Page 5 of Spiralling Skywards
I picked upour shots and headed back over to where Sasha was standing. I didn’t know what made me do it—an unconscious pull, an urge, something that I just couldn’t fight—I couldn’t explain the reasoning, but it stopped me in my tracks and forced me to look over my shoulder. That was when I saw him.
He was tall, at least six foot. His hair was blond or a very light brown, I couldn't really tell in the lighting of the club, but I could see that it was longer than collar length and pushed back from his face. His eyes were blue, which I was sure of, and they were looking in my direction. Not just looking, but staring intently, piercing.
He saw me. All of me. Every molecule, each and every cell that made me. I just knew he could see every single one.
I shuddered, feeling slightly unnerved by the intensity of his gaze and my body’s response to it.
My heart, my traitorous, treacherous heart didn’t hesitate to give up a piece of itself. After punching its way out of my chest and sprinting at record pace the short distance to where he was standing, it worshipped at his feet for a few short seconds before launching itself into his hands.
I stood and observed, anchored to the spot. Incapable of doing anything more than hope and pray that he would look after that little piece of me that he held. I knew, I just knew with every fibre of my being that it was now his forever. And I didn't even know his name.
It was the realisation that Declan Fox, one of my brother’s acquaintances, was saying something into his ear that had me finally turning away and continuing on my path back to Sasha.
Declan Fox. There was just something about him that had always made my skin crawl. He was a slimy prick who loved no one more than he loved himself, and he was a bit too touchy feely for my liking. He always seemed to invade my personal space when it was completely unnecessary.
“Seriously, Sares, you go to Mexico for that tequila?” Sasha asked. I knew she was only joking but ol’ blue eyed, starey hot bloke from the bar had me feeling all unbalanced.
“You’ve got legs, go get it yourself next time, and we’ll see if you can get served any faster. Now drop your shot and quit your bitching.”
She stared at me for a few seconds, her mouth opening and closing. I was the quiet one out of the pair of us and rarely answered back.
“Since when did you grow balls?”
“Since you’re complaining started to piss me off. There was a queue okay, not my fault.” She looked at me with eyebrows drawn down into a frown, raised her shot glass to mine, and continued to stare me down as we both necked them in unison.
“God I love that stuff.”
“Me too,” I agreed while pulling a face that said otherwise and shuddering.
Silence followed for a few seconds as we sucked on our limes.
“You need to get your leg over, love. That’s why you’ve got the hump tonight.” I most certainly did not disagree with that statement, but I wasn’t about to let her know that.
I dropped my chin and raised my eyebrows, giving her my best are-you-fucking-serious look.
“Don’t look at me like that, Sarah Kathleen Carter. How long’s it been now?”
“Will you hush your noise?” I tried to make it sound like an order instead of a request, as I looked around the night club where my brother’s surprise thirtieth birthday was being held.
Luke, my older brother by eight years, was my rock, my big brother, and my joint best friend next to Sasha. He practically raised me during the first few years of my life.
Luke had slept with me in his bed when I was first born, simply because it was easier for him to feed me during the night. My mother, usually out cold on Valium or whatever else she’d thrown down her neck to escape the reality of her oh so terrible life, would simply sleep through my crying. He was just an eight-year-old boy and was left to take care of a new born.
We got lucky when our grandparents stepped in and raised us, but a lot of the damage was already done.
It was the night before I started school that I finally started sleeping in my own room, almost two years after moving in with Nan and Grandad. I cringe now at the thought of him being thirteen by then and still sharing a room with his little sister. I blush to the roots of my hair when I think back to all the times I burst through the door and caught him doing what thirteen-year-old boys do, or in Luke’s case, what he’d been doing at eleven, twelve,andthirteen. Hands down his boxers, strained look on his flushed face. I assumed for a few years that he had year round hay fever because of the amount of tissues he got through.
In the end, my grandparents promised me a New Kids On The Block themed bedroom that my little five year old heart craved. I just had to promise to sleep in my own bed each night.
The bribery worked. I curled up in my very own bedroom, in my very own bed, wrapped in my NKOTB quilt each night, and fell asleep as I debated whether it was Jordan or Joey I was going to marry.
This left my brother finally having his own room and the privacy to blast out “U Can’t Touch This”, while he probably most certainlywastouchingthisand very probablythattoo, at the same time as he was looking at pictures of Betty Boo and Kylie Minogue.
Despite our traumatic early years, I had a happy childhood. We weren’t poor, we wanted for nothing. Nan and Grandad, Mai and Archie, were good people, and they loved us unconditionally. Not that I ever really gave them anything to complain about. I never went through a rebellious stage, so I sailed through my teens pretty easily. I was the consummate good girl, not really having a choice with Luke and his entourage always looking out for, and checking up on, me.
When I turned sixteen, Luke went off traveling. He’d finished uni, and before settling down and looking for work, which would put his business management and international relations degrees to good use, he decided to see a bit of the world.
For the first couple of years, he just travelled around Europe and would come home for the odd week, or sometimes even a month. It wasn’t until he went further afield to America, Asia, and finally Australia that I became terrified of being left behind and forgotten about, which I’d kept to myself. He’d been there for me throughout my life, holding my hand at all of the important milestones, and we both knew it was time for me to stand on my own two feet.
