Out stepped Cassie, wearing this long peach coloured dress that was shimmering with little bits of silver stuff all over it. She was followed by Ben, who was wearing a suit with a tie that matched her dress. After them came, Terry with Maddie and Aaron with Mara.
“Go!” I called over my shoulder, sprinting with Trina close by my side. We let go of as many eggs as we could on our way past. Hitting them square in their chests and exploding egg everywhere. I’ll never forget the shocked looks on their faces. Suddenly, I felt so much better about the last few years of crap they put me and Trina through.
All I could hear as we ran away were the shrill screams from the girls and the gruff swearing of the guys.
“Shit! Ben and Aaron are chasing us!” Katrina called out to me.
“Fuck! Run faster!” I yelled, grabbing her hand and pulling her along behind me as we sprinted for my car.
We hit against it with a bang and thankfully, I didn’t drop the keys, and the car started first turn. I planted my foot and sped off.
“Did they see the car?” I asked Katrina as I turned the corner.
“I don’t think so, I couldn’t see them. I think we had too much of a head start.”
All of a sudden, we both burst out laughing.
“I can’t believe we just did that!” Katrina gushed. “Did you see Cassie’s face! I will remember that for the rest of my days.” She sighed and settled back into her seat.
I glanced over at her, a firm grin planted on my face, just like there was on hers. “That was probably the best – holy shit!”
“What?” Katrina said suddenly looking around us frantically. “Are they behind us?”
“Ah no. Just stay still ok,” I told her, slowing the car and pulling over.
“Why? What is it? Oh god, it’s a spider isn’t it? It’s a great big giant hairy mother fucking spider!”
Suddenly, the Huntsman crawled forward on her shoulder. “Just stay still and calm. I’m going to get it,” I instructed getting out of the car to move around to her side.
I opened her door and took her hand, pulling her out while she made a high pitched squealing noise. “I felt it move!”
“Trina, you’ll scare it and it will jump off you and into the car. Just come with me.”
She continued to squeal with a much quieter tone as I pulled her away from the car, keeping my eye on the spider the whole time. I raised my hand and swatted it forward so it landed on the ground in front of us.
“There it’s gone.”
Trina then let out a huge scream and jumped on the poor thing, stomping on it over and over again until there was nothing left to see but a couple of legs and pulpy mess.
“Holy crap, Trina. It’s not like it was poisonous. You could have let it go.”
She visibly shuddered. “I hate spiders,” she stated, stomping the spot one last time before getting back in the car.
“I can see that,” I mumbled, following suit and getting back in as well. “Where to now?” I asked her once we were moving again and had calmed down.
“Let’s get something to eat. Fish and chips at the river?”
“Sounds perfect, all that egging and spider thwarting certainly works up an appetite.”
We went and ordered our food and took it down to Nepean River, then settled ourselves on the bank and ate quietly, watching a team of rowers glide by in their boats, a coach following after them in his speed boat.
I pulled out a bottle of Southern Comfort and offered it to her. “Thanks,” she said, taking a swig and then offering it back to me.
“Nah, I’m driving. I’ll drink later.”
“Is it wrong that I don’t even feel a tiny bit bad over what we just did?”
“Killing a defenceless spider? or egging the Celebs?”
“Egging the Celebs. That spider deserved everything it got.”
“Nope. Cassie has been a bitch to you for years. I’m surprised you haven’t retaliated before now.”
“She’s been worse to you.”
“Ah, she’s just got some weird fixation. I think she decided that if I wasn’t going to date her, then she was going to make it so no one wanted to date me.” I shrugged and bit into a potato scallop. “I hated the way she treated you more. She deserved what she got today.”
“You think so? You don’t think we were over the top?”
“I thought you said you didn’t feel bad?”
“I don’t feel bad as such, but I do wonder if it was a little over the top.”
“As over the top as claiming that I forced her to have an abortion or as over the top of her telling everyone that we’re related and in an incestuous relationship?”
“Well, when you put it like that – no,” she laughed, picking the crispy batter off a piece of fish. “Do you wish we’d gone to the formal?” she asked.
“No Trina. I’d prefer sitting here with you any day.”
We went quiet again for a while, staring out at the now glass like water.
“Let’s go,” I told her when we'd finished eating. “We’ll go home and get changed, and I’ll take you clubbing so we can get smashed like you wanted.”
She laughed and helped me roll up the remains of our food in the white butchers' paper. “That sounds like music to my ears.”
I dropped Trina off at her house and went back to mine get changed and call a taxi to take us to the train station. We had decided to go to one of the clubs in the city and only had about forty-five minutes before our train would arrive.
I told my mum that I’d be home at some ungodly hour and dashed out the door, to the tune of her telling me that just because I was eighteen didn’t mean I could do whatever I wanted. I smiled to myself, knowing that as long as I came home before the sun was up – she’d be fine.
When I arrived at Trina’s, she was already dressed and waiting for me. “Whoa!” I whistled at her. She was wearing a fitted black dress that barely covered her arse and a pair of low strappy heels. She’d piled her hair up on her head and put a tiny bit of makeup on. “You look absolutely smoking hot Trina,” I gushed at her.
“Just look after her David. I’m not happy about her going out in that scrap of a thing she’s wearing,” her dad told me.
“I’ll keep her safe Mr Mahoney,” I assured him.
Outside, we heard the taxi beep its horn to let us know it was there. Saying goodbye to her family we rushed outside and started the hour and a half journey from where we lived to the city.
The nightclubs close to home sucked, so the trip was worth it, but it meant you had to be mindful of the time so you could get back home before sunrise. We generally spent the train ride in, drinking southern and coke out of a sports bottle, so we’d arrive slightly tipsy anyway. Drinks were really expensive, and we were going out to dance and have fun, not waste time forcing our way up to the bar to drink enough to feel something.
By the time we arrived at Town Hall station, we had emptied the sports bottle and threw it into the rubbish bin on the platform before continuing on our way.
We went to the Shark Bar which is called that because of its affiliation with The Sharks football team and the fact there was a massive fish tank in the middle that housed a bunch of baby sharks.
By the time we got there it was almost 10pm and the place was already jumping, the moment we entered, it was like being enveloped in an underwater cave. It was dark besides the flashing lights of the dance floor and the blue illumination of the fish tank and the bar lights.
“One more before we dance?” I yelled into Trina’s ear as we moved toward the bar. She nodded and took my hand, following close behind me so we didn’t lose each other in the crowd.
“Let’s do shots!” she suggested once we made it to the bar, then leaned over my shoulder and yelled at the bartender that we wanted six B-52s. Glancing at her, my eyebrows shot up in question. “We agreed to get hammered,” she yelled back at me.
“We still have to make it home.”
The bartender set
our drinks in front of us, and Katrina slapped the money down on the counter to pay for them, picking up the first shot and handing me mine. “Drink up.”
I held the glass to my lips, watching her as she downed hers quickly then reached for her second. Once again, she was holding mine out to me. “Drink!” she urged me again. “You’re falling behind.”
I downed my shot, then took the second, then the third, knocking them back one after the other. I was fairly tipsy from drinking the Southern on the train, and the shots were very quickly mixing with what was already in my veins.
Katrina let out a loud whoop and raised her hands above her head, swaying her body as she started to make her way to the dance floor. Following close behind her, I couldn’t help but laugh and feel glad that we were out at this club instead of stuck with all the dickheads we went to school with.
With the drink buzzing through my body and the music pulsing through the air, I started to let go. Trina and I danced together among the crowd, slowly pressing closer and moving as one.
My heart thudded in my chest as my hands started to roam her body, pulling her closer to me. Our legs became intertwined as we swayed together, her arms wrapped around my neck and mine around her waist. We were as close as we could get.
I moved my head, desperately wanting our lips to brush. But when our eyes locked, there was something in hers that told me to stop.
There was a slight sadness in her eyes as she looked at my lips and then back into my eyes. “Is this going to be our tradition?” she said into my ear.
“What is?”
“You kiss me on the night of a formal and then dump me in the morning?”
“Trina, it’s not like that,” I told her, cupping her face in my hands and looking into her eyes. “It’s not like that.”
“Don’t David. Don’t ruin what we have by going down this road again. You hurt me too much last time.”
My mouth fell open as my hands dropped to my sides and Trina turned away and walked off the dance floor. For a moment I just stood there dumbstruck, feeling like an idiot for nearly kissing her again on top of feeling horrible for not realising how much I hurt her the first time.
I watched her move through the crowd toward the bathrooms and realised that she deserved someone far better than me. I was lucky enough to have her in my life as a friend and I was a bastard for trying to push past that boundary.
Suddenly, a relationship beyond friendship with Katrina, seemed unattainable. I needed to let her go. I needed to understand that we were friends. Nothing more.
I spent the rest of the night watching over her as she danced with a group of girls who she'd obviously met in the bathroom. They kept heading back to the bar and drinking, eventually Katrina caught the eye of some guy, and they danced together for a while before he walked her off the dance floor and into one of the darker areas of the night club.
Knowing she was drunk and not wanting anything to happen to her, I moved to where I could see her better, fobbing off a few drunken girls who wanted to dance with me on my way.
By the time I reached her, they were already all over each other. Despite understanding that I needed to back off, I was drunk and watching her kissing and grope at another guy was like being kicked in the guts. I got her message loud and clear – she didn’t want me in the same way I wanted her. Well, that was fine. But it didn’t mean that watching what she was doing in front of me, didn’t make me jealous as all hell.
Walking up to them, I tapped her on the shoulder. “Trina, we need to go,” I said loudly.
Breaking the kiss, she looked up at me, all glassy eyed.
“Who the fuck are you? Her brother or something?” the guy she was with slurred.
“Something like that. Come on Trina,” I said pulling on her arm.
“Leave me alone David! Can’t you see I’m having fun with someone who actually wants me,” she yelled over the music, stumbling over her words in her drunken tongue.
“Please don’t do this,” I begged her. “Just come home with me.”
“Hey mate, she said she doesn’t want to come with you,” the guy directed at me, puffing up his chest a little.
Trina put her hand on his chest and stumbled toward me a little. “No, it’s fine. I’ll go.”
“Whatever,” the guy spat, turning away and disappearing into the throng. I breathed a sigh of relief that it didn’t escalate beyond that and turned to Trina.
She was really struggling to stand up properly, so I put my arm around her and walked her outside to get some fresh air and make our way to the train station.
We got maybe ten metres away from the bar when she pushed at me feebly. “Let me go!” she complained.
“Trina, you’re drunk. I’m trying to get you home.”
“Don’t act all nice like you care David,” she drawled. “You have no idea how much I’ve wanted you to like me. But you don’t give a shit do you? You’d prefer to fuck bitches like Cassie instead of having something meaningful with me.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told her stopping with her as she leaned up against the wall of a building.
“Yes I do David. If you cared, you wouldn’t try to kiss me when you know you don’t want anything more from me.”
I placed my hands against the wall either side of her head and leaned in close. “Maybe I do want something more with you Trina. Maybe I’m scared that I’ll fuck it up, and you’ll hate me. Have you ever considered that I care about you so much that the fear of losing you eats me up inside? I want you Trina. I want you with everything I have. You are my world. My everything. If I fuck this up, I’ll have nothing Trina. I can’t risk that. Don’t you understand?”
For a moment, her eyes searched mine, before, all of a sudden, she sprang into action, crashing her mouth into mine and sliding her tongue inside my mouth while pulling at my hair. I responded with equal fervour, pressing my body against hers as her leg wrapped itself around my waist.
I threaded my fingers through her hair as our tongues explored each other’s mouths, the alcohol in my veins dulling my senses just enough so that I didn’t think of the consequences of what we were doing, or the fact that we were doing it on the side of the street in the middle of the city.
We broke the kiss momentarily, pausing to look at each other and check that this was actually happening. Trina’s drunken eyes were slightly glazed as she smiled at me, then coughed and turned her head to the side and spewed all over the pavement.
“Oh god,” I said to myself, holding her up while I watched her heave repeatedly on the ground. “Come on Trina, I’ll get you some water,” I told her when she’d finally finished. Sliding my arm around her waist to hold her up, I started to walk with her again to the station.
Her body leaned fully into mine as she struggled to walk. “Where’s David?” she mumbled as her head rolled into my shoulder. “I’m supposed to wait for David.”
“I’m here Trina. I’m taking you home.”
That’s when I realised, that I’d finally had the guts to do something and mean it. But she was too drunk to even remember it. On the train ride home, I started to think that maybe it was a sign that I should leave her alone. Maybe we weren’t meant to be.
Chapter Twelve
Trina didn’t remember much at all about that night, she claimed that the last thing she remembered was taking the shots and dancing. She had a vague memory of dancing with some girls she didn’t know, but beyond that, she didn’t have any clear memories, and I wasn’t about to remind her.
I resigned myself to the fact that Trina and I as a couple, just weren’t going to happen and pushed any thoughts about her that way out of my mind. We had our HSC marks and then our university acceptance to focus on.
Over the Christmas period, I went for a job packing shelves at the local supermarket at night to try and help my mum out a bit. She had a good job, but I knew that she struggled trying to give me everything she felt she should. The job was only suppo
sed to be from mid-December to New Year’s, but they decided to keep me on indefinitely.
On the day our Higher School Certificate results came in, Katrina came running over to my place and wanted to open them together. We sat across from each other and counted to three before ripping the envelope open and reading the contents to ourselves before swapping and reading each other’s.
“Jesus David, what are you? Some kind of genius? You flogged me,” she breathed reading over my results. “At least you’ll have scored high enough to get into Sydney Uni. With this score, I only qualify for UWS.”
I took my papers back from her and looked them over again. “Maybe. It depends on how many people they have applying for my course. I might not get into Sydney Uni either.”
She smiled at me. “You'll get in. I know you will. But I’d love it if we both got to go to the same Uni. That way, we’d still get to study with each other.”
“Whatever, you just want me there so you can ride my big brain all the way to a finished degree.”
“Get lost!” she laughed, whacking me on the side of my head with the thick piece of cardboard that stopped the envelope from bending.
“That’s it. You're gonna get it now,” I told her getting up to chase her as she jumped up squealing and ran out the front door of my house.
“Don’t David,” she laughed, dancing from side to side across one of the garden beds where I couldn’t reach her. I leant down and picked up the hose. “Don’t you dare!” she shrieked as I pulled the trigger on the handle and released a jet of water that hit her straight in her face.
She put her hands up to block the spray, trying to jump out of the way laughing her head off as I continued to rain water down upon her. Finally, she sought shelter on the other side of my car and called, “I give up! I give up!”
Walking around to her, I held up the end of the hose and pointed it at her. “Are you going to hit me over the head again?”
“No, I promise I won’t,” she assured me, tapping the ground next to her to ask me to sit down. I complied, keeping a hold of the hose as I was slightly wary of retaliation. “It’s cool if we don’t go to the same Uni you know. If you get into Sydney, you should go. It’s the better school.”
The Beauty in Between: Too Close (A Beautiful Series Novella) Page 8
