Grab the bull by the horns.

For some reason, it had always suck me as an odd phrase, although it Is far more coherent than many of the the other phrases floating around.

And it is what I was doing now, I was sure of it.

Sneaking out to Erroll’s house at three a.m., to tell him what he meant to me the night before he left.

Surely I was grabbing the bull by it’s horns.

I reached his front garden in record time and threw some of the carefully raked gravel that thrived there at his lighted window.

There was only a suggestion of movement from my position, the possibility that someone twitched aside the curtain and peeked outside.

And then he was at the door, still in the check shirt and jeans he had been wearing earlier, looking at me.

There was something about the way Errol looked at people that made them feel small and insignificant. No matter how he felt when he turned his eyes on you, you always felt wanting.

This look was mild in comparison. There were minimal amounts of confusion in it, overridden by curiousity.

And he said: “Julia, why are you here? It’s three twenty six a.m.” And there was another thing. He always got to the heart of things immediately. He didn’t make small talk, he didn’t beat around the bush. The only time he would allow any deviation from the plot was during a debate.

“Why am I here?” I asked, trying to buy myself time. The thing with grabbing the bull by it’s horns is that there is no rational thought involved. Now I was on this- highly metaphorical, of course- enraged bull going full speed ahead, I really began to question the wisdom of my actions.

But it was too late now.

I cleared my throat. “Well. I’m here because like you said, it’s gone three in the morning and I spent the last four and a half hours unable to sleep because you keep cropping up in my head and I’ve tried everything else. And this is something I have to tell you in person.”

It says something about Errol that his expression didn’t change a bit. He had no clue, not even a slight idea, of what I was talking about.

I knew then that I definitely had no chance, no chance at all. But I held onto hope. Maybe the right words could change the way he saw things.

“I love you Errol, and I wanted to tell you before you left. I wanted you to- I needed you to know.

There was a silence, then Errol said “Oh.”

The moment stretched on for eternities.

“Please say something else,” I said finally, quietly.

“Right now there is nothing to say. I need to think about it – it doesn’t make sense-”

“It doesn’t have to make sense!” I cried.

“It has to make sense!”

The anger in his voice struck me back.

Errol had been brought up differently. It wasn’t bad, or wrong, as such, just different.

He had been brought up with wire in his blood, and he thought in straight lines. He was harsh, because he didn’t know how else to be.

But he was learning.

“Perhaps, though, you can explain to me.”

That was his apology.

And so I explained. I argued my point, and my love till every word, every metaphor, every angle had been exhausted and abused.

The light, by then, had begun to seep into the sky and the birds began to cheep.

And he, by then, had a new glow in his face and I soared. My words had shown him a different way.

“That is…” he said, his voice slipping for a second into thought before resurfacing quickly. “That is astounding. That is truly astonishing,” he pondered some more, not seeming to notice the heart that I had just poured out to him lying on the floor. “It’s amazing, and so ridiculous.That the mind creates such an extraordinary ‘feeling’ just to give an extra push to the natural need for pro-reation.

If it was possible, I sunk down lower than I had been before.

“So you think you are in love with me?” he asked, an eyebrow raised. I nodded, mute. “And in return for your feelings what do you want??”

I couldn’t answer.

“Perhaps a kiss would be appropriate?” he said, making his way to me. “You’ll have to help, I’ve not done this before,” he said, leaning in and pecking me gently on the lips. I’ve not had much experience myself, but that was not in any way a good kiss. But I wanted time to practise, to do it again, with him.

I reached in the second time, and took control.

Now, he had picked up my heart, and he held it in his hands.

“Extraordinary,” he murmured to himself, before taking a few steps back. “Well, I should probably go. I still have to finish packing. Maybe I’ll see you later, but I doubt it: we leave early.”

And he went inside, still clutching my heart so tightly.

I didn’t see him later, of course, and he left, moving far out of my reach, and taking my heart with him.

Lua

What I mostly remember about Lua before was that she was a nerd. Not a major nerd, but a nerd. That is what everyone remembers about Lua before.

Of course, Catherine says that she was more than that, but Catherine was a nerd too.

What did I know about Lua now?

Mostly what everyone else knows.

She parties hard, but she drinks harder.

She’ll let anyone fuck her if they tell her they love her.

That’s important. You have to tell her you love her. You don’t have to mean it, you just have to say it.

You don’t mention the bruises.

-

The first time I remember really noticing her was when Stewie Phillips told everyone about the blow-job she’d given him. And then Adam Kitt telling us that he’d fucked her, that same weekend.

That’s when the girls started bitching about what a slut she was. I’d say they were rumours, but rumours imply that what they said wasn’t true.

So I tried my hardest to stay away from her.

It’s a little bit offputting to wonder, when you’re about to fuck a girl, how may other guys have had their dicks stuck in her before you. I mean, what if she’d fucked Chris Medoza? That would be disgusting. No one wants to fuck Chris Mendoza.

Besides, in my experience, easy girls were generally needy.

So I was trying to stay away.

But with a girl like Lua, it’s difficult to stay away.

You find a girl crying at a party, crying and shaking, and rocking back and forward like she’s insane, you find this girl and you leave her, you’re a dickhead.

Besides, Lua isn’t just easy, she’s hot.

So I asked her if she was okay, even though I could see she wasn’t.

“Do you think I’m pretty? (she asks.)

Yeah, you’re pretty.

But only pretty enough to fuck, right? (she asks,) not pretty enough to love.

Not true (I say, because I have to, because I can’t say that she’s the kind of girl that no one would want to love,) you’re pretty enough to love.

(She cries some more, then suddenly stops, as if she’s only just gotten what was going on.) Shit! Fuck, I’m sorry (she’s says.) You won’t tell anyone, will you?

Tell anyone what?

I don’t know. Just don’t tell them anything, okay?”

Okay, (I’d said.)”

She wiped her cheeks, getting makeup all over her hands.

“Merde (she says,) now I have to do it again.

Just take it off, (I reply, not sparing a thought to her many insecurities,) no one will notice anyway.”

She laughed at me like I was crazy, but I ended up accompanying her to the bathroom, watching her use on of the host’s mother’s wipes to take the crap off her face.

Some girls are only pretty because of the make up they put on. Not to say that they are ugly underneath, but the makeup is what makes you give them the time of day.

Lua was pretty because of the makeup she took off. Lua was pretty, and she was hot, and she was gorgeous and stunning and any other adjective you care to use. She was amazing.

But I knew instantly why she always wore makeup.

The purpling bruise on her cheek didn’t stop her from being beautiful, but it made her seem fragile, and a girl like Lua isn’t a girl who wants to be seen as fragile by anyone.

And she didn’t think anything of herself anymore.

She didn’t have to say it, I could see it in the way she shrunk back into someone I’d never notice.

But I was standing right in front of her; there was no way I’d miss her.

-

I took her home that night, of course.

I didn’t ask about the bruises, and I didn’t question it when she asked me to tell her I loved her.

That night, I did love her, and I told her so, again and again, throughout the weekend that we spent in my bed.

“Guillaume l’a fait, (she said, when I touched the bruise on her cheek, because I’d touched and kissed them at all. I didn’t tell her I didn’t speak French, just kissed a bruise on her back.) Les ecchymoses, il toutes les ont fait. Chaque fois il me voir, il me frappe.

Was that French? (I asked her.)

(She nodded.) Ouais,

You speak French at home? (I asked her.

She nodded,) Ouais.

Voulez-vous coucher avec moi? (I aked. She laughed, she nodded, and I went down on her.)”

-

I went back to avoiding her, afterwards. And she begun avoiding me.

I was because I meant it when I told her I loved her. Because other guys would lie to get into her pants, and then fuck off without a care in the world.

But every time I was near her, I would love her, and everytime she left, every time the morning would creep in, and I would see her dressing, the love just went away.

She didn’t want that, and I couldn’t stand it.

We made each other weak, and we did not want to be weak in front of each other.

But I always saw her.

Something always happened, just when I’d think I’d made it without getting caught up in her, something would happen, and I’d love her all over again.

-

It ends abruptly, like this.

One morning, I wake up and she’s gone.

She’s never done that before, not to me.

I’m relieved.

A month, a month and a half, two months later, you bump into Catherine in the halls of the school.

You say hi, you haven’t seen her in a while, or Lua.

She spits in her your face.

You wonder what you’ve done wrong.

I wondered wha I did wrong.

“It’s all your fault (she says,) you and every other dickhead in this school.”

I don’t know what she’s talking about. I tell her so.

“Lua tried to kill herself, and the person she left with that night was you.”

And that’s why I haven’t seen her. A year of fucking and avoidance, and it all came down to that.

And suddenly, for the first time ever, I wanted to see her.

So I ask where she is.

Because I love her again, and I’m not even near her.

She’s at home, Catherine tells me, but I can’t see her.

“Why not? (I ask.)

Why do you even care?

Becaue the first time I met her she as crying. And you say she tried to kill herself because of me, so the least I can do is apologise.

(Catherine is silent for a long time.)

She… she might not remember you, (she says finally.) She forced a lot of stuff down. She forgot a lot.

I don’t care, (I say.) I want to see her.”

And I think that’s when she broke. When she heard that I wanted to see Lua.

“(She sighed.) Fine. But Guillaume won’t like it.”

Guillaume. I’d heard that name before.

“Who’s Guillame?

(She scoffed.) You want to see her, but you don’t know anything about her. He’s her- (she faltered,) he’s her step-brother.”

Something stirs in the back of your mind, but when you look for the source of it, you see nothing.

So you push it down, you arrange to meet with Catherine, you follow her to Lua, just like I did.

-

The first thing I felt was not love for Lua, but hatred for the boy who answered the door.

I felt a dislike for him when Catherine had first said his name, but when I saw him the feeling magnified.

“Who the fuck are you?”

I glared at him, ignored his question, followed Catherine into the house and to where Lua was.

The second thing I felt was love for Lua.

She sat there, all curled up in herself, looking beautiful.

No makeup, no bruises.

She remembered me.

Well she remembered something of me.

“Salut, (she said, with a faraway smile.)

Salut, (I replied.)”

When we were in love, those nights, she’d teach me French.

Then Guillaume sat beside her, slipped his arm around her in a way that was not brotherly at all, not even step-brotherly.

And like a tape playing, I heard the words that Lua said that first time, when I kissed each bruise.

-

So you know. Or you think you know, and you sit and watch as Lua clings to Guillaume, and the words play back in your head again and again, exactly as you heard them the first time.

So you find the creepy French kid in the year below and you repeat the words, and he translates for you.

And you want to be sick.

'Have you noticed there is never any third act of a nightmare? They bring you to a climax of terror and then leave you there. They are the work of poor dramatists.'

- Max Beerbohm, 1872-1956

I was running. I was running harder than I've ever run before, my chest felt like it was about burst into flames, and my throat was so raw it felt like it was bleeding. My arms and legs were pumping hard, although there was barely any breath to fuel them with: anaerobic respiration. I was going to pay for this in the morning. If I reached the morning. But, just incase I didn't I was already paying for it now. My muscles felt like they had been pounded at with a meat tenderiser, there was so much blood rushing round my body that it was showing through the brown of my skin. I knew, without trying, that if I stopped, I'd collapse and be sick, that my heart and head would explode simultaneously, so I carried on. Not that I'd have stopped anyway: the nightmare creature pounding behind me was enough to ensure that all on it's own. But still, there was no escaping the fact that, for all that running, and all that pain, I wasn't going anywhere. I was just doomed to stay running on that same spot, running, for the rest of forever.

I jolted awake, sweat dripping down my arms, legs and back. The breath was coming out of me hard fast and ragged, and the sheets were tangled around me. Didn't take a rocket scientist to realise that I had been acting out my dream, again. It was becoming a habit, and I was becoming sick of it.

I disentangled myself from the sheets and got out new nightclothes. As I changed, I checked the time on the clock. five: thirty. No point going back to bed, the sheets were all wet and disgusting, by the time I got them changed it would be six, and on the off chance that I could get to sleep then, it would mean I'd only feel like complete crap when I woke up. Not that I didn't feel like complete crap already, I just didn't need the feeling exacerbated.

I sighed, and chose a book from the shelf, something that would calm my rapidly-beating heart right down. 'What Katy Did Next', that's a good one. Another sigh escaped my lips, as I opened the book. Today was going to be a killer, I could just tell.

For one thing, I had double science, and I felt like the walking dead, except worse.

I sigh, again, and try to focus on the book in my hands.