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I didn’t speak to her for a week after that but I didn’t go round and sort out that boy. I never really understood what the hell she cared about him for, she didn’t even know him. But she didn’t want to talk any more about it. All she said was, ‘You don’t know what you would do if you were in his shoes.’ And that was good enough for her. Although I never said it to her, I think I worked out later what it was all about. At the bottom of it, it was all about her brother Spooks I reckon. He was inside on a long stretch for some drug shit and the way she saw it, was the way only family would see it. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As far as she saw it this kid was just the same as Spooks. Victim of circumstances. I didn’t see the shit the same way. You don’t go past jail and straight to Go or whatever. If you do your crime and you get caught. You pay up. Simple as that.

I let it go though, for her sake. I really didn’t want to and I really wasn’t taken in by how she laid it down. Her brother was a waste man too as far as I could tell but she loved him and I loved her. So it was what it was. And I tell you this, I wouldn’t have let this go for anyone but her. I needed her in my life. I had no doubt that she would have left me if I had gone that day and given the boy a taste of something. Whether it was because she believed in what she believed or whether it was because she was born stubborn, she would have walked out. I didn’t exactly respect that, it was more that I couldn’t do without her in my life. She was like the roof over my head. I needed her to keep me dry. It seemed like she had been around since for ever and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would have been like if she hadn’t been there.

So when she went then, that first time, it proper knocked me out.

I know to you guys, this seems like another one of them bus replacements. Proper long. But if you just stay with me you will see why you need to hear all this.

See, Kira, she literally just disappeared. It was only a week after this whole car thing so at first I thought she was still pissed off about it. She had no reason to be pissed off though because I had dropped it, like I said I would. But you know how it is with some women, they can be pissed off at you even when you do exactly what they want you to do. No offence to the jury ladies you get me. And the worst thing is that they expect you to know why you pissed them off even when as far as you are concerned, it’s you that should be pissed off at them.

I had been expecting her to drop into my place that Saturday and help me with picking out some paint and stuff. It was kind of a surprise for her. I had just sold a car and I was a bit flush and I thought if I maybe did the place up more in like a ways that she would, she might be happier to stay round more. She didn’t turn up though. Which was weird because this girl was never late. I mean never.

I waited for an hour maybe before trying her mobile but it rang dead. But then she was always changing her digits as we all were. You’d get a sim with a deal on it, use it and then move on to the next sim with the next deal. That was standard. So when I couldn’t get her on her phone to me it was just one of them things. Nothing to stress about. She was pissed off for no reason but as I knew, she didn’t always need a reason. She sometimes did that. She would get on one about something that I never even knew I had done and then the next day I would hear all about it. So even though I was worried I wasn’t really. I was more angry by then. I was doing my usual thing, racking my brains trying to work out what shit I might have done wrong. I checked my texts – did I say something wrong in one of them? I checked her birthday and other days for if I had missed any ‘special’ ones. I couldn’t work it out.

I didn’t hear from her all that day. The whole day was wasted. I didn’t get no paints. I didn’t get anything done in fact because I was stressing about why she was mad at me. By the time I went to bed, truth be told I was angry. In my head I was wishing all kinds of shit on her. I was screaming at her, I was having these imaginary conversations with her, everything. I’d be doing her voice in my head and then I’d come back at her with my own voice. Like a proper row. It was fucked up.