#dushane

IT SEEMED AS IF NOTHING WAS GOING HIS WAY, even the weather; crisp air biting and nipping at the cut on his cheek, a sharp sting coming from it when the wind blew at his face. It was nine sixteen, somewhere in north-east London, he didn’t know where – Dushane just gave him an address and he drove over with Dris in the passenger seat, listening to him complaining about Erin being home alone. Sully eventually found the building he assumed they were staying in, and strolled up to it, eyeing two pedestrians walking on the other side of the road. The street lights flooded yellow shadows around him, he walked past it to the door with Dris tailing behind.

“Took your time, bruv,” Dushane shook his hand and gave him a side hug, doing the same with Dris as they made themselves acquainted in the decrepit building, Sully collapsing onto a sofa and spreading himself out onto it for comfort. He sighed deeply, there were various people gathered around the room, some youngsters even being there which was untypical. Everyone was decked out in black puffer jackets, only Jaq had her hood down, hands stilled in her pockets as she watched him and Dris be introduced to the room with a slight frown.

“What we doin’ then?” he glared at Dushane. “Fuck you mean what we doin’ Sully, take a guess,” he kissed his teeth and looked around the room, half-torn curtains flailing about in front of the window. He glared at one of the people in the back of the room, a black balaclava adorning their face. “Yo, what are you wearing a bali for, stupid yute,” he shouted, half-chuckling to himself at their apparent stupidity. They narrowed their eyes at him, staring right back. “Sully, calm down, fam. Leave her be,” he looked away, addressing everyone’s attention to the table in the centre of the room and jabbing a finger at it. “Listen, yeah, this is where we’re all gonna meet from now on. But don’t be stupid ‘n’ come in through the front entrance, go through the back ‘n’ only when you need to be here. Yeah?” people nodded, grumbling affirmations and their own understandings at him.

“What’s going on with Jaime then?” someone asked, Dushane contorted his face up as if disgusted by what they just said. “Don’t worry about Jaime, he’s just a yute. Worry about yourself,” he announced, his eyes searching around the room for whoever asked. There were a good twenty people crammed into the room, Sully was just surprised no one had nicked the seat he was sitting in before, though word had probably gotten around that he had told someone before to move off of one before, to say politely, it was more so a threat involving the gun stashed in the front of his jeans. “If it’s not an emergency or something that ain’t important, just meet in ends, don’t be stupid about it,” Dushane continued. “If I catch you here tryna waffle about what you’re doing, won’t end well for you, trust me,” he enunciated. 

People nodded around the room, but out of the corner of his eye Sully could still see the masked individual giving him a dirty look. They were, as he described before, wearing a black puffer jacket like everyone else – must have been a new trend amongst the youngers – a black bali, with a matching black baseball cap, hands stuffed in their pockets – or her, as revealed by Dushane – must’ve been one of Jaq’s mates or some gyal Dushane was linking. Dushane was too boujee about his women, this one clearly wasn’t, Jaq’s mate it is. He glared at her momentarily, looking her up and down. Only her eyes were revealed, piercing into the side of Sully’s skull, maybe she was just thick or a junkie.

“A’ight, now get out. Don’t tell anyone ‘bout this place, yeah?” everyone ushered their way out except for Sully who was still lounging on the chair, Jaq, Dushane, and Dris, who was now smoking. Dushane tilted his head at him, ignoring the flow of teenagers beside him going out the door. “Yo, Dris. You taken your meds today?” he just nodded, Dushane smacked the cigarette out of his mouth and stood on it. “Stop takin’ other shit then.” Dris rolled his eyes, staring at the stamped out cigarette on the floor. “Fuckin’ dickhead,” he mumbled, Sully laughed, his eyes locked on the people still leaving until he noticed a necklace hanging around the masked woman’s neck, he frowned, recognising it and subtly pouting to himself. Then he saw the matching bracelet on her wrist, he stood up immediately, shouting at her while she was halfway out the door. “Yo, come ‘ere,” he flicked his head at her, she looked down and exhaled deeply, walking up to him without saying a word.

He looked down at her, at the necklace, different coloured links going round her neck and ending in the middle with a seashell; the same one he had bought before for his you. He was originally going to ignore it, being realistic to himself it was just a necklace, probably only cost one quid from a beachside shop. Maybe he was making a mistake entirely, he just wanted to make sure. Maybe she had stolen it from you. He remembered you pleading with him to get a matching necklace, and he just scoffed at you, grinning.

“I don’t like necklaces,” he had said, smiling at you while you looked up at him with pleading eyes, then held out a bracelet. “That’s why I got you this,” you had said, it was the exact same, but small enough to fit around someone’s wrist. He rolled his eyes as you laughed. “Please, Sully, come on. It would suit you, wanna remember this day don’t you?” the corner of his eyes crinkled, looking away and placing a hand over his head, then slipped the necklace on his wrist with thinned lips as you celebrated, dancing around in the sand in front of him. Of course he wanted to remember that day, it haunted his dreams and his nightmares so much that he woke up in cold sweats with visions of you sleeping beside him. Once he rubbed his eyes and cleared his vision you were no longer there. He had only given you the bracelet when he left to stop the nightmares, at least that’s what he told himself, he didn’t tell you anything. Just left it on your bedside table while you slept, unaware of him being there at all keeping in mind it was three in the morning and he had just broken into the house through an open window.

He had wondered if you always kept a window open for him, somewhere. In case you wanted him to come back. “Where’d you get the necklace ‘n’ bracelet?” he interrogated, she said nothing. “Why you wearing a hat inside too?” he criticised, still nothing. “Ay, what’s wrong with this bitch?” he stared at Dushane who looked at him as if he had something to say, but didn’t want to. He turned to Jaq. “Who is this yute?” he questioned her, she just shook her head, shrugging and looking at Dushane. “Why’s no one talking, ay?” he kissed his teeth. “Dickheads,” then pulled her into a separate room, still saying nothing. “Take off your bali,” she shook her head. “Hey, I said take it the fuck off.” She finally made an audible noise, kissing her teeth and tilting her head up at him, taking the baseball cap off and stuffing it in the back pocket of her tracksuit bottoms.

Then peeled off the balaclava bit by bit. Sully stared at you in shock, his eyes widened. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he hissed, half-pushing you against the wall of the room and locking the door best he could. You shoved him back, throwing the cap and the balaclava down onto the floor. “Why you so rude, man?” he furrowed his brows at you, his bottom lip tucked in. “I said, what the fuck are you doing here?” it was you, he couldn’t believe his own eyes, he knew he recognised the jewellery. He just couldn’t comprehend that his girlfriend – if you were still calling yourself that – was now in this industry, the one thing he didn’t want to happen, the one reason why he left in the first place.

“You fuckin’ left, Sully. What was I supposed to do?” he ran a hand over his face, exhaling deeply, murmuring profanities under his breath that gradually gained in volume. “Why here?” he hissed, his hands on your shoulders. “Why are you doing this?” he almost growled out, a rasp in his voice, you just kissed your teeth. “I dunno Sully, why’d you leave?” you continued, jabbing a finger at his chest while he looked away. “There’s your fuckin’ answer for you,” he sighed deeply, stepping back and basically kneeling onto the floor with his hands covering his face. He had loved you, present tense, he loves you, he will always love you; but this was overstepping the mark and you knew it. He couldn’t even imagine comparing you to the woman he left with his daughter a year ago, now you were decked out as he never even knew you, as if you were like him. He didn’t want you to be anything like him. You dreamed of a white picket fence life in a two-bedroom flat, you didn’t know what he dreamed of. That’s the problem, what did men like Sully dream of?

“Née, you have to go,” he reprimanded, not even looking at you. “Please, just go, it’s not worth it.” You looked down at him with a cruel glint in your eye, lip threatening to start quivering as you faced the man who left you. “What’s not worth it? What’s changed, Sully?” he looked up at you with a disappointed expression, his facial features hardened with an unbecoming guilt, as if he caused this, a corruption of something so pure. The whole point of him leaving last year was to keep you safe from a rival gang that was so very close to ending his own life, what was stopping them from using you as leverage? He couldn’t help himself, he needed to leave for your sake, of course he didn’t want to – he was selfish like that – but he had to, and yet the consequences of his actions got you into even more danger. “You were fine with doing this shit all those years before, when I said it wasn’t worth it,” you tore through him, adding to your argument.

“It’s different, it’s not like that, Née. It’s not that simple, you know that,” he mumbled. “Don’t fucking call me Née,” you sharply declared, both of you in silence, staring at each other until Sully returned to looking at the floor, staring at the dust residue beneath you and him – there was no more you and him – he held in a tingling sob threatening to escape through his mouth and nose. “What was I meant to say to tell Josie, huh?” you blinked at him, anger overcoming your senses and you had to hold yourself back from letting it do so, you had experience doing so in the last year. “What was I meant to tell our daughter,” you repeated. “When she asks me ‘where’s daddy’?” Sully was glad he was hiding his face from you, ashamed, as his eyes turned wet at the mention of his daughter, gulping back a wail, or a scream. 

“Where’s daddy, huh?” you shook your head down at him, lip curling up as if you were about to cry, a single tear slipping out which you quickly wiped away without him seeing. You sniffled. “Sorry, baby. Daddy left ‘cause he’s too much of a fuckin’ pussy to stand up for himself ‘n’ his family, huh?” you shoved his shoulder again, he remained unmoving. “Why’d you fuckin’ leave, Sully?” you shouted. “Babe, I was gonna come back, I just needed time,” he mumbled his excuses, standing back up with gleaming eyes, you didn’t even correct his word of endearment, just shook your head at him with trembling lips, screwing your face up. “What was I meant to do? Wait for you? How long? Let me ‘n’ your daughter starve?” he shook his head dumbly at you.

“You didn’t put food on the fucking table, Sully. This is me stepping up for our daughter, so fuck off ‘n’ leave me be,” you leaned down and grabbed the balaclava and hat off of the floor, dusting it off with your shirt, stretching it out. He watched you unlock the door and leave, and opened his mouth, he didn’t even remember what came out of his mouth but all that it was met with was silence.

A few moments passed as he just stared blankly at the open door, then went through it, the group of people from earlier darting their eyes over at him as he came out through the door you just went through. “What, blud?” he narrowed his eyes at Dushane interrogatively. “Nothing, brudda,” he kissed his teeth, watching as Sully peeled back the curtains to watch you crossing the road with your headphones on. “Why’d you let her join, you fuckin’ wasteman?” Dushane raised his hands in mock surrender. “Listen, fam. She needed some p’s, we’re just helping her out, you know what I’m saying.” He glared at him, and then at the two other people in the room. “Fuck off,” he mumbled, walking towards the stairs and pulling his phone out his pocket.

୨୧ @𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐬𝐞. 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐝. 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞, 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭, 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 ୨୧