Roadkill (LiveWire) Read Online Free PDF Page A

barricade as the others took off into the sky, screaming and whooping. I was forgotten, and I felt pretty much as bad as I ever have. Obviously I don’t tell Matt this bit, but he smiles, like he guesses.
    “So I did miss out. You and me could have done the ghost train!”
    I laugh, but he tells me to get on with how I met Leo. I’m still not totally sure he’s interested, but Ash is gabbling into his phone and I am enjoying myself.
    “We were both in the queue for the Big Wheel, and we just, you know, got talking,” I smile, remembering.
    I don’t admit to Matt that I was delighted to find a fellow ‘wimp’ and even Rose yelling  “Hey my little sister’s pulled!” as her noisy entourage tumbled off the ride, couldn’t dent my evening.
    It was amazing how much Leo and I had in common, how much we had to talk about; music, films, politics, even my secret love; art. By the end of the night I lost count of the number of times I said “Yeah, me too!” I knew right away I had found a soul mate.
    “So we’ll see you around yeah?” Matt smiles, at the end of my, okay, a bit overlong explanation. Ash has finished and is already texting someone else. I am dismissed.
    For some reason I almost want to cry. Awkwardly I bid the boys goodbye, avoiding Matt’s eyes, and head once again for my best friend’s flat.
    He’s not home, which is bloody rude. Okay I don’t generally visit on impulse, and I did say I wasn’t coming out tonight. But I am unreasonably let down, and unsettled by my meeting with Matt and Ashley. Leaning in the shadows of the communal entrance, I tap out a text;
     
    At yours – where r u?? xx
     
    Although I hang around like a loser for about twenty minutes, there is no response. It occurs to me Leo’s mum is probably in bed, and maybe Leo is asleep too. Or out with a boyfriend. The thought pops uninvited into my head, and I shake it away, and wander slowly back through the Estates, skirting the worst block of flats, with its murky stairwells full of dealers and losers. My best friend lives on the wrong side of town.
    Leo’s place is one of the newer apartments, and probably bigger than my whole house. But still, who would want to live sandwiched between a dodgy backstreet garage, and a smelly ‘fight club’ style gym? According to my mum it’s an ‘up and coming’ area but if you ask me they need to bulldoze most of it.
    A group of lads tumble from a side alley, bottles clinking, drunken laughter echoing off the high narrow walls. It is very dark now, and I instinctively short cut through houses, leaving the scowling blocks of flats and breathing easier in the maze of identikit brick houses. If Rose was here she’d suggest a trip over the bridge to the local pub; The Sunburst. I haven’t got any close girlfriends, and of course Leo fills the best friend gap nicely, but I didn’t realise how much I depended on my sister for girly chat, for well…..stuff. There is a great big hole torn inside of me and I don’t know how to deal with it. And it hurts.
    Tears are falling as I let myself carefully into our house. Shut up! I tell myself fiercely, sliding upstairs and creeping along the landing past Mum’s bedroom. Garry’s big shoes are neatly paired outside the closed door. Yuck. Then I freeze, stifling sobs, and dragging a hand across my snotty nose; classy me.
    A sound is coming from Rose’s bedroom, soft and painful like a wounded creature. Much like the noise I’m making I guess. Carefully I inch along the wall, knocking my shoulder on Dad’s smiling face. Rose’s door is half open, and moonlight suddenly drenches the large room in a milky haze. The springs shift on her bed, and for a tiny second I know it is all a mistake and my sister has come home.
    Of course she hasn’t. My mum is hunched on my sister’s duvet cradling one of Rose’s sparkly T- shirts. Squinting I can see it’s the pink one with FALLEN ANGEL spelled out in sequins. It was her favourite , and looked