Roses

“So how’s your sister?” Louise asked Juillietta the next day in Art.

Juillietta shrugged. “She seemed pretty normal but you never can tell. I don’t even know what normal is for her anymore.”

Juillietta’s hand swept across her page confidently, filling in a detail here, adding something new there.

It was a drawing of herself that she’d been working on for a week and a half that she couldn’t get quite right. Every time Louise and their Art teacher thought it was finally flawless, Juillietta would find some new infinitesimal flaw in it and out would come her eraser and she’d be making changes again.

Every time Louise asked her what was wrong with it, Juillietta would reply “I don’t know. It’s just wrong. Something’s missing,” and carry on scrubbing away and filling back in.

“How’s the Chuck Plan going?” Louise asked, as she watched Juillietta try once more to improve perfection.

“Less good,” Juillietta muttered. Louisa was the only person to whom the Chuck Plan was disclosed. “You were right about the whole make-up thing. It made me look worse. And then we didn’t really speak the entire evening because Aura commandeered him to practice karate moves on that Harry taught her.”

Louise couldn’t help but laugh. This sounded exactly like the sort of thing that would happen, knowing Aurora.

“It’s funny to you but it was actually really irritating,” Juillietta grumbled, filling in her lower lip a little more.

“I’m sure it was. That was just so exactly like Aurora, I could practically see it happening in my head.”

“Her annoyingness is unforgettable, that’s true,” Juillietta grumbled, putting her pencil down and pushing her book away. “I just give up.”

“What do you give up? Aurora, or Chuck, or your Art?”

“Everything. I give up everything,” Juillietta sighed, lying her head onto the table, looking so pathetic and defeated that Louise almost laughed again, which would have not gone down well. Juillietta liked her misery to be taken seriously, and Louise was just the sort of person who found it impossible to do so. It was amazing that they were such good friends. It was the reason they were such good friends.



“That’s stupid. That is the stupid thing I’ve ever heard,” Aurora said to Harry scathingly. “I can’t believe that you said that. I can’t believe I heard you say that. I can’t even believe I’m friends with you.”

They went through this about once a day, and Harry was used to it.

This was in response to a suggestion that they hold a year wide burping competition to see who could be their new friend.

“I don’t want to be friends with someone just because they can burp the alphabet.”

“It wouldn’t just be the alphabet,” Harry pushed on cheerfully. “It would also be the national anthem. Backwards.”

“I don’t even know it frontwards! Do you know it frontwards? Does anybody? No, I didn’t think so.” She pulled her book out of her book bag which contained whatever crap they were making her read that week and some real literature, Vile Bodies to be precise.

Harry waited patiently. This was also usual.

After a while, she shut her book impatiently, not bothering to mark her page and turned back to him, her face contorted with shock and horror and utter disgust, as if he just suggested they kill a puppy, or a small starving child.

“I mean why? Why would you ever even think that would be a good idea? Christ, am I ashamed of you. Just never, ever voice anything like that again, please.”

Harry ignored her. She had reached the end of her anger cycle and he could stick the gum he’d been covertly chewing on her nose without fear of death.



Luciana and Robbie went for a walk, because the doctors had charged the family with making sure she changed her environment. Which meant making sure that she didn’t stay cooped up in the house.

They walked round the town, and ended up in the bookshop that Luciana had somehow never been in.

It was a nice little bookshop, and like almost everything else in the town, independent. This meant that the owner had known Robbie since he was ‘yay high’ and hugged and kissed him when they entered before pulling him and Luciana into the back room for a cuppa and a good chat.

“So is this your girlfriend then?” she asked in that especially awkward way that old women have, with a half-cackle and a nudge.

“Umm, no,” Robbie, said blushing and looking down at his feet.

Luciana looked down at the floor and bit her lip.

“Oh, you sure? Well it’s bound to happen some time, love, don’t worry. Tell me, what’s your name?”

“It’s Luciana,” Luciana said, looking straight into the woman’s eyes for half a second before hurriedly looking away. They were a light blue, made lighter by old age’s mists.

“Luciana? That’s a pretty name for a pretty girl. You work at Caroline’s, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Luciana murmured, looking down at her feet as well now.

“Am I making you two shy? Feel free to leave now, if you like. You can take your drinks with you, because I like you,” she said winking, but neither of them saw because they were too busy being bashful and staring at their feet, wondering if they would move.

They filed out of the back room, with the old lady bringing up the rear, chuckling to herself.

Robbie picked up the first book he touched, which turned out to be a book of critical analyses of Winnie the Pooh.

Luciana browsed for ages before settling on Le Petit Prince, which she had read in English, not in French.

She sat on the chair beside Robbie and sighed deeply.

“Are you okay?” he asked her, on high alert immediately. Luciana forced a smile and nodded.

Robbie didn’t believe her, and grabbed her hand, but he saw nothing. He looked at her strangely, but there were no more clues on her face as to how she might be feeling, what would have prompted that heartfelt sigh, so he just left it alone.

She began reading, but found herself uncomfortable so she stretched out across the sofa, the top of her head just touching Robbie’s thigh. He held his book open with one hand, languidly seeing the words but not reading them. His attention was focused on his other hand, which was curled into Luciana’s golden locks, the thumb of which was stroking her hair gently, feeling it slide through his fingers like refined silk, like liquid.

She was enjoying the feel of his hand, but she would not even begin to think of it as anything romantic because she couldn’t fit her head around the idea of romance, not for herself.

It was something she’d have to work herself up to.

The shop received little custom during the day, with a few people coming in and out to search for specific books or to see if they could find an interesting bargain, but no one who stayed any longer then ten minutes.

Robbie’s mug of tea got emptied and refilled twice, Luciana’s, still almost full, lay cold on the floor.

Robbie had abandoned his book in the first half hour, not least because he hadn’t been interested in it in the first place. He’d tried to explain to Luciana the ridiculous theories put forward by the critics, but she’d never read Winnie the Pooh, knew nothing about Freud and wouldn’t recognize Marxism if it hit her in the pocket, and so everything he read aloud was lost on her.

Instead he contented himself with reading over her shoulder and looking at the beautifully simple illustrations of the book.

After a while, after a very long while, Luciana put down her book and sat up. Robbie’s hand reluctantly left her hair, and she stretched, arching her back with elegant felinity. She put the book down, carefully keeping her page, and walked out of the shop.

Robbie followed her hurried, in time to see her turn left down the street. He watched as she walked to the bottom, turned round and walked back up to him.

“Why did you-” he begun, but she cut him off.

“I was going to fall asleep,” she explained, smiling at him. Her lids still drooped somewhat.

“You should have told me,” he chided gently. “I had no clue what you were doing. And you look like you’re still going to fall asleep.”

She giggled a little. “I feel like I’m still going to fall asleep,” she admitted, as they reentered the shop and took back their positions on the sofa.

“You can put my head in my lap, if you’d like. I’ll be your pillow.”

Luciana laughed lightly and did as he suggested, settling into his lap and yawning.

She lay her book down on the floor and, slowly, drifted to sleep.

It was when sleep was so close that she could almost touch it that an arrow flew out of nowhere are went through Robbie’s neck. She didn’t have to see it to know that’s what it hit.

She sat up in surprise, and fear spun her round.

Robbie was clasping his neck shocked, and there was blood seeping through his fingers.
The old lady was chuckling at a book of comics someone had brought in earlier on.

“Robbie… Robbie, are you okay?” she asked, futilely. Of course he wasn’t okay, his neck had just been made the resting place of a rebel arrow.

“I… I … was that an arrow?” he asked, and she was shocked. He should be able to speak, not with a wound like that. He shouldn’t even still be alive.

She reached out and touched his neck and he gargled. The woman looked up as Luciana drew her hand away sharply.

Robbie coughed, blood flecking his lips.

The old lady rushed over to them, with a tissue,

“Are you okay love? Looks like you’ve got a nasty chest infection there,” she said, dabbing at his lips with the tissue that looked like it was a little worse for wear.

“He’s bleeding!” Luciana cried, and she hadn’t noticed the tears that were streaming down her face until she heard them in her voice. “He was shot, can’t you see?”

She grabbed his hands and pulled them away from his throat, and he gargled again, spitting up more blood.

“There’s nothing there… I can’t see anything,” the lady said, dabbing at his lips again. “But he should get checked out.”

Luciana pulled her hands away from his; she needed them to hold up her head, and to hide her tears.

The old lady tried to comfort her.

“Really dear, there’s nothing there, I promise you,” she patted Luciana’s shoulder and then reeled away, crying out in horror because in that split second when she’d been touching Luciana she could see the hole in Robbie’s neck clearer than anything her old eyes had seen in a long time.

Luciana saw the old woman’s shock and realised what had happened.

“It was me,” she whispered. “Because I was touching you. Remember? That was my fault…”

“What do you mean?” The old lady asked, but Robbie nodded, to show that he understood. She backed away from him, slowly.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” she whispered, still crying. “You shouldn’t have felt it… you shouldn’t have felt it. I’m sorry.”

And Robbie wanted, more then anything else, for the pain to go away, for her vision to stop, so he could hug her.



At home, no one commented on the very red mark at the side of Robbie’s throat, although of suggestive winks were passed between Aurora and Will, who was, for once, without Charis.
Caroline raised her eyebrows at him, but he shook his head sadly and so she just left it, for then, although a glint in her eyes promised him a talk at a later time.

Luciana slept in Robbie’s room that night, and that was when the conversation struck.

“Robbie, I would just like to point out that, while Luciana is a very lovely girl, and I may well be too late to give you this warning, that she is very fragile, and it may not do to get too attached.”

“No mum. It wasn’t anything like what you’re thinking,” Robbie said with a sigh, rubbing the patch on his neck. The pain was nowhere near as intense as it had been earlier, but it was still irritating.

“Then what was it? Was it someone else? Because I don’t want you to go trying to make Luciana jealous either. That won’t do at all.”

“I wouldn’t do that mum, I’m not an idiot.”

“Then what happened?”

“I don’t know mum. Honestly I don’t. It was like I was bleeding… but I wasn’t. It just felt like I was and I was spitting up blood. It has something to do with someone she once knew, I think. I really can’t explain. I don’t understand it myself.”

“Robbie… I don’t want either of you to get hurt,” Caroline murmured gently.

“I don’t want that either mum,” he replied obstinately, giving nothing about the status of their relationship away, which is what she was hoping he would do.

She sighed. “Okay then Robbie. Just be careful, would you?”

“I always am mum.”

The conversation died there, and after a while, Caroline went upstairs to bed, and Robbie stretched out on the sofa and fell asleep to some awful film they’d allowed to be shown on Film 4.