My face hurts, and I can’t
tell for sure yet if the spreading warmth that feels so wet around my nose and
mouth is blood or sweat, but there isn’t time for me to touch my face to check.
I try to roll away from her, more from instinct than anything else at this
point, but she gets on top of me and I think great, this is it, I held back from throwing myself under a Metro only
to be beaten to death by some white supremacist bitch, go me! I cross my
arms in front of my face, anticipating punches. Peering over my crossed arms, I
see a weird smile occurring on her face.
When I feel her hand on my
crotch my spine goes rigid and my arms turn useless. When I see the shock in
her eyes I start trying to push myself away from her, somehow, like I did with
Jeanette only this time I’m not trying to phase through the wall of a hotel
room but through this shitty concrete path. Surprise reveals never go well.
She looks down at me. It’s
hard to read her face. There’s the usual trans
panic bullshit going on there but there’s something else as well, disgust.
Disgust with me, yes – I mean that’s a given. But something else too. She
brings her right hand up. It hovers between us. For a moment it’s the thing
which both of us are focused on. She’s looking at it for who knows what reason;
I’m thinking that if I grab it quickly, aggressively, while she’s still
distracted – it’s a risk but I can maybe break her wrist and that might stop
her, slow her down at least, but I am still prone underneath her…
‘OI!’
Oh great, I think. Her mates
are here now. That’s it. But when I roll my head in the direction of the
shouting I see…Kizz?
‘Caz! Caz! It’s alright Caz,
I know her!’
‘Caz?’
She looks down at me. I can
tell from the look on her face that she’s racing to process this new
information.
‘Ruby! Ruby love, I’m sorry,
Caz has…it’s alright Caz! Ruby’s okay! I know her! You don’t have to…’
She trails off. Neither of us
responds with you won’t have to what. We
neither of us want to say what we were on the verge of. Caz looks back down at
me, grabs my wrists and holds them down, across my chest. She looks me in the
eyes and she says
‘Ruby.’
By now Kizz is stood beside
us. She makes no move to pull Caz off, which means she’s scared as well.
Whether more scared that I’ll get hurt or Caz will do something stupid, I don’t
know. Caz holds my gaze for a couple more beats, then turns to talk to Kizz. ‘She
fuckin’ started it!’
I laugh, involuntarily. It’s
such a schoolyard explanation. But she’s right, I guess, I moved first, though
I’d call that self-defence. Caz turns back round to look at me again and the
laugh dies on my lips. ‘Sorry,’ I squeak.
Kizz smiles lightly then
holds up her hands, palms out. ‘I know she did, love, I saw the whole thing,
right, but I’m sure it’s a mistake or something.’
‘A mistake.’
‘Isn’t it? Ruby, isn’t it a
mistake? You thought Caz was someone else, right?’
‘No. There’s no point lying.
I knew who she was.’
Kizz shoots me a look that
says work with us here, come on and
continues. ‘Okay, but I bet you didn’t expect it to end up like this, right?’
‘I won’t lie. It could have
gone better.’
This time, Caz laughs. Just
the tiniest intake of breath but I hear it. And I hope it means we can
de-escalate this thing.
‘What about you, Caz?’ Kizz
asks. ‘You didn’t want this to happen.’
Caz looks back down at me,
pushing hard on my arms. ‘I didn’t want a lot
of things to happen.’
So much for the healing power
of fucking laughter. Caz raises her right fist and is about to bring it down
when Kizz moves in and grabs her wrist.
She’s looking Caz directly in
the eye. I know she’s scared. The fear breathes around her, Caz and me, we
breathe it in. ‘I know that, love,’
she says, as gently as she can. ‘But you’re not the only one things happened
to.’
Caz looks back down at me. ‘What?
Her?’
Kizz nods. ‘Like you and
Mally, Caz.’
Caz looks briefly down at me,
then back to Kizz.
‘I don’t believe you.’ She
shrugs off Kizz’s grip, is about to bring her hand down again.
‘It’s true!’ Kizz screams. ‘Caz,
it’s true! She was raped by some bloke Caz, Ruby, come on,
fucking tell her…’
Her eyes flash pleading from
my own to Caz and back again. The fist is waiting. If I don’t say the right
thing now I’m fucking dead.
‘It wasn’t a man.’
Beat. Beat. Beat. Beat.
Kizz looks on. Caz looks
down. Caz mouths what
and she lowers her arm.
