Spoiler
Hey! So I know this is quite rough, I've just written it and am planning to make it the first chapter of a longer story. I'd be grateful for any comments :]
“Pick a card, any card.”
The teen opposite me lifted his eyes from his sandwich. Crumbs surrounded his mouth, which he didn't even seem notice. He glared at me.
“Huh?”
“Pick a card, any card,” I repeated, waving the deck in front of his face. He narrowed his eyes, which I noticed were a pleasing brown colour. “Come on, we’ve got another hour on this crappy France train. Might as well make it fun.”
The boy looked around our carriage, lit by hazy lights. Outside, the clouds were being consumed by a colourless dusk.
“Yeah,” he said, sounding deeply bored. He crossed his arms and observed my cards, one by one. The train rumbled quietly in the background, going at what felt like two miles an hour.
“That one,” the boy said suddenly, jabbing his index finger at a card in the middle. His accent indicated that he was from the north of England; a different pitch riddling each word.
“Okay, now take it out of the pack, but make sure I don’t see it,” I said. I sat up straight, smiled. He extricated the card carefully, mouth opening slightly in concentration. I began shuffling the pack of cards. “Now,” I instructed, “Put it back in the pack, anywhere you want.” The teen lifted his eyes to me suspiciously, but did as I asked. I shuffled some more, then placed the cards on the table separating us.
“Divide the pack wherever you want,” I said. He put his hand over the pack, hesitated a moment, then divided it near the middle. I took the top half and put it next to the bottom half.
“So, what’s your name?” I asked. I was distracting him, and he knew it. He kept his eyes on the cards, as if expecting them to start walking around the table.
“Aaron.” He lifted his head slightly. “You?”
“Cali,” I muttered. No way was he going to find out my full name. “Now,” I said, louder than I meant to. I flipped over the card on top of the left hand pile. “Aaron, destiny tells me that your card was the ten of spades.”
I pushed the card towards him and observed his reaction. He picked the card up, looked at it closely, and laughed. “That trick’s so easy. Anyone could do that.”
“All right, so how did I do it?” I challenged him with an unblinking stare.
He shuffled back in his seat, over-sized hoodie bulging around him. I waited a moment, then, when it became evident that he wouldn’t reply, I collected my cards and put them back in my rucksack. I took my magazine and opened it to the problems page.
“So,” Aaron said, a few seconds later. “What’re you doing on this train?” I lifted my eyes.
“Going to France,” I said, raising my eyebrows. His mouth settled into a tight line, and I realised that he didn’t appreciate my sarcasm. “I’m going to stay with my uncle.”
“In the middle of term?” he asked, eyebrows furrowing. I looked down, took a breath.
“Look, it’s a long story.”
Aaron nodded, and, thankfully, turned away.
“How about you? What’re you going to do in France?” I asked, after a moment’s silence.
“Going to see my nan.”
“In the middle of term?” I said. I couldn’t help myself. Aaron glowered at me.
“Sorry.” I looked down, feeling myself going red.
“Look, if you really want to know, my nan’s really sick. My mum’s over there with her, and she wanted me to join them ‘cos she doesn’t trust me in the house alone.” He spoke quickly, his eyes fully occupied with a flap of loose skin on his thumb. I nodded and turned back to my magazine before I could do any more damage.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, me too,” he said, turning to look out of the window. From a profile perspective, he wasn’t all that bad-looking. His features were regular, apart from his slightly hooked nose, and while from a full-on angle, his hair was a floppy mess, from the side it actually looked like it was meant to look like that; the ‘Just Out of Bed’ look people aimed for these days.
I closed my magazine and let my eyes wander to the window. My thoughts shifted to my family. Would they be missing me? Probably not. With three kids under ten and a grumbling seventeen year-old son, my parents had more to think about than their rebel of a teenage daughter. In the quick way Dad had said goodbye, he made it clear that he was still disappointed. Mum hugged me too tight before I left, digging her nails into my back: a sign of anger, not affection. My siblings were busy creating chaos, as usual. As a leaving present they set a trap by the front door, resulting in me having a bucket of water fall on my head, completely drenching my straightened hair. How affectionate. I made sure to chase the little ones, screaming until they hid trembling under their beds.
Forget my family; I knew my friends would be missing me. They didn’t care about what I’d done; they understood why I had to do it.
Dennis, one of my closest friends, caught my mind, and I thought back to his reaction when my parents decided to ship me off to France to ‘Think about what I had done’. He was quiet for a long time after I told him, and when I turned to him I’d caught a glimpse of a tear in his eye. I thought about teasing him for it, but decided not to when he looked me right in the eye, and said in a gravely voice I didn’t recognise:
“No.”
That was it; a simple denial. Then he got up from the overgrown grass we were sitting on, threw a couple of strands he’d collected into the murky pond, and walked away. That was it. I didn’t see him after that. He didn’t even go to my leaving party. I swallowed hard at the memory. We’d always been so close, and recently we’d been growing closer. Now France had to come along and spoil it. Spoil everything I’d built up with him; everything.
I shook my head, shaking the complaining out of it. Negative attitude brings nothing, Grandma always said. Coming to think of it, she was the only person related to me who said she’d miss me. She even bought me a leaving present: black heels, elegant and classy.
“You want some?” Aaron asked, jolting me out of my thoughts. I turned to see him shoving a bag of maltesers across the table. I reached out and grabbed a couple.
“Thanks,” I smiled.
He helped himself to a few, wiping away the sandwich crumbs from his lips. From the moment the train began, he hadn’t stopped eating. In fact, it was to stop his incessant chewing that I’d taken out my pack of cards in the first place.
“So where abouts in France are you going?” I asked.
“Somewhere in the south, you?”
“A small town near Paris.” He nodded thoughtfully, placing another two maltesers in his mouth.
“How are you so thin?” It came out quickly, and only after I said it did I realise that I probably shouldn’t have asked. He looked at me as if I had a beard, or something.
“Huh?”
“I mean… you eat so much. How come you’re not fat?” I said it in a rush, almost kicking myself. Aaron carried on staring at me, and just as I was considering escaping to the toilet and never coming back, he laughed. It was a low gargling sound, falling out of his lips along with a spray of crumbs. His eyes, already small, became even smaller as his laugh grew bigger.
“What sort of question is that?”
“A normal question for a girl my age and build,” I said, straight-faced. Aaron laughed some more, and I tried my best to avoid the bits spraying from his mouth.
“You’re one of those girls who’s always worried about being fat, then?”
“All I wanted to know was how you’re not fat, don’t read too much into it,” I retorted.
“I don’t eat that much,” he said, almost defensively. It was my turn to laugh.
“I’ve never heard such an understatement.”
Quiet descended upon us, and I realised I might have gone a little too far. I opened my magazine again. In the background, an automated woman’s voice stated that we would be approaching Paris in less than half an hour. I felt my insides painfully twisting, a foreign feeling. When my parents had finalised the decision of sending me to France for a year, I was sure that they’d change their minds. I spent the past week absolutely certain that they would decide not to send me after all; even in the train station, waiting for the Eurostar, I was sure that they’d realise what a terrible thing they were doing to their daughter. And now, it dawned upon me that this was actually happening, that I was actually going. There was no turning back. My breathing became shallow: I never panicked, but now, by myself, on a train leading me to an Uncle I barely knew, to a country where I couldn’t speak the language, I felt so panicked I could hardly move. My temples pounded, my hands became clammy.
“You okay?” It was Aaron’s voice that helped me resurface. I nodded.
“Just doing some breathing exercises.” I laughed at my own lame excuse. Aaron remained serious.
“But you’ve gone all pale. You want some water?” He pushed a half-empty bottle of water to my side of the table. I gratefully opened it and took a few gulps before shoving it back to his side.
“Thanks.”
He nodded, looked out of the window. My eyes flitted restlessly around the carriage, before resting back on him. I needed to talk to someone.
“How long are you staying in France, then?”
He took his eyes from the window and studied me for a second before replying. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“If my Nan gets better.” I saw that he was ready to look out of the window again, and I desperately tried to stop him.
“Aren’t you going to ask me the same question?” He looked at me, annoyance gleaming in his eyes. I bit my lip, knowing all too well how annoying I was being, but also knowing that I couldn’t just sit in silence, otherwise my nerves would bite through my brain.
“How long are you staying in France?” His voice was monotonous, dull, almost mocking.
“A year. Maybe more.” I could see that this interested him, even though he tried his best to conceal it. He opened a pack of sweets that he had put on the table.
“Why don’t you tell me why you’re going to France then, seeing as you’re all chatty-like,” he said.
“Do I have to?” I asked playfully. I was in ‘that mood’ that really annoyed Mum. It seemed like it was getting on Aaron’s nerves too, because he just stared at me until I carried on.
“Well, my parents sent me here. As a punishment.” I waited for him to reply. When he didn’t, I continued, “They got so cross with me, they decided to send me to a different country. I was too much of a handful anyway: my family’s way too crowded.”
“What did you do?”
“I got expelled.” This brought on a heavy silence. He even stopped sucking on his sweet.
“How?” His eyes widened, and he cocked his head slightly. I completely understood his reaction: with my round face framed by curly, dark hair, I looked the innocent sort. Before I could explain, though, the automated voice came back on. We were approaching Paris.
