Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

but I knew it was highly unlikely. I tried to relax. Then someone whispered something in my ear.

I turned my head, “Sorry?”

It was the girl on my left that had been called Megan. Her eyes were rolling in her skull, her head tilted slightly, and she stared at me through distant and dilated pupils. All the time I had been there she had been sitting next to me silently sipping at her drink. Her head tilted further back, and she furrowed her brows at me.

“I said… where abouts you from?”

“Scotland.” I said, “What about yourself?”

Her eyes rolled down, then something seemed to process in her head. She looked back. “You’re from Scotland!”

“Yeah.”

Her interest was piqued, “I’ve always wanted to go to Scotland, since I was a little girl. I wanted to go up all those mountains and stuff and, oh man, I would love to climb Ben Nevis.”

“Orite” I said. “So why don’t you?”

She looked away to the right. A few kids had assembled around one guy who was doing card tricks. A chorus of appreciation went around the gathered crowd.

The girl looked back at me, then back at the card trick guy. It was like she hadn’t heard what I had said.

She looked back at me again. “What?”

“I said, why don’t you then?”

Her face paused in discomfort. “I don’t know. It’s hard to do that stuff on your own.”

“WOAH!”

“That’s nothing.” I heard Harry’s accent say. He got up and took the cards from the guy and faced the small crowd before him.

I asked Megan, “Will none of your friends go with you?”

She shook her head. She had a sad look in her eyes, “No. Nobody wants to go.” Then she leaned in close to me and lowered her voice. Her hot breath reeked of vodka, “I’m scared” she whispered, “that I’m gonna end up here forever.”

A round of applause clapped for Harry. He was holding a card face up between his long, piano fingers.

“HOW DID HE DO THAT?”

“Fuck, that was amazing.”

“Do it again.”

“It’s not that bad, is it?” I said to the girl. “What’s keeping you here? You can go anywhere you want. If you want to go to Scotland just jump on a bus, it’s not that expensive.”

Her eyes had dampened a little and the wetness in them glistened in the moonlight. “I know. I know.” she said quietly, “But I’ve wanted to go for years.” She put her mouth even closer to my ear, “I just can’t get the courage to go. I’m so bored here. This is all we ever do. Every. Single. Weekend. Just get drunk. All I do with my life is go to school all week, get pissed on Friday, get pissed on Saturday, then go back to school on Monday. It’s boring. I just want something else.”

“Well, the first step is the hardest. If you just get up and go, once you’re out of here and away, you will probably feel better.”

She took a sip of her drink. “I can’t. I’m going to end up here forever.”

“Well, only you can change that.”

She rubbed her temple and squeezed her eyes. She looked out over the pond.

“I know. But there’s just so much pressure. My dad wants me to be a doctor. My parents put all this stress on me to get good grades and stuff, and it’s hard, it’s a lot of pressure.  Sometimes I’m lucky because a lot of the exams I find easy, they’re just memory tests and I have a decent memory, but it’s the pressure of the exam themselves that gets to me. When you’re sitting in your chair in the hall and you feel like this will shape your whole life. It’s like there’s a judge standing above me sometimes, analyzing my every move. Does that make sense?”

I nodded.

“It’s not fair. I panicked in the last one and I failed. I knew the answers, they were all in my head, but I couldn’t get it from my head to the paper quick enough. It’s just rush, rush, rush. And the examiner is parading the hall going fifteen minutes, ten minutes, five minutes, it’s like it’s a final countdown to my destiny. And they take marks off if you write too fast and end up scribbling. I don’t know what they want from me!” She took another hit, “But yeah, I failed. And now my parents make me study for three hours every night after school. I have to work on Saturdays during the day because they want me to learn about the importance of money. So I only get one free day a week, on Sunday. So when can I get the time to go?”

I was startled by her sudden outpour of emotion. She had obviously needed to get it off her chest for some time. “What about the summer holidays?” I suggested.

She sighed. “Yeah, that would be good. If they’ll let me.”

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Fifteen.”

“Do you know what? Fuck what your parents say. You should do what you want to do.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

A smile came over her face, then faded away almost as soon as it had come. “I’ve always wanted to play tennis, and I’m good at it. I did it right up till I was thirteen.”

“I love tennis too.” I said. “Why’d you stop?”

“My parents made me give it up. It was on a Saturday. My dad made me take the new job instead.”

“WOW!”

“HOW THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT?”

I glanced back at Harry, and his wide smile. His black eyes were sparkling with cunning and happiness. With his jeans and his blue, reasonably well-fitting jumper, and the black scarf, he actually looked quite smart. The eight kids around him didn’t care about his rats face and all his cuts anymore,