(10)

Jenice was up early. Alice watched her sister as she came down the stairs.  

"Early again?" 
"Yes." 
Alice continued preparing breakfast. And Jenice took place at the table. Both said nothing for a while. Jenice wanted to talk to her sister, she wanted to tell what bothered her, but no sound came over her lips at all. Eventually their mother came down, tired and drained of energy. 
"Mother, maybe you should go to bed again.", Alice suggested. 
"No, no, it's fine." 
But they all knew it wasn't fine. Alice set the table, so her mother didn't had to do this in her tired state and then she served them breakfast. All ate in silence and didn't disturb the other. Even when Alice began to gather the plates and to do the dishes, they all stayed silent. Jenice took her bag and left the house, without saying anything. Alice sighed and shook her head in worry. Her mother had fallen asleep on the couch in the meanwhile. She didn't really know what to do, now she felt left alone. 

"So, little shits, found anything this time?", John demanded firmly. 
"Well, we've seen an unknown car. We haven't seen it before. And the driver wasn't the man on the picture you showed us.", Racoon told him. 
"He wasn't?" 
"No, he was around the same age though. But he was more shady. He was wearing sunglasses and a hat and all, while he was driving. Even at night he looked the same." 
"How do you know?" 
"Well we all had agreed to gather when we found something suspicious. And Snake found this car. He took a photo with his phone send it to us all through Bluetooth and we scattered over the whole territory to see where we'd spot this car. And he has been literally everywhere in our territory." 
"Is that so? Hmmm, well, thank you all. You can have a bit of fun. Just don't let your guard down, okay?" 
"Yes, sir.", they said in unison.  

Jenice had hit the roads. She didn't meet up with Al though. She avoided the places where he would be. She sighed heavily and shook her head. Randomly she took a place and sat down, with her head in her hands she began to think about the last days, which seemed to follow up faster and with heavier emotions than otherwise. Suddenly she heard honking.  
"What the fuck?" 
She stood up to see what was wrong around the corner. Some people were having an argue about who was at fault. She ran her hand through her hair to free her vision from her bangs. She stared at them to make sure if she had seen them already. She still watched out for anything suspicious. One person she had seen before, that man lived a few streets away from this place but that other guy, he was a mystery, as she hadn't seen him before. From the features she could see, he must be quite a handsome person, but she was overdressed. The hat, the sunglasses, gloves, shawl and long jacket weren't really needed in this weather yet. She kept staring. This fight was going to take long. She went back to the place where she sat and grabbed her bag. When she went back and turned the corner, both vehicles and their drivers were gone. 
"That's strange. They were just arguing ferociously a few minutes ago." 
She locked this event in her mind and hit the streets again. She'd tell John later on when she sees him. She went on a few errands for herself a.k.a. gathering thrown out material. After gathering some stuff, she went home, without facing Al this entire day. When she entered the house she saw John there. He had new information too. He showed them the car. This car was the same one as the car of the unknown person who was fighting with another man.  She told them what she had seen earlier today.

Jenice was laying in her bed. She went straight upstairs after she had told John what she had seen on the streets. She sighed heavily and stared at her ceiling. Thoughts were invading her mind rapidly one after another. She thought back of the day when John had refused her. This had stung, stung as hard as she thought it would. She closed her eyes. She remembered the evening. But only flashes, as at one point she was just too drunk. When she tried to fill in the gaps, she just couldn't and even got a light headache. She massaged her forehead and thought about discarding that event as she wouldn't be able to remember it anyway.  

She rolled on her side and breathed out. She was thinking about the day after she was drunk. How sick she felt, it was probably the booze to blame. Though the pain in lower abdomen must have been her virginity taken away in that late night. She stared at the wall in front of her. It was weird to think she wasn't a virgin anymore. Well, she was 16 years old, in this neighbourhood it was kind of late to lose your virginity on that age. Most lost it as soon as they menstruated the first time, mostly as gang initiation. She never thought that she wouldn't remember anything about her virginity getting taken. This wasn't how she had planned it either. She couldn't remember why she let Al do it. Was she physically driven? Emotionally? Had she really been that sad? Desperate? Did she feel anything like love for Al at all? 

She rolled on her back again. Feelings for Al... She began to think. If someone else would ask her what she'd feel for him, what would she answer? She thought and thought but all she had was a blank mind every time she went that way in her thinking.  
"What's wrong with me?", she muttered. 
She tried to put any kind of image in her head of Al. The image she got in her head started out as a portrait of him. He smiled as how he'd always do, kind of goofy. This made her smile. But as the image zoomed out like a camera, she saw that Al was shirtless.  
"What the fuck!", she exclaimed and rolled quickly on her belly, covering her head with her pillow. 
She was blushing because of the image that had popped up in her mind. She stared at the headboard of her bed. She tried to separate her thought. She breathed steadily and closed her eyes, to calm herself. If someone else would ask her what she'd feel for Al, what would she answer? She'd answer that he was a nice guy and that it wasn't hard to make fun with him, as he was always in for some fun. He also was a great graffiti artist. He had taught her how to make graffiti art anyway. She wasn't as good as him at all. He was a lovely person on who you could depend, if you were a good friend of him. She nodded, it wouldn't be hard for her to love him. But what she'd feel at the moment would be more of an admiration for his easy life style.  

She put her pillow down on her bed and laid her head on it. She stared at the wall for a while and then closed her eyes. "I do like Al.", she whispered.