Beginnings

Chapter 1
Abigail’s Point of View
He came, as he promised he would. I was sleeping when Dad shouted up the stairs at me. Stirring awake at the noise, tired beyond all belief after the clubbing last night. Marek hadn’t been there, but then again that was probably a good thing, clubs had never been his scene. Knowing what he was like, he would have been camping out under the stars last night, with a small campfire merrily crackling away nearby. He was one of those people who seemed to have been born at the wrong time. To look at how he relaxed and became so much more comfortable in the wild, away from people, you would think that he should have been born back in the medieval times, when life was simpler. He had a way with animals, knew how to replicate their calls, and had once tried to show me how to do the same. 1

We were so very different, and yet we had been best friends since… well forever. I couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been there for me. He was strange like that though, always looking out for me, and yet never asking anything in return. Although I had hugged him before, a spontaneous gesture that seemed to embarrass him. He wasn’t one of those people who seemed to like being touched.
He was a very contradictory character, at times he could be very edgy, a kind of barely hidden violence lying just under his skin. Other times he could be incredibly tender, like the times I’d fallen asleep on him, and he had never tried anything, even though it would have been easy for him. It was almost as though he was asexual, but then again I had seen him looking at other girls with an approving eye, something I was never sure I liked. He was mine after all, and yet he wasn’t.2

I did worry for him sometimes though, especially during the winter. He would always be out in his little tent, and even though he had a good sleeping bag (my dad had made sure of that, with a slight push from me.) I still never really liked it. He was a true friend though, always trying to reassure me that he was ok, and no he didn’t want to have some more gloves or socks. We used to argue about that all the time. I just cared about him, and the annoying thing was that he didn’t seem to realise it. Or at least if he did then he hid it well.3

There had been this one time where we had just finished watching some film or another. All the way through it we had been sitting on the sofa, but by the end I had started to feel really tired. I had leant up against him, hadn’t let him move away even when he had squirmed, revelling in the feel of his body through his clothing. I hadn’t ever felt his body really, nor did I look at him much when he was playing rugby, but it wasn’t bad at all. I had looked up at him, lips slightly parted, and at the time I had willed him to kiss me. It was one of those supposedly “magic” moments when time stops, and still he did nothing. His hand reached out for the Skittles, and he fed me my favourite little orange ones, and that was it. I had hated him so much at that moment. Yet I still knew deep down that I loved him. I just really wished that he would make my job easier. I wanted him, and yet he didn’t seem to feel the same way. 4

Marek’s Point of View5

It had been a long time since I had spent time alone with Abi, 6 months or more. I had needed the time to clear my head, to figure out what it was that I wanted. I hadn’t quite managed it yet, but had decided it was time to come out of my own little bubble. I needed human contact again, but didn’t want to go back to the world fulltime.6

Abi had screamed at me once, had told me that she thought I was running away from everything. I had said something along the lines that I wasn’t doing that, but was just “reserving the right to decide my own destiny”. It was bullshit. I was once again running away, just like I always had. Problem was that at the time I had been too stubborn or maybe too proud to admit that, even to myself. We hadn’t talked for a long time after that argument. I had often lain there in my sleeping bag, missing her warmth and her spontaneous nature. I had missed the way in which seeing her made me feel inside. I had missed the way that a whole room used to almost light up when she came into it. It was only a few days ago that I had realised, I was in love with her. I had every intention of telling her that this weekend. It was unchartered territory, but that was part of the lure, the element of danger.7

I had paused at her driveway, unsure if she was in or not, or even if she wanted to see me. We had had a pretty impressive row the last time I had come over. The gravel crunched underneath my feet as they made the decision for me. The knocking on the door seemed incredibly loud to my ears, but it probably wasn’t all that loud, muffled by the thickness of the old oak door and its frame. Her father came out to the door pretty quickly though, either he was on his way out anyway, or he had been bloody close to the door as he was going around the house. 8

“Marek, how you doing? You decided to start living somewhere other than your little tent yet?” his gruff manner made me smile, never the polite chitchat, always straight to the point. 9

“I’m good thanks Sir, the problem is that I like my solitude, plus it isn’t all that small a tent. You should know Sir; after all you did buy it for me.” I grinned back at him, presented him with a small bottle of wine that I had bought, and asked about Abi. 10

“Upstairs, she has been waiting for you. Hasn’t been able to concentrate the last week, spent half the bloody time asking about when I think you will turn up again. I told her that I didn’t have a clue, but you would take your sweet time about it. Seven months is too long. Where have you been?” 11

“I did a lot of travelling. It’s a great thing to do, just up sticks and move, if you don’t like where you are at the time then all that you have to do is move on. You would be surprised how accommodating farmers can be if you ask them respectfully for a place to sleep, even if it is just in a barn among the cows. I got my head straight about a lot of things in the process, and then decided to come back here, say hi to Abi, and maybe stick around this time.” I said still grinning.12

“It’s good to have you back. Listen, I have to get going, look after my daughter ok.” 13

With that he let me in, and then went off with a squeal of his rear tyre, and a small dust cloud chasing after him. I had always liked his motorbike, impractical as it was. After all, on country footpaths it wouldn’t stand a chance. On the other hand, whilst my own two feet were slower, I got wherever I wanted to get in the end. Less expensive as well, a good pair of boots set me back maybe £60 for 4 years. That bike cost thousands each year in petrol and maintenance. There was no contest as far as I was concerned.14

Abigail’s Point of View15

Getting up quickly, hearing an all too familiar voice talking to my father, and then the thump as the door closed, before the low roar of my father’s bike went off into the distance.
I stopped on the landing, wondering what the hell I was going to do. I mean I wasn’t dressed, my hair was messed up and I didn’t have anything on other than my little nightdress, which didn’t exactly hide much. Trepidation rushed through me, and for precious moments I was rooted to the spot. I couldn’t think further than that Marek was here once more in my house. I had missed him like crazy, had been almost constantly thinking of him. It had been ages since he had last come over. He had sent postcards from time to time, but never wrote enough to let me know what was going on.
Usually something along the lines of:
Hi Abi, hope you are ok. Have reached such and such a place, weather is ok, missing you. Take care, and say hi to your dad for me,
Marek
P.S. You would like it here, saw an incredible sunset last night, you would have loved painting it. 16

And he was right; I have begun to once again love painting. It had been a long time since I had done any drawing or painting for any reason other than for the Art A-level that I was taking. I had begun to draw some sketches of him, from memory mainly, although I had a few pictures of him around. One of them I had had enlarged properly. 17

We had been camping that night, and he had been crouched over the campfire, trying to restart it for the umpteenth time. I had taken the picture on an impulse, and it was only till much later that I had realised it was probably the best one I had taken of him. He was in his element after all, out in the wild, just him, me and a smoky campfire. 18

He had got it started eventually, and then had started talking about his family, its history and where he saw it going. We had been lying there for several hours, and I don’t think I had ever been as relaxed as I was at that moment in time. He was a really interesting speaker, especially once he got going. He didn’t repeat himself once I don’t think, or at least if he did then I never noticed. 19

I had plans for this weekend though, big plans. I wanted to get him to realise how much I had missed him, and wanted to try and extract a promise from him that he would visit more often. I wanted to claim him for myself. I had gotten tired of waiting. I wanted something more concrete than just a friendship. I wanted to have him as something more tangible. I realised how pathetic some of it sounded, but then again, I didn’t really care… 20

Marek’s POV21

It was only as I ducked into the hallway of her house, closing the door gently and making sure that the lock engaged properly that I also realised how still the house was. 22

Normally Abi’s father would be working away on something either in his study or his workshop, whereas Abi would be either writing essays for school, or listening to music up in her room. If she was listening to music it was a good bet that she was probably drawing or sketching something. She had a talent for it certainly. I had seen some of her work, found her attention to detail fascinating; her patience far greater than my own.
But today the house was silent. I had heard the music pounding from the club from where I had camped last night, and could imagine as I bent over my fire where Abi would be. Front and centre, in the centre of the hall, moving to the rhythm, at one with the music no matter what the tempo. Her body glistening with fine beads of sweat, the men around her looking at her with their eyes filled with lust, the girls with jealousy that she had taken all the attention away from them. For me, it was incredible watching her dance, and yet I was always uncomfortable there. The music was too loud, too boisterous, and the closeness of so many other people suffocating.23

I preferred being outdoors, gently strumming away at my guitar or something, the wind rustling the grass, birdsong in the background. It was softer and told more about the feelings of someone when they played rather than the generic ‘music’ that was pumped out in the world today… She had laughed at me for being an old romantic, and I had laughed with her, freely admitting that bygone ages had more appeal for me than the current one.
I took off my rucksack, gently placing it on the floor, pulled off my hiking boots, worn and battered, the leather pliant to the touch. The wooden floor felt good under my feet, the under floor heating taking the edge off the chill that should have normally been there. 24

Still the silence. I coughed, uncomfortable once more. That was when I heard it, a whispered “oh shit” which could only have come from Abi. I grinned; evidently she had only just woken up.
Stealthily going up the stairs, hopping over the 3rd one because it would creak if stepped on, I made my way up to her room. The wooden door was just up from the stairs, just down the hallway on the right. The ornate notice which I had burnt into some wood for her to hang on her door was still there. I pressed my ear to the door, listening for any indication of life in the room. I heard her stumble, and then heard a muffled yelp; she had probably walked into something, not for the first time.
I stood there for a couple of minutes, heard her mumble something about what make up to put on, and knew that at that point in time it would be ok for me to walk in, she would be dressed, or at least I hoped she would be.
I had never seen her in anything less than fully clothed, which was fine by me. I cared for her, some would say that I loved her, but I didn’t want to walk in on her partially clothed or less. Maybe didn’t want is too strong a phrase. I would have liked too, but wasn’t sure as to what the consequences would be. It wasn’t one of the done things; walk in on your best mate nude…25

Abigail’s POV
Just as the first layer of foundation went on, Marek walked in. He in his normal gear of a t-shirt, shirt and jeans whereas I was in a knee length t-shirt of my father’s that he no longer fitted into. He was a huge man, over six foot, whereas I was lucky if I made about five foot six in heels. Even so, there was the moment of panic as he saw me for the first time, his best mate in seemingly nothing but a t-shirt… It could almost have been seductive if I hadn’t woken up about five minutes ago and didn’t have a shred of makeup on.
He laughed though, walked up behind me and enveloped me in his long arms.
It was only when he was actually around that I realised how much I had missed him since the last visit. What amazed me always was that he was so natural about everything, even if it had been months since the last time he had seen me. He was always the same person, maybe a little scratched up or bruised from time to time, but otherwise he never seemed to change. He always smelled faintly of smoke, and his jeans would always have bloodstains on them from whatever animals he had been skinning. He wasn’t bad at it actually, he very rarely had to buy food, usually just travelling and catching whatever he found that day.
He was pretty unusual like that. He was simply content to wander, to follow the footpaths to wherever they might take him. He had one or two maps, but I don’t think that he ever really used them as such. Knowing what he was like, they were probably in the same side pocket that I had packed them in last time he had come over, no doubt folded in exactly the same way.
I grabbed his arm, squeezed it tightly, and tried to continue applying the foundation with one hand. He took hold of my hand in one of his own, and then pressed it gently against my stomach. As I turned my head to ask what the hell he was doing. He kissed me, a long, slow and passionate kiss that went on for what felt ages. In reality it was probably only a few seconds before we broke apart. But the feel of his lips upon mine remained. I turned around so that we were facing each other, and then pulled his head down to my own, kissing him once more. It was crazy, we had never even spoken about our feelings for each other, and yet here we were, kissing in the middle of my room, without having said so much as a “Hi” to each other.26

Marek’s POV
She felt good in my arms, her body so close to my own. Despite never being particularly good with close contact with other people, today I was forcing myself not to move away. We kissed at that point; something so insignificant to other people was a huge step for me.
The intimate contact between us lasted an eternity and a second at the same time. It felt good; there was no doubt about that. We broke away gently, caught in the moment that we had been building towards from the instant we had first met all those years ago.
It was funny how those memories would come back at the oddest of times. But it was good in another sense, a reminder of the history between us. It was something that we took a strange pleasure from, and yet we rarely reminisced about it. It was a given thing, something taken for granted.
And yet when we did reminisce we could do so for hours, going as far back as the argument that we had once had in a sand pit back when we were maybe 3 or 4. Back in the preschool that we had gone to there had been this huge sand pit. We had one day been playing in it when we had both wanted the spade. Anyway, back then she had really sharp teeth, and had ended up biting me hard till I gave it to her. She had drawn blood back then, something that I was not happy about at the time. I still have the scars on my arm, two little pinpricks on my forearm, barely noticeable really, almost lost in the multitude of the other scars on my body.
“Hey Abi, you ok?” I whispered gently, totally unsure about myself all of a sudden, not something that I liked.
“I’m good, it’s good to see you babes, I missed you.” Abi replied, also whispering, her eyes sparkling and glittering with all sorts of hidden emotions. I hugged her gently, looked at where she seemed to have put her own rucksack, seemingly ready for a long expedition. Not that I ever took her on really long hikes. We would go a few days from home, maybe forty miles or so, but never much more.
She seemed to enjoy it though, the trips from home were a special time for us, a time to talk and catch up with each other. We would be almost constantly talking, exploring each other’s minds and so on. Then we would camp, sit around the fire and just take pleasure in being close. The tent I used was a two man one, although I usually asked Abi to bring her own tent, purely so that I was never tempted, and also so that we had our privacy. I somehow knew that that wouldn’t be an issue anymore. We would only need the one tent from now on; for we had finally bridged that last chasm between ourselves.
“Missed you too, why else do you think I turned up hey?” I replied, giving her another quick squeeze before letting her go and finish getting dressed. I turned away, already unpacking her bag to make sure I knew what she had, and getting rid of some of the more useless items. She had never been brilliant at packing for the hikes, often choosing clothes that would only get ruined during the trip. This time was better, but still not brilliant. Still, any improvement was more than welcome.
I threw various bits and pieces back onto her bed, most of her more glittery tops, and asked her to repack her wash bag, a huge thing that I could have fitted my sleeping bag into. I knew that it would be filled with lipsticks and conditioners and god knows what else. None of it was going to be needed where we were going. I had a surprise for her, and because I knew that the school holidays had just started for her, I knew I could take her further afield than normal.
She groaned as always when I mentioned about repacking her cosmetics, but eventually did as I asked her too. Still the forced lack of many of the items there I knew would bug her for some time. No doubt she would tell me off about it later, she always did. I would laugh it off though, and I knew that I was saving her feet and energy in the long run, she didn’t need to carry a tonnes worth of make up for a trip that would probably not last any longer than a week or so. Even though we had the whole of summer, I didn’t want to go much further than a week away, not because I didn’t know the country, but purely because I knew that Abi would want new clothes and so on. Not to mention that I hadn’t cleared this trip with her father anyway, so wanted to be close by just in case anything happened. Not that it would of course, but just in case. As the old saying goes, better safe than sorry.27

Abigail’s POV28

When he spun me away so that I could get dressed I saw him notice that I had my bag already packed. I knew what his mind was thinking already, that we would be hiking out. And he was right. It had been too long since we had gone walking together, and no doubt whilst the first few days would be an absolute torture, my feet unused to the relentless pace that Marek could at times set, it was be absolutely worth it.
I always missed those hikes afterwards when he was gone. It was our time, a time to catch up and revel in each other’s company. God knows we saw little enough of each other, so the times when we finally did see each other we always escaped into where he was in his element. It was something so intensely private about it that I had never invited anyone else to come along. It didn’t help that Marek didn’t really get along with a lot of the people from the school that he had gone to with me. He had always been something so different from them that tensions had inevitably flared up from time to time. I think that was another reason why he decided to drop out when he did.
He was always such a gentle person that when he had fought to protect himself it was scary the change that came over him. I would always remember the last of his fights just before he left. There had been this one guy Charles who had always really bugged Marek. He was always trying to push him to the limit and beyond. He wasn’t particularly successful; Marek would usually just walk away and laugh it off with me later. But then one time he had changed the focus from Marek and onto me.
There was a single block around the back of the school where I used to hang out with Marek; we would eat lunch together and so on. It became almost like a ritual for us to go there and look out over the school field as the hockey team or whatever were training, just hanging out really, but not talking much.
Marek had been running a little late one day, his Science teacher had kept him back for a moment just to discuss some work that he had handed in. I didn’t know about it, and anyway decided that even if he were late there was no reason to bail on him. So I had sat down, started eating the sandwiches that I had made that morning.
Charles came around the corner of the block with his group and started harassing me. I slapped him at one stage when he started trying to grab my breasts, squeezing them painfully. It was only when I started trying to back away that I realised my predicament. The block was out of the way, and the people training would not be paying much attention, nor would they be able to hear any screams. I was backed up against the wall with nowhere to go and Charles was advancing constantly. I wasn’t happy to say the least at this stage, was desperately trying to think what I could do to get out of the situation, and kicking myself for coming here alone when I knew about the beef between Charles and Marek.
I was just about to try and kick Charles when a much welcome voice spoke from behind Charles.
“Charles. Leave her alone, your problem is with me not her.” The controlled fury and implicit command stopped him, the group uncertain for a moment as Charles turned around to face Marek.
“What the fuck do you care Marek. She isn’t your woman.” Charles sneered back, his hands balling into fists, a prominent bulge in his back pocket where a knife could just be seen poking out. My relief turned once more into fear as I realised that Marek was taking on more than he should. A knife against his own hands, it was the ultimate in unfair battles.
“She is a friend, and someone who I will do whatever I have to do to protect. You touch her, you touch me.” Marek was calm, seemingly relaxed, only by looking into his eyes could you see the fury, the rage that at any moment threatened to overflow and destroy them both.
“You like being touched don’t you? Fucking faggot, what you gonna do to stop me? Probably too scared to fight me huh?” Charles was trying to get a rise out of Marek once again, using old lines that hadn’t worked before, and so wouldn’t work now. Marek smiled, stepped closer in. All that separated them now was a few feet of grass bank. The gang around Charles had backed off, were circling to make the fight ring where the ensuing confrontation would be finished once and for all.
“Abi, you don’t need to see this. Go and eat lunch somewhere else. I will catch up with you later on ok.” Marek diverted his attention from Charles for a moment, a flash of concern across his features as he thought of the one whom he was protecting.
For a moment I considered going, but then realised that it would not be possible for me to abandon him like this, even though he had almost demanded it. I stayed quiet, moving out of the way, but staying close just in case I was needed later on. Being in the Guides had taught me some basic first aid, and naively I thought that I could be of assistance afterwards, although not to Charles. 29

Marek’s POV30

As I turned back to face Charles he lunged at me. Leaning backwards and moving slightly to my right was all I needed to do to avoid it, and a grin involuntarily spread across my face as I realised two things. First, Charles didn’t have a clue how to fight, and secondly, that he couldn’t keep a good posture up. When his fist didn’t connect with my head as he had expected it too he staggered forward, totally off balance. I quickly threw an upper cut into his chest, and then pushed him away from me, trying to get him to run straight into the wall just to one side of us. All the time I was thinking as to what he would try next. Most likely he would try the same thing again; I didn’t exactly expect much more of him.
True to form he stumbled away, regained his balance and once again lunged for me. I side stepped and threw a hook to his ribs and tripped him. He went down hard, his arms and legs splayed out, breathing raggedly as the blows began to tell. I smiled once more, the adrenaline pumping, but I was relaxing, the knowledge that Charles was seemingly so hopeless in a fight acting to allay any fears I may have had subconsciously.
The fight continued, Charles lunging and charging seemingly at random, the raging bull. He seemed almost impotent though, his attacks telegraphed clearly so that I could fairly easily avoid them. I kept on smiling, something that only served to infuriate him further, which only made me grin wider. Eventually I tripped him hard and he went down face first into the ground.
“We are done here Charles, you lose.” I crouched down next to him, patted his back and then got up to walk away. I was high on the adrenaline, but wanted to make sure that Abi was ok. I let my guard down, figuring that Charles would act honourably, a stupid mistake.
I heard a kind of scuffling, and then Abi screamed. I twisted round to face Charles, but instinctively knew that something was wrong. A glint of steel, then the sharp pain as it hit me in the back, just under my rib cage, tearing through layers of skin and muscle, piercing blood vessels and so on.
I only came back to myself a little while later. I remembered vaguely turning around and facing Charles once more; he had been in the act of standing after the last trip when he had stabbing the blade into me. My twist had meant he lost his grip on the handle, and so we were once again equal more or less. Things became blurry after that, although when I spoke to Abi much later on she told me what she had seen from her view. It all culminated with Charles unconscious on the floor, me wounded but able to put my blazer back on before any of the teachers saw my own wounds. They came running soon enough. They always did the moment that the call of “Fight, Fight, Fight” broke out. Same with the kids of the school. Seemed that even in the highly desensitized society we lived in, if there was the possibility of real blood being shed then they came to the scene as fast as possible. Almost like moths to a flame. It was another reason why I so despised the society, and why I tried to stay away from it.
The next few hours were a nightmare. A meeting with the headmaster. Then another one with the Head of Year, a name I never remembered. Calls to parents. A farce of an ‘investigation’ to try to figure out what had happened. A trip to the nurse when they realised that I was bleeding on their new floor. She wiped it all, sterilised the more obvious wounds, but school policy wouldn’t give me any damned plasters. I pulled some out of a side pocket and applied them. All the time the wound in my back was aching and stiffening up.
Abi was there all the way through, my key witness and probably the only person who would take my side of the debate. Not that it would really matter, 30 eye witnesses from Charles would all argue that it was my fault, that I threw the first punch. Abi and I on the other hand would give a more truthful account, and there was the knife. I knew that fingerprints would show Charles as having been the wielder and the blood would show it was my wound on the blade, so it wouldn’t be too hard to put two and two together. At least that is what I hoped. In the mean time there would be the inevitable exclusion. I knew the way that the school worked. It wasn’t the first time that Charles and I had argued, but was the first time it had been this brutal.
In all honesty, I think we were both a little surprised, and it was at that point that I decided that there was no way that I would come back there unless it was for the exams. I wanted to leave school with a few qualifications at least. Whether the school would agree to that was a different matter.
It took a long time before the school would let us go that day. I ended up going to Abi’s place. That was a scene and a half. I had been of the opinion that I was ok; Abi on the other hand was having none of it. She was demanding that I went into a hospital to get it checked out and stitched up. I kept on telling her that the day I went into one of those hell holes would be the day I died. Eventually she did the one thing I had really been hoping she wouldn’t do. She stood close to me, her eyes a little watery, her hands pressed against my chest and she just looked at me. 31

Abigail’s POV32

From the moment that I had seen Charles start to get up I knew what was going to happen next. My scream only served to partially warn Marek, he certainly wasn’t fast enough to doge the blow. It was as if after that last move of his that had left Charles on the floor he just gave up the fight. Maybe if he hadn’t let his guard down so much then it wouldn’t have happened. Or maybe if I had screamed earlier. It took me a long time to realise that there was little I could have done. In a sense, if it hadn’t have happened then the events later on would not have followed on, and me and Marek possibly wouldn’t be as close as we eventually became. In a sense I suppose, Marek’s stabbing was the best thing that happened for us both.
The rest of the fight was over within just a few seconds. I remember an animalistic bellow erupting from Marek, him twisting around and making Charles lose his grip on the knife. Marek grabbing Charles’ arm and snapping it quickly before going on to knock him out. My own retching, the hot bile rising fast. I had never seen this side of him. Had never seen the violence within him unleashed so quickly regardless of the provocation. This was not the Marek that I had known for so long. This was a side I had never seen in him before. A side that terrified me, and yet excited at the same time, however wrong that sounded.
The school reaction later on was both predictable and tedious. The taking of statements, the talks with the Head of Year and Headmaster. The notification that Marek was excluded till the whole problem was sorted out. The notification that I was a borderline case so that if I put another foot wrong I would be kicked out as well. That was the bit that stunned me. Or rather, scared the hell out of me. I knew that if I were to be kicked out then it wouldn’t look good on my record, yet at the time it was one of the last things on my mind. My main worry was Marek and his wounds.
It was when we were walking back to my place that the argument really started. The track down to his usual campsite was near my house, so we walked to and from school together most days, when he was around that is. He was bent over to his side slightly as he walked back that day, his bag slung over the other shoulder to try and take some of the pressure off the wound. It must have stung like crazy, and the heat of the day wouldn’t be helping him at all. He was pale, and from what I had seen earlier, the shirt he was wearing was more or less soaked through with the blood from his wound. Not that he would mention it at all. Without any doubt he would try and play Superman, again. It always pissed me off when he tried to be so much stronger than he really was. He knew that I didn’t mind seeing a slightly weaker side to him. A side of him that needed help of some sort. It never materialised, but there was always hope right? There was always hope33

Marek’s POV
We walked back to her place together that night, but without our customary chat and the closeness. Abi was furious that I wasn’t going to go to the hospital and get checked out, whilst I maintained that apart from needing a sewing needle and some thread, there was nothing the hospital had that I really needed, although a quick shot of painkiller would be nice. Her father was a doctor, and so could probably do what needed to be done if I asked nicely. I would certainly prefer him to do it than someone at the hospital. I didn’t like people whom I didn’t know touching me, was always very slow in making new friends etc. Part of it was that I never was all that good in social situations, having always been a loner. Another part of it was that I simply wasn’t all that interested in what my own age group was interested in. Designer clothes and sex, fights and football, it had so little appeal. Maybe that was just me being intolerant though, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time as Abi took great pleasure in noting.
Admittedly there were some people that Abi knew whom I got along fairly well with, but I think that to some extent it was about the fact that I was a total unknown to them. They couldn’t imagine how I gained the level of pleasure that I did by simply being in my own company. Abi was the only one out of that group who was really willing to give the idea a chance, although she was never really alone as such, after all I was only ever a short distance away.
Eventually however we got back to her place, and whilst Abi went to the kitchen to try and find a first aid kit, I was banished to her room, told to take my shirt off ready for her ‘ministrations’. I smiled at her change in manner from a furious at me mode to the ultra efficient nurse mode that she was now in, but humoured her. Taking off my shirt and the t-shirt underneath hurt, with the movements pulling apart the barely healed scab and so on, but it didn’t really look all that bad. It was more a long gash than a deep stab wound, at least as far as I could tell. Not that it would matter to Abi. She would probably give me a bollocking even whilst she was tending to me. We were strange like that, we always looked after each other one way or the other, but if someone were to overhear us whilst we are doing so, then it would be unlikely that they would believe us to be as close as we were. The comments and the conversations that we would have were not exactly complimentary. The words ‘bloody idiot’ featured a lot, usually with me wincing slightly as she ‘tended’ to a particularly large cut or scrape. Even though it hurt at times, and we argued a little, we enjoyed the contact, enjoyed the time that we spent together. It was just another one of the little things that we did for each other I suppose. Another one of those strange little things that was so unique to us. I returned the favour every now and then when we were hiking and she got blisters or her feet were ‘killing her’ through foot massages or similar. 34

Abigail’s POV
It took a long time to actually patch up Marek. Not to mention when my father finally got back and redid all the work. It must have hurt like crazy, and yet Marek refused all but some minor painkillers, not much stronger than aspirin really. I personally though he was mad, yet he barely moved as my father stitched him up, and only once or twice let out a quiet moan of pain. I tried to make myself useful, but I wasn’t really needed anywhere and eventually I went back to my room and tried to read. It was a wasted effort really, I was still on edge from the events of the day, and was wondering how I was going to go about telling my father about what had happened. I knew that there would inevitably be letters sent home and so on. It must have been at least an hour and a half before Marek eventually crawled up to my room. He looked drawn, and incredibly pale. He smiled gently and at that moment looked like a little boy, hurt and tired, just wanting to be taken care of. I wanted to rush to him and hug him, but knew that doing something like that would really hurt him. I stood up slowly, and walked to him, taking his hands gently in my own. I led him carefully to my bed, deciding that I wanted to know where he was, and how he was doing for the night. It never even crossed my mind that he might want to go back to his campsite, and in any case, he had packed his tent into his bag so there was no chance of him going anywhere tonight, at least not if I had anything to do with it.
“You know you aren’t going anywhere right?” I asked, half expecting him to pick up his rucksack and walk out. He turned his head to face me, a weak grin quickly spreading across his face. He walked to his bags, tried to pick one of them up and sling it once more onto his broad shoulders, but almost immediately it was obvious that it wasn’t going to happen. His straps came right across the wound, and he grimaced, almost shaking with the combination of the pain and trying not to show it. I quickly walked over to him, torn between wanting to slap him and call him an idiot, or cuddle him after having taken the rucksack away. He grimaced even more as I started slipping the straps off him, and yet he knew that he didn’t have much of a choice otherwise.
“Please stay here tonight babes, it’s the least we can do for you, even if it is only for one night. Plus do you really want to be going out and sorting out your tent in the dark?” I didn’t try and play down the concern I felt for him, and if need be then I would call my father in to help me out. Marek and my father had a lot of mutual respect for each other, although on both sides it had been earned the hard way. It helped though that I had known Marek for so long. My father certainly approved far more highly of Marek than he ever had of any of my boyfriends. It was funny actually; my father was forever almost interrogating the others, whereas he took Marek almost for granted, never questioning him as such, occasionally joking around him a little, with little comments on when he would move out of the tent and so on. I think however that Marek’s totally different nature and attitude to life, with the ability he had to move from place to place and be content with owning very little, appealed to my father, and to some extent I think my father envied him. I know that during the exam periods for example I certainly envied him. I often wished during those times that I could just walk away from it all, but then again, I enjoyed the life and stress that it all brought, especially when I had the six weeks holiday at the end of the road. 35