Crazy Girl

„Watch it!”

I whirl around to localise the owner of the squeaky voice that has just compromised my hearing. I find it in the form of a 5’2” blondie, currently trying to keep her gaze focused long enough to shoot daggers at me.

Uh-oh.

I regard her head to toe – not to height-shame, but there’s not much distance my eyes have to travel. She must have been the body I’ve bumped into moments ago while making my way through the crowd. The midget seems pissed at me for the fact, which I find interesting, considering how she is the one clenching a plastic cup in her hand, not me.

And the fact that the three friends surrounding her seem to be providing more than moral support – they are literally holding her up.

There are so many things just piling at the tip of my tongue that I could spit at her, but after a moment of consideration, I decide it’s just not worth it. I turn back around but am stopped by the same shrill sound. For someone so short, she sure knows how to let out high noises.

“I’m talking to you!”

I glance back, brows wrinkling. “You consider two words talking?”

The girl lets loose another noise – I’m not quite sure how to interpret this one. It’s something between a laugh and a snort, maybe with a little bit of a snarl mixed into it. She wobbles in my direction and her friends follow suit, hobbling forth like a bunch of penguins huddled together against the cold.

I lower my chin in an attempt to seem like we’re at an eye-level.

“I dare you to talk back to me one more time,” she says and given how this is the longest sentence I’ve heard her speak tonight, the words slur together a lot.

A corner of my lips lifts. “I dare you to take a step on your own.”

I’m not sure why I’m engaging in a conversation with this girl that is the closest thing to human impersonification of a Hobbit I have ever seen, but I’m somehow curious what will happen.

This time, I have no troubles identifying the noise that leaves her lips – it is a gasp, a clearly outraged one. “Are you making fun of me?”

If this girl was a book character, every second word she spoke would be spelt out in italics. I’m not sure how I would visualise the high-pitched tone of her voice. Maybe use a larger font size?

It sure seems like every word she speaks is heavier than others’, drilling into my brain.

“No,” I say slowly, and I’m not even lying. Really, she’s doing a good job of making fun of herself all on her own. “It was a literal dare.” I wave my pointer finger in the distance separating us. “I want to see you walk a straight line.”

“Oh, well, then I want to see you go stand on those tracks over there and wait for the next train to come to smash into your stupid face!”

Her words are accompanied by a wide array of hand gestures and some spitting, but I hear them. Her friends hear them. The peanut gallery that has begun forming around us since the moment she had me turn around hears them.

I hear intakes of breaths. See the fingers of one of the minion’s friends tightening around her arm. Another’s hand running up and down her back in what seems like a failed attempt to calm her.

I don’t look away as I cock my head to the side. “Is that a dare?”

The girl’s body deflates. Some of her alcohol-powered self-confidence leaves her like air escaping a balloon through a small hole. Suddenly, she doesn’t look so certain, but I only take a step closer to her. Her friends fidget on their feet.

“Is that a dare?” I repeat, lower.

The midget blinks. Whoever she is, wherever she came from, she must have heard about my reputation around here. This would explain her reaction to my question, her friends’ murmurings to leave it, let it be, let me go.

I wonder what gave me away. The colour of my hair, maybe? Purple is not that popular, after all. Is it my immortal Vans? I’ve heard people talking shit about them, when they thought I didn’t hear. Not stopping for a second to realise there is this thing called echo, and that voices carry through a wide school hallway. Either they are not aware, or they don’t care, because they talk. All the time.

Wondering where I get my clothes from – if it’s the rubbish bin. If I have one thing in my wardrobe that wouldn’t be several sized too big. If the numerous piercings in my right ear hurt. If you could fit a 10p coin into the big hole in my left. If I ever take off my shoes, to shower or to sleep.

Yes, I do take them off.

The fun-sized Barbie doll gulps down her drink. It seems to restore her confidence, because soon, she’s not trembling anymore. That fire is back in her eyes, despite her friends doing their best to put it out.

I’m growing bored with this exchange. “Yes or no?”

“Yes,” she breathes, the word seeming to have torn out of her chest. She looks around, uncertain, before clearing her throat and repeating, louder. “Yes, it is. It’s a dare.”

I smile. The higher the corners of my lips drip, the lower her shoulders sink. She’s realising her mistake.

Too late.

I’m turning around when a pair of arms grabs me. I don’t need to look to know who it is. There is only one person who would touch me.

“Em.”

I start walking. The party is located in the fields between the line of houses on Birch Street and the railway tracks running alongside it. It is a common hangout spot, given how we can be as loud and drunk as we want. Nobody objects to bonfires, loud music, or the smell of weed permeating the air. Not even the trains rushing by every half hour can kill the mood.

“Em, please stop.”

Jay is following me across the field. He knows where I’m headed – everyone knows where I’m headed. Except he’s the only one who is one hundred per cent convinced I’m not going to stop.

I have gained many nicknames over the years. That one. Weirdo. Crazy Girl. Emo. It is the Crazy Girl that stuck, though, that I have become, well, I guess I can say famous, for.

Why? I never back down from a dare.

“Em, you have to stop and listen to me,” Jay begs, his legs getting tangled in the taller grass surrounding us now. “This is madness. It might actually be the stupidest things you’ve ever tried to do. And that says a lot.”

“I asked her multiple times if she was sure,” I tell him, my pace never faltering. “She said yes.”

“She is drunk out of her mind and has no idea what she’s doing!” Jay counters, hands flying out at his sides. His breathing has quickened up, making his voice quiver. “She’s no even from our school. Somebody probably dragged her along. She doesn’t know you.”

She doesn’t know about me, is what Jay wants to say. He’s wrong.

I saw it. I saw the recognition sobering up the girl’s glazy eyes. If she doesn’t know me, then she surely knows of me.

And my reputation might not be very good, but still, it’s all I have.

“I’m calling the police right now if you don’t stop.”

I snort. He and I both know he won’t. Not with the amount of underage drinking going on here, not with the variety of drugs circulating these premises.

Not with him being the Chief’s son.

“I’m not kidding. I don’t care what’s going on there,” Jay waves his arm in a circle, indicating the mob we’ve left behind. Some of them have moved closer, some of them have their phones out, ready to see how this folds out.

I already know.

“I only care about what happens to you.”

I roll my eyes. I love Jay, but he does tend to be a bit too much, especially when he’s had some drinks. It’s bearable if I’m drunk or at least tipsy, too. Sober as I am now, I don’t have the patience for this.

We’re nearly to the tracks now. From the corner of my eye, I can see phones flash as more and more people follow us. There are murmurs, which quickly turn to gasps and even shouts when I eventually do step onto the tracks. I turn in a circle, looking around me.

“Wanna bet which direction the train comes from?” I ask Jay.

He sounds like he’s choking. “Em, I’m begging you.”

I look down at my feet, clad in the very same pair of Vans I can bet everything I own on an assumption that every single person in this crowd – save for Jay, maybe – has talked smack about behind my back at some point. Many people have stood on these very railway tracks before me. Truth or Dare seems to bring infinite amounts of joy to teenagers – especially drunk teenagers or high teenagers – and the further into the night, the bolder the dares get.

No one has ever been dared to actually be hit by a train before. It has also never been me that was the target of such a dare.

“Okay, that’s it, I’m calling –“

Jay makes good on his threat, bringing his phone to his ear, but I smirk. I smirk, because I know he’s too late.

Because above Jay’s panicked breathing, and the crowd’s nervous hum, it is the sound of the train honking echoing through the fields.

I hear it a second before everyone else. This is where the shouts start. Where everyone who hasn’t previously known me realises I’m actually crazy, and everyone who does know me but has somehow doubted that the various stories about me are true comes to the conclusion they indeed are.

It’s when the lights of the train actually appear in the distance when the shouts get louder. I focus on the noises for a second and to be completely honest, I am surprised. I expected them to support me in winning the dare. They are actually telling me to stop, to get off the tracks, to stop being crazy.

But it’s what they’d dubbed me, isn’t it? Crazy Girl.

Well, they’re about to see how crazy this girl can get.

The lights grow bigger, brighter. The tracks go in a straight line, so that I can see quite a long distance from where I’m standing. This means the train is still several moments away. I can still jump out of the way. I still have the time.

But I also have a dare to win.

The noise of the crowd gets panicked. I’m aware of Jay actually speaking on the phone next to me, but I tune it all out. These people – Jay, every single onlooker – they all have something to come back to tonight. A family that would miss them, a room that would be empty without them in it, a pet that would wonder where they are.

The main difference between me and them? I have none of those things.

Jay is panicked now. He is tugging on my arm but I don’t budge because short of him jumping onto the tracks with me, nothing will get me to move. He’s not going to do that, though, and I know that. He loves me, but not enough to die for me. He loves me enough to live for me, and that is why I’ve always appreciated him more than I ever have all the other people in this world combined.

I know the moment the person driving the train notices me standing there. A honk tears the air, louder than the girl’s squeaky voice, sounding over the crowd. I briefly wonder if there will be videos of this on YouTube tomorrow. I wonder how many people would watch them.

I wonder why I care.

The lights get so blinding now I squint. I can feel the movement of the air caused by the train, can hear the screech of brakes as it tries to slow down. Can taste the desolation of its driver when he knows it’s too late.

I feel Jay’s hold tighten around my arm.

I close my eyes.