Come Back To Me
By Veronica Holmes

Rose looked calmly out of the third storey window of her apartment. The street below seemed to be just emerging from a stagnant slumber, pulling on its shoes and socks and gasping out into the chilled winter air.

A form appeared beside her. Male, mid thirties, in need of a bath, a shave and succinct directions to the exit. He placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. She ignored him, wondering if the Vietnamese baker across the square had put out a batch of sticky buns yet.

"Did you sleep well?" He enquired, casually.

She shook her head. "You snore."

"I'll try not to next time." The question in his voice made her pity him in a nasty way, and she shifted away from his touch. The children across the street had begun a game of hopscotch.

The man stiffened, angrily. "So that's it then?"

She sighed, turned around slightly. "Were you expecting more?" Her eyes lifted to him, genuinely curious. He took a step back to keep himself from reaching out and gently touching her face, attempting to preserve remnants of dignity from his dismissal.

"I suppose I did, yes."

"That's unfortunate." There was no malice in her tone, only weariness. She turned back to the window in a gesture equivalent to the finger. "You're welcome to take a shower." Obligatory courtesy.

"Do I need to pay for the soap?" He sneered. She could hear his ugly, unspoken thoughts. Pay for it, like the drinks, the cab, the toll across the bridge, the quick stop at the all night chemist for condoms. The only thing he hadn't paid for was the sex, at least not in monetary terms.

But she reacted as if his sarcasm was lost on her. "If you feel like it." She reached out onto the window box and fetched a dead pot plant in from the cold. The male presence behind her exuding irritation had already been shoved to the back of her mind.

****

Alice looked up from her book as the door to the café swung open. She glanced, and breathed a heavy frustrated sigh as the figure who emerged was nothing like the one she was waiting for - red haired instead of blonde, tall instead of short.

"You’re sure she said she'd be here?"

A ratty haired girl beside her looked up from a half eaten bowl of mushy cornflakes and a long black. She nodded is if for the hundredth time. "At 10am. Sharp she said."

"Nothing is sharp for Rose." She shoved a hunk of brown hair behind her ear. "Everything is kind of a dull haze." She reread the sentence she was up to again.

The minute hands on the clock on the wall above her crept around the dial. The waitress came and went twice, filling up the coffee and staring peevishly at Alice who said she wanted nothing.

"Stop looking at the fucking clock already, she'll be here." The ratty haired girl pulled out a crumpled copy of Drum Media and began to scan the pages. "Why is there never anything to do on a Sunday?"

"She's here!" Alice cried, barely checked anguish mixed with relief oozing from her voice. She sank down into the seat, tried to make it look like her book was the most absorbing thing in the world.

Rose crept softly to the table. "Hey guys." A faraway look dominated her features.

"Have you come down yet?" Alice accused, setting the book down harshly.

"I was never up."

"Then how the hell could you leave with that Neanderthal?"

"I said I wasn't up, I didn't say he wasn't." She chuckled at her own joke.

The ratty haired girl cracked a smile. "I bet he was."

They giggled together. "Hey Trace, how's things?"

"Not as good as I hear they are for you. What was Mr Wonderful last night? Number twelve in like a month?"

Rose snorted. "Anyone counting needs their head read."

"Rose, sit down." Alice demanded, eyes spitting fire. The blonde haired girl stayed where she was, not moving to the chair. "Fine, stand then, I'm still going to say it."

"Well, then. I guess I better sit, if this is going to be a long lecture." She sat, her eyes scanning the room. She gestured to the waitress and then to Trace's coffee cup. The waitress nodded. She turned back, avoiding Alice's stare.

"When are you going to wake up to yourself?" Alice demanded.

"Oh great, it's one of those lectures? You're lucky I've ordered or else I'd just leave."

"And I'd follow you."

"There are laws against stalking people you know."

Alice cringed, leaning forward in her seat. "We're just worried about you."

"Well, don't, 'cause I'm fine."

"And screwing four people in the past week classifies as fine? Jesus Christ you can't even decide which gender to screw around!"

"Women are too complicated. Fucking mind games. You take what you can get." She shrugged, smiling up at the waitress as she brought the coffee.

"Well, you take what you can get, the rest of us try to be a little picky."

"What, Alice, you jealous?" Rose joked, stirring in a sugar. Another. Another. Sipping the coffee briefly. Adding one more.

"Of you making a fool of yourself? Hardly."

"Were you jealous that you weren't one of them?" She teased, moving in closer.

Alice backed off, disgusted. "Fuck you, Rose."

Tracy stood, shoving bits and pieces into a large, tattered backpack. "I think that's my cue to leave. See you guys."

Rose stood. "Trace, you don't have to go, she's just being a bitch."

The taller woman turned briefly, looking at Rose first, then shifting her eyes down and shuffling feet nervously. "Yeah well, someone has to tell you Rose, and the rest of us don't have the fucking guts to do it."

She left, waving slightly to them both. The door clanged noisily behind her. Rose sat still, body shell-shocked, face passive.

Alice reached out, touched her hand that sat limply on the table. "Rose, you have to listen to me."

The touch animated the body. "No Alice, you're wrong. You're the last person I need to listen to. You're just pissed that we broke up, and you just want to find some way of getting back at me. And you know what? Poisoning everyone against me ain't gonna do it, because I don't fucking give a shit."

She dropped two coins on the table from her pocket, clattered the chair against the table. Barely touched coffee spilled out over the table, touching at the edges of the book.

Alice sat, staring up, her former distress replaced with pity. "You're such a child, Rose."

"And you're a controlling bitch."

"So that's what we're reduced to now?" Alice fumed, picking up her own things from the table. "Name calling?"

"You started it."

"No, Rose, you started it last night when I tried to stop you getting in the cab and you told me to get my 'fucking slut ass out of your way'. Remember that?"

"So why don't you take a hint?"

Eyes locked. Blue orbs met brown, wrestled them down. "Because if I have to tear you apart limb from limb down to the ground and build you all the way back up again to bring to your senses, I bloody well will. Whether you want me to or not."

Anger flashed across a face, features sullen and drawn. "Why can't you just stay the hell out of my life?"

"I don't have to keep answering that question, do I?"

They stared each other down again.

"I'm leaving." Rose stated, finally.

"Go ahead. I know where to find you."

"The hell you do." Rose spat, heading for the door.

Alice watched her back as she left, storming out onto the sidewalk and around the corner.

She picked up the last of her books, stowing them neatly, meticulously, into a carry bag. She looked up again, staring idly at the space Rose had just occupied. "Yeah, I know where to find you." She whispered to the empty air. "Just try me."

****

Music flooded the space, bleeding into every corner and crack of the apartment, thrumming through the fibro walls. An amplifier sat in the middle of the room, cranked to ten and buzzing with the strain.

Rose segued from riff to riff, enjoying the feeling of the guitar in her hands, the rhythmic chords spewing out of the amplifier, drowning her thoughts.

The door opened. She noticed the movement in the corner of her eye and stopped, glaring at the unexpected arrival. "How did you get in here?"

Alice steeled herself, trying to convince herself that she wasn't showing any emotion out of her eyes that Rose could use against her. She sat on the couch gingerly, as if expecting something disgusting to come crawling out of the upholstery.

Rose growled, setting the guitar down on a rack. "I said, how the hell did you get in here?"

"Lucy let me in." She replied simply, running her hand down the neck of an acoustic leaning against the battered sofa.

"You've got no right to be here." She picked up some stray drumsticks, began to idly tap them against a cluttered table

"I've got every right." Alice snapped, control giving way. "I was every bit as much a part of this as you were."

"Past tense. That's not my fault." Rose quipped, tapping harder with the drumsticks.

"Oh yeah, right, like I was expected to hang around after you suddenly decided that you were going to make yourself the most available slut in the southern hemisphere."

A sudden angry movement and the sticks crashed against the far wall. "That's none of your goddamn business!" Her face contorted, angrily. Painfully.

"You didn't even break up with me Rose. You just started fucking people, every night, after every gig…"

Rose flopped down noisily onto a chair. "Yeah, well, there's a lot of me to go around." She pointed at her thin, almost malnourished frame, bones jutting almost through skin.

"That's something else I'm worried about. Have you looked at yourself lately? I could break you in half."

A bitter laugh choked from Rose's throat. "People have tried babe, don't you worry, and none of them have succeeded yet."

A sob rose in her throat and Alice bit back sudden tears. "Why? When did you decide that this was the best way to deal with it?"

No sound. Rose stared ahead, tension radiating from every pore.

Alice pushed on. "There is nothing you could have done Rose. She'd still be dead."

Silence.

"Talk to me." Alice begged, leaning in, her mind urging her forward, to advance and touch Rose's snarling mouth.

"You weren't there. How the fuck would you know?"

"Jesus Christ Rose, do you honestly think you're the only one hurting over this? I miss her too."

Rose stood, moved over to the window, every muscle tense. Tension emphasised her frailty, muscles obviously knotted under skin, a brick wall of emotion. A brick wall still standing, but with all the foundations collapsing.

"Why don't you just leave her alone?!" Rose wailed. Her head felt thick and foggy and the flashing lights confused her already dazzled senses.

"Honey, it's OK. We're going to take care of her." The ambulance officer held her by the shoulders, not letting her pass into the alleyway beyond.

"Let me go! I haven't done anything. No cop is gonna bust me. Kat? Kat!"

"We're not police. Calm down. OK, we have to take her off to hospital but she's going to be OK. You have to come away and let us take care of her."

"Hospital? What? Hey..!" She watched them haul away a cart. Red hair spilled over onto the pillow, hanging down past the restraining straps. "Hey! Kat!" She cried out, helplessly flailing against strong arms.

Pushing against the weight she felt herself falling, the drug taking hold of her limbs and taking her away, drifting off into sleep.

"Jesus Christ, what'd you do that for?" The ambulance officer screamed back over her shoulder. A higher ranked officer stood with a needle in hand, still dripping from the sedative he'd pumped into Rose's arm..

"She was a danger to herself."

"You've got to be kidding…" The officer lowered Rose to the ground. "You idiot! We don't know what this kid was taking!" She searched vital signs. Blood pressure fell down, dangerously low. "Great, we need to get this kid to the hospital, I think she's on the same shit that other girl was on."

Sirens blared again, one set going out, another three coming in as police caught up with what was happening and began to rush the scene.

Alice stood to the back, staring, shocked. She scrambled suddenly forward, grabbing the sleeve of the officer as he helped to lift Rose onto the cart.

"Please, can I ride with her? She's my girlfriend." The ambulance officers exchanged glances. "I'm clean, I swear."

With a curt nod, the younger of the officers assented.

Rose looked away from the window, bewildered, distraught. "How come they saved me, and not her? What did I do that was so special?"

Alice shook her head. "I don't know."

"It's not fucking fair."

A simple truth. Alice didn't know how to respond. "Rose..." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "We could have lost both of you! If you keep going on like this, we still might."

Rose sagged against the wall defeated, not listening.

THE END

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