6. sierra

It was one of those rare days where I was glad for Justin’s eccentric personality. With his everyday irritatingly loud voice and uncanny ability to talk non-stop for a whole half hour, he managed to make me forget about Anthony and Tommy Hayford. Well, almost.

As much as I had pushed the events to the back of my head, they had still managed to seep themselves back into the recesses of my mind, itching me, forcing me to have that little voice that whispered and recounted what had happened. I needed sugar. Lots and lots of sugar. Maybe some coffee too.

“So I’m turning eighteen tonight,” Justin was babbling one of his epic, improvised speeches, “Or maybe I’ve already turned eighteen. I wouldn’t know because I don’t actually know what time I came out of my mum’s va—what time I was born,” Justin quickly and sheepishly corrected himself as he noticed a few people’s heads turn in alarm as we stepped through the hallway.

He was walking backwards, facing us so he was absolutely sure that we were looking at and paying attention to him, “This party is gonna be a blast isn’t it. I’ve always dreamed of being able to watch R-rated movies, with all that... you know.”
“That’s great Justin,” Christian nodded, slightly glazing over like Carol and I, “Now how about we all get ourselves prettied up so we can seduce sexy men.”
Carol quirked an eyebrow, “I’m really beginning to question your sexuality.”
He laughed nervously as Justin looped an arm around both their shoulders, leaving me on the side and completely out of the picture, “Whoever we seduce doesn’t matter, right?” he grinned cheerily, “What matters is that we look seductive and awesome.”

He returned to his usual position in the front, ardently leading the way to nowhere in particular. I cleared my throat.

Justin spun on one foot and opened his arms, “Yes, my darling Ashley, what is your question?”
I offered him a weird look, “Where exactly are we going?”
He gesticulated, “Well, that is all up to you, dearest. We may go to any place that is capable of making you so gorgeous that even the devils of hell cannot match up to you.”
“I’m sorry, but could you speak in a language that I can understand?”
“Anywhere you want,” he said quickly, slightly put off that I wasn’t able to comprehend his intricate sentence structure.
“Manicure!” Carol shrieked, rushing to the doorway of a fragrant store, “Oh, god, I’m absolutely dying here with my chipped nail. You guys can go ahead; it’s a must that I get my nails done. I’ll meet you guys at the food court later, yeah? Great! Love ya, bye!” she chirped as she excitedly stepped into the shop without waiting for an answer.

Thank God it was Justin and Christian; if it were two guys I hadn’t been hanging out with for the past five, six years, I’d be in the most awkward situation possible. Now Justin swung his arms around our shoulders; his arm rested uncomfortably on my short stature, and after a while he gave up.

“No offence, Ash, but you’re kinda short,” he grumbled disappointedly, “I mean from far away, damn, you’re tall. But close up you’re a rabbit, or maybe even a mouse."

I scowled at him, unappreciative of the fact that he compared me to animals.

“A very cute mouse,” Christian noticed my expression, while Justin remained completely oblivious as he basked in his own pride and glory.

“Anything you want, Ashley, my darling?” Justin asked, bowing in front of me, and walking backwards at the same time, “Yes! I want jeans! Let’s goooooo!”

He yelled the words as he spread his arms out, mimicking an aeroplane, and half-ran in a zigzag down the corridor towards the nearest shop.

“I don’t know him,” I told a man standing next to us. Christian shook his head and he grabbed my wrist and dragged me along as he briskly walked to catch up with him.

The shop we entered was freakishly gothic, with salespeople who wore black from head to toe, nose rings, unnecessarily attention-grabbing haircuts and tongues piercings. The clothes there seemed to be designed solely for people with weird haircuts, depraved expressions and no ass. I looked, and felt too much like a fish out of water in there for my liking, and was pretty sure Christian was feeling the same.

“Hey, Ash!” Justin called, “This will look awesome on you!” he dangled a very revealing top in front of my nose. My mouth fell open.
I closed it, “You know, I think I’m fine with the t-shirts in my wardrobe.”
“And I went through the trouble of finding it as well,” Justin gave me a disappointed pout.
“That look won’t work on me,” I sighed, turning to Christian, “Anything you want from here?”
“Not really, we just came here ‘cause he did,” Christian jerked his head in Justin’s general direction.
“You know, I find it a little awkward shopping with you guys,” I tugged at my sleeve nervously.
“What was that, Ash?” Justin called out from deep within the shop, “I thought you loved us, and now that you don’t, I don’t think I can live anymore!” he emerged from behind a messy rack of clothes on sale with a solemn expression on his face, “Oh, spare me this pain. Spear me with a toothbrush, and I’ll die peacefully, but only if you do it.”

Christian shook his head, “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“Am I really friends with you?” I cocked an eyebrow.
“Ah, but my darling Ashley, the real question is, are you friends, with this?” he thrust another skin-baring top in front of my face and I could see him grinning cheesily behind the ripped and dangerously thin fabric.
“No,” I looked around anxiously, only to be greeted with the attention of several pairs of heavily eyeliner-ed eyes, “You know what, Just?”
“Yes?” he took the top away from my face, his childish eyes sparkling with excitement, “You figured out that you want something?”
“Yes. I would like to buy a new bus pass. I’ve run out of rides.”

Justin carelessly tossed the top high backwards over his head and linked arms with me again, “Then let’s go!” and marched past the curious customers, out of the shop, with Christian following behind as meekly and nonchalantly as possible.

“Is it just me, or is he... high?” Christian whispered into my ear as I was tugged toward the newsagent via Justin’s arm that was linked with mine.
“Yeah,” I said, “But my question is... on what? Is it orange juice, or... that?”

Christian shook his head, “We should have a serious talk to him about that, but preferably not now.”

“Here we are!” Justin said cheerfully, kneeling on the ground and bowing gracefully, “It’s an honour to be able to do you service.”

I patted him on the head, “Just hope you’re not high on drugs,” I said half-jokingly, giving him what I hoped was a meaningful look.

He stood up and looked away; the cheerful demeanour had completely vanished, “What I do is none of your business. Hurry up and buy your bus pass.”

I walked into the shop feeling a small twinge of guilt and requested a pass.

“Concession? No concession?” the cashier asked as he browsed through the variously coloured tickets.
“Yes, for students,” I said, looking around, taking in the colour-coded pen arrangement, neat stacks of books, and newspapers.

One particular headline caught my eye; I was only too familiar with the subject.

I quickly paid for the ticket and looked outside. Justin and Christian were nowhere to be seen. I shrugged the matter off and decided that my curiosity was more important than finding them. After all, we were meeting up at the food court later and I wasn’t exactly on the best terms with Justin. I snatched the newspaper and scanned the article. There was a picture of a gorgeous blonde; truly a terrible fact that she had died so tragically.

A teenage girl, Sierra Milton, was found dead on the street in front of her apartment after allegedly jumping off her twenty-sixth floor balcony. Reports show that Sierra had been on hallucinogens at the time of death. However, police and detectives are being led into another mind-twisting case as further investigations have shown that a person may have been in the room with her at the time of her death...

-

Sierra examined herself in the mirror. Yes. She had grown to become a very beautiful girl—one with an angelic beauty that would have stopped most people on the street. Her guest would be shocked; he hadn’t seen her in years, and the last time he had seen her, he had hated her with a passion. It was a shame too, since she had had a crush on him at the time.

It was cold, but she had decided to go all the way. She was only wearing a teasing denim micro skirt, and a button-down shirt, with the thought of her guest ogling at her enticingly playing joyfully in her mind.

She wanted him to kiss her, touch her. Today would be the day.

She ruffled her blonde hair and pouted at the mirror after applying a fresh coat of lipstick. Oh, was she looking forward to this reunion. She’ll show him what a lady she had become, and he would regret ever hating her in the past.

Everything in her apartment was perfect. All clothes, blankets and even underwear were folded. There was nothing else she could do to appear more impressive than she already did.

Her heart started beating faster when she heard a knock on the door. No. Calm down.
She snatched a slip of plastic and put a small square of what appeared to be blotter paper into her mouth. Excitement started to bubble in her stomach.

When she opened the door, it was her that received the shock. Standing in front of her was an absolutely to-die-for teenager. His hair was shiny, and looked so soft it took all her will to not throw herself onto him and start running her hands through it. The adorable boy she knew before had blossomed into a beautiful rose.
“Hello, Sierra,” he with a voice and smile that made her knees wobble. She had forgotten all about flirting and burned with lust.

Before she knew it, the door had been slammed shut and her lips were crushed against his. His hand easily slid up her skirt and touched white skin beneath. She hissed slightly at the contact that set her skin on fire. As thought of before, his hair was irresistibly soft and she touched it over and over again. She straddled him and held him as close to her as possible, his hard chest pressed pleasingly against her own soft one, all the while not knowing where he was taking her.

One would think that at this moment, they would be making their way to her bed. But the boy had other intentions. He had taken them both onto the balcony.

Yes, she was beautiful. But she did not deserve to live.

Her hazel eyes stared at him with burning desire and she kissed him again, desperation evident in her actions. He pried her legs off of his hips and tilted her ever so slowly over the balcony edge.

Sierra was still longing for another kiss as she plummeted down twenty six floors to her death.

5. bad habits

He ran through the corridor, the bright red balloon floating behind him like the tail of a kite. His right arm was plastered; he couldn’t move it. But that didn’t matter at the moment. He wanted to show Daddy his balloon.

“Daddy!” he called out, still running, “Daddy, look what I have!”
Whoa! What you got there, big guy? That’s what Daddy would say. He just knew it.

He was angry with his mother at the moment, and he knew she was angry with him. But he didn’t know why she was mad at him. He didn’t do anything. Did he? It didn’t matter much to him now. He wiped his tears and put on a strong face for his dad to see. He was mad at Mum, so he’d run to Dad. It always worked. Of course, before, he also had... he shook his head.

Don’t think about her, he thought.

It would only bring about terrible memories.

He wanted to stitch up his relationship with his father; ever since that incident, they had been drifting further and further away from each other. He knew that if he apologised for his behaviour after it, his father would forgive him and take him to the park, or at least piggyback him downstairs to make and eat a sandwich. Or something of the sort.

His small feet swiftly climbed the stairs to his father’s study.

“Oomph,” he grunted when he tripped on a step, letting the balloon go and float up. Realising that he couldn’t reach it, he frowned.

Oh well, he thought, Daddy will get it for me. At this thought, he smiled. It’d been a while since his daddy helped him with something.

He got up and turned into the study. The light was off. He could hear his mother calling him from downstairs. He would get to her later; he wanted to talk to Daddy first.

He switched the light on, and saw his father sleeping on the desk. But why did it smell so... bad? Like smoke from a fire, except there was no fire. He shook his father’s shoulder, but he didn’t wake up.

“Daddy?” he poked his head under his face and prodded his cheek. The smell drifted up his nose. He coughed.
“Daddy, I can you get my balloon for me?” he shook his father again, harder this time, “Daddy, stop sleeping!”
He propped his left arm on the table and decided to wait for his father to wake up. His mother called him again. Getting impatient, he lifted his father’s head up, and screamed.

His father’s eyes were rolled back. There was blood running down the side of his head. And then he realised the revolver on the table. And then he couldn’t hear anything; he could only see his father’s rolled-back eyes, and could only smell that foul smoke invading his nostrils, setting them on fire.

He backed into the corner, his eyes scrunched tight, covering his ears with his tiny hands, and screamed.

And screamed.

And screamed.

-

“Well, well, well,” the man called Anthony straightened up and looked directly at me, familiar stark blue eyes piercing my mind, challenging me. I widened my eyes in shock. I was a murderer-to-be and I was caught! Mrs. Hayford turned around, saw my and Carol’s head poked around the corner, and shrieked, spilling the contents of her drink on the floor.
“Oh! Gomenasai...” she muttered, bending down to clean it up.
“What do we have here?” Anthony said, approaching us, ignoring Mrs. Hayford. I frowned; if he was any kind of gentleman he’d help her.
“Umm... Mr. Hayford?” Carol said uncertainly.
“Yes, that is what most people address me as,” he nodded, somewhat proud, “Who might you girls be, intruding the house?”
“Sorry, Mrs. Hayford! And... Mr. Hayford.” I squeaked. It felt slightly odd to be addressing Tommy’s father, “We—we were just delivering some goods, you know?”

I gasped. Mrs. Hayford didn’t know about the party. She wasn’t supposed to. If she found out that a party, with alcohol, with an invitation list of 900 people was being hosted in her very own house, she’d skin Tommy alive, after extracting his intestines and slicing them into thin pieces and eating them with a bowl of miso soup. Not to mention she’d put Justin through tremendous, unbearable torture for holding his party in her house.

So I added on hastily, “You know how this place is kind of my second home and all, right? I thought I should stock up a lot since my brother’s getting attacked by puberty and all, and he’s getting mood swings every five seconds like a girl on her period. Well, my point is that Carol was so kind as to help me get all the food here and no one was answering the door so I climbed through the back and I thought if I could open the front door—“
“Yes!” Mrs. Hayford clapped her hands and rubbing them together nervously, “You may... open the front door.”

Phew.

“Thanks!” I said in an unintentionally high-pitched voice, “Come on, Carol!”
“You know them?” I heard Anthony Hayford question Tommy’s mother as we swiftly left the room.
Carol, still dazed, came after me, “I didn’t know Tommy had a dad!”
“Neither did I!” I hissed, “I’m just lucky she wasn’t suspicious about us breaking in.”
“Yeah, lucky she was distracted by the spilt coffee or whatever she was drinking. Not to mention your superb excuse-slash-explanation. Did you rehearse it? Because it all came out in one breath. And wow Tommy’s dad is almost as hot as he is! I mean, yeah, you know. I’m not attracted to middle-aged men, but he’s like a George Clooney!” she raved.

I stared at her. She did not just hit on Tommy’s father.

She blinked and seemed to realise what she just said, “Yeah, let’s go open that door.”
“Shall we drag it to Tommy’s room? I mean, it is on the ground floor, and that way his mum won’t discover it. Probably. Hopefully. Maybe not.”
“I don’t care. As long as we don’t have to push it for too long,” she shrugged, and opened the door.
After we managed (somehow) to push that trolley another fifty metres, I slumped on Tommy’s bed, not caring if I crinkled his sheets or rearranged his pillows.

“Tommy owes us bigtime,” I groaned, my muscles deciding to ache now.
“Ugh! My nail chipped!” Carol said, disgusted, “I’m going to get a manicure tomorrow.”
“I’m sure me and the guys will enjoy watching you getting beautified.”

She sighed, mourning the loss of the corner of her nail.

“I don’t know what kind of guy keeps scented candles in his room,” Carol said, snooping around.
“He doesn’t like that,” I said, speaking for Tommy, “People looking at his stuff.”
“I know. But he isn’t here now, is he? Nail clippers, couple of CDs,” she continued digging out small treasures of his table, “Oh! I love that band!”
“Maybe you should stop,” I repeated myself, “Tommy doesn’t like people looking at his stuff.”
“And I like looking at people’s stuff. Things weigh each other out, Ash. Oh, look!” She held up the Yellow Pages I saw the other day, “He’s stalking someone.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“He might be.”
“Changing the topic!” I paused, “Maybe we should explain ourselves to Mrs. Hayford? I mean, not that we haven’t already. It’s just we didn’t explain very well.”
She jumped up happily, “Yes! Let’s go see Tommy’s dad!”

I shook my head and left the room. Mr. and Mrs. Hayford were deep in conversation, their heads dangerously close. I had an urge to just clonk them both together and cause them great pain, because they were obviously dirty-talking Tommy.

“I mean, he never helps around the house, he always comes home so late! All he lets me do is worry!” Mrs. Hayford said, distressed.

I wanted to grab her by her hair and say to her that she was never available for him and doesn’t even have time to worry about anything but her precious convenience stores. Not to mention that her negligence was the cause of his absence from home. I loudly cleared my throat.

They both silenced, and snapped their attention to us.

“Sorry about our—”cough, “intrusion earlier. I mean, no one was answering the door.”
“We knocked,” Carol added, helpfully.
Mrs. Hayford nodded, “That’s quite alright. It was our fault for not answering.”
Mr. Hayford, however, was less understanding, “Do you regularly climb over people’s back fences if nobody’s home?” he demanded.
I flinched, “No, I—we—I’m just a—”
“They are very good friend of Tommy,” Mrs. Hayford hastily answered for me with her excellent grammar.
“I see,” Mr. Hayford said, obviously not convinced. I also wanted to grab him by the hair and tell him that he shouldn’t be judging us.

The awkward silence that followed tempted me further. I was greatly enticed, believe me.

“Yeah,” Carol said cautiously, “I think my mum wanted me to do something for her. See ya, Ash. Bye, Mrs. Hayford,” she bowed, “Mr. Hayford.”
Mrs. Hayford bowed, Mr. Hayford nodded. I didn’t know whether to be jealous, pissed, or understanding of the fact that she just left me. The situation was painfully awkward and I also wanted to concoct an ingenious excuse to get me out of it, but it would be too suspicious, especially after Carol just departed.

I contemplated the idea of asking Mrs. Hayford whether she knew Ella or not, but decided against it when I remembered Tommy’s reaction to the mention of her name and I didn’t want to risk Mrs. Hayford to break out into one of her unstoppable hysterics.

“So, Ashley,” Mrs. Hayford decided to shatter the silence, “I can’t help but notice that the food that you are stocking up on was all soft drink and chips?”
I laughed nervously, shifting my gaze to Mr. Hayford, who looked amused. He’d better not think I was a gluttonous pig, “You see... I... love potatoes, especially flavoured ones. I mean, you can’t find flavoured potatoes in the supermarket, they only come as chips. My mum used to make flavoured potatoes for, umm, lunch. Well, not lunch, but afternoon tea or something. Yeah, Daniel and I loved dipping them in Fanta and Coke.”
Mr. Hayford raised an eyebrow, “Really? That’s interesting, I‘ve never heard of flavoured potatoes. I’d like to try some.”

Crap.

“Ahh... well, you see, the recipe to make them was really complicated, couldn’t be memorised, and she lost it, so I don’t think we’ll ever be eating the real thing ever again,” I said, sighing sadly.
“Pity.”
“Yeah.”

Mrs. Hayford looked disbelieving. Tommy owed me his ass, I swear. His mum probably thought I was slightly deluded, or... retarded, as he would put it.

“I can leave,” I pointed hopefully to the front door, “If I interrupted something important.”
“No!” Mr. Hayford said immediately, shaking his head.

Damn.

“No, no, no,” Mrs. Hayford agreed.
“So you were talking about Tommy before?” I decided to pry.
“Yes, we were,” Mr. Hayford said icily, obviously unimpressed by my nosiness.
“That boy have such bad habits. He eats the cucumber straight from the fridge!” Mrs. Hayford exclaimed. I raised an eyebrow, “And he stay out so late every day, and he always flicking that infernal lighter of his on and off. Why does he even have it, anyway? He doesn’t smoke! Or does he? I don’t know because I don’t see him at all. Hell—” I flinched at the word, “He could even be doing marijuana!”
“Excuse me?” a cold voice demanded quietly. All heads turned towards the threshold. Mrs. Hayford’s face looked consumed by guilt. Tommy stood there, his face questioning.
“Tommy!” I said happily. I bounced to him and hissed quietly into his ear, “You didn’t tell me about your dad.”
He paled, “W—what?”

His breath seemed to have been cut short as he realised who Mr. Hayford was, a shocked and appalled look slowly etching itself on his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but he was at a loss for words. His eyes, the empty, clueless blue, were wide and lost.

“Wha—what are you—who?” he attempted to muster some words. He started shaking, his stance weakening.
“You’ve gotten really handsome and... rather thin, I must say,” Mr. Hayford smiled and opened his arms, “Thomas—”
“Don’t,” Tommy seethed, tone completely changed, his words laced with malice, “Don’t call me that.”

The atmosphere between them oozed hate and anger. It seemed to drop below zero degrees, causing my hairs to stand on end and my skin to break out in goosebumps. Only Mr. Hayford attempted to stay and keep his voice composed.

Mr. Hayford fazed, “But Thomas, my boy—“
“Don’t think you can just come in here,” Tommy yelled angrily, pointing at the floor, “All welcome, and act all fatherly—” he spat the word, “thinking that you can replace him, because you can’t!”
“Tommy, that’s enough.” Mrs. Hayford warned him.
“Thomas—”
“Don’t call me that!” he shrieked, voice rising. I jumped at his tone.
“Tom,” Mr. Hayford corrected himself slowly, “I’m just here to—”
“I don’t want a father,” Tommy said, then dragged his icy blue orbs to meet with the other pair, “And I don’t need one, so you can go and fuck off.”

I cringed at his words but didn’t move away from him.

“Tommy!” Mrs. Hayford said, horrified, “You will mind your language when you are talking to your uncle!”

Uncle?

Mr. Hayford put a hand out, signalling that he was fine. He slowly walked to Tommy, “Tom, I’m not trying to replace your father, but you do realise that he’s not going to come back, right?”
“With all due respect, sir, I think this topic is upsetting him,” I said, folding my arms. I tried to look confident, but it was so painful. I’d never seen Tommy create an outburst of anger, and it hurt me that I couldn’t do anything about it.

His face—I had never seen it so shook up, so hurt. It was like he had been sawn in half, and was being stitched back together, slowly. The look on his face. I never thought I’d ever see it.

Tommy was going to cry.

“Yes, let’s stop,” Mrs. Hayford quickly agreed, oblivious to her son’s emotions, “Tommy, go to your room.”

I was still taking in the fact that Tommy was on the verge of tears when I realised that he was no longer beside me.

4. father

“So where did you and Tommy go yesterday if you didn’t go to his place?” Carol raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow as she grabbed about two dozen packets of different flavoured chips with her thin, perfectly tanned arm.
“Why do you want to know so badly?” I asked acidly, “You’ve asked that so many times and I don’t want to tell you.”
“I’m merely curious,” she said, sounding a little desperate, “and why aren’t you telling me anyway? I’m, like, your best friend!”

Because I was a nice person, I didn’t tell her that I considered Tommy to be my best friend, and that I had a hunch that she liked Tommy. Like, like liked. And that I didn’t like it.

We were in the local supermarket, buying about 1000 bucks’ worth of food for Justin’s precious 18th birthday party since he decided to invite the entire student body, which was about 900 people. Carol, being the obstinate stickybeak she was, naturally asked me about what I did and where I went with Tommy yesterday. It’s like she had to know everything.

“Umm...” I said, wondering if I should tell her about the amazingly... nice place we went to.
“I can see you’re going to ace English this year,” she snorted, “now tell me!”
“Why do you want to know so badly?” I hissed, at the same time wondering whether I was being too obvious and secretive. I grabbed four raspberry Fanta bottles and she took plenty of lemonade, cherry soda, and juice.
“Do we really need that many drinks? I’m worried about Tommy’s water bill. I mean, people are gonna be peeing and... vomiting... all night,” I frowned, looking at the load of drinks in the trolley.
“Yes. People get thirsty in parties, especially if they’ve been trading saliva with someone.”
“You would know.”
“Shut up. Now stop changing the topic and tell me.”
“You wouldn’t know where we went even if I told you,” I mumbled, really not wanting to tell her about what I thought of as Tommy’s and my secret spot now.
“I don’t care. What was it like?” she said, getting excited, even though I wasn’t planning on telling her. She must’ve taken my reply as an ‘introduction’ of some sort before I actually told her about the place.
“Umm... nice?” I supplied, helpfully. ‘Nice’ would be the understatement of the year.
“Gee, Ash, that tells me a lot,” she rolled her eyes, “Did you guys go to a sizzling hot club and have sloppy teenage sex? Are you going to be the pair that will contribute more fucked up and unwanted kids into society?”
“Carol!” I gasped, horrified and slapping her arm, “Mind your language, missus! Me and Tommy aren’t like that!”
“I’m only kidding,” she said, winking, “but you wish you were.”
I sighed, “Maybe. I mean not in the teenage sex way but, you know and... yeah. Besides, he doesn’t see me in that way. More like a little sister, I guess.”

Til Ella’s 21st...

There was no way he would see me in that way, because he had this... Ella. The sad, nostalgic look on his face flashed back into my mind, causing me to tremble slightly.

The flames from hell...

What flames from hell?

“Or a sex machine,” Carol said bluntly, snapping me back to reality.
I quickly shouted the first thing that came to my mind so as to cover up for my spacing out, “Carol!”
“Okay, okay. I’m just saying it’s a definitely possibility.”
“We’re not having sex!” I exclaimed, exasperated.

We stopped speaking so loudly when we remembered that we were in a public supermarket, and noticed that there was an old lady staring at us, not even trying to be discreet about her mortification of the younger generation that hers worked so hard on conceiving.

Carol looked at me, then smiled and with a sugar-coated, thick-as-honey sweet voice, said, “Hi. Sorry, what was that? You wanted to know where the jam is? It’s in aisle three.”

I couldn’t help but giggle at her nonchalance. The old lady, startled by Carol’s overly exaggerated casualty, hurriedly scuttled away like a scared beetle. I was just glad she wasn’t one of those pissy old ladies who acted like they had PMS twenty-four-seven.

“Weird...” Carol muttered to herself, shaking her head. And just when I thought she wouldn’t press on the matter, “So, where did you and Tommy go?”
“For the last time, I don’t want to tell you, Carol,” I sighed, swinging my arms back and forth pointlessly as we strolled along the yoghurt and milk.
“Fine,” she pouted, “If it’s that precious to you, I’ll keep my nose out of it.”
“Good,” I said bluntly, though I was tempted to boast to her.

She muttered something about reverse psychology and how it didn’t work on me. Well, you’re right, Carol. It doesn’t work on me. Unless Tommy used it... well, Tommy shouldn’t have to use it. I’d listen to anything he said, and it didn’t matter whether it was good or bad; all that mattered was that he was happy. I’d commit a sin for him, even if it meant going to hell.

“So are you excited about Justin’s party?” Carol said in a completely different tone; surprisingly brightly for someone whose countless attempts at prying proved to be fruitless a few seconds ago.
“Of course!” I said, the words dripping heavily with sarcasm, “I can’t wait to be all intimate with drunk people who are already preoccupied with going down each other’s throats.” I looked pointedly at her.
She looked a little offended, but took it as a joke nonetheless, “I swear I won’t do that! Okay, maybe I will, but I can’t help it if I’m sexy.” She winked.
“Yeah, whatever, Carol,” I rolled my eyes, “Shall we pay for these now?” I made my way to the cash registers.
“Yes. Wait up!” she quickly clanked up to me in her six-inch heels, drawing plenty of male eyes to her and her legs. When she caught up to me she chirped, “So, what are you wearing? If I were you, I’d go for something low-cut, you know? Something sexy, so that Tommy will notice you...”
“Ew. No thanks, Carol,” I loaded the goods onto the belt. The cashier’s eyes widened as he looked at the daunting task before him. He looked from the food to us, the food, back to us, and arched a questioning eyebrow. I knew what he was thinking: we were going to pig out tonight; big time.
Carol winked at him and shrugged at me, “Your funeral. Let’s go shopping tomorrow. I can make you look nice without sexy clothes.”

The cashier began his challenge of scanning all our items with great collectedness and ease.

Beep.

“Yes, lots of people manage to get married without showing off too much cleavage, you know?”

Beep.

“Carol will make you absolutely beautiful for tomorrow night!” she said proudly, busting her buttons, “So let’s go shopping!”

Chorus of beeps.

Carol and I watched him scan the rest of the items for what seemed like ages.

“That’ll be nine hundred and eighty-six dollars and sixty-five cents,” the cashier said, finally finished. He looked just about ready to quit his job.
“Oh, snap. We’re lucky Tommy’s loaded,” Carol whistled, blinking her eyes rapidly.

I gave the money to the check-out-dude, who seemed to be rather surprised that we were paying in cash, “You’ll never run out of change again,”“Fine. Shopping tomorrow,” I said impatiently, “What time?”
“Shall we say... 11 at the fountain? Bring Tommy with you. I’ll get Justin and Christian.”
“We’re shopping with them?” I groaned, “Thanks,” I added to the cashier, who nodded.
“Have a nice day,” he said in a fatigued tone as he turned to the next customer, “Hi, how are you today?”
Then Carol said in a very loud voice, “Shit.”
“What?” I said nervously, looking around to see her, again, drawing a lot of attention.
“Shit,” she said, louder this time.
“Do you maybe, want to keep the volume down please?” I said desperately. I hated getting disapproving looks, especially from people I didn’t know. Especially from old people I didn’t know. And believe me, a lot of them were quite the elderly people. I just wanted to say to them as politely as possible: I don’t know this person!
“How the fuck are we going to carry all this shit?”

I looked at the sea of shopping bags. Oh, damn. She had a point.

“Shit," I said, but softer than Carol. I’d never sworn in unnecessary situations, but I felt it was necessary for me to swear. You know, to express my annoyance and anger.
“I know, right?!”
“I’m getting a trolley, or maybe two. There is no way in hell, or even heaven that I’m going to carry all this home. Would your mum mind if she picked us up and dropped us off at Tommy’s?”
“Don’t know. I’ll give her a ring,” she said, whipping out her expensive phone, “Hi, Mum?” she explained our little situation in fluent Swedish.

I pushed the trolley over and proceeded to load everything on. This was going to be rather difficult to roll around. Carol closed her phone and slipped it into her bag.

“Well?” I said, desperate and hopeful.
“We have 10 minutes to load this crap into the trolley and take it to the car park on roof level.”

-

“Thank you so much, Mrs. Hunter,” I said, scrambling out of the car.
She chuckled softly, “Anytime, Ashley darling.”
“Really, really, thank you!’ I almost cried, “If you want, I’ll kiss the ground just to show you how grateful I am.”
She blinked her round blue eyes, “I don’t think that’s necessary, love.”
“Of course,” I grinned sheepishly, “but thank you!”
“Tell Thomas I said hi,” she laughed heartily.
“Will do, Mrs. Hunter,” I saluted, closing the door to her sleek Mercedes.
“Ash, are you going to help me take this to Tommy’s or not?” Carol called me from where she had already successfully made it with the severely overweight trolley.
“Coming!” I called, and again to her mother, “Thanks!”
“Bye, Ashley! You girls have fun!” she drove off. Maybe I overdid it just a little bit.

I ran up to Carol and helped her push the trolley. It made very loud and clattering noises as the plastic wheels scraped across the pavement. We approached Tommy’s very... big house; what he gets for having a mother who’s the owner of a chain of convenience stores.

“I always wanted a house this big,” Carol sighed longingly, staring wistfully at the enviably clean, cream-coloured house.
“You already have a house bigger than this,” I reminded her, “And it has marble tiles. Tommy has floorboards. Now, keep pushing.”
“This is going to be a bitch to get up the stairs. Should we call Justin?”
I shook my head, “You know Justin. He’d say he’ll be here in five, but he’ll be here in forty-five.”
“Fine.”

It only took us ten minutes to get the trolley up the fourteen steps to Tommy’s front door.

“That should be in the Guiness World Record book,” I panted, “Who can get to the top of a staircase with an obese trolley the fastest?”
“You and your ideas,” Carol said, exhausted. She knocked on the door.

We waited for a few minutes. No answer.

“Isn’t Mrs. Hayford off work today?” Carol asked.
“Well, it’s a big house,” I shrugged, “Knock again.”

She did. No answer.

“Shall we check around back?”

We left the trolley on the doorstep, hoping that nobody would be cheap enough to bother going up those steps to get a packet of chips. We climbed over the fence into the backyard where the swimming pool was.

“I’ve always wondered why he never uses this goddamn sexy pool. It’s so big! If I had it I’d be using it every day!” Carol said longingly.
“Shush!” I scolded her harshly, “We’re not supposed to be in here, remember?” Realisation dawned; I hissed, “We’re trespassing. I feel like such a—such a... murderer, breaking into a house. What if all murderers start off like this? First they sneak into a house to see if anyone’s home. And then it—it morphs.”

Carol rolled her eyes and walked on. I scurried after her. We abruptly stopped when we heard voices from the kitchen.

“Oh, honestly, Anthony,” Mrs. Hayford sighed, “I can’t wait until I get that boy out of here.” She spoke about Tommy as if he were a pebble in her shoe.
Someone laughed softly, and spoke in a British accent, “Don’t be too harsh on the poor kid.” A man.

I risked a glance around the corner. Mrs. Hayford was sitting with a mug in her hand, her back facing us. A tall, lanky, dark-haired man in slacks and a tie stood facing her, his eyes a flawless blue.

“Who is that?” Carol whispered, nudging me painfully in the ribs.

I stood there, shocked.

Tommy’s... father?