by Criss Copp
Sabrina is in a panic...
“Sabrina, calm down! It’s okay.” I tell her.
“What’s he doing with Georgina?” she asks.
That has my back up, Georgina? Another woman, and Sabrina is nervous about it. Is this an ex, or a woman he’s spent time with before? Is he moving on with her?
The two of them round the top of the stairs, walking through the internal stairs that enter behind us.
One look at Ben’s face and I can tell he’s pissed! Even more so now that he can see that his mum’s been crying.
Ben.
What the fuck is she doing here? This is who my Mum was making plans with yesterday? Of course it is! I’m fucking so stupid that I couldn’t see it yesterday, but like with everything else to do with Jade, I am stupid!
Bloody Georgina is all over me, and it makes me feel a little sick, especially now that Jade will see her and think I’ve got something going on with her.
Preschool teacher? She works in bloody child care! Her car’s broken down and they’ve towed it from her work, and because she has to get back to work, she phoned me while I was on my way to Maitland; to go and get her to come home and get her mother’s car. So here I am meant to be dropping her off, but instead I’m walking in to see why Jade’s bike is at the top of the drive.
I have no idea why Georgina is following me, she’s supposed to be grabbing her car and returning to work.
I walk in to the kitchen dining area and I can see Mum, seated at the breakfast bar with Jade, and she’s been crying!
“What the hell is going on? Mum, why are you crying?” I ask gruffly.
Georgina rushes forward.
“Sabrina? Are you okay?” she fusses.
“Yes, yes! I’m okay!” Mum answers, trying to prevent Georgina’s advance without success.
I’m watching Jade’s reaction to Georgina’s fussing, and I realise it’s the same as mine. She’s looking at the woman crowding my Mum and displaying a distasteful look, one that shows her displeasure with the woman. Georgina’s in her space now too, so she hops off her stool and walks around the other side of the bench to place extra space between them.
“Really Georgina,” Mum says from underneath Georgina’s arms, “I’m fine! Let me introduce you to my very good friend Jade.” She says.
Georgina stands and looks over to Jade and cocks her head.
“I don’t remember ever seeing you here before.” She says. She’s not warm, but she’s not being rude either.
“I met Sabrina at the hospital... I’m a nurse!” Jade explains, giving a smile that I can tell is a fake one. She’s given me plenty of fake smiles over the months, and until you see one of her real ones, you wouldn’t know.
“Oh, how nice! Is she okay?” Georgina asks, ignoring the fact that my Mum just said she was.
Jade obviously thinks this too, because she baulks back a little.
“She just said she is... so, I assume that she is.” she replies.
“Oh, it’s just sometimes she says something but you know, she’s just trying to make everyone else feel better.” She explains over the top of my Mum.
Oh my fucking God! My Mum is right there... right in front of her! Who does she think she is? I go to say something, but my Mum grabs my arm and in doing so, drags my attention down to her. She gives me the slightest shake of her head. And I continue to watch the train wreck that is Georgina; the albeit unintentional, dumb bitch!
“Well, in medicine and health matters, the patient is the only one that can tell you the truth, so if she says she’s alright, she’s alright! If she’s telling you that she’s feeling ten out of ten in pain... more pain than childbirth, and yet she looks like she’s got a mild headache; then she’s experiencing ten out of ten pain! The worst she’s ever felt! It’s not for us to say, it’s totally subjective and for her to say!” Jade reasons a little gruffly.
“Oh really? But what if you end up giving out too much medication?” she asks.
I can’t help it, I groan!
My groan hasn’t escaped Jade’s notice, and she cocks her head to the side and gives me a look that says... ‘and this is who you chose over me?’
I’m thinking ‘no’ and willing her to understand, but she’s not looking at me anymore.
“We titrate dangerous medications according to age and weight till we get the right dose.” She says.
“So really you still choose whether they’re right or wrong?” Georgina says enthusiastically, like she’s won the argument.
“No!” Jade snaps, “it means we believe what the patient says and cautiously proceed to give them relief in measures that won’t be too much for them!” she growls, “The patient is the only one who can feel what they’re feeling, and until we have a device that can measure feelings and pain, which I’m guessing isn’t on the cards in the near future, since we don’t live in a sci-fi movie, then we take what they say as factual!” she explains impolitely.
Georgina is standing there like a stunned mullet. I’m looking at my mother trying to hide her smirk. I’m kind of delighted at the smack down; I’ve missed Jade’s sharp tongue!
“You’re really rude!” Georgina hisses. Okay, now the claws are out!
“You know what? I am really rude, at least I admit it! You need to admit and accept that you’re really dumb!” Jade replies, walking around the bench and Georgina to Mum.
In order to lean in to Mum, she’s forced to brush up against me. So she does, leaning in to give my Mum a kiss on the cheek and tell her they’ll catch up another day.
The shock of electricity between us is instantaneous, and I notice that she jolts as she’s leaning forward to Mum, when her arm touches mine.
I’m covered in gooseflesh and my breathing has become shallow.
She steps back and turns to gather her backpack and helmet. Georgina still hasn’t moved, except to watch her with a dangerous glint in her eyes.
Jade quickly quashes it though, by returning it with a totally treacherous stare. Georgina wouldn’t last three seconds in a round with Jade. Jade is slimmer and she looks fragile in her current outfit, but she’s all muscle and she’d positively snap Georgina in half!
Georgina obviously can instinctually feel this, because she’s totally backed down.
Jade doesn’t give me another look; she practically stumbles down the internal stairs in her desperation to leave my presence.
I follow her down, but by the time I’m near enough to her, she’s got her helmet on and quickly swinging her leg over her bike. She has her back to me, but I can tell by her haste that she knows I’m standing there.
She turns the key and the bike roars to life, and then she’s gone!
Chapter Eleven: Week Two
Ben.
Well, Georgina’s moved on, my mother laughed so damned hard when I asked her what happened, that I thought she’d cough all that cancer right out of her body!
I haven’t seen Jade for the last week and a half though, despite the fact that she’s apparently returned to the gym in the mornings... well, some mornings!
I’ve bought that bike, partly because after I sent a MMS picture to Silas of it and the price the owner was willing to go down to, he told me if I didn’t he’d shove a star picket through my skull; but also because I really liked it. I haven’t ridden a bike since I was home, but eight months really isn’t that long.
So today, Silas and I are going for a ride to Mount Sugarloaf to run my 2009 Yamaha YZK-R1 through its paces.
It’s a really nice Sunday; there isn’t a cloud in the sky, and despite the crisp early morning winter weather, it is beginning to warm up quite nicely as I pull in to their drive.
As I go to the door, I can hear some sort of argument coming from inside, but I knock anyway, figuring that Silas would expect me to.
Silas reefs the door open just as he shouts over his shoulder, “Well you should come anyway!”
“Who should come?” I ask, placing my head on the chopping block, and
awaiting my executioner for being dumb enough to weigh in on the argument.
“Jade... she’s being difficult. Last night Shae said she’d like to come along for the ride, so I volunteered Jade to double her, and she caved and said she would; now Shae doesn’t want to go, because she wants to study; her exams are pretty important this year, and she’s worried that because she didn’t study yesterday, she shouldn’t waste today as well.” He explains, waving me in through the door.
I take a chance; I mean, we haven’t talked to each other properly since... well, since before the kiss!
“Come on Jade, you pussy!” I shout out.
Silas grins so damned huge; he just about splits his face in two. He goes over to his pretty little girlfriend who is seated at the table, with piles of books around her.
She’s tiny... blond hair, blue eyes, pale skin... sweet looking! I wonder how strong willed she is to be with Silas... the way he talks about her, she has him wrapped around her little finger!
He bends down and kisses her on the top of her head.
And then Jade erupts from her bedroom, eyes blazing.
“Fuck you Reynolds, just because you don’t get any pussy; doesn’t mean you get to call it!” she seethes.
“Holy shit Jade! What the fuck’s wrong with you?” Silas asks incredulously, looking at Jade like she’s an alien invader, and not his sister.
“I call bullshit! I’m going alright, just so I can see him eat my God damn dust!” she shouts and goes back to her room.
Wow, a little more heated than expected, but a result nonetheless!
“Motherfucking arse!” Silas mutters as he stomps to Jade’s door, and proceeds to bang on it. “Jade!” he shouts, “You can’t talk to Ben like that! You don’t even know him!” he shouts.
“I’ll fucking talk to him however I fucking well want to!” the muffled but audible sound comes back through the door.
“Jade!” Silas screams.
“Silas!” I snap, in order to cut him off.
He looks at me with a wild look, and I jerk my head as an indication he needs to walk away from her door.
“She’s never like this to my friends, I’m sorry!” he says sheepishly, yet with a tremendous amount of hidden anger.
Shae just looks on like she’s on valium and nothing is quite getting through to her... however, I note that she’s got a death grip on that pencil of hers.
“Silas, I need to tell you something.” I begin; I hope he doesn’t get pissy.
“What?” he asks.
“I may have lied to you about your sister.” I begin; he looks at me with calculating eyes before I get to continue, so I clear my throat and explain. “Your Jade is my Jade!”
He recognises the reference immediately.
“My sister’s the Jade that fucking broke you?” he asks.
I nod.
“Oh...” and right about now I’m preparing to take him down if he comes at me, but he doesn’t... he just walks straight to the bedroom and doesn’t bother knocking, because he’s storming in and slamming the door behind him.
There’s a whole lot of shrieking then, and “get the fuck out of my room!” thrown about.
I hear Silas tell her she’s a fucking idiot and to wake up to herself, and then he tells her if she doesn’t get her arse on her bike in the next fifteen minutes, he’s going to hammer her bike into a ball of scrap metal. He comes out the door slamming it so hard the whole house seems to rattle. Then he’s over at Shae with his head on her shoulder and groaning. She just smiles and smoothes his hair down, she’s a calming influence I guess... she’s his rock! I hope it lasts for them.
Jade emerges five minutes later. She’s wearing black skinny jeans and really nice looking black Fox motocross boots; in addition she has a black fitted leather jacket that I haven’t seen before. She looks totally badarse! She’s pulled her hair into a ponytail on top of her head and she’s carrying a new all black Nitro helmet. Seriously, she looks like she could kick all our arses and hand them back to us on a platter. I think if she just goes back in and puts eyeliner and mascara on, she’ll go from looking totally badarse to totally fucking awesome badarse! It takes all my strength not to say it.
We all go and get on our bikes and I notice Jade looking at my bike with a look somewhere between admiration and respect; yet she still has to say something malicious about my totally kickarse bike.
“I hope you know how to operate that transformer, because otherwise there won’t be enough of you to scrape off the road; and there isn’t a bed in the world that I’d be able to place you!” she says.
“Transformer?” I ask.
“It looks like a transformer.” Silas explains, “Nice one Jade; I totally agree, but at least it’s a fucking awesome looking transformer with 998cc of power to back it up.” He gushes.
“Like I said, hope he knows what he’s doing. I’m not wearing my nurse’s uniform today, and I might conveniently forget how to do first aid in a crisis!” she grumbles.
I know what to do with almost a 1000cc’s of power; I ride a 2011 Ducati 1198SP at home in LA. I smirk at Jade as she’s placing her helmet over her head.
“He’ll be fine.” Silas says, placing his helmet on his head and starting his bike.
Jade starts her bike, and I follow suit by first placing my helmet on and then starting my bike. The bubbling chug-a-long of the uneven firing of the engine is comforting, knowing that no matter how much speed Jade’s likely to throw at me; I’m easily going to match it and then some.
Game on!
For the first ten or so kilometres, we’re riding through traffic and sticking together. If a light looks like it’s changing, we either slow down or speed up depending on whether there’s a red light camera attached to it. Jade is the one leading us at present, and I’ll let her for now. She’s been riding with Silas for years, and I can only assume she is knowledgeable about what he’s capable of, and if I go too hard, she’ll pull back because of him; and then I’ll be off by myself, which is not what I want, yet!
Once we make our way through to the beginning of the Newcastle link road at Wallsend, everything changes. She’s quick; because she drops a gear in the 70km zone and within a split second, she’s taken off, obviously oblivious to the fact that the zone we’re encroaching on is a 90km zone. She’s gone, I can see her as a speck of dust up ahead, way up ahead; but she’s about to be completely out of sight, because there’s a measured bend in the road that is gradually winding away out of our vision.
I look over at Silas, who has just given me a salute and begun to speed up himself, and then I drop a gear for some extra power and leave him behind.
She’s gunning it, because it’s taking me ages to catch up to her; and I admit, I’m a little fearful of losing my licence because now I’m hitting speeds over 180km/hr; which is instant loss of licence territory; but the adrenaline rush is way too addictive, and I can feel the bike wants more!
I have to slow down at the round-a-bouts near the colliery and at Minmi Road, but I’m out the other side of the second one, right on her tail. I fly past her and then not long down the road realise that I have to slow the fuck down, or I’m going to shoot past the exit. I pull to the side because I consider I’ve proved myself, and I want to wait for Silas now.
She pulls up immediately behind me, and tears her helmet off.
“What the fuck was that? You trying your hardest to kill yourself?” she screams.
I slowly lift my visor and look at her triumphantly.
“I wasn’t the one that threw down! I’m also not the one that was off in triple digits before even getting out of the residency zone!” I shout back.
“Why are you torturing me?” she shouts. “I’m sorry about your Mum, but do you have to make my life so fucking miserable?” she shouts.
Oh, so not happening right now... NOT when I’m on a God damned bike in the middle of a motherfucking highway!
“You care to rephrase that princess?” I shoot back at he
r. “I make you miserable?”
“You called me out on it, I’ve already apologised to your mum, what the fuck do you want?” she shouts.
I can see Silas coming up, he’s slowing down to pull in next to us. I haven’t got any time to discuss anything right now, and it makes me so fucking mad that I want to throw my bike down, go over to her and shake some sense in to her!
“If you can’t work out what the fuck is wrong between us, then you’re so fucking stupid, you make Georgina look intelligent!” I shout abusively at her.
Silas has now pulled up and is taking his helmet off.
She draws air in rapidly, like a bellows getting ready to add to the strength of the flame burning.
“Your fucking dick didn’t take long before it was sniffing around for a new fucking pussy! I can’t believe you’d fall for some stupid ridiculous bimbo of a woman who probably thinks tuna is a type of chicken!” She fumes, but I just can’t keep it up; she’s so fucking funny right now, especially since Silas is looking at the two of us like we’re the ones with mental health problems, and I’m remembering seeing that reference on YouTube and I can still recall Nick’s expression when the question was raised.
Still chuckling, I concede, “I wouldn’t let my dick get anywhere near that woman’s thighs, just in case her brand of dumb is contagious!” I chuckle.
Now I’m laughing, and now Jade is struggling to keep her mouth from smirking, and then she’s chuckling and then laughing too. It’s a surreal moment, because it should’ve ended in a total smack down, but it’s ended in us laughing our breakfast up. It’s a tension release of a laugh... and I’m hoping it means we can start mending things. Like I said, she knows where to find me; I’m hers if she wants me.
Silas calls us both fucking dickheads, and places his helmet on and goes, leading the way this time.
The rest of the day runs smoothly, and we return to the Tayte household via Edgeworth, Cardiff and Lambton.
Chapter Twelve: Week Three.
