Stories from the Back of His Motorcycle

Josh was the last person I ever thought I’d see striding determinedly forward towards me through the coffee shop doors. The way he seemed so focused, as if I held the answer to some unimaginably important question, had my knees flexing as if ready to balk. I’d seen that desperate look before and didn’t have the heart to send him away.

It had been a few days since Vaughn kissed me amid the funfair and I had been avoiding him since. It was much too real for me, and much too raw. The feelings I’d been suppressing all week were enough to prove that it was better to get out now rather than later when it would be too difficult. When I would be just another girl clinging to the fantasy of Vaughn Hart.

I peered around the coffee shop, frantically searching for an escape route. Delia wasn’t around – she would have been the answer anyway – leaving me without a friend to protect myself with. Vivi was busy working on the flurry of orders scrawled on my notepad so she was no help. Even Vaughn Hart, who was due in any minute for the lunchtime rush when the machine-of-death would undoubtedly break, was pointedly absent. I already had his order on the tip of my pencil (hot chocolate with extra cream and chocolate sprinkles). No matter how much I didn’t want to see him, he was right there, lingering in the back of my mind.

The long line of other customers gave me time to rifle through my excuses. I don’t know where Delia is. No, she isn’t seeing anyone else. I’ll be sure to relay that message. I’m sure she still feels that way too. Maybe you should call her, oh no not on that number, she got a new one. Here let me write it down for you.

Not only would Delia kill me, I’d also feel like a terrible person for giving Josh, the poor soul, hope when there so clearly wasn’t anything left to hope for. I briefly wondered what Josh’s reasons behind dumping her in the first place were. As I jotted down a frantic-looking woman’s order, ignoring the wailing her two kids were producing, I tried to picture the girl Josh had thought he loved. She was probably blonde like Delia, taller, maybe she smiled more. Despite her looks, Josh was obviously back to get details on the whereabouts of his ex-girlfriend.

“Alice, hey,” he had finally made it to the front. I took a few seconds to examine him. His hair was a bit longer, falling into his eyes whereas before it had never quite made it that far, his eyes sharper as if he’d just woken up from a very long sleep. For an ex-boyfriend he looked good. He looked like he didn’t need Delia back at all.

“Hi Josh,” I smiled briefly. It was always awkward coming into contact with one of Delia’s past lovers. Over a few weeks we’d have been thrust together; in the back of the car for journeys, in Delia’s bedroom when I’d arrived too early, beside each other on the couch when she was deciding what she wanted to do. Afterwards it was hard to tell where we stood. Were we still friends who struck up conversation? Or did we deliberately forget each other just as Delia forgot about the relationship?

“I need to talk to you for a minute,” he stumbled over the words slightly. It was kind of sweet that he was nervous but I was too busy eyeing the customers behind him to notice.

“Give me a minute Josh,” I smiled weakly and motioned with my head for him to take a seat. He followed my directions obediently. I swallowed the unease and burning desire to ask him to leave, dealing with the last stream of buyers. My hands were already in the emergency jar just as the machine-of-death decided to start its pointless strike.

I watched the door for another few seconds before crossing over to Josh. Vaughn was late. He always turned up during the lunchtime rush. For the past four Saturdays I had come to rely on him.

“I’m taking my break Viv,” I called to her just as she was slumping back against the counter. The clock told of how it was now pushing 1:30. Nobody bought coffee between the time 1:30 and 2pm, it just wasn’t socially accepted. It was too soon after lunch, you’d be pinned down as a caffeine addict if you even thought of entering those double doors again.

“Alright sweetie, tell your boyfriend I missed his company today,” she grinned wickedly. I cringed inwardly. Vivi and Vaughn had hit it off much too well over those Saturdays and they both loved to watch me squirm with the details of our ‘relationship’. A relationship which I would always vehemently point out did not exist.

I hovered unsurely next to Josh for a second before sitting in the seat opposite. I was torn between my darn courteous nature and loyalty to Delia as a friend. She needed to be left alone by Josh if she had any hope of getting over him. She was a fickle creature, one look from him and she’d have been in his arms all over again.

“Alice, I think I’m in love with you.”

“Look, I really don’t think Delia-,” I cut myself off when his words sunk into my ears. I stared at him. Now that was something I hadn’t been expecting.

“I don’t know when it happened or how but... but I have these feelings for you. They started a while back, I fought them to be with Delia but I couldn’t do it any longer. I love you Alice and want you to be with me.”

I still just stared. This was obviously some mistake. Why would he love me... why would anyone love me? While Delia was bright, shimmering and happy I was dull, grey and boring. Even in looks she was the obvious choice. It was as if the universe had suddenly come undone. It just didn’t make any sense. I was at a complete loss.

My floundering and tight lips propelled Josh into explaining further. “Everything about you is so perfect. The way you’re beautiful and don’t even know it. The way you’re quiet but have so much to say. I love you for all that and so much more.”

I realised a sickening fact then. I was the other girl. I was the one Josh had been in love with when he told Delia it was over. I was that bitch.

“Josh... Josh you can’t love me, I’m Delia’s best friend.” It was pathetic but it was true. This nineteen year old boy didn’t know anything about me or love.

“That doesn’t matter. You can’t live in Delia’s shadow forever.”

His words left a slight sting. There was an underlying insult there, buried beneath all the flowery flattery. I tried to search for the truth in his eyes, the truth that he was just trying to use me to get back at Delia, but they were clear. He truly believed he loved me. And that’s what made this situation so much worse from all the other pointless date requests at school. I meant nothing to them but Josh had somehow fallen into believing the opposite.

“I don’t believe in love,” I felt the need to explain, to soften the blow.

“But I can show it to you Alice.”

I didn’t love him. There wasn’t any doubt in my head or heart when I thought this. I didn’t love Josh.

“Hey Josh, I really don’t think she’s interested,” Vaughn rested a hand on his shoulder. I blinked up at him as he settled his helmet on the table as if Josh had already left, winking at me.

“You’re late,” I squeaked out the words in a voice unlike my own.

“Dude,” Josh whipped his head around to glare at Vaughn. Both their bodies were tense and the hand resting on his shoulder was definitely not meant in a friendly gesture. “Alice and I were having a private conversation.”

“Yeah well she still isn’t interested dude,” Vaughn smirked.

“She can speak for herself,” Josh snapped.

“And she says she isn’t interested,” Vaughn was losing his smirk, a snarl rapidly replacing it. I could feel the heat in the air, scared if I poked my tongue out it would burn. “Right Alice?”

They both turned to survey me and my fidgeting hands. “Right,” I squeaked again. Josh’s face briefly shone with pain but he collected himself quickly and impassively stood, shrugging Vaughn’s hand off.

“I was only asking in pity anyway. You need a good lay,” he said, the bitterness running thick in his tone. I felt the sting against my cheek as if his words had slapped me. I hadn’t put Josh down for the cruel type but I guess you never really knew a guy until you saw him post break up.

In an instant Vaughn’s fist was sailing into Josh’s face and a crack echoed around the room, louder than the coffee machine’s constant grumblings. There was a tussle, knocking the table over and sending some chairs flying. I gasped but couldn’t move as the fight commenced right before my eyes. I felt inanimate, as if my mind had just been stolen by the shock.

Bodies were jolting together. Limbs were flinging and colliding. Grunts and curses were spouting from every which way. Vaughn landed another few punches. Josh’s nose was bleeding. Vaughn took a kick to the shins and head butted Josh in the chest. I grimaced as the blood made a small, smudged puddle on the ceramic floor and knew it was time to intervene.

“Stop guys,” I finally stood up and grasped Vaughn’s arm as it went in for another blow. He slacked in my grasp but still sent a powerful shot up Josh’s jaw. “Fucking stop Vaughn!”

He was breathing hard beside me, face flushed in fury. “Alice... I-,” Josh shot me a pleading look but I had seen his true colours.

“Please leave Josh.”

“But just let me-,” he tried to explain.

“She said leave Buddy,” Vivi appeared out of nowhere, hands on hips and a scowl on her perfect face. She was in her get-the-hell-out-of-this-coffee-shop-or-else stance. Nobody messed with Vivi when she struck that pose.

With a still bleeding nose and a deathly grimace, Josh stormed out. I watched him walk down the pavement through the large windows before remembering my hand was still gripping Vaughn’s arm tightly.

“You had better not start any more fights in here Vaughn,” Vivi turned her harsh look onto the boy but the spark had left her eyes. I could tell she was trying to suppress a laugh. The few customers who were still in the small coffee shop had either fled or were ogling the upturned table and chairs in alarm. “Don’t worry folks,” she called out “it’s all dealt with now.”

“What the hell was that?” I finally let go of Vaughn’s arm to stare at him incredulously. “Are you fucking high or something? You can’t just go punching people in the middle of coffee shops.”

“He insulted you,” Vaughn raised a tentative hand up to his chest and winced.

“I can take care of myself,” the dangerous tone in my voice was fading. He was obviously in pain, even if I could see no physical injuries, and, for some reason, this made it so much harder to be angry.

“Nobody talks to you like that,” he suddenly snarled “and nobody tells you that they love you.”

“... You heard that?”

“Yeah, enough to know that you don’t believe in love and you were most certainly not about to change your ways for Josh.”

“Well...” I lost myself for a minute and just stared at him. His hair was slightly tussled and small fresh bruises ran up his cheekbones but he was beautiful. I wanted to release my own fist into his face then, just to mar it slightly, and for him to realise how much of an asshole he could be at times. “Well come on then, you can take me home.”

Vivi’s face was the picture of devilish amusement when I turned to ask her if I could leave a few minutes early. “Go on Alice,” she smirked “have some fun with your boyfriend.”

I snorted but Vaughn had already caught my arm and was towing me to the door. “Don’t worry Viv,” he called back “I’ll make sure she does.”

Shaking my head, I untied the apron from around my waist and flung it over the back of a chair. So this was what it was like to be one of those girls who copped off early with a beautiful boy, about to embark on a journey which would take me nowhere near home on the back of his motorcycle, I thought. Since when had my life ever been so precarious and so much fun? Vaughn was doing something to me. In between his fighting, smoking and drinking he had managed to coax me out of my weathered shell. And now I never wanted to go back.

“Where are we going?” I asked between the gap the visor allowed me. The helmet already had my hair sticking to my sweat but I didn’t care. My hands tucked themselves around Vaughn’s torso so my chest was lightly pressed to his back. This was familiar now; I could almost recall it exactly just before I drifted to sleep. Even in my dreams I found myself flying along on the back of a motorcycle.

“Wherever we want.”