Conviction by Lesley Jones
Conner
December 31st 1999
I leant back on my brother’s car and took a long draw on my cigarette, blowing out the smoke as I looked up at the sky. I wanted to be sick, my stomach was churning and my head was beginning to ache. I flicked the cigarette to the ground and watched as it rolled into a drain.
The car park at the supermarket was almost empty. The last of the shoppers had gone home. Home with their cases of beer, their sausage rolls and party poppers. Home to their families to start the celebrations that would see in the New Year, the new millennium and for me, what should’ve been a whole new life. But she’s not there, she didn’t come.
All of the planning, working long hours so we’d have enough money for a deposit on a flat or a room and she just didn’t turn up. She was over an hour late. I’d called and called her mobile, left messages and sent texts but nothing, not a word.
My heart actually hurt, it was fucking painful just to breathe. After everything we’d been through to get to that point, I just couldn’t believe she’d not turn up, without a single fucking word.
My brother pressed on the hooter of the car and I almost jumped out of my skin.
“What the fuck, Miles?” I shouted. He laughed as I glared. I wanted to cry, like a big fucking pussy, I actually wanted to cry.
“She ain’t coming, Reed. Your posh bird’s blown you out. Now come and get in the fucking motor, before you freeze your bollocks off.”
I chewed on the inside of my lip as I tried to make up my mind what to do. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and tried her number one more time. It once again went to answer phone.
“We’re done Meebs, we’re fucking done!” I ended the call and jumped into the passenger seat of the BMW my brother had just bought.
“You all right bro?” he asked. I hated it when Miles got all sensitive and caring; it made my throat tight and my eyes sting. I shrugged my shoulders and just kept staring ahead.
“She’s a nice girl and she’s fucking gorgeous, but she’s from a different world. Her old man and that stuck up bitch of a mother of hers were never gonna let this happen, and don’t get me started on that prick of a brother, he’s a complete nobjockey.”
We sat in silence for a few seconds. I couldn’t disagree. Everything he said was true. She was out of my league, but she loved me regardless. I know she did.
We’d met at primary school. I was two years older and she was tiny, like a fairy or an angel. She had the palest skin, the blondest hair and the bluest eyes and my belly would do strange things every time I saw her.
She was the best friend of my friend Josh’s sister. I would see her outside of school sometimes at their house and I think I knew even back then that I loved her, but I also knew even then that our worlds were different.
Her mum was some kind of councillor or government minister or something like that. Her dad was a police commissioner for the Met’ Police. My dad was an alcoholic and former soldier. My mum was dead.
When I was eleven, I left the primary school that I loved and went to the local secondary school. Josh went to the posh Catholic boy’s school a few miles away. He lasted two weeks before he was expelled and joined me and the rest of the commoners at our run-down establishment for education.