Prologue - Train Wrecks

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Forget who we are

It's here if you want it

There's no second chances

Stay another day, stay another day.

Train Wrecks – Birds of Tokyo (From the album Universes)

(Lyrics belong to artist as above, I claim nothing.)

Seeing a movement by one of the entrances I watched Alex slip out hand in hand with Grace and I smiled slightly. From So Much to Learn, Chapter 31 – Nature’s Law.

I felt a giggle bubbling up inside of me as Alex tugged me away from all the people in the tent and out into the cool night air. It felt so freeing to leave, to just walk out and escape. That was what Alex was to me, really, freedom and escape.

I clutched his hand tightly as he led me past all the torches and fairy lights lighting up the garden and out into the darkness beyond. With his long legs he was easily able to jump the paddock fence when he reached it, and then he held two of the strands of wire apart so I could climb through after him.

Straightening, I looked at him, his pale face just about the only thing visible in the darkness, and then, by unspoken agreement, we ran. We flew over the grass, our legs pumping. Our momentum propelled us over the uneven ground, and we leapt across the larger holes with smothered whoops. The cool air and the light wind, made stronger by our speed, made my eyes water and my lungs expand until I felt almost light-headed, but in a good way.

Gasping for air we finally threw ourselves down under a solitary tree in the flat expanse of scraggly grass and lay flat on our backs, our chests heaving.

The ground was hard under my back and lumpy with what I hoped was rocks rather than sheep poo. It felt a bit damp too and I knew my white dress was being ruined as I lay there, but I didn’t care. In fact, I took a vicious sort of rebellious pleasure out of it. I hadn’t picked the stupid dress, my mum had as per usual.

“My mum would hate this.” I muttered my thoughts out loud and I heard him sigh next to me.

“Your mum hates everything.”

“True.” I conceded with a smile, “But she would especially hate this.”

“Kind of the point, isn’t it?” I turned my head and saw that he was looking at me as well.

“Not the point,” I said slowly, “But definitely an added benefit.” He smiled then too and I felt my stomach give that familiar little swoop.

No-one else could get him to smile, he barely spoke at school and most people were scared of him, but, even if it was my only talent, I was happy that getting Alex Coogan to smile was something I was capable of.

“I’m leaving.”

The familiar little swoop turned abruptly into a nosedive and I sat bolt upright in shock and alarm.

“You’re what?” I demanded as a little voice inside my head started to chant ‘no, no, no, no.’

“Going. Tonight, when that thing’s over.” He gestured back towards the large marquee where most of our small town was packed celebrating the wedding anniversary of the local principal and his art teacher wife.

“I can’t wait to get out of here.” He was smiling again, but I got none of the warm and fuzzies I’d felt last time his lips had turned upwards.

“Thanks a lot!” I snapped, crossing my arms and suddenly feeling the cold of the spring night where before it had felt balmy.

“What?” He sat up as well, suddenly cottoning on to my horror at what he was saying. “You knew I’d have to leave sooner or later. And, anyway, you hate it here as well.”

“No I don’t.” I countered, my reply a gut instinct coming from some latent loyalty to my hometown that had been previously buried. “I mean,” I tried to explain as he looked at me like I’d just grown another head, “Bridunna’s not that bad.”

“Not that bad?” He repeated incredulously, “It’s a shit hole, we’ve always said that.”

I looked around at the dry, cracked ground and familiar stark horizon and then closed my eyes and breathed in the dusty, sweet scent that I could only ever associate with home.

“It’s different for you, though.” I opened my eyes again quickly as Alex spoke. He was watching me closely and I was glad that the dark would hide my blush. “It doesn’t matter how bad it is here, you still kind of belong. I’ve never belonged here.”

“You never wanted to. You never tried,” I pointed out quietly, unable to shake the feeling of betrayal his announcement had brought up in me.

“I guess.” He looked away and scuffed his feet into the dirt, releasing little dry clumps of earth. “You’re my best friend, G.” He said suddenly, looking up not at me, but at the vacant nothingness in front of him, “Not that that means shit because you’re my only friend. But, you know, for what it is worth…”

“It’s worth heaps.” I felt tears spike my eyelashes and, instantly forgiving him for his declaration that he was leaving, grabbed at his hand, my pale, cold fingers closing tightly around his.

“Yeah,” he cleared his throat uncomfortably, “But I’m not coming back here. Not ever.” To my surprise he gave my hand a warm squeeze, before turning his face towards mine and smiling kind of nervously. “So you’re going to need to move to the city, yeah?”

“As soon as I finish school.” I promised, wishing I was the kind of girl with the guts to abandon everything she knew and run away to be with a guy.

It had taken all my courage to follow him to the city that first time a month or so back, but then I’d really had no other choice. As he’d always defended me, that time it had been my turn to step up and put things right for him.

I knew, though, that I wasn’t brave enough to run away from home permanently; from my family and everything I knew, not just yet anyway. We were only 15.

“Grace?” As if to reinforce how impossible it was, my mum’s crisp, authoritative voice suddenly carried faintly out across the paddock. “Where are you?”

In response to her call, Alex and I both scrambled to our feet and looked at each other with mirroring looks of frustration.

“It’s like she has a homing device planted on you.” Alex muttered and I nodded.

“So, I guess the speech must be over.” I said, hesitantly.

“I’ll be heading off soon then.” Alex echoed my thoughts.

We stared at each other through the darkness and it was as if I could feel some of the courage and strength I’d built up over the past year from knowing him splinter away. It was like it belonged to him and he was taking it back.

A tiny, gasping sob slipped through my lips at that thought and, in the next second, he stepped forward and awkwardly wrapped his arms around me.

“It’s not that bad.” He tried to reassure me as I started to cry for real, “Come on, G, it’s going to come out good, I promise.”

I shook my head against his shoulder, desperately wanting to be brave for him, but failing miserably.

“Hey!” He grabbed my shoulders and gave me a tiny shake. “Pull it together. You’re going to have to deal with that lot,” he gestured contemptuously towards the tent and the direction my mother’s voice had come from, “on your own now so you’re going to have to toughen up.”

In response to his words I swallowed the next lump of tears swelling in my throat and nodded wretchedly.

“I’ve made you something.” I looked up to see him fumbling in his pocket and the next second he pulled out a medallion about the size of a 50 cent coin made of polished, honey coloured wood. It had a hole at the top through which was threaded a length of black leather and carved deeply into the centre were three small letters.

ATW

“Against the world.” I said, my voice hoarse from my little crying jag, but also filled with the smile that was turning up the corners of my mouth.

“Yeah,” He leant forward and slipped his hands up round the back of my neck to tie the ends of the leather. I closed my eyes and savoured the feeling of his body heat and the faint citrus, boy smell that was Alex. “There.”

He stepped back and I felt the token fall heavily against my skin where it sat just above the hollow between my breasts.

I reached up and ran my fingers over the smooth wood, tracing the grooves of the letters and feeling it already begin to take on the heat of my body, as if it was a part of me.

“I love it.” I told him honestly, “I’m never taking it off.”

He shrugged self-consciously and shoved his hands into his pockets awkwardly as he always did when I complimented the stuff he made.

“It’s nothing.”

“No, it’s definitely something.” I let my hand drop away from the necklace and boldly moved forward towards him.

When we were standing chest to chest, I reached up onto my tiptoes, holding onto his shoulders for balance, and pressed my lips against his in the way I’d been longing to for months.

I’d meant it to be a light, ‘goodbye and thank you’ kiss, but he responded hungrily, pushing back against me and taking his hands out of his pockets to grab me by the hips. Surprised, but thrilled by his response, I moved my hands from his shoulders to twine around his neck and tilted my head to take the kiss deeper.

This was what I’d wanted, but Alex had shown no signs of feeling the same way. We were best friends, but best friends didn’t kiss like this, they didn’t press themselves against each other and hold on as if they never wanted to let go. So what did that make us?

“Grace Andrews!”

We sprung apart so fast I felt dizzy from the speed (or was that from something else?), and looked at my mother, standing there in her fancy cream pants suit, her mouth twisted in disgust and fury.

My hand shot up my mouth as if by hiding my red and swollen lips I could conceal what we’d been doing.

“Mum!” I squeaked in horror, my eyes darting between her and Alex in panic.

“It’s time to go.” She held out an imperious hand towards me, but I hesitated. If this was my goodbye to Alex, I didn’t want it to end like this.

He must have had the same idea because, with a long, deliberate, insolent look at my mum, he reached for me again and I stepped willingly into his embrace.

“Bye, then.” He muttered against my hair.

“Bye.” I replied, hugging him close for a couple of seconds and then reluctantly letting him go.

“Come on, Grace.” My mum’s hand clamped down upon my arm and I found myself being tugged away.

I kept my face turned back towards him even as my feet stumbled in the other direction, and I was alarmed by how quickly he seemed to be fading into the darkness.

As if sensing that I needed this one last piece of reassurance, his voice came floating after me,

“Against the world, G.”

I laughed then and rested my fingers against the wooden disc on my chest, suddenly feeling better about our separation.

My mum could drag me away from him all she liked when I was 15 and living under her roof, but, as soon as I was finished with high school, there was nothing in the world that would stop Alex and me being together.

Nothing.

End Note

Well, this is a completely new start to a story I started a while ago. When I tried to go back to the previous plot it just about did my head in with all the time jumps and the angst so here we go with a more linear and (slightly) less angsty premise, but with the same characters.

This is a sequel to another story of mine, So Much to Learn, but I think it should be easy enough to read without having read that one; some mention of other characters just might seem a bit redundant!

For those who have read SMtL, we're going back to song titles as chapter names, hurrah! I'm so excited to be able to kick this off with Birds of Tokyo, I love Universes.

Cheers, Jess/star123