Darker London-Uncover what is underneath...

To try and distract herself from thinking anything, Jude hadn’t gone home after school. She’d called a taxi and headed straight into the city- New Bond Street to be exact- to shop. It was the must distracting thing she could think of. After browsing Miu Miu for a while and ignoring the snooty looking woman behind the counter, she crossed the street and ended up in D & G poking at jeans.

( It was there that she turned around and came face to face with her mother )

With heavy hands Jude laced up her combat boots and then pulled down her jeans to cover them. She didn't bother looking in the mirror as she left her room. What was the point? She was dressed plainly- without a designer name to be seen- and her hair was tied up in a ponytail at the nape of her neck.

She had to get out of the house. The thought consumed her as she walked down the stairs, each step making a thump. And she knew exactly where she was going. She knew where she was going every damn day when she left the house, but still she sometimes tried to fool herself it would be somewhere differant today.

It was a drug, a sickness, an addiction, and Jude couldn't stop herself. She wanted it. No, not wanted. But she did need it.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs she almost ran straight into Slink. "Oh," she said flatly. "Hey."

( more )

She hadn't really spoken to anyone since she'd got home. On one level, it seemed very strange. She lived in a house with so many people and so far the only person she'd really shared words with was Slink on that first morning, but since then she hadn't even spoken to the other girl.

Sure, they'd tried speaking to her. She'd seen Deirdre and mostly ignored the other girl's questions and concerns. She brushed it all aside with a shrug.

Now she returned home from her father's house once again, damaged body and mind, and tossed her keys on the kitchen table before sitting down on one of the stools and resting her burning cheek agains the cool wood.

It was with slow heavy steps that Jude found her way back home to the house on Victoria street. She'd left Morgan's days ago- how many exactly she hadn't been counting- and hadn't seen or spoken to her since. She'd slept in her old bedroom in her old house until she woke in the middle of the night and needed to be gone. She didn't tell her father she was going, she just walked out.

The clock in the hall read 2am when she walked into the house and she yawned. Bed. Own bed. Own room.

She pulled herself up the stairs, ignoring various aches in her body, and finally pushed her door open, not bothering to close it again behind her. She fell onto her bed with a heavy thump and was asleep straight away, blissfully without dreams.

( more )

Jude wasn't sure how many days it had been since Renee died now. All she knew is that suddenly she was awake- really awake- and her skin didn't burn. Morgan had brought her water and expressed relief that she was okay again.

Okay. For someone so brainy Morgan wasn't too bright.

Jude sat up, clearing her throat. "Where's my bag?" she asked as she looked around Morgan's small dorm room. How long had she been here? She should ask. She should ask how many days she'd been floating between here and there.

Of course. There. Her bag was at her father's. Right now that was all she needed, all her wanted. "I have to go," she told the other girl as she got to her feet. Morgan's words couldn't make her stop and she brushed them away with another, "I have to go."

Jude’s day after Renee’s death were spent in a constant state of confusion and numbness. Hours passed her by uncounted and she would find herself places she had no intention of being. She would leave her own mind to its delusions and prayers to an unlistening and unbelieved in God, and when she returned against she failed to understand how she gotten herself into this mess. She drifted in a state of ghost like unreality between Morgan’s tiny dorm room and her father’s empty house, never knowing which of them she was aiming for.

When did you cut your hair?

She had come rushing back to herself with that and frowned. What?

They’d been sitting at the dining room table, her father and she, and there had been food sitting in front of both of them. I asked when you cut your hair.

Before I died.

He hadn’t make any reaction and she wasn’t sure whether she had even spoken at all. Jude wasn’t sure now if a word had ever passed between the two of them. How long had she been sitting there?

Morgan wanted to take her to the doctor. You’ve got a bad fever, Jude. You’re sick. But Jude was stronger and Morgan couldn’t stop her from going anywhere. She hoped the fire that burned her skin would engulf her. She wondered if it would be long until she joined Renee.

There was a desperate part of Judith McKenna that longed to be rescued. It went against all her tough girl ideals and self sufficient reasoning but still it was there, bubbling beneath the surface of her emotions. She wanted to be saved. She wanted someone to pick her up help her stop sinking. Maybe this would have been easier if she let it show that she was drowning. ( But she wasn’t ready for that. )