shrugged before inhaling. Ronnie watched in fascination.

Her mother had smoked. She had tried to hide it from Ronnie and from her dad, but it was pretty obvious most of the time. Remembering made Ronnie smile and before she even thought about it she was holding out her hand, “May I?” Chase obediently handed her the cig watching her skeptically. “You know for a close group of friends, you don’t really know a lot about each other do you?”

“Depends how you look at it. We’ve all had it pretty tough and sometimes there are just things that people are better off not knowing.” He looked her dead in the eyes when he said that. Ronnie was once again blown away by the intense blue of his eyes. You could drown yourself in eyes like that, worse, you could lose yourself too. Losing focus, she quickly found herself choking on the smoke. She doubled over as her eyes swam with water.

“Ronnie!” Chase gasped, “That wasn’t your first time was it?”

“Course not,” Ronnie winced as soon as she found her voice again. “Honest!” she repeated when she saw the look on Chase’s face.

He snatched the cig away from her and snuffed it out with his toe, “Didn’t your mother ever teach you smoking was a bad habit?”

He was joking now. “I’ll have you know my mother was a very respectable woman. She always taught me to never smoke more than two packs a day. Now can I have another one please?” Ronnie smiled, giving her best puppy eyes.

Chase laughed but reluctantly gave her another one. Taking a step forwards he stood so that he was right in front or Ronnie and had her cornered against the wall. He took a cigarette out of his packet placed it in her mouth and then lit it. Ronnie was instantly red alert, all too aware of how close his face was, and how his hand was slowly creeping up her side…

“You know you have this really dangerous quality of making people do whatever you want.”

“Do I?” Ronnie could barely find her voice.

“I would be really careful if I was you…” He was slowly inching closer, his lips only millimeters away from hers. Ronnie could feel her back arching. The scary thing was that she wanted him to kiss her; she wanted to be touched and loved. If only just once… “I could eat you all up,” he murmured against her skin as he brushed his lips against her collar bone. Ronnie closed her eyes, his words making her mind flash back to a time which seemed now so long ago… A memory hidden, and buried so deep… so that she could barely remember if it had been a memory or a dream? When someone had said that to her before… Her eyes flashed open as she roughly pushed Chase back, the past hitting her like a sledge hammer.

They were both breathing heavily. Ronnie couldn’t even look at him, all at once she was so ashamed, so embarrassed of how weak she was. Sighing heavily, she took a deep breath and raised her head. Chase was frowning at her, Ronnie felt like she could see the bubble of confusion hanging over his head. He was puzzling over her - trying to figure her out. Absently her gaze shifted so that she was staring just past him. Liz was back! - standing on the other side of the road, smiling and waving at her. Ronnie smiled too and took a step forwards to join her, when she was blocked by Chase.

“Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?” she shrugged looking down again.

“You know what. You just looked right through me, no past me. As if there’s someone else there.”

Now Ronnie was really at lost what to say.

*

“Look Luke, there’s a man there staring at you,” Harry pointed towards the gates of the primary school.

Luke frowned and wondered if this was another one of Harry’s twisted jokes. Already on the first day of this school he’d been made fun of and laughed at because of his star wars magazines and the fact that he was such a good reader and already knew his five times table. This wasn’t at all like his old school, and more than ever Luke was now missing his home and big sister. When he’d told his teacher she had just told him the other boys were jealous and would get used to him. But when was that going to happen exactly?

Dropping the piece of chalk he’d been drawing with, Luke took one look at the teacher on duty, who was sipping a coffee and flipping through a magazine, before he skipped over the fence to take a look. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw who it was!

“Daddy!” he yelled out. He was about to run into his arms when he caught sight of his appearance. His dad looked all scruffy and was really smelly. His face was all white and he had bags under his eyes. Luke didn’t like it when daddy was like this at all. He hung his head as he spoke, nervously pulling at his new itchy uniform “Miss Rosa says that I’m not too speak to you anymore, because you’ve done some bad things. Ronnie’s really upset with you too.”

It broke Tom’s heart to see his son in so much pain. “And what do you think son? You know I wouldn’t hurt you.” After no reply, Tom hunched onto his knees and pushed his arm from the bars, “Look what I’ve bought for you Luke! Your star wars figure! You left it at home when you left… They took you away son and now it’s time to come home. Ronnie’s coming too. We’ve set the house up real nice to celebrate your birthday! You didn’t think I’d forget did you? You’re going to be nine tomorrow! You don’t want to spend it here with these strange people do you?”

Luke hesitated. Well if Ronnie was going to be there it had to be alright didn’t it? Slowly he nodded.

“Good! Good boy! Now come over here and let’s see if your still thin enough to fit through these bars. It’s like an adventure. We’ve got to be real quiet and quick so that no one can see us…”

Luke nodded happily, his head and arm already through. He hoped Ronnie had made the special muffins she used to make every year on his birthday. He especially loved the chocolate chips ones…