Who Needs The World

Part 1 - Fiction - "Who Needs The World?" Charlie, What the hell are we going to do? I'm absolutely petrified. I bet you don't even know where I am. Well, I'm at my Dad's flat, sleeping on the settee. Thinking about it, maybe you're not at home. I really hope your Dad hasn't kicked you out because I think this letter is too important not to get to you as soon as possible. I'm going to post it at the top of the road as soon as its finished and before Dad gets back from work so noone'll be any the wiser. I've even printed a label for the envelope off the printer so your folks don't know it's from me. I'd email but he disconnects the internet before he leaves on Mum's say so and I don't know how to do it. I really preferred it when they weren't speaking. Mum still has my phone so DON'T text me. She doesn't need any bloody more insight into my life. The police came round to Mum's before I left but I refused to give a statement. That's what made her send me to Dad's just because I wasn't willing to give them details about what we did. What business is it of theirs? I'm fifteen not five! I'm so fucking annoyed it's untrue. Why would anyone put anyone through this when it isn't hurting them? Me and you have nothing to do with anyone but me and you! I'm not convinced they can do anything though, even though you're over eighteen. From the top of the stairs I heard mum pleading with the police woman to press charges, but her reply was that since I consented and am fifteen, there is little they can do. If I was thirteen then they could do it without my statement. Thank fuck for two years! I will not let them get you. This was my idea in the first place. I hope you trust me enough not to worry. If you love me as much as I love you, then you will without question. The only thing I'm worried about is you and what your Dad'll do. I couldn't give a shit about my interfering mum or your big mouthed, so-called best friend. It's true that jealousy does horrible things to people. Why couldn't he keep it to himself? Just because you have me and he doesn't have a girlfriend does not give him the right to knock on my Mum's door and tell her everything. I just don't understand him. I thought he was my friend as well as yours. I have to go now, but I'll write again the very next chance I get, promise. Who needs the world when I've got you? Alyssa xxx

Charlie, It's me again. I can't stop crying and all I want is for you to be with me. I'm trying to pull myself together so I can think straight and then I can plan a way round this. You know my favourite teacher Mrs Campbell? She says that we can achieve anything we set our minds to, and I thought she was talking crap but now I finally understand what she means. We can be together, we just have to find a way. Shit happens. It's one of your favourite sayings and now it's one of mine. We can't do anything about what everyone else is doing, but we can make this work for us. In two months, I'm sixteen and they can't do a damn thing. If you get that factory job then we can get one of those flats at the bottom of town, by the park. Once we live together there is no one that can shit stir and get in the middle of our relationship then we won't have any more problems. Me and you never fall out. We just have everyone else causing trouble. We love each other enough to make us work no matter what rubbish other people throw at us, don't we? When my exams are done and I do dead well in Spanish then we can go over and live with my Dad's sister in Spain. She hates my mum so she probably won't even tell her we're there. Do you know any Spanish? Don't worry if you don't because I got a B in my mocks so I reckon I can teach you some stuff by the time we have enough money for flights. I know you wanted to go to New York but I've been looking loads on the internet and apparently it's like, so expensive. Maybe when we're in Spain I can get a job teaching English or something and we'll be off to New York after, then they'll never find us in a big city like that. Dad's home from work any second now so I better run to post this. Write back please. Who needs the world when I've got you? Alyssa xxx

Charlie, Not really sure why you're not writing back or why you haven't come up to see me while Dad's at work. Maybe you're just not at home. Did your Dad make you go to your Mums? I didn't think you'd be at your Mums as you two really don't get on, do you? But anyway, things are absolutely shit here. I tried to sneak out the other day to come to you in the day like when I used to leave school. My Dad must have phoned the flat and obviously I wasn't there and he was waiting for me at the bus stop near yours. He's not talking to me now because I tried to run away and he had to carry me kicking and screaming back to the car. Not one of the people at the bus stop even flinched. What if he was kidnapping me? Idiots! We're going to have to think of something that they would never think of. They think they know us dead well and it'd be easy to fool them and get away with it. We did it for months before we got caught, we can do it again. I hate not hearing from you. I really hope you're ok and you're not having doubts about us. After everything we've been through it'd be awful to split up now. Anyway, you said at football training one day that we'd be together forever, and I haven't done anything to make you hate me so there isn't an issue, is there? How about we arrange to meet up on Friday? Midday outside the chip shop, opposite the church? I can run down the alleyway so the ladies in the sandwich shop don't see me. They're right gobby and I bet they'd tell my Dad if they saw me. I can't wait to see you and to make sure you're alright. I won't write again because people might get suspicious, but I will see you Friday. EXCITED! Who needs the world when I've got you? Your Alyssa xxx

Charlie, I can't believe you never turned up. I'm really struggling to write this without calling you all the names under the sun so I'm just going to shut up and wait to see whether you ever fucking get in touch. I won't hold my breath Alyssa

Charlie, So, I said I wouldn't get in touch, but I can't help myself. At least I waited a week. That means its three weeks since I last saw you and I can't stand it any fucking longer. It's driving me insane! I know you'd laugh and say "no, even more insane". Well, I think you would. I never thought you'd just ignore me for this long; that you wouldn't have broken your neck to get to me, wherever I was. Now I wonder if I ever knew you at all. Please get in touch sweetie, this just isn't fair. I love you. Who needs the world when I've got you? Alyssa xxx

All he could hear was an infernal beeping that was really testing his patience. He cursed himself for being unable to find it soothing and mind numbing. The clang of metal sounded in the distance, and he dismissed it as the sound of the pharmaceutical trolley trundling from patient to patient. The pain of his multiple injuries was blurred so much, he couldn't tell which part of him hurt. All of him did. Both of his eyes were swollen shut so he was temporarily blind. The urge to bathe the blood he could feel crusted on his eyelids overwhelmed him, but he felt as if his limbs were all pinned down. Was he paralysed? Unbeknownst to Charlie his injuries didn't stop there. His top lip had virtually had to be stitched back into place. The top of his right ear was completely torn off. Three of his ribs were broken; his left arm had had to be operated on and was now nearly equal parts metal and bone. His right foot was crushed by the wheel of a car and there was hardly a square inch of flesh without a graze, scrape or scratch. Unbeknownst to anyone, he was minutes from a fatal brain haemorrhage. When he was found after the accident, he had already lost a lot of blood. Charlie had heard the doctor discussing a second blood transfusion with somebody at his bedside an indeterminable time ago. He could have been here mere hours, or months. He knew nothing, and neither, he thought bitterly, did the hospital staff. They still didn't know who he was. Did that mean no one was looking for him? He'd tried on countless occasions to tell them who he was. The only noise he could muster was something that sounded like an animal in pain. To him, he was coherent and couldn't understand why nobody was answering him. An unendurable screeching that only ended with a morphine-induced sleep initiated by an Irish nurse. The accent meant she was the only one that ever sounded familiar to him. She spoke as she wiped his scratches with something that made him wince, and as she checked his stitches. He felt comfort for the couple of minutes that her care and attention was directed at him. Otherwise he was in utter turmoil. His mind was awash with thoughts of Alyssa. How he wished for her presence. He wondered whether she was looking for him, or whether she'd finally resigned herself to her mother's view of him, that he was a waste of space. He wondered whether those powder blue eyes were still rimmed in red, and her porcelain cheeks littered with blotches. No fifteen year old girl deserved to have spilled so many tears over him. But he loved her, and he didn't regret their sexual relationship. He couldn't. Of course he knew it had been wrong, that it was illegal. If he'd only waited until her sixteenth birthday. How different would things have been? His pain intensified and he knew he would never see her again. He knew he was dying. He hoped she'd cherish the limited amount of time they had, because she had made him die a happy man. Charlie died with an ache in his heart and Alyssa's name on his lips.

David, I just can't call you Dad anymore. I know you won't get many letters from the family because no one can get over what you've done, so here you go. Even now, a year on, I cannot be positive towards you. The therapist says I should find something to say thank you to you for, and that's the reason I've taken so long to write to you. I have one now. Thank you for allowing him never to voluntarily leave me. I now know that he loved me until his dying breath and that is all down to you. You can rot in prison for all I care. You are so fucking selfish. How could you have come home to the flat to me, and acted like nothing had happened? You left him dying by the side of the road. Trying to be the knight in shining armour? All you showed me was it was you I should have been kept away from, not him. He never hurt anyone, and you can't ever say that again. You're a liar and a coward and everything you have taught me never to be. I bet Mum feels sick that she ever married you. Thank goodness she had the sense to leave you before you did this, or she would have had her heart ripped out too. Maybe she saw the murder in your eyes before ever you committed it. I'll ask her one day. Promise me you will never contact me again. Even once you're out of prison. You're a murderer. You took away the one person I chose to give my heart to, and I will never be able to forgive you. Goodbye forever, Alyssa, the daughter you used to have.