TOM

Me and Grace…we were mental! If you have a best friend, you will know what I mean. We did everything together, went everywhere together…nothing was too adventourous for Tom and Grace! We were completely mad when we got together – best friends, in our own right. Grace was an amazing person – the kind where you feel almost priveledged to know them…to walk with them down the same street. Sometimes she even held my hand. That was cool.
It might sound tacky, but she made my dullest days bright. She really did. She would brighten up every day.
When I didn’t see her, I was at a complete loss. I needed her in my life. She meant everything to me, and I loved her like a sister. Maybe more than that. I don’t know. We were very close.
We met through friends. I was there, at the park, late at night with Gaz’s gang – a bunch of loud kids who stole alcohol from the corner shop round his way. We walked about wearing our band hoodies, cursing the world pretending we were so misunderstood by society when really it was all a game and we just wanted to feel like we were rebelling against the government, our teachers, our parents, even our friends sometimes.
Gaz and that lot brought the alcohol along – just a few cans of Fosters – whatever they could grab in time. It wouldn’t get any of us pissed, but like I said, we had to rebel. Fourteen and drinking? Terrible.
I didn’t really like Gaz – he was meant to be the sort of leader. His big brother was into drugs into a big way, they didn’t have a Mum at home so basically Gaz and his brother were stoned everyday and could get any sort of alcohol he wanted.
In a way it was like the T Birds and the Pink Ladies. Well, that’s how I like to think of it. Cos we were all sitting there when Gaz’s girlfriend came along with all her mates, all girls. I didn’t care, I knew them all, apart from one. Gaz’s girlfriend was a bit of a slapper, she walked over and grabbed a Fosters from one of his mates, like she was entitled to it. She was really. Gaz would get her anything and beat up anyone who stood in his way. I just sat on a bench out of the way. That’s how I am. Keep myself to myself. I’m quite a private person, and I prefer to keep my own company. I hadn’t met anyone up until then that I prefered, so like I say, it was me and JUST me against the world.
Then this girl walked over. She sat down on the bench next to me. “My name’s Grace.” She said confidently, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder.
I didn’t look up.
“…What’s yours?” She asked.
“Tom.” I said. I took a sip from my can.
She sat down, looking at me, turning her head this way and that, trying to sum me up I suppose. How annoying.
After a little while of listening to her voice going on and on, and being a bit pissed off with her, I said: “What do you want? There's nothing interesting about me.” I just wanted her to go away.
“Nah.” She said with a giggle. It wasn’t a nasty giggle.
She turned back round so we were both facing forwards. All I could hear was her breath and the wind blowing. Gaz's lost where jumping about on the swings, being immature and stupid.
“So why are we drinking down here?” She asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I have no idea. Just something to do.”
“Why aren’t you over there with your friends?” She asked. Why the questions? “Because I prefer to be left alone.” I looked at her. Drop the hints! “Yeah, I’m a bit like that.” She started.
How unbelievably annoying, I thought. This stupid little girl thought she knew me all of a sudden, and started telling me all about this and that...
After a while, i had to interrupt. “I’m not being funny…Grace…but I’d prefer just to left alone…please?”
She shook her head.
“You shouldn’t drink alone.” She said. “Now budge up boring so I can sit on here too.”
And that’s when it happened. Me and Grace. We were friends. Most people would have left me alone at that point, and called me a moody bastard. But she persisted. I admired her for that. I didn’t exactly talk that night, she talked, telling me all sorts. When it got to eleven-thirty, she gasped and gave that giggle.
“My Dad is gonna freak out!” She laughed. “My cerfew is eleven!” She jumped up and in a tiny way, I felt a bit sad.
“Your cool, Tom.” She said. “We should meet up soon. What do you think?”
I thought she was...you know, wanting me to be her boyfriend.
“I don’t need a girlfriend right now.” I said.
“I don’t want a boyfriend either thanks!” She shrieked. “I only want to be your mate, Tom. Do you think you can handle that?” She laughed.
I felt a bit embarrased. I didn’t really know how to talk to girls.
“Of course.” My voice wavered like it keeps doing…how annoying, you know when your voice goes really low and then high again. I coughed to hide it.
She didn’t say anything, but gave me a big smile anyway. I think I blushed in the darkness, which was not like me.
“Well, see ya.”
Then she walked off.
I finished the last bit of my Fosters and watched her walk off with the rest of her mates. Gaz followed his girlfriend and the lemmings followed Gaz. They forgot about me, but I didn’t care. I sat there and thought.
Grace came into my thoughts. She was certainly something.

It was a cold winter day when the news broke out. I make it sound like World War III or something but it was literally, broke out. I was round my Grans (Grace was always telling me to visit her) listening to her old tales of the farm when my mobile phone rang. I ignored it at first, because it was rude to answer it when I was meant to be being polite. But then it went off again. I ignored it. I thought if it happened again I’d turn it off and I knew full well it wouldn’t be Gracey cos she was out shopping with her Mum. And she was only one who would be ringing.
It did ring again and I looked at the display – it said one of Grace’s friends, Emma. I had no idea what she was doing calling me, or why exactly she had my number but I made my excuses anyway and answered the call.
“Tom, listen, its about Grace.”
“What about her? Is she okay?”
“Well that’s just it. No one knows. She’s gone missing.”
“Yeah, right, okay.” I figured she’d been shopping alone maybe and been a bit longer than her parents expected.
“No really. She left a note and everything.”
Zoom. Okay. Serious stuff now.
“What?” I said. “What note? I’ll call her and sort her out.”
“Don’t even bother trying. Her phone is at home. Her mum has been calling everyone displayed in her phone trying to find out where she’s gone. She's just called me.”
This was whizzing by too fast.
“What did this note say?” I said.
“That she had to get away for a little while. Get her head sorted out. She left most of her clothes, and took all the money from her Dads pot. That’s about five hundred pounds she’s got. I’m guessing she’ll be home in a few weeks at the most.I'm gonna kill her when i see her though. She's got everyone worried.”
This was unbelieveable. How could she want to run away, and not even tell me! We were best friends almost and she couldn’t tell me. A bit selfish i know, but i was a bit angry with her. This was like her – get everyone worried and I knew she’d come strolling back in a few days like she’d only been round the corner shop.

Days dragged by. Then weeks. And then a few months. No word. It was a nightmare. An absolute nightmare. I felt I was living in someone’s hell. And it was mine.
She hadn’t bothered to get in contact with anyone…all the sleepless nights worrying about her got me thinking the same questions over and over again…where WAS she?
I tried to stop thinking sometimes – just pretend it wasn’t happening. It wasn’t like she was dead or anything – she was just being silly. By the third month, I was looking a bit ill and withdrawn. I wasn’t attending school.
People were behaving like she’d never been there. Like it wasn’t an issue. Some of the girls she hang around with sometimes weren’t worried anymore. It was like nothing had happened. There had been one local news bulletin. Oh yeah. Big deal. That’ll reach some big audience all right. Where was she? Why didn’t she tell me?

Six months had passed. I ran out of ideas. The only thing I had really done was give out little photocopies of her picture out…I went all the way up to London by myself to hand them around at the train stations. Not many people took them, and on the way home I saw a few scattered on the ground. All we could do was hope and pray that she got in touch. The police didn’t treat it as a bad matter – she had said she would be fine in the note, she clearly had money with her, she was a bright girl. But - she was fourteen. That was still, quite young. I was going mad, thinking about the same thing. The day was marked up in my mind of the day she went missing – like an anniversary of loved ones. When the exact day of the 6th month came round, I was ready to complete lose my sanity.
That was when I got a call. It was Grace’s mum.
We hadn’t spoken in months either. She said someone had supposedly seen her, in London. I knew she would have gone there.
She used to say it was all happening there.
'London - that's where i'm gonna live Tom - it all happens in London!'
I found out in which part she was supposedly seen and got on the phone – found out all the hostels numbers in the area and rang them up, one by one. There weren't many, and not one would give out any names or information. So I got on the first train up there to see her for myself, not knowing what i was doing,with my stupid little map, but so adament i would find her, and bring her home.

I checked out the first few – it was like having doors slammed in my face. They couldn’t even tell me if she’d been there – she was under sixteen and it was against the law to release any information out into the public. I only wanted to know if she’d been there. Or if she was there. So on I went, to the next one. Nasty places they looked like, full of homeless old dirty blokes - who knows what they were capable of?
I officially gave up. I’d been travelling for most of the day – getting completely lost in a huge city I knew nothing about miles from home. Thinking how must have Grace felt when she did it. Although Grace was mad...she would have loved it.
If she’d had wanted to be found, she would have contacted someone. I hoped if anyone, it would have been me. Her best mate, apparently.
I sat down on a bench and actually cried. For the millonth time. Only this was in public. I didn’t care.
When I looked up – there was Grace. Her blonde hair bouncing away in the wind, like some crazy girl, like she is. She was about to post these letters on the corner of a busy main road. I stood up, believing my tears had fooled me. She saw me too. It was like we were the only two people in the world. She was one person who I didn’t expect to see the most in the world, and the person I wanted to so much. I honestly couldn’t believe it. I wanted to tell her i loved her so much, and hold her against me.
“Tom!” She shrieked at the top of her voice.
“Grace!” I called back. I rushed over to the kerb and my eyes left her. I pressed the button for the lights to change. Then I looked up to see her dash into the road.

~ ~ ~

In a split second…how can you go from unbelieveably happy to well…just as dead as she was? I felt raw. Like I had no feelings. I spent months lying in bed, staring at the walls. Didn’t get up for days on end. Didn’t speak to my parents. On my fifteen birthday I cried all day. On her fifteenth birthday I cried even more. In fact, on her fifteenth birthday is when my first suicidal attempt really happened. I tried to slit my wrists.
All in all, if I was counting them all together, I’d say I’ve had at least thirty attempts of ending my life.
My parents couldn’t deal with me anymore, so they sent me away. To have my head checked out. Now I have to live in one of those mental institution things. I’m not treated like I’m mental or anything – just normal, althought I’m supervised whenever I do anything, and I have these observations done all the time. I don’t care what they are writing down. I really didn’t care. I didn’t care when I saw my parents. I’m sure they didn’t really care either when they saw me. I’m sure they tried to forget I existed. I was a nasty reminder that they actually had their precious son in a place where real weirdos and perverts go to get brainwashed. Not me. They could sit me in hours of counselling and it did nothing for me. Their words went through me.
The thing that hurt me most was her letters. One to the hostel, saying thanks for all their help, but she didn’t need it anymore. She was going home. The one to her parents said pretty much the same thing, she didn't need them. The one to me, which I still have to this day said she was coming home – to me. She said she loved me. She said she’d run away because of something – some reason no one will never know – but she loved me more than just a friend and wanted to come home and be together with me.
So if I had stayed at home that day, not seen her…the letter would have come through to me in the next couple of days and she would have come home. We would have been together. We would have got married. We would have had children. I felt I was one to blame. Although you'll say it wasn't, technically, i was to blame.

“Ok Thomas, that’ll be all for today. I think you are making some excellent progress since you’ve been here. You’ve opened up a lot more, I’ve noticed. I think if you carry on at this rate, we’ll have you out of here and at home with your family in no time. Good.” He spun round on his chair to get some files out from behind him. It was so simple, and I couldn’t believe in my years I’d never thought of it. Quick as a flash I reached over and nicked his scissors. Well I took it, stuffed it down my sleeve. When he turned round, he didn’t notice. He just gave me that awkward half-smile, said 'good', and told me it was okay to leave. I was accompanied back to my room where I sat for a little while thinking about my life sensibly.
It wasn’t a wasted life. I’d had a good life. My best days with my best friend.
My worst days without. And here I was, at twenty seven years old, branded as a pyscho with nothing to my name. All I was wanted was her. But I was filled with warmth as I felt the cold metal still up my arm. I knew my wrists weren’t the place. I knew if I rammed it hard enough through my chest, maybe enough times, and punctured something, it would eventually kill me. My pathetic attemps before were always interrupted, but i was safe here, and alone.
I lay down thinking for a little while.

When I was found the next day, I was laying on my back, in a pool of blood, with Grace’s letter in my hand and her beautiful face in my head.
It wasn’t all for nothing. I mean, I got what I wanted, didn’t I?
We were together now, weren’t we?