BAD LAD

5. Chris

Her sister! Seriously?

This information stuns me. Mel is the big sister of Kate... Katherine?

It’s silly, but a long shudder shakes my spine when mentally saying her full first name.

It’s classy, that kind of name. It’s like a Russian princess.

I feel the heat close to Mel’s body but my eyes are hopelessly attracted to the wild child whose hair sparkles under the artificial glare of the neon lights as much as her pale eyes full of anger.

And to think...

I shake my head and then my gaze settles again on the one who’s hugging me. I know I should leave them alone to talk, but my curiosity shatters my meagre amount of education.

“Do you realize the situation we’re in?” hisses Kate, leaning slightly forward. “Mom died three months ago and Julie wants to become a nun!”

I notice that Mel is now whiter than chalk.

“Mom... dead?” she squeaks.

“b***h!” Kate spits.

The insult makes me jump. More because it seems strangely out of place in her mouth. As for her sister, she settles herself in my arms.

“Hey, could you take it easy with your sister?” I say, because at this time, I don’t know the whole story, and I feel sorry for Mel.

It must be said that Kate looks like a barracuda who found its breakfast.

“Shut up, tattooed perv!”

She growled these words. I could almost swear she shows me her teeth. Laughter shakes me completely because really, this girl is a time bomb! The anger I sometimes feel with her is comparable to that living inside me continuously.

I release Mel then get up, hands in the air:

“Okay, kid. You and me... outside. Five minutes.”

“Go f**k yourself...” she begins, but I throw my look of a guy who won’t let through another free insult.

Her eyes unite with mine; she understands and firmly shuts her mouth immediately without completing her sentence. I nod, satisfied to see her comply.

Once outside, I look for my pack of cigarettes in the pocket of my jeans, and automatically offer her one... she declines with a look of dark rage. This makes me smile before lighting my cigarette and breathing out through my nostrils while scrutinizing her.

“So you’re Mel’s sister. You don’t look like her.”

I get another bad look from her.

“Oh, but isn’t he insightful!” she mocks.

Before she has time to guess my next move, I push her up against the wall with one hand on her shoulder. I know from experience that it’s a blind spot and nobody inside the restaurant can see us.

“Listen, Katherine...”

Thrill.

“... you have to stop talking to me like you do. Believe me, usually, I’m not at all, I tell you, not at all a patient man... with anyone, you hear me? You don’t know me, so I’ll tell you clearly, kid: with you since I met you, I’m f*****g Buddha! Now, I don’t care what you do, but when you talk to me, show me some damn respect, even if it makes you sick. Got it?”

I finally see it. I discern it in her clear eyes: fear. I’m not happy about it, but... this foul talking unawares s**t, with her big mouth, she could attract some serious problems just by opening it. And here, right now, I don’t know whether it’s this thought that makes me crazy and not the fact that she keeps insulting me.

I remove my fingers from her as if I had just burned myself and take two steps back. I stare at her rapid breathing until my eyes fix, despite myself, on the rise and fall of her chest.

“Understood.”

I nod.

“Good. Now, why are you so mad at Mel?”

“When did all this start?” she asks me tit for tat.

I feel my lips stretch into a teasing smile.

“And how is that your business?”

“I can ask the same question.”

I shake my head, laughing silently.

“It’s... well, that... Whenever we feel like seeing each other, we’ve been hanging out.”

She nods. She grasped the concept and doesn’t seem to be shocked.

“You know where she lives?” she puts it all together.

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On you. Why do you want to know? What do I gain by giving you the heads-up on the information?”

Kate scoffs, looks away, and then plunges her gaze back into mine the next second.

“Do a good deed in your life... cleanse your karma... like Buddha.”

It’s my turn to laugh.

“I don’t care. If I have nothing to gain, honestly, I don’t care.”

“I’ll tell you whatever you want, you return the favour, isn’t that enough?”

Our eyes meet. When we hold each other’s gaze, I feel something strange inside me. It’s too vague for me to attach a label, nonetheless, it’s there, and it stirs in my stomach like an alien bastard.

Without breaking eye contact, I pull like crazy on my cigarette blowing out a huge plume of bluish smoke.

“You think I’m as curious as that?” I challenge her, cutting each syllable.

She doesn’t answer right away.

“Yeah,” she takes even longer to speak than me, her imitation brings a smile to my lips.

“Apartment.”

“Whose apartment?”

“Your sister... it’s my apartment she lives at.”

Her silence is more eloquent than any words.

“When she arrived in town, she had no place to sleep. We share the rent, s**t like that.”

I have no clue what drives me to explain all this, but I do.

“Oh. You’re roomies and f**k buddies. Convenient.”

I don’t fall for the sarcasm, because this time if I have to warn her... I’ll do an even more stupid thing than just yell at her: like kissing her so that she shuts up. A technique that has been proven to put a chick in silent mode.

“So, explain the fight with Mel.”

“My mother had inoperable cancer, something that couldn’t be cured. She had been bedridden in the hospital for months, but Mel got tired of helping us and split. I quote: “I’m not going to kill myself doing this when I’m only twenty years old! I want a life! Not all this s**t!” And those were her last words until I ran into her here, fifteen minutes ago.”

“Who helped you? After your mother passed away?”

“No one. I had several odd jobs and I skipped school until Mom’s death. Julie befriended a priest who learned of our situation on a dumb-ass forum, he offered to put us up in a parish home. That way, the social workers didn’t bother us and we weren’t separated.”

“You still work these small jobs.”

Although her face is lit by the feeble light of the street lamp, I noticed the sudden flush of her cheeks.

“It’s okay, I manage. I don’t even blame her for wanting a real life, I’m mad at her for leaving us without giving us a phone number! With what I earned, we could’ve been living together instead of finding ourselves alone fighting against the officials. All the money I had saved went to the funeral! It was homelessness waiting for us if there was no Father Stephen! Because I’m a minor!” she ends, her voice trembling with anger.

I understand her anger. Society, I’ve known for a long while, is screwed-up.

Kate has clenched fists and I can only see the side of her face. She reminds me of a cat who learned the hard way on the street. Spitting, hair raised as soon as you approach: we are all potential enemies for her and I know that feeling well.

“You want to come to stay with us?”

Am I stupid or what? Why suggest something like that?

“No. Julie will never want to leave that blasted home with crosses in every room,” she says with bitterness in her voice.

“Well... leave her there.”

I don’t see what I said wrong but by her killer look, I guess I made a mistake.

“She’s my sister. I can’t leave her behind.”

I shrug.

“If she’s happy in that nun’s home, where’s the problem?”

She bites her lip and I guess she has to think about my suggestion. I’m more focused on this gesture she made with her teeth. Because, at this precise second when my eyelids seem to forget to blink, I wonder what it’s like to bite that little piece of soft flesh that she tortures. When her eyes come back to mine, I immediately look away as if the street lamp had an unimaginable attraction over me.

I have to be pretty damn tired to have this kind of stupid idea.