Blackbird

Cool air rushed through the open door. Flakes of ice danced into the room before lying, scattered, across the red mat below her. Merry Christmas was printed across the carpeted mat, surrounded by poorly drawn reindeers and holly.

“Merry fucking Christmas, my arse,” the petit red-head muttered as she slammed the door shut.

Normally the small nineteen year old loved Christmas. She loved the trees, the lights, the tacky ornaments, the clichéd Christmas movies and she even loved the horrible Christmas puddings but this year, for the first time, she hated it all. She hated the smiling faces, the crinkling of the wrapping paper and all the people rushing across the streets hoping to find a decent present in the last few minutes before the first of the Christmas festivities started.

This year Cara was a holiday Grinch. In her defence she thought that she had plausible reasoning for acting utterly disgusted by the holiday she normally loved. This year was the first time that she was to spend her holiday season alone; well just with her brilliant, yet somehow slightly obtuse, best friend/roommate Brenna. It wasn’t that Cara didn’t love her best friend it was just that she had had her heart set on spending her favourite holiday season with her family.

Now that Cara thought about it, she was foolish for wanting to see her but for the past few months it was all that she could think about. Everything that she had done for the past six months had gone towards airfare, presents and clothes suitable for her home country and family. Only for it to be completely in vain as at 2:47 am that morning, four hours before her flight, Cara had received a phone call from her mother, who clearly hadn’t thought about the 9 hour time difference, saying that they wouldn’t be attending Christmas Dinner “with you.”

To which Cara had naturally responded with a ladylike, “What?” Her mother went on to tell her that they, the remainder of her family, were expecting a very important guest for Christmas Dinner and that they (she) thought that it wasn’t very fit for her to come. Her mother then very frankly stated that Cara was a disappointment, of course not in those exact words but something along the lines of ‘never living up to the opportunities given’, and that she wasn’t really wanted at the dinner in the first place. And with that said her mother had abruptly ended the call.

Cara had all but had an aneurysm at the time. Despite there really being no love lost between Cara and her mother, she had thought that maybe the rest of her dysfunctional family might have wanted to see her. The worst of it all, Cara thought, wasn’t that she had wasted six months working her fingers to the bone for the trip or that she really wasn’t all that emotional about being told that she wasn’t good enough to even have dinner with her family, it was that she now had to spend her Christmas Eve at an elaborately stupid work Christmas party with Brenna.

Cara knew that in the grand scheme of things that attending a work Christmas party really wasn’t as horrible as your family practically disowning you, but in that moment it was her very own snarling, giant paper tiger.

Cara slowly shook her head, to rid herself of the daunting thoughts of employee Christmas sweaters, watered-down eggnog and the ass-kissers hoping for a raise in the Christmas bonuses and to dislodge the icy sludge that was beginning to melt in her hair.

She trudged, slowly stretching out her frozen, aching limbs, into small but incredibly homey kitchen of her apartment. No normal nineteen year old should be this achy, Cara thought as she reached for ingredients and slowly made her hot chocolate. She popped in her four marshmallows, she always had four marshmallow or four sugars in a tea or four coats of nail polish. It didn’t really matter what it was, there had to be four of them. Call her superstitious but she always felt just a little bit luckier when there was four things.

She began moving towards the living room when she could suddenly feel someone staring at her. The eerie feeling left the hair on the back of her neck and her arms standing on their ends and caused her pulse to quicken. Cara turned slowly around, only to see that there was no one else in the room.

“See, no need to be worried,” she muttered trying to convince herself.

Cara moved across to the becoming couch. She longed to just sit and relax after standing on her feet for the whole day. But just as her bottom was about to hit the soft cushions a cough sounded behind her. Then as if in slow motion she spun on her toes to see Brenna standing in front of her in curly-haired glory. Cara opened her mouth to let out a much needed sigh of relief when she felt something cold and gooey hit her chest. After promptly dropping her mug on the ground, she glanced at her chest to see bright yellow paint covering the expanse of her chest. Cara glanced up in confusion only to feel more goo and this time pain.

“What the hell are you doing?” Cara cried out in total disbelief as yet again she felt piercing pain and paint hit her, only this time in her face. The only response Cara got from the girl was her standing with a huge, toothy grin on her face. Cara could feel the smoke coming out of her ears as the paint dripped its way into her right eye. She wiped her hand across her face, only to then see more of the horrid yellow paint and what Cara believed was her blood.

“CJ!”

Block it out.

“Ceeeeee…Jaaaaaaaay…?”

Don’t react.

“Cara…”

If you’re quiet it might go away.

“CJ?”

Stay still, no sudden movements…

“CJ are you even listening to me?” The jarring loudness of the Scottish girl’s voice rang through the sterile hospital room.

“What?”

All patience has now left the building.

Brenna flipped her short, raven curls away from her face revealing a death glare that should have left the small red-head a pile of smouldering ashes. But Cara had grown so immune to the scowl, which had been known to make high ranking business men quake in their neatly pressed, penguin suits, that she simply rolled her coffee eyes in retort.

“Now, there’s no need to be snappy at me CJ…” Brenna sighed in her thick Scottish brogue as peeled herself out of the small plastic chair beside the grey cot and made her way to the door. “I’m going to get something from the cafeteria. This dreary atmosphere is seriously wreaking havoc on my aura, I need to leave as soon as possible.”

“It’s your fault that we’re even here you curly-headed twat. It’s always your fault. So, sorry if I seem a little peeved at the moment.” Cara called as her closest friend left the room.

Cara wished that she had been exaggerating when she said it was always Brenna’s fault but in the five years that she had known the Scottish beauty Brenna MacSual, there had been countless trips to the emergency room due to the her crazy antics. Brenna’s antics and Cara’s inability not to get swept up in them now had them on first name basis with all the nursing staff, and the majority if the doctors, at the small English hospital. They had become so well known at the hospital that they received birthday and Christmas cards from the hospital itself and from numerous doctors, nurses and long term patients. This was the second trip they had had to the hospital this month alone and Cara knew that she really couldn’t afford any more in the near future.

The latest of Brenna’s ‘brilliant’ left Cara with a gash stretching across the top of her hairline, abrasions to her chest and upper body. How any sane person thought of filling balloons with paint and sharp objects was a mystery to Cara but not as much of a mystery as to why Brenna thought that it was be fun, and safe, to throw them unsuspecting person. Cara, however, was glad that the unsuspecting victim was her and not some poor person on the street.

“Miss Sol, we meet again,” a soft cockney voice sounded from the door.

Cara knew that voice all too well. She glanced up slowly to see the beautiful, blonde nurse at the door.

“Please Elaine, no need for formalities with me.”

Elaine had been Cara’s, and on occasion Brenna’s, nurse for the past several trips to the hospital.

At just twenty-eight Elaine Smith had seen just about everything in her nursing career. She had met numerous inspirational, brilliant and slightly mental patients but none of the patients she had treated had such an effect on her as the petite red-headed girl and her outlandish Scottish friend. She had seen twisted ankles, sprained wrists, a broken collar bone and even a toy car lodged up a nose from the two girls.

It was a mystery to Elaine when she had met Cara how such a bright girl could get caught up in such silly things but after meeting the slightly crazy Brenna, Elaine knew that for the most part Cara was the unwilling and unsuspecting participant in most of the events. Now after treating the girls for a number of years she had learned that nothing they did was sort of eventful.

“So Trouble, what happened this time?” Elaine was genuinely interested as to why her favourite red-headed patient was covered in yellow paint.

“Okay, let me set the scene first,” Cara started dramatically her hands lifting from her face seemingly forgetting that she was meant to be holding the off white, blood soaked clothe to her forehead.

“There I was minding my own business, quietly enjoying my hot chocolate, when suddenly I could feel beady eyes staring at the back of my neck. So I turned and Brenna was just standing there doing nothing. I really didn’t think anything of it ‘cause, you know, Brenna does some weird things sometimes but I swear on the Beatles that…” Cara was abruptly stopped by yelling that suddenly broke through the otherwise relatively quiet hospital ward.

“You’re a twat.”

“Fuck off, you wanker.”

“Hey now! Don’t be such a tosser.”

Each insult that was sprouted out sounded closer and closer to the cot were Cara was sitting. She groaned inwardly because she knew that one or maybe both of the squabbling idiots was going to take the cots near her. She heard feet scuffling along the floor neighbouring her once peaceful little area and looked up to see two men. One stood slightly taller than the other. The taller was decked out in black pants that was so tight that even Cara thought they would be uncomfortable and had a head full of brown curls. He looked to be considerably nicer than his shorter friend who was glaring at Cara through light brown hair with probably the prettiest pair of blue eyes she had ever come across.