How long must I keep saving you?

Burgoise staggered up clutching the stick. In the distance she could see two people at the opposite sides of her vision moving towards each other.

The sky cracked. Clouds seemed to gather above her: grey and full of misery.

Burgoise squinted. The two figures kept walking in such a slow, steady fashion, that Burgoise fancied they had planned this. Am I in a play? she wondered, looking around wildly. No cameramen in tight pants wearing over-sized sunglasses while eating sandwiches, no light stands, no props of any kind. Just the thick prickly grass of this field, spanning out as far as Burgoise could see, trees lining the edges, the two figures moving like slinking cats against the dull backdrop. Why are they here?

She squinted harder. She had a funny feeling brewing in her gut. Something was wrong. The figure on her right looked like a girl wearing a long dress, her hair blowing out around her. She was holding something. The figure on her left looked masculine, wearing pants, some sort of top, short hair that was also fluttering in the wind.

Burgoise leaned forwards. There was something about that fluttering hair...

Burgoise's heard dropped right to the center of the earth, It started to rain. She gasped. They finally met, embraced.

"No!"

The stick fell from her hand as she stepped back, her eyes wide, her hands shaking, her heart pumping insanely loud somewhere next to her ears.

Rain drops fell silently in front of her face as if instructed. As if trying to dampen this mutiny by washing it away or packing it down.

"Clae..." Burgoise breathed, hardly daring to look but unable to tear her eyes away.

There he was, like a silhouette on a stage, kissing another girl.

"Oh no, no, no... no..."

She couldn't see it, but Burgoise thought she could make out laughter. The rain was so heavy on her face. Or was that tears?

The figures moved apart, Burgoise found herself leaning forwards once again, thunder crackled, there was a thin vein of lightning that illuminated the horrendous sight before her and she saw clearly the two figures who were smiling at each other. Clae and Mira.

Mira. The girl who had pushed her into the toilets and forced her to eat a rotten orange. The girl who had stolen her gym shoes, her pens, her mobile phone, and her sister's necklace, wrecked them all, then left them for Burgoise to find in her locker. The girl who had broken her nose with a soccer ball to the face, trailed a Bunsen burner flame down her arm, pushed her into a rose bush, cut a giant Nazi symbol into her only jumper, and set her backpack on fire as she walked home.

And Clae.

Clae. The Clae with whom she had bought ice cream and strolled along the pier, laughing at seagulls and kicking shells into the ocean. The Clae who had picked her right up and hoisted her over the log fence as if she was a bag of carrots. The Clae who had kissed her, once under a blossom tree and once outside the music classroom, as if she was the only one worth kissing, ever.

Another crack of thunder. The rain suddenly came down in earnest, much like how Burgoise supposed she must look. Torn down her chest and pouring out all her blood at once.

She could barely see anymore. A rage wild and ragged ravaged her entire body, rage as white as an after-spot from looking into the sun and as hot as a pot full of boiling caramel. It shot up into her shoulders, her brain, down into her fingers. She tilted a little to the right.

She opened her mouth and screamed. At the very same time, thunder grumbled overhead in a continuous melody, lightning streaked all over the sky in violent bursts, and sparks shot out of Burgoise's open hands like fireworks.