Steel City Diamonds

It was that smell again - that god awful smell. It was stuck in my hair and on my hands. As I cried out, my sobs echoing in the large room that I’d never seen before, I breathed it in, hard and filling up my lungs with air that felt thick - dense. My eyes stung from the intensity, making me gag over and over.

The smell took me back to the trips to the petrol station I took with my mother on the way to school each morning, but ten fold. It was putrid.

At first the walls had been too dark, too opaque to make out, but I carried on searching, finding the warehouse that I knew this scene would take place in. It was large, almost like an aircraft hanger, the ceiling high with large metal beams supporting the weight of the building. There were boxes everywhere - No. No not boxes, crates. Stacked up higher than me, all around me, trapping me a labyrinth. I couldn’t see anything, there was just the stench.

There was noise everywhere, non of it correlating or making sense. A thud rattled my chest and travelled up my temples, a drip, drip, drip from somewhere distant, yet it bounced off the walls, straight back to me all the same. Voices, all men, all angry - except one. One was crying, really crying, and swearing and spitting and struggling. The voice was familiar but I’d never heard it this way before.

“Get her out!” he kept saying. So loud, so, so loud. “Get her away! Riley. Riley!”

My name was the last thing I heard before everything went white, and then black.

It was nearly nine am when I woke with a start, a cold sweat that had become a bit old hat settled across my forehead. I ripped the heavy sheets away from me, seeing I’d slept in my costume from the night before.

Sparking up a cigarette from the pack on the table beside my bed, I thought for a long while. Replaying the dream, breathing heavily through the mixture of images, trying to ignore the sick sensation that was slowly growing in the pit of my stomach.

Someone was cooking in the kitchen, I realised, slipping away from my reverie. Quickly, I swapped my tacky outfit for some shorts and vest, and ventured out into the tiny flat I shared with two others, to see which of them was alive, and more importantly, frying bacon.

One hand pressed over my face, I yawned into the lounge and kitchen area, the popping and hissing of fat on a frying pan, and my blond-headed flat mate stood in front of it.

“Morning,” Gemma said over her shoulder whilst she shifted the pan on top of the hob. She seemed surprised to see me. “I didn’t hear you came home last night, I thought you’d stayed out?”

I shook my head, flopping myself down onto the lumpy, ill-patterned sofa that had come with the flat. We used to cover it with brightly coloured throws, to liven up the pasty walls, but we’d grown lazy and stopped caring.

“No,” I yawned, pinching the bridge of nose, trying to pressurise my headache - somehow get rid of it without moving to find some painkillers. “Some guy that saw puke made me get a taxi.”

Gemma laughed lowly from behind me, and I heard her click the gas of, plating up her breakfast. “Chris said he’d seen you heading toward the back door, looking a bit green. Couldn’t find you when we were leaving, maybe you got back before us.”

I nodded. “Maybe.”

Gemma was what I guess should be considered my best friend. But truthfully, she was my only friend that I really trusted or cared a lot about. Three years ago we’d met at a mutual friends house after I’d nearly fainted proceeding one too many hits off of a bong. Even back then she was so real.

“You look like shit,” she informed me bluntly the moment she’d seen me knelt down on the decking behind the house. “You whiteying?”

There was a weight deep in my chest like no other, my stomach felt unsteady and full and I was baked to fuck. My eyes wouldn’t focus properly on this girl, with her bleach blonde hair and thick hoodie pulled close to her small frame. I tried looking at her straight, and nodded. “I think so. I feel awful.”

In a flash she was gone, and then back almost as quick, a glass of water in her hand. “Here,” she thrust it towards me then sat cross-legged at my side. “I’m afraid you’re gonna just have to ride this out.”

I sat outside the house for what seemed like years, but she stayed with me all that time. We’d rode everything out together ever since. Gemma was somehow everything I needed. She knew when and when not to ask questions, when to let me stew in my room all day and when to coax me out with the promise of a shit DVD she’d borrowed from a work friend and a bottle of wine. We were both blunt with each other, honest and upfront was a courtesy we’d traded with one another since the beginning. Until it came to Chris.

We’d lived together for just over a year, and her boyfriend had eventually moved in too, after he stayed over one night and pretty much never left.

Chris had never really tolerated me much. He was an I.T. nerd that worked in a “Graphic Novel Specialists” - to you, me and everyone else on the planet, it was a comic book shop. He got more than aggravated when I called I pointed it out or poked fun of it though.

We’d spent countless evenings bickering, slipping in snide comments here and there whilst Gemma tried either controlling us, or simply ignoring it. For most part, she chose to participate in the latter, turning the volume of the television way, way up.

You see, although Gemma and I were similar in a lot of ways, she seemed to have grasped the whole ‘compassion’ side of life, where I’d batted it away furiously. She was her own walking contradiction - immature, yet responsible. Gemma knew the time and place. According to Chris, I was straight up annoying and reckless.

“Where’s he anyway?” I asked grumpily when my friend dropped down onto the bean bag next to the poor excuse for a coffee table with a chunky bacon sandwich balanced like the leaning tower of Pisa atop her plate.

“Chris,” she corrected me with a small glare, “is still in bed. Which is where you should surely still be. Why are you up so early?”

A flash of flames, burning wood and a man screaming shot like a flash bulb into the back of my thoughts, but as soon as it was there I’d shut it away where it belonged and pulled my shorts a little further down my thighs. I caught Gemmas eyes flick away when I looked back up at her.

“Just thought an early morning would do me good,” I lied. It wasn’t like she didn’t know. I just didn’t like having the same conversation with her each morning. It was just easier to pretend that I’d slept without those ghosts sharing my bed for one night.

I stole half of her breakfast, then told Gemma that I was going to get ready for work. Not having to be shop until twelve, however, I took my time getting ready. I let a bath run slowly, and undressed in the bathroom, brushing my hair out whilst bubbles and water rose in the tub behind me, keeping an eye on it in the mirror.

Vanity, no matter what bullshit a woman will try and spin you, is a part of the female life that can’t be bargained with. Some indulge further than other, dipping into the end of the spectrum where a little botox here and there turns into breast implants, chin implants, even arse implants. I’d never tried to judge too much of what others see as beauty - my opinion of that had been warped for some time - but the world has become so obsessed with the human body, and a standard at which we’re all expected to live up to.

Apparently a size 12 was fat nowadays, and un-dyed hair just wouldn’t cut it. You had to have at least C-cup breast - perfectly rounded of course, and legs that went on for a decade or so.

I’d grown to numb the jealousy that usually rose up inside me when I saw Gemma rushing around in nothing but her underwear, searching for that dress, or that shirt she’d tried on the other day but thrown somewhere near the sofa. It was so easy for her, to just be and feel no shame. No disgust.

The mirror had fogged up from the steam of the hot bath. Leaning forward I swiped away the mask that covered the horror that I hid under my t-shirt, blouse, dress - hidden from others but not forever. I swallowed at the sight of myself, those marks - Gemma knew nothing of imperfections, how could she?

I thought about how she could be naked with Chris and not bat an eyelash, then compared it to those awkward drunken nights when the strange guys hands would drag over the uneven skin of my hips, my ribs, my thigh - I felt the apprehension, the shock, the terror and tension in their body when they realised I wasn’t normal. My body wasn’t right. The lights would be off, but they didn’t need to see. My body spoke words of it’s own.

As I’d hit my late teens, school took a sudden back seat in life and became all at once unimportant. I did badly in my GCSEs and didn’t even finish my A-Levels. I got kicked out for bad attendance and all around bad attitude. Since then there hadn’t been much I’d wanted to do academically, or work wise.

For the last seven months I’d worked in a tea room, which was nothing more then a dressed up Starbucks, serving drinks, cakes, biscuits and sandwiches as well as cleaning tables and loading the dishwasher in the back. It was a long, tiresome job that I didn’t enjoy much, and didn’t pay well enough to sway me to.

Tuesdays through Saturdays I worked at Pimentos, with an ever changing group of employees. Our boss, Charlotte, was in her late thirties and just by looking at her you knew she had a twee little country kitchen and floral wallpaper all over her house. But the second you did something wrong Satan’s bitch clawed it’s way from her pot belly and up and out from her mouth, sent to earth to make our lives misery. She cut your hours, docked you pay and fired you at the drop of a cappuccino. She was a hard, hard woman to please, and everyone morning that I slipped my black apron over my matching shirt, I wondered how the fuck I’d lasted so long.

Perhaps it was because I didn’t give enough of a shit to argue back, or smoked too many cigarettes to consider being redundant for a week or two. Either or.

“You alright, Riley?” Mika, the Saturday boy asked when I’d clocked in and joined him by the counter.

Mika was blond, blue eyed and liked to pretend he was surfer despite there not being a beach in Sheffield. In fact, I doubted he owned a board. Instead he chose to wear shell beaded necklaces under his work shirt, and drop in the words “Stella” and “Stoked” whenever he could. Sometimes I found it amusing, others, aggravating.

“Yeah.” I had no intention of asking how he was, or how his weekend had been. But he told me anyway.

“…and there was this rad chick there, I’m telling you. I’ve never seen legs like that before, proper toned, you know? And then this other kid, he was all upon her, so I said to him- Oh, hey, can I help you?”

I’d blanked out most of the story he was telling me - some party at his friend Mikes - or was it Kyle? A customer, however, had thankfully cut his story short, and whilst he busied himself taking down the man’s order, I prepared the coffee machine.

Mika was - what? - seventeen years old? From what I remembered of his mostly one sided (from his part, obviously) conversations, all he ever seemed to do was smoke, go to parties and work here, at Pimentos, on the weekends, 9 til 5. Shouldn’t he be in school, or doing homework?

Shouldn’t that have been what you were doing at that age?

My teen life was nothing extraordinary. Nothing more than a desperate cry for help until I realised my plea would be unanswered, and so I sunk into a limbo of contempt and boredom.

There was so much to love; for example, the smell of vanilla and coffee as Mika served the elderly man, waiting patiently at the counter. Or the flowers that were changed daily on the table tops: today, a mix of orange and pink wildflowers, to compliment the transition between Autumn and Winter. But instead of taking this in, registering every happy thank you I got from each costumer, of the smile and thumbs up Mika would send me whenever he caught me scowling or frowning, I spat it all back and remained silent - I did my job with exactly what was required of me, and nothing more.

I’d spent so much of my younger life in sort-of-friends bedrooms getting stoned, or skipping lessons to walk along side the river behind Tesco’s, smoking or crying or getting angry at everything and everyone without much provocation. I’d been so alone, surrounding myself with people that put in as little as I gave, that I’d either grown immune or just forgotten how to truly enjoy someone’s company.

Gemma was somewhat my life line - staying away when necessary, coming close only on a good day. My parents had moved to Leeds some years ago, visiting little, phoning when needed. They’d learn that a happy hello, or a curious check-up didn’t suit me or go down well. I felt despondent and detached - what was more miserable was that was how, most of the time, I liked it.

“I’ll see you next week, Riley!” Mika chirped from the doorway, wrapping a black scarf around his thin, almost scrawny neck.

It was mine turn to lock up again, and we’d just finished cleaning the table. I’d let Mika leave early, after he’d tied up a bunch of the wildflowers for his mother, throwing the rest into the bin outside when I’d rejected them.

“Bye, Mika,” I sighed, and he dashed out into the dark and cold.

There wasn’t much left to do, other than finish loading the dishwasher and turn it on, which would be emptied in the morning, turn all of the lights off, and then lock up - it took me no more than ten minutes.

Outside it was spitting, a usual occurrence in Sheffield, and I bowed my head against the rain and wind. I was content, walking alone without any co-workers or coffee-craving professionals at my heels, until I turned a corner and walked head first into someone.

At first I’d thought it was a lamp post I hadn’t noticed, or a phone box, but I knew it was a person by the “Umph!” they made, and the rebound of us both stumbling backwards.

The person wasn’t alone, his group cackled and howled as I awkwardly shuffled past, not bothering to mumble an apology, just wanting to get the fuck home. However, one of the men had other plans.

I glared down at the hand attached to my upper arm, my heart going from easy to terror in a split second. I didn’t recognise this guy at all, his face was round, his nose prominent against the rest of his features. It was hard to tell the colour of his hair under the orange filter of the street lamps, but it was definitely dark. I’d expected him to be frightening, his eyes fierce, or luring and disgusting and drunk, but instead he was smiling.

“Hey,” he said, and to my surprise it seemed to be a greeting. “Aren’t you Riley?”

My eyes were wide, I was cold and his friends stood watching from behind - everything about this made me feel uncomfortable, even as his grip on me loosened and then let go.

“Yeah,” I tried not stammering or looking like any more of a fool in front of this person. “I…I don’t know you, I’m sorry.”

I tried to pin point his face from somewhere - had we had a night together? His stretched ears of the tattoo I saw creeping up from his the neckline of his shirt would surely have check pointed him in my memory - but I came up blank.

He smiled, and I saw one of his friends from behind approaching, an arm stretched out to hurry him along.

“You puked on my balcony.”

My face felt hot, and the guy said something else but I wasn’t listening. He was joined now by his friend, and as the tattooed fingers crept over, I finally realised who they were. I wanted to run for the fucking hills.

“Hey,” the other one - what was his name? Oliver? - said. He was smiling, the same way I remembered from the night before, and my stomach churned with embarrassment. “Riley, right?”

I nodded, taking a small step backwards, hoping they’d get the hint and leave me to walk home and more importantly away from them.

“Sorry about your balcony-” I began, hoping to have slipped in a hint of finality and the idea that I was in a hurry, but it didn’t seem to work. The one called Oliver interrupted me instead.

“Ahh, he doesn’t care. Someone cleaned it up anyway.”

“You going to introduce us, then, eh?” the other, less tattooed one said jokily.

Oliver smiled at me, his eyes - I remembered thinking how large they were, and now, sober, they hadn’t shrunk much - seemed watery in the false lighting.

“Sadly, Matt,” he began, stepping forward and away from his friend. “I don’t know her much myself. Fancy coming for a drink, Riley?”

I’d had every intention of turning him down, maybe even storming off because I was freezing and the only thing keeping me in the cold was him. But, by some unknown force - not of God, but something a lot darker and less forgiving - I was being guided in the opposite direction of my house, with this Oliver character at my side, surrounded by a group of men I didn’t know or trust, wondering where the fuck they were taking me.