Chasing Storm Read Free Page B

back on properly as we burst out of the side door laughing and running at full pelt down the road, people shaking their heads and cussing as we pass by in a blur, the sun switching through the trees while it ebbs away.
    I am so happy, so unbelievably happy I could cry, and when he spins me into a side street to kiss me, my own tart taste on his lips, it almost happens again.
    He places his hand on the brickwork beside my head, twirling a curl of my hair around his finger and watching it unwind with solemn reverence. “I love you,” he says.
    “I love you, too.”
    It feels right. Perfect.
    Everything is perfect.
    Everything is right.
    “Tonight? Wou’ll be there?”
    I kiss him again. “Of course.”
    He turns and bounds out onto the street.
    The fading sun lights him from the side, his scrawny frame and his cut-price clothes. The smile on his face is pure. I am all he sees.
    He stands there waving like an idiot.
    I wave back, body still tingling.
    Tonight I am finally going to lose my virginity.
    It’s going to be perfect.
    And he’s still standing there as I think it, waving and smiling as the bus collides with his body, sweeping him from sight and life.
    I know from the sound alone – the sheer, hollow thud – it’s bad.
    Somehow, my legs move. I step forwards and stop when I see him.
    I don’t stop screaming for hours.

Chapter Three
    (PRESENT DAY)
    I stand at the corner where it happened. It’s funny. It hasn’t changed at all. I stare at the spot where Tim lay in a twisted pile. The blood is gone. There are no flowers any more, no signs. It’s just road now, a curb and a stop sign.
    I take a deep breath and fall back against the nearest wall.
    Cars rush past. They have no idea what transpired here just five years ago, the one moment that changed my life forever, that swept me up and cast me out of Rosie.
    I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t walk past here every day knowing this is where my life had unraveled, where the best thing in it had been taken from me with such violence and speed.
    “Hey!”
    I turn and find a familiar face stomping towards me.
    “Lisa?”
    She looks exactly the same except for the uptown strapless she’s wearing. She’d be more at home in New York than Rosie, I muse.
    She comes right out on the attack. “Heard you were back.”
    She stops before me, hands on her hips.
    “Lisa, hi,” I extend my hand, but she leaves it hanging.
    “You shouldn’t have come back,” she continues.
    “Lisa, I know we had our-”
    “You don’t know shit . You think it’s okay what you did to him, to that poor boy?”
    Poor boy? I want to tell her she never let a moment pass to heckle Tim, to talk down on us. Her tune changed after he was dead, of course. Everyone’s did. Funny how that works.
    “You should just go back to whatever city and celebrity life you crawled away from and leave us all the hell alone.”
    So that’s it – jealousy.
    I step forward, “Lisa, please,” but she swats my hand away. “Stay away, bitch.”
    “Oi!” Dan comes bounding over, coffee in his hand. He steps between us, pushing Lisa back. “What the hell’s going on here?”
    Lisa looks at me with nothing but venom. “I was just telling this little slut here she’s not welcome.”
    “Look here.” Dan steps right in front of her face and she backs up, suddenly caught off guard. “You better watch your language, you hear me? She’s got as much right as anyone else to be here.”
    “But she-”
    “But nothing. Be on your way now.”
    Lisa gives me one final look of disapproval before turning and walking away. I watch her go, shell-shocked.
    Dan turns to me, head down and hand running through his hair. “Wow, sorry about that. You know, Lisa’s had it a bit rough since you left.”
    I laugh. “Lisa? Had it rough? Her family was the wealthiest in town when I left.”
    “She lost a kid.”
    “Oh.”
    “Still,” he continues, “that gives her no right. You okay?”
    I nod, hoping this god-damn