Too Good Girl

by Eleanor Lloyd-Jones

  Was this really my life?

  Would I wake up one day and realise it was one long fucking nightmare?

  Was someone playing a goddamned joke and laughing at my expense?

  I pushed to my feet, swiping at my cheeks, not even caring that the salt in the cut made it smart like fuck, and after collecting my belongings, I walked—numb and even more broken than I’d felt for a long time—out of the house, leaving my mum to her own business.

  I don’t much remember the journey home.

  But I do remember being glad the house was empty.

  I do remember fumbling anxiously in the bottom of my drawer for that little plastic bag.

  And I do remember sitting on the floor of my bedroom with my heart racing, rolling the pink pills around in my palm like I often did.

  It wasn’t a conscious decision really; I didn’t associate it with the mess I’d just walked from either. What flashed through my mind as I dropped the smiley face on the tip of my tongue was the feeling I’d had as I’d watched the wealthy and carefree at The Release.

  Release.

  I waited for it as I let my head fall back against the side of the mattress, closing my eyes to my life and hoping it would come soon.

  ***

  I turned my head to see Jack entering the living room and smiled up at him. “I’m melting into the sofa.” Patting the cushions, I invited him to come and try it out. “In fact, I think I am the sofa. I’m actually going to stay here like this forever. This is the best feeling in the entire world. Did you know that? It’s like marshmallows.” Listening to myself speak felt comfortable—normal. In fact, I wanted to chat to him all night.

  I watched as he dumped his work bag on the floor, pulling his beanie and his leather jacket off before he walked over to me, crouching in front of me.

  “I’m sorry about the other day. You are my best friend, Jack.” I looked deeply into his eyes, an overwhelming urge to have him near causing me to wrap my arm around his shoulder and pull him close. “I’m so messed up, and you’re the only one who cares. But you know, today, all my cares seem to have disappeared.” I grinned and lifted my arm, wiggling my fingers and watching them move. “Poof! Gone.”

  “What have you taken?”

  “You know, I feel so… like at one with everything. Your T-shirt is so fucking soft, Jack. Jesus.”

  “Syra.” He took my face in his hands, looking intently into my eyes, flicking between them both, and I smiled at how close and warm he felt—how good he smelt.

  “What did you take?”

  My jaw took on a life of its own, much like it had been doing for the last God knows how long—like this overwhelming need to yawn without actually yawning—right before the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard came from underneath me.

  Widening my eyes, I stared at him. “What is that?”

  “Sy. Look at me. What the fuck did you take?”

  “That sound! It’s like... Wow, Jack. Can you hear that?”

  “It’s your phone ringing. Come on. Get up.” He pulled at my hands, and I felt like my whole body was disintegrating—like it was liquid and I was going to drip back onto the sofa. However, after what felt like a strangely long time, I was on my feet with his hand on the small of my back, burning a hole in me as he encouraged me out of the living room.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You are going to bed. You’re going to drink lots of water and then you’re going to get into bed and sleep.”

  I leaned my cheek on his upper arm and rubbed my hand across the back of his shoulders, continuing to caress his T-shirt. “Can I wear this? It’s so soft, Jack. It’s so goddamned soft and mine’s all scratchy.” I stopped walking, pulling my arm away to unfasten my buttons, the cool air from the hallway soothing my burning skin, and then slipped my shirt backwards so it fell to the floor, leaving me standing in just my bra.

  He turned to see what I was doing, and I blinked heavily as I watched his eyes move slowly from my face, across my collarbone and down to my chest before he shook his head and looked away quickly, bending to pick up my shirt up.

  “Like what you see, huh?” The words tumbled out of my mouth really fast as he shoved it back at me. “You can tou—”A light from above caught my attention. It was coming from the old chandelier that hung, broken and twisted before the kitchen door, and I became momentarily lost to and fascinated by the colours that irradiated from each tiny glass piece. Dropping my attention back down to the sound of Jack moving, I stared at my hands and the balled up shirt I was clutching, puzzled and confused as to why I was practically naked. “Hmmm?”

  “Jesus Christ, Syra.” He shook his head and guided me into the kitchen where I stood looking out of the window as he grabbed a glass. The sound of it filling with water was so new and fresh. I felt like I was on a different planet, experiencing everything for the first time. The bricks on the wall of the house next door across the alley seemed psychedelic, and I reached out my hand to try to touch them.

  Jack pressed the glass into it. “Sip. Don’t gulp.”

  I looked at him over the rim, the water sliding like a river of silk down my throat, and flexed my jaw, my eyes roaming over his face.

  He was so beautiful.

  “You’re so beautiful.”

  I’d always found his eyes the most unusual shade of green, like the ocean, and today, they were swimming with everything he wanted to say to me but that he kept locked away. The line of his lips curved into a perfect cupid’s bow, the fullness of his bottom one enticing me. My fingers twitched at my side, and I gave in to the urge, reaching up and touching my fingertips to it, the plump flesh against my skin like a pillow of feathers, and I momentarily remembered what it had felt like to have it pressed against my own.

  I could barely breathe.

  My whole body tingled with an intense pleasure, and my voice came out as a silvery whisper that I felt in the depths of my heart. “I do care about you, Jack.”

  His jaw ticked. I saw it, right before he took the glass from my hand and steered me out of the kitchen and up the stairs. My feet sunk so deeply into the carpet I was afraid I would get stuck, and I ran my hand up the wall to steady myself, the coarseness of the woodchip sending small spikes of pleasure through my entire body.

  He didn’t say anything else—not even when words began to run away with me, babbling and bubbling like rapids so incoherently and fast that even I wasn’t sure what I was saying. Once in my room, he guided me to sit on the bed, shoving me into a T-shirt and pulling the duvet back, waiting until I lifted my legs and pushed them underneath. It was heavy and too warm, and I kicked it off immediately before I took a few more sips from my glass under his watchful eye.

  “Lie down, now.”

  I did as I was told, the mattress immediately wrapping itself around me like a cocoon of cotton wool, so deep and so soft. I felt safe and happy—so fucking happy with the world.

  Jack stayed in my room, periodically forcing me to drink water, listening to my spaced out chatter, until the safe haven I’d created under the blankets finally lulled me to sleep.

  It was the pulsing of a headache making my eyes squint at the early morning light pouring into my room that woke me hours later. There was a stillness in the air, but the contented feeling I could just about remember had gone. A lump rose in my throat, and I blinked and took a deep breath through my nose before pushing to my elbows and turning to look at the time. It was barely six am, and I was already on the verge of tears. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, my bladder forcing me out of the room, I headed to the bathroom.

  The cold tiles under my bare feet made my whole body shiver as I padded across them, and after using the toilet, standing in front of the mirror to wash my hands, the shivering came again. It drowned me like a wave of desperate emotion when I caught my reflection staring back at me, my cheek swollen and angry and the rest of me utterly forlorn. It started with a tremble of my bottom li
p, and within a few seconds my shoulders and hands were shaking as my whole existence seemed to crumble around me. It was like any joy I’d ever managed to keep a grip of was being sucked out of me, leaving me rocking and huddled in a ball on the floor with tears streaming down my face.

  I was rock bottom and there was nowhere left to fall.

  I didn’t want this anymore—this life that kept on taking.

  I longed for that euphoria from the night before, where everything that spent every day taunting me had floated away leaving me blissfully nonchalant and completely content.

  I wanted to disappear.

  Hugging myself until the shaking subsided, I stood and swiped under my eyes to stop the flow of tears, heading back to my room and back under the duvet where it all started again. I was shivering—so damn cold I was sure I’d never be warm again. In the privacy of my own space, I let the sobs consume me. I let the pain take control, and I gave in to the need to evaporate. My entire body was wracked with utter hatred for life and all it offered, and the deeper I sank, the smaller I felt.

  “Sy?” Jack’s voice startled me out of my hollow shell, and I sat up, rubbing my hands down my face trying to work out where he was.

  Confused as hell, I turned my head towards the wall to see him pushing himself into an upright position from the floor down the side of my bed. “What the actual fuck?” My voice was hoarse, a croak in the back of my throat with the first words I spoken out loud since I’d woken.

  A small frown twitched at his brow as he looked at me, reaching his hand out to touch me or something. “Have you been crying?”

  “Jack!” I wiped my eyes yet again to hide what he’d already seen and pulled my duvet further up my body, a feeble attempt to hide my soul that was hanging out of my chest on a huge bouncing spring. “Why the fuck are you in my room?”

  Dipping his head and pinching the bridge of his nose, he rubbed the back of his neck. “Because, Syra, you were off your face on drugs, and I wanted to make sure you didn’t die in your fucking sleep.” His head kicked up sharply at his last few words, and the look he gave me had me swallowing hard. His tone was serious, more serious than I’d ever heard it, and I was momentarily stunned into silence. He had so much more to say, I could tell, but he just sat there, clenching his teeth together, looking at me like I’d poisoned his pet rabbit.

  “Look, I don’t need—”

  “A lecture?” He smirked. “That’s becoming a bit of a staple response for you now, isn’t it, and I would like to argue that actually a lecture is exactly what you need. I’ve tried to go softly, softly with you so many fucking times, Sy, and it’s time to change tack, quite frankly.”

  I sniffed and ran my hand underneath my nose, flopping back down onto my pillow as silent tears trickled down my temples, soaking into my pillow. He was so disappointed in me, and I could barely handle it. “Please don’t, Jack. I’m not in the right frame of mind for this today.” I stared at the ceiling and bit down on my trembling lip. “I just want to curl up in a ball and wallow in my own shit. Okay? I don’t know what it is, but right now, I’m…” I didn’t even know. I wanted to be alone and I wanted to sleep my life away. I felt him get up using my mattress as leverage and then felt it dip again as he sat down on the edge of it.

  “You’re likely crashing.”

  I sniffed again and closed my eyes so he wouldn’t look into them and see me falling apart. “Sounds about right. I feel like shit.”

  “It’s the afterglow crash. I’m assuming you took ecstasy.”

  Shrugging, I let my head flop to the side. “I don’t know. How fucked up is that, huh? I don’t even know what I took.”

  He tentatively reached his hand towards me, leaving it hovering in the air near my face as if expecting me to bat it away, and when I didn’t, he used his index finger to move some of my hair from my forehead. “Pretty fucked up.”

  More tears fell, and I felt my face crumple. “It was pink, with a fucking smiley face on it.” I used the back of my hand to wipe my the corners of my eyes.

  “Ecstasy.” He had that look in his eyes again, but this time I didn't say anything. I remained silent, even when he ran the back of his knuckle over the skin near my cut and bruised cheek. “How did this happen?”

  I absentmindedly reached up, my fingers brushing his as I ran the tips of them over the lump, more tears falling. “This happened when my junkie mother’s junkie boyfriend smacked me across the face as he was stealing out of my purse.” A laughter-laced sob escaped my lips, and I pressed the back of my hand against them to stifle it. “How stupid does that make me look now, huh?”

  A sad smile lit up Jack’s face as his eyes seemed to caress my skin. “Pretty fucking stupid, Johnson.” He moved his hand away and repositioned himself on the bed, his expression taking on a more serious tone. “Not as stupid as Tony, and not as stupid as Doug, though. I’m assuming it was Doug who gave you the drugs.”

  My lips twisted with another jolt of painful self-loathing and I nodded, my face crumpling yet again as the tears took over.

  “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

  “No, Jack. Leave it.” I dragged in a shaky breath, sitting up and leaning forwards so he would look at me. “It’s not worth it. Please drop it. It’s done now.”

  Dipping his head low between his shoulders, he cracked his neck. “Why'd you take it, Sy?” His head twisted so he was looking at me. “Hmm? Why when you know the dangers?”

  I leaned back and shook my head against the headboard. “Please can we drop it? Please can we put it to bed now? I’m so tired. I need to sleep.”

  “Do you have anymore?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You do, don’t you? Jesus. How many? How many more did he give you?”

  Pinching the bridge of my nose, I let out a frustrated stream of air from my chest, attempting to steady my heartbeat—to ensure my voice was even and controlled and to give myself a minute. We were careening down a path I’d kept barricaded for so long. I’d erected signs: danger, danger, high voltage. They were to keep people out—to keep Jack out—and now we were over the barbed wire, strolling towards that place I’d been trying to protect for so fucking long without really understanding how to.

  He continued before I had a chance to respond. “I’m trying my fucking hardest to understand, Syra. I’m wracking my brains to work out why you do these things to yourself. I mean, doesn’t it help when you talk to Christine? You of all people have seen so much shit in your life, and I have to stand by and watch you go the same way? Is that how this is meant to work?”

  My head kicked up, and I shoved the covers off the bed, climbing out of it and pacing the floor. “Chris is a counsellor, not a fucking miracle worker. I don’t know. Okay?” I was shaking with fear and anger now—anger at myself, at Jack for prying deeper than he ever had, and at the world. Still at the world. And the fear? Well, it had wrapped itself around my soul and was refusing to let go. I’d allowed myself to be tempted towards a formidable black hole, and I’d liked it. I was scared shitless of myself. “If I knew, don’t you think I’d do something to stop it all? Huh? You think I do this on a timetable? You think I sit here planning out my day one fuck up at a time? Well I don’t. Okay?” I stopped in front of him, leaning my face in his and flinging my arms out to the side. “My days are not scheduled like I know what I’m doing. The truth is, I haven’t got a fucking clue what I’m doing. The only thing I’m sure of is that I can’t make it through the day without some kind of release, some kind of fucking break from the constant battering in my mind. I am sick and fucking tired of not being able to switch off from it all, and so when the urge kicks in, I do something stupid. Okay?” I dropped my arms to the side in exasperation. “If you have another solution, Jack, please—be my guest.”

  My heart beat three times as I watched his eyes darken and his jaw tick in that way it did when he was contemplating, and then he stood, towering above me, shoving his hands in
to my hair and me at the wall behind me.

  His lips were on mine in an instant and my whole body trembled.

  Syra

  Come And Get Me by Sleeping Wolf

  Over And Out by Elin Bell

  ALL I COULD smell was his skin—his aftershave, mixed with diesel fumes.

  All I could taste was the warmth of his lips and the needy strokes of his tongue as it invited itself into my mouth.

  All I could hear was the pulse of my beating heart, throbbing in my ears so fast and so intense.

  All I could feel were the hard planes of his chest as my hands pressed against them.

  All I could think of was how fucking good I felt in his hands and how my whole body was on fire.

  I was lost.

  My whole life was a distant memory, and I was consumed by him and us and our hands and mouths. Our breaths mingled as our chests began to heave together with this urgent need, and then we explored.

  Oh how fucking good that felt.

  Jack’s hands skimmed down the sides of my neck, over my breasts, rubbing the pad of his thumbs over the thin cotton—the only barrier between them and my now aching nipples—and I gasped into his mouth, my back arching off the wall. He continued down to the hem of my T-shirt, never once letting my lips fall from his as our tongues danced like fireworks, twisting and swirling in a dark sky. I inhaled sharply as his fingers climbed higher inside, grazing the skin of my stomach, up my sides and across my ribs. His body was pressed firmly against me, and he shifted his leg, the top of his thigh pressing upwards against the pulsing apex between my legs, and I pushed my hips to get closer, to relieve the pressure building there.

  I wanted to climb inside him.