Stories from the Back of His Motorcycle

I smiled at Vaughn, both relieved and scared that it was his vehicle pulling up in front of my house. In a quick fluid motion, I closed the front door quietly, ignoring the terrible silence to make my way carefully over to his motorcycle. He was watching me and I couldn’t help but let a tiny blush crawl up my neck.

“Hi,” I murmured as if the short distance from the door to the drive had left me breathless. Maybe it had, or maybe it was the way Vaughn’s eyes travelled across my body.

“Hey.”

“No cigarette this morning?” I asked, smiling at him before pulling the helmet onto my head.

“Lost my packet, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?”

From inside the helmet I grinned stupidly. Of course I had stolen them from him last night and thrown them away. Smoking was a terrible habit – one which I was convinced I would sway him out of. Or force him out of.

“No clue, maybe it’s a sign you should give up.”

“Or maybe it’s a sign that a certain girl thinks I should give up.”

“Are you going to bend to my will?”

“Sweetheart,” Vaughn revved the engine “if I bent to everyone’s will do you really think I’d be as exciting or dangerous? I’d be like every other guy and you wouldn’t have spared me a second glance.”

“I wouldn’t have spared you a second glance?” I flipped up the visor to give him a dubious glance before hoisting my leg over the leather seat. “You make it sound like I’m the enticing one who everyone’s after.”

Vaughn simply flashed me a cheeky grin and then we were off. Soaring again. I didn’t have to think about the motion of wrapping myself to Vaughn, or clinging on for dear life. I’d begun to enjoy the adrenaline bursts and the way everything flashing by was just a blur of colours. It was raw and beautiful, driving in its truest form.

It took me a few minutes to realise that school was in the opposite direction.

“Vaughn!” I yelled over the roaring wind conjured by our speed “where the hell are we going?”

“Funfair,” he shouted back, his leather jacket flapping precociously.

“Why?” my face contorted in confusion and worry had already begun to burrow within. I couldn’t afford to miss another day of school, especially since I felt strong enough to face everyone today.

“It’s leaving tonight and we haven’t been yet.”

My throat was already hoarse from all yesterdays crying so I just mulled over his answer in silence. Did he do things like this when he normally skipped school? Did he catch up on events other people didn’t have time to experience, see pictures quickly fading? I’d used to believe he just stocked up on booze and cigarettes and wasted his life away in a park somewhere. It was bizarre picturing Vaughn having a purpose for skipping, as if it wasn’t all just one impulse for drugs and alcohol and nicotine.

I buried my hands into his jacket from where they were wound around him. I found that warmth I’d craved all night long. I wondered if it had just been the embrace or the boy himself. Either way, I forgot about school to just press myself into his back and relish the feeling.

And then we were stopping, the ground beneath us no longer a well defined road but a path which seemed to have been formed in the earth by frequent use. As if it was never meant to be a road but had somehow drawn a herd of users to the point where the grass no longer grew. It was brown and muddy, the tires of his motorcycle slipping.

I peered around Vaughn’s back to see this fair which I had seen advertised on the various posters around town. They were old now, faded, but still declared that this carnival would be something special. And if the colours were anything to go by, then it most certainly was something special.

I was visually assaulted by it all. The pinks and reds, the flashing determined lights, the sky blues and purples, the glimmer as the sun reflected off of every individual thing. I took the helmet off quickly and breathed steadily in the sweet stench of cotton candy. I hadn’t been to a carnival in years and the few memories I had of them were mainly of being left behind by my brothers who stampeded the rides, forgetting their baby sister who had to tag along with Mom. Dad was always working.

We were in a field encircled by the main roads. It was perfect for the large tent and acted as a beacon on this strange roundabout-of-sorts. It suddenly struck me how school would be starting about that time, how all the other students would be congregating together and nobody would suspect that Vaughn Hart had taken Alice Thornberry out anywhere. Or if they did, they were merely shallow and based entirely off of the stupid rumours which had yet to dissipate, probably ending up with us both naked in our deserted houses.

I ran a hand through my hair to try and get all the stray pieces unstuck from my forehead, knocking Vaughn in the head with my shoulder by accident. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. The way he whirled around to smirk/glare was just too hilarious, not to mention the “ooft,” he had uttered.

“I was hoping bringing you here would cheer you up,” he smiled “but it seems you only had to hit me to achieve that.”

I stopped laughing abruptly to stare at him in alarm. “You took me here to cheer me up?”

“Is there an echo?” he smirked, his black hair swirling around with an incoming breeze. I saw how his body had shifted around to face me, our legs brushing against each other and our faces alarmingly close.

“Sorry,” I stole backwards quickly so I was perched on the very edge of the leather seat. Being close to Vaughn shouldn’t have made me quite so flustered or light-headed. But then nothing about Vaughn was quite right, or rather nothing about me around Vaughn was.

His eyes watched me back away but his expression remained nonchalant. “Come on then,” he moved gracefully “let’s go see this funfair.”

I was surprised by how many other cars there were surrounding us. Maybe cutting school to see this carnival was more common than I had thought. There were faint screams and the distinct sound of chatter which floated from the fair, blurs of movement and balloons which had somehow escaped their bounds to float away into the sky.

I smiled into the sunshine, eyes closed, and felt stupidly happy. It didn’t matter that my house was silent, that Dad wasn’t coming back, that my brothers who were more like strangers were returning in a few days. What mattered was Vaughn’s body close to mine, the rainbow show before me and how the sunshine made me toes curl in delight. I liked being this happy.

“You just going to stand there all day sweetheart?”

“Maybe,” I smiled.

I felt a warm hand close around my wrist and tug me gently forward. “Well I’m not, as much as you look cute with your eyes closed like that, I’d rather watch you scream when we get to the haunted house.”

I opened my eyes to stare at him, our bodies walking steadily along side-by-side. We weren’t that much different in height but it was enough for me to have to bend my head slightly upwards to take in his face. “Haunted houses don’t scare me,” I scoffed.

“What does then? The ride which drops down suddenly?”

“Nope.”

“The one which spins around, where you get trapped by gravity to the walls and can barely move?”

I had a flash of Joseph’s face after he’d gotten off that particular ride; green and contorted. I remembered laughing so hard I’d spilt my drink, and then the sick spewed all over my trainers when he’d doubled over.

“No.”

“God, I don’t know. The merry-go-round?” He laughed as he said it but I didn’t join in. That was the ride I’d never go on, the one tainted with bad memories. The one where I had to sit for hours while my family began tearing itself apart.

That night Nick had disappeared; Mom was hysterical, the other boys were off searching, and I sat on the merry-go-round. I sat until everyone else had left. With the stupid music and golden horses, wondering what would happen next and if the ride would ever end. It did but that wouldn’t be Nick’s last attempt at running away. When he finally succeeded he was 18 and had realised better ways of escaping than in the middle of a carnival.

I forged a smile and shrugged. I was just being stupid again.

Vaughn’s arm brushed against my own and a burst of colour bloomed across my cheeks. I was vulnerable to him in ways I hadn’t thought possible. I was Alice Thornberry, the broken ice-queen, not some bumbling, blushing little girl. But then Vaughn wasn’t a normal guy. And this wasn’t a normal situation.

A dwarf greeted us at the entrance to the funfair, looking grumpy and hot. There were streaky marks in his white face paint where sweat had begun to build. Normally, I would have ignored him but that day I was feeling bolder, my senses heightened. I beamed at him as we passed.

“That dwarf’s totally checking you out now,” Vaughn chuckled, throwing glances back at the man.

I laughed “what can I say? I’m irresistible.”

There was a slight pressure and warmth hovering just over the small of my back. I reached behind and grabbed Vaughn’s hand, squinting at it hard as if not quite believing what it really was. “Sorry,” he smirked “thought I’d show our friend back there that you’re not interested.”

I dropped his hand gently and flipped the hair away from my neck. It always grew quickly and had already claimed three inches in just a few months. I just knew it was frizzing up with the slight humidity and cast an ugly colour in the sunlight, but the praise in Vaughn’s eyes made me smile anyway. “Maybe I was interested in him. I like shorter men.”

“Damn,” he cursed, never dropping his smirk “and here I was thinking you liked bad-boys.”

“Nah,” my hands floated down my nautical dress which had looked better on the hanger “that’s overrated.”

There was a silence then but it was comfortable. The screams from a ride directly to our left broke any awkwardness which could have descended. We stared at the small rollercoaster as the carriage sped by in a blur of noise and colours. Vaughn was smiling when his hand brushed against mine and I turned deliberately away to hide whatever idiotic blush had decided to curse my cheeks.

“Let’s go in there,” my eyes rested on the ‘fortune telling’ stall.

I was a cynic at heart who scoffed at the daily horoscopes and television programs claiming to be in touch with the dead, but I read and watched anyway. I searched for the good news and told myself that those events would happen. That Grandma Amy was looking over me and making sure nothing bad occurred. It didn’t matter when I failed that Math test or when my parents started yet another row because I had never really believed in the predictions. They were my everything’s-going-to-be-okay lie. Other people had their loved ones mutter it to them before they drifted off to sleep and I had it when I flicked to the right channel or flipped over the newspaper.

“I wonder if the she’s going to be called ‘Mystic Meg’?” I smirked but then caught sight of Vaughn’s face. It was deathly pale, even in the glare of the sun I could tell, and was as stony as if I’d just told him I’d sold his motorcycle.

“Not right now Alice.”

“Oh come on… it’s just going to be some stupid woman in too many bangles who chants a bit before making up a load of crap. It’ll be funny.”

“No Alice.”

I frowned at him, wondering why he was suddenly acting like a stubborn child. “What are you afraid of?”

His eyes were so grey when he looked at me that it was hard to imagine their usual colour of black at all. Like two rain clouds had pulled up before his irises, blocking his true feelings from view. “Nothing.”

“Well then,” I tugged his arm slightly and placed a grin on my lips.

“Alice,” he growled. I let go sharply and took a step backwards. Vaughn had never spoken like that to me before. Sure, I’d heard him growl at other people. At girls who nagged too much. At boys who didn’t know when to shut up. At Richard Dole right before he’d punched him. But not me.

He must have seen this in my eyes because the next moment he was airy again. “Let’s go on that instead,” he motioned to the large Ferris-wheel overhead. I distracted myself with the white fairy lights draped over every arm of it and how you could probably see for miles at the very top.

“Sure,” I smiled but didn’t shorten the gap between us as we set off. Something was bothering Vaughn and he would never tell me what.

I bit my lip and chanced a side-ways glance at his profile. The sunlight bathed him in its glow, reflecting off of his already sun-kissed skin so it almost gleamed. His fists were slightly clenched from where they rested either side of his black skinny jeans but, again, I chose to ignore it. Vaughn was like a timid deer just as much as he was a wild bear, defensive and shy and unwilling to share anything. But if I just stretched my hand out slowly then maybe he’d start to trust me, to believe I wasn’t going to disappear anytime soon.



I had been right, you could see for miles at the top of the Ferris-wheel. The earth before us was covered in a multicoloured array of rooftops in one direction and a patchwork of fields in the other. The sky was still ridiculously blue and the odd clouds seemed almost touchable as our carriage made it to the peak.

“Are you really okay Alice?” he asked after our silence. I tore my eyes away from the view to take in how serious Vaughn was. We were sat close enough for his hot breath to occasionally tickle my neck and for my long awkward arms to occasionally knock into him.

“I am now,” I sighed in contentment. “I’m glad we came here instead of school, it’s really beautiful and we’d never have seen it otherwise.”

“Did you speak to your brothers?”

I opened one eye which had drifted close under the sun’s harsh glare to stare at him. It was still so unfamiliar to discuss anything that personal, as if the words were sticky on my tongue and difficult to form. There were too many unpleasant memories shut away in my mind that were better left forgotten. Vaughn was trying though which had me both melting and wary in case he got too close. In case he found those ugly truths which would shatter my nonchalant façade.

“Briefly. Ross and Nick are coming to visit.”

“Visitors in their own home?”

I shrugged, remembering how his room had felt exactly like that. “They won’t stay long; they fought too hard to escape.”

Vaughn nodded slowly and turned to survey the landscape again as our carriage jolted from the peak position. “I guess I missed the perfect opportunity, huh?”

“The perfect opportunity?” I cocked my head to a side “for what?”

“To kiss you. The perfect moment would have been while we were still at the very top of this Ferris-wheel.” I turned completely towards him then, too stunned to say anything. “But I suppose this makes it less corny.”

And he kissed me. Quick and soft and perfect. I barely had a chance to catch my breath before he had pulled away. He knew a moment longer and my wall would have been back up and he would have been shoved away. But still, my eyes locked with his and I couldn’t help but smile back.

“Don’t get any ideas,” I slapped away his hand which had been advancing forward “I’m still not into bad-boys.”

“And I’m not into ice queens,” he smirked darkly “but there’s always the one exception.”