Extract from the run aways

Jenny

It feels like everyone has ditched me! First Ben ran off and now Bry and Dom are leaving, the only people who have truly supported me are Humaira and Sneddon. I can’t believe Bryony and Dom are moving on though. They’ve got a house and everything and they sorted it all out behind our backs! They have a warm house; a proper place to live and they won’t even let us come with them. Well the rest of us have decided that we want nothing more to do with them. We’re supposed to be their friends and they’ve left us in the lurch.

The worst thing is that I’m pregnant too yet I can’t get a house because I’m not married and haven’t “gained official status as a Spanish citizen.” Apparently because Bryony and Dom got married here and this is where their baby was conceived they count as proper Spaniards. How unfair is that? So if Ben wasn’t such a coward and hadn’t run away and if we where married we could pull a fast one and say the baby was conceived here and we’d have a home. Them lot wouldn’t grass us up and my plan was to bring the baby up as Bens anyway. But he aint here and I’m all on my own yet again.

I swear I am not giving Ben any more chances. He has no idea how hard it was for me to forgive him after what happened in Australia. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done and now he’s left me again. No doubt when he comes back, which he will do because he won’t survive two minutes without us lot helping him out, he’ll expect me to let him back in to my life. Well he can think again. I’m fed up of letting myself believe that people love me only to let them walk all over my heart. The only person that has ever been there for me, the only person who looks out for me and I know always will, no matter what is Humaira and she’s my best friend. No one else has ever come close. I thought Ben was really the one for me but he let me down just like everyone always does. I thought he was different I really did. I thought he’d look after me. I managed to trust him even though I thought I’d never trust a man again after what happened in Australia. Well look where that got me? I’m all alone with a child growing inside me, which I have no idea how I’m going to look after. Infact I haven’t a clue what I’m going to do. I have no money, no home and now I have no boy friend. I’m pretty much screwed. The only thing I have left is my friends. And my pride of course but if it wasn’t for my stupid pride and my trying to hang on to what ever is left of it, I might not be in this mess now.

I thought Ben was the love of my life. Then I realised, love is something that stays with you forever, yet Ben hasn’t and won’t. The real love of my life is the baby growing inside of me and whether I like it or not, this baby is staying with me forever. Love is unconditional and I love my baby unconditionally no matter how he or she was conceived and that’s something Ben can never understand. It takes a brave man to stand by someone in a situation like this, a brave man with a lot of love, Ben obviously isn’t a brave man and he’s also not in love with me any more or at least that’s how it looks from my point of view…

Jenny

Ben

You’d think I’d be used to sleeping in doorways by now wouldn’t you? The thing is before when I was sleeping rough I always had them lot. And when I was with them even if it was chucking it down and we where all freezing there was always one of us ready with a joke or something funny would happen that kept all our spirits up. Now I’m on my own and there’s no one to make me laugh. No one to tell me it’ll all be better in the morning.

They’ll be better off without me though. No one needs me. I’m just the guy who screws everything up all the time. They might not see my point now but eventually they will understand. It’s better for us all in the long run if I stay away. I just bring bad luck. They’ll thank me in the end.

Ben.

Humaira.

I didn’t want to wake up this morning. I was curled up inside the house (if you can call it that) under sneddons parker, which he’d kindly lent me, thinking that if I didn’t open my eyes then maybe I could just be dreaming. Maybe none of this would be real. Maybe I’d wake up inside my bed in the care home and when I did eventually get up I’d be able to see jenny sprawled on the floor because she’d fallen out of bed again and I’d be able to hear Bryony snoring and most of all we’d have practically no problems. The whole reason we ran away was to escape problems. Now we have run away and things are far worse.

The things we worried about before seem trivial. Before we considered the care home our main problem. The whole not fitting in thing seemed huge too. Now I’d give anything to go back to when that was all I had to worry over. We should have just got on with it like everyone else. So we didn’t fit in, who cares? We’ve got each other, or at least we did have. Back then it was all about sticking together now we don’t even think about that, or so it seems. As for living in the care home, it seems like a barrel of laughs compared to life now.

If we’d just been happy with what we had, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now. Now, not only are we all completely screwed for various reasons but also we all seem to have lost all the values we started off with. Like for example Bryony and Dom. They are being completely selfish. Where as before they would have invited us to go live with them, they’re so preoccupied with their own little “family” that they’ve deserted their friends so they can go play house! As for Ben before he was the brave one. The one we all looked up to. It was his idea to run away in the first place and we trusted him. Look where that got us. Now when we need him, when Jenny needs him, he’s run away from us. I’ve come to realise, that seems to always be his solution when life gets tough. He runs away. He can’t handle things. In fact I seem to be the only one who’s even trying to handle this situation. Jenny is busy feeling sorry for herself and trying to make her damn mind up about her bloody baby and Sneddon can’t take any of this he’s just gone depressed so he isn’t helping. As for Ben, Dom and Bry they’ve left me so now I’m all on my todd trying to cope. Well thanks a bunch everyone. So much for sticking together.

Humaira

Sneddon

I can’t believe how bad things have got. I keep thinking how I wish I could turn back time. Sort of go back and do things differently or stop things happening. Everyone is going on at me to pull myself together and lend a hand but I just can’t. All I seem to be able to do is sit alone thinking about a past that I can’t change. Like for example if I’d managed to persuade Jenny not to come with Ben and me when we set off for the hospital, she may never have been raped and she might not be pregnant now. Or last week what if I’d paid more attention to Ben? I’d have twigged something was wrong and I could have stopped him running away.

I know there’s nothing I can do now but I can’t seem to ‘snap out of it’ as humaira put it. By that I’m thinking she means the way I’ve been acting. I know I seem depressed but well to be frank I am! Nothing good ever seems to happen any more and I just can’t be bothered going around putting up with everything life throws at me and on top of everything everyone seems to expect me to do that and do it happily with a smile on my face!

Sneddon

Bryony

We’ve moved in and he flat is so great! It just feels so weird to be in a normal home. It’s so warm and comfortable. I don’t have to worry about whether it’ll be cold during the night or where I’m going to sleep.

I’m about three months gone now I reckon, so as soon as the baby’s born everything will just be perfect. Dom’s been job hunting and there are plenty of jobs going in restaurants so it shouldn’t be long before he gets one. I can just see him being a waiter; he’ll end up eating food of customer’s plates or something!

I still can’t believe how badly the others took our moving on. I really wish they’d at least attempt to understand how we feel right now. I know things have been stressful with them as it is recently and we seriously don’t want to add to the stress and we’re just as worried about things as anyone but well we need to start thinking about ourselves a bit. Before we always seemed to be focused on helping someone else, now we need to look after our family.

Bryony

Dom

I need a job and fast. Now we’ve moved in to our flat, Bry wants us to do everything legally. That basically means no more getting by on a stolen loaf of bread and a few scraps of what ever Rosalyn’s given us. That means we have to pay our own way and we can’t afford to! I have looked all over and there are no free jobs! I looked round all the restaurants but apparently jobs are going like gold dust because everyone is so desperate for work round these parts. I told Bry that things are fine and that it’s only a matter of time but I really don’t see things getting any better.

Dom

Jenny

I just wish I wasn’t me! I don’t know exactly when things got this bad but they surely can’t get much worse. I was watching TV in the bar at Rosalyn’s and this news bulletin flashed on screen. It was appealing for help catching these guys and for about five minutes I thought nothing of it. Then they showed a mug shot of the main guy they where looking for. It was the guy from Australia. The one who raped me. The authorities are looking for him and his gang. Apparently they’re wanted on several accounts of assault but mostly over something to do with drugs, sounds like they where dealing or something. The point is, they could be anywhere. They aint in Australia anymore. I told the others and they keep saying they won’t be round here but I’ve just got a really bad feeling. The main thing that’s bugging me is the fact that it appeared on telly over here. The newsreader was warning people to be on there guard. Why bother if they’re somewhere else? They must be near or why show the story?

I am to be frank shit scared. I don’t know what I’d do if they showed up. Ok so they’ll hardly be looking for me seeing as they don’t know I’m here but still we could bump into them. I mean think about it, where was the first place we all came to when we arrived in Spain? Here. We came here because we knew we could hide out here and no one would find us. This whole area is a brilliant place to hide. It’s quiet and no one bothers you. Basically it’s perfect, so why wouldn’t they come here?

Even if they aren’t intentionally looking for me, what if they do see me? I’m pregnant and it’s starting to show now. Give it another couple of weeks and it’ll be obvious. They’d be able to guess who the father is. Even if they weren’t sure, they’d wonder.

God only knows what I’ll do if they turn up! I wish Ben where here. As daft as it sounds it feels like he’d be able to protect us. I mean that in itself sounds incredibly stupid because he’s already runaway and left us all to it. I’m still worried though, what if they find him? They’ll leather him, that’s for sure. I suppose we’ll just have to hope for the best.

One week Later and Jenny, humaira and Sneddon are hiding in the houses.

Jenny

The gang are obviously round here and they seem to be getting closer. I knew they’d come here I just bloody knew it. There have been stories about fights and people getting beaten up and houses getting broken into going all round the town. This aint hardly a large place and it’s usually dead quiet. It has to be them it just has to be. Besides there have been stories on the news about sightings of them. It’s like some big scandal and the police are desperate to find them. They are going to end up at the houses. It’s just a logical place to go. Everyone in this town avoids this area because they basically think it’s full of scum, which (apart from us of course!) it is. Even if they just heard about it through word of mouth, they’d think coming here to hide out was a good idea. Even the police don’t like coming round here. The only way you can stay here without getting your head kicked in is if you have a valid reason. That means you’re either hiding from something, have nowhere else to go, are a runaway or you’re doing drugs or something and can’t go back home. We’re basically all of the above (except the drugs thing) so we’re fine here. The gang also fit in a few of the categories so they’ll definitely fit in.

They are going to end up here and all we can do is hide. I thought we’d got away from all this when we came here. Obviously not.

Jenny

Humaira

I don’t believe this is happening. The gang are here they are definitely here. After all these days we’ve spent reassuring Jenny that they probably wouldn’t come, she was right all along. Now all we can do is hide. I just don’t know how it could have come to this. On top of everything else, this! They are here, because one of Rosalyn’s friends has had her house trashed by them. She lives about 2 miles away from where we are so it can only be a matter of days. They must be coming to the houses because well it’s the only place I can think they’d see fit to hide in round here.

If they see us they’ll just take one look at Jenny see her already obviously pregnant tummy (I swear the girl must be having a baby elephant!) and we’re dead. We’re currently all upstairs hiding in the bathroom of one of the houses (well our house really) I just hope we can manage to stay here.

Humaira

Sneddon

They’re downstairs, they’re fucking downstairs! I swear writing this is the only thing that’s keeping me sane. Everything seemed to be pretty ok for the moment and humaira and Jenny begged me to chance going round Rosalyn’s for some food and stuff seeing as we where all starving. When I arrived Rosalyn was locking up the restaurant and she was just about to run up in to her flat. I asked he what was up and all she said was, “The criminals from the TV, they’re here, they’re wrecking everything!” I swear you have never seen me run so fast in my life. I pegged it up the stairs and back into the bathroom but literally minutes after I got back we heard their voices. We could here them shouting about something or other and the voices where getting closer. By the sounds of things they where looking for somewhere to stay. They seemed to be checking in all the houses one by one and they’re all full seeing as there are a lot of homeless people in these parts and well where else are they going to go? We knew they’d end up stopping here but it still made us jump when they did.

Now we’re all trying to be really quiet but what with us all being up here the place must look empty to them. Tears are literally rolling down Jenny’s face she’s so frightened. I don’t know what will happen if they see her but there is no way me and Humaira are just going to sit back and let them do what they want. Mind you I don’t know what we’re going to do to protect her, we’re hardly a match for that bunch.

Shit I can here one of them coming upstairs, better go.

Sneddon

Round two with the gang

All three of the friends where scared witless. Humaira was trying to put on a brave front and failing miserably as the fear showed on her face. Sneddon had gone in to shock and was just trying to muster up one last bit of courage. As for Jenny she was crouched in the corner hiding behind her two loyal mates, stroking her stomach protectively.

They could here the guy who had come upstairs looking into all of the rooms. Jenny recognised his voice, it was one she’d hoped she’d forget eventually. It was the leader of the gang. The father of her baby. The baby who’s safety she was becoming increasingly worried about. Then he opened the door.
“Well what have we got here?” he sneered, “I thought we’d finally got rid of you little rats”
“You can just piss off back to Australia! We don’t want you in OUR home!” yelled humaira trying to sound threatening but merely adding to the mocking in her opponent’s voice.
“And who’s that hiding behind you mate?” he asked directing the question at sneddon, “Well if it isn’t my favourite little slapper! What’s up darling? Scared of me?”
“Just leave her alone ok? We don’t want any trouble. Just let us get out of here and we’ll be out of your hair.” This came from Sneddon, still trying to play his usual role as the peacemaker.
“I don’t think anyone spoke to you did they?” he answered, already appearing angry.
“Who is this guy?” whispered humaira, “Do you know much about him?”
“He’s called Scott” Jenny muttered back, “He’s the leader of the gang. The one who well you know.”
“I can hear you having a gossip about me you know. Now don’t you think you better stand up Jen? It seems like you’re tying to avoid me. Can’t think why you’d want to do that.”
“Look just get lost ok,” Jenny, said this intending to sound brave but the stammer in her voice showed how she truly felt.
“I said stand up didn’t I? I seriously wouldn’t ignore me if I was you now stand up before I drag you up, go it?”
“Don’t you dare talk to her like that!” bellowed Sneddon with real anger in his voice. He lunged forward ready to punch Scott but he was too quick for him. Scott pushed him over and he cracked his head on the old broken bath, which still stood in the middle of the room. Sneddon was out cold and the girls could see blood trickle down his head where he’d evidently split it open.

That was all humaira needed to start her off fighting. She punched and kicked and fought her best but to no avail. Jenny listened to her friend as she shouted at her to stay back and went and hid behind the clapped out bath. Soon Jenny could no longer hear a struggle and as she chanced a look at what was going on she saw humaira lying battered and bruised and blacked out on the floor. She couldn’t believe it. She was all on her own. She held her breath hoping against hope he wouldn’t see her under the bath. Then she saw him coming at her and he dragged her straight out. She desperately tried to put up a fight but he was too much for her. He stopped just long enough for her to get back onto her feet.
“You little slut,” Scott sneered at her, “You’re fucking pregnant.” Jenny waited as she saw him slowly put two and two together. “It’s that long steak of piss, what’s his name, Ben, it’s his right?” He read her expression and could see it wasn’t “It aint mine is it?” He asked, half joking half serious.
“Look I’m dead sorry ok but I just didn’t-” Jenny didn’t even get to finish her sentence before he came at her. Before she new it he’d backed her up against the wall and try as she might she couldn’t get away. She could feel his hand round her neck, almost chocking her and she was terrified. Thoughts began to run through her head. Panicky thoughts at first. Wondering how she was going to get out of this and how she was going to protect her baby. Then wishful thinking such as, what if Ben gets back now? Or what if Scott can’t hurt the baby now he knows it’s his? In both cases it really was just wishful thinking. Scott’s voice broke through her trance. He was gripping on to her so hard she thought she might collapse under his weight.
“What the hell did you do this for?” He screamed, “You daft bitch, did you honestly think you could get away with keeping this from me?” Jenny felt pain shoot through her as he kneed her in the stomach and hot tears rolled down her face, as she feared for her baby’s life.
“You are not keeping the damn baby,” Scott ranted, “One way or another it’s as good as dead.” Jenny summoned up all the bravery left in her and replied, “Oh yeah mate, well what exactly are you going to do about it?” She realised that could have just been the stupidest question she’d ever asked and immediately was over come with panic. As Scott shoved her over she saw the flash of a knife. “Look, Scott don’t do this alright? I swear I’ll do anything just don’t stab me, please!” begged Jenny. “You honestly think I’m going to let you get away with this? Do me a favour what do you think I am some kind of mug?” Scott wasn’t ready to give in and Jenny could see him poised with the razor sharp blade. “Of course we could always have a little fun first,” he sneered, lowering the arm holding the knife. “Look just leave me alone! I never asked to meet you, it’s not my fault I’m pregnant! If I had a choice I’d get rid of this baby, do you honestly think I want a constant reminder of you? Thing is I can’t get rid of it without getting caught and getting sent back to the place I ran away from. You have single-handedly ruined my life! Because of you, my boyfriend has left me, I’m stuck with an unwanted baby and I’m stuck with memories that I definitely don’t want! Do you honestly think I deserve anymore pain?” Jenny trembled as she felt Scott’s grip tighten. “I aint buying any sob story,” he answered, “Now I tell you what, I’m not gonna kill you but I am gonna give you enough ‘memories’ to last you a life time. You make one wrong move and I still have the knife, just you remember that.”
As Scott began tugging at her clothes she thought she heard a voice. She became more and more sure that someone was downstairs and in a last bid to get out of the situation she was in, she screamed as loud as she possibly could. Scott immediately clamped his hand over her mouth. She could hear someone running up the stairs. “It’s probably one of my mates, he’ll have heard you screaming, probably fancies a go himself,” remarked Scott intending to smash jenny’s remaining hope but the uncertainty in his voice betrayed him.

When the door flew open both Scott and Jenny froze, Scott with shock and Jenny with pure relief. In the time it took for Scott to realise what was going on, Ben had dragged him off Jenny. Jenny was worried he couldn’t take Scott on his own but then she saw the knife lying on the floor and realised he couldn’t stab Ben and to make things even easier she noticed Sneddon was coming round. With in a few minutes he was up too and although he was slightly groggy, alongside Ben, Scott had no chance. With in minutes Scott was sparked out on the floor and Sneddon was propping up a half awake Humaira while Ben kept Jenny upright and they where all leaving. The rest of the gang didn’t appear to bat an eyelid as the friends walked out of the house and set off on the road to Bryony and Dom’s new flat where they had a feeling they’d be safe.