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 ^{(it's beta!)}

We were on the motorway and I had put a mix tape on. The Smiths, Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, played through my tinny speakers.

‘I’ve said this a hundred times before but you really do make the best mix tapes.’ She said casually as she moved her head from resting on the window. I smiled at her comment and shifted my hands on the wheel slightly.

‘Don’t thank me; it’s all Morrissey doing really.’

She scoffed, ‘Yeah but he’s a prick though’

‘True, but it’s often pricks that make the best music’

She thought about this for a while, her mouth opening a couple of times as if to say something but then closing it again, her retort seeming unsatisfactory.

‘Ian Curtis wasn’t a prick was he?’ She said eventually.

I grimaced a little and looked over at her ‘Well that depends on your point of view really?’

‘How do you mean?’

She gazed over at me, her head propped up by her elbow on the window sill as the world rushed past behind her.

‘Well what’s your opinion of guys who cheat on their wives with Belgian Diplomats?’

She laughed and I couldn’t help but smile, hey happiness was so contagious.

‘Are you serious?’ she giggled, her hand over her mouth trying to control herself.

I grinned and pushed slowly on the break, bringing the car to a stop at the red lights ahead of us. The tape had stopped now and I pushed the eject button and turned it over to play the second side. Out of the corner of my eye that I saw that face again, the one she thinks that I never see but she never hides it even half as well as she thinks she does. It’s the one where she bites her bottom lip and looks at me with those oak tree and autumn leaf eyes. I can feel them trying to see through me, trying with all their might to rip open my shirt and stare at my heart. I can see her mind clicking through the possibilities, the thoughts she knows she shouldn’t think, her confusion and elation to the possibility of finding her name there, etched on my torso. Our secret silence is broken by the honking of horns; the lights had changed green without either of us noticing. I quickly shoved the cassette into the player and forced the car into gear.

‘Sorry.’ the word stumbled out of my mouth almost as badly as the car had out of the junction,

‘That’s okay, I was miles away.’ She spoke quietly as if she was ashamed of herself.

‘Sounds nice...’

A grin snuck its way back on to her face

‘God you’re so cheesy sometimes.’

‘Hey that usually works on all the other girls I drive home from work’ I laughed lightly and pressed play on the cassette player as she rolled her eyes. My speakers rumbled into action again as the intro of the next song began. I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically as I recognised it.

‘Oh yeah I’d forgotten about this one’ I reached over and turned up the volume to max while she listen hard trying to recognise it. The song growled with heavy distortion as the main riff began, stepping up and down followed by crashing symbols and bass, an utterly unapologetic and plastic glam rock riff if there ever was one. She shook her head and gave me a bitter look of disgust.

‘I have lost all respect for you.’ She said as if she has just swallowed something sour

‘Oh come on!’ I pleaded with her ‘Everyone needs some crappy Alice Cooper in their life.’

She shook her head and folded her arms as the verse stared.

‘Your cruel device,

Your blood like ice,

One look could kill,

My pain your thrill!’

She shook her head as I mimed along and bobbed my head. I gave her a quick playful poke in the arm as she sat their staring at me as if I had suddenly grown a pair of testes on my chin.

‘You better sing the chorus with me’ I teased

Never, you look ridiculo...’ she was cut off by my speakers exploding in pain and 80’s glam rock and me screaming at the top of my voice.

‘I wanna love you but I better not touch,

I wanna hold you but my senses tell me to stop,

I wanna kiss you but I want it too much,

I wanna taste you but your lips are bitterless poison!

Your poison running through my veins!

Your poison!

I don’t wanna break these chains!’

Somehow I had managed to continue driving in a straight whilst punching my fist in the air and dancing about manically in the driver’s seat. She however, had collapsed in a fit of giggles, tears running down her face and hysteric laughter reverberating around the car as the song became quieter again for the next verse.

‘So are you gonna join in then?’ I said, a little out of breath.

‘Are you serious?’

‘Your mouth so hot,’

‘Why the hell not? This is a great song.’

‘Your web I’m caught,’

‘Please tell me you’re joking, you don’t actually like this do you?’

‘Your skin so wet,’i

‘C’mon! Just join in I know you know the words.’

‘Black lace on sweat!’

She grinned at me, ‘You’re insane do you know that?’ I pulled my tongue out at her and began to roll down my window.

‘If you don’t join in right now I’m gonna have to pull over and kick you out. ‘I smiled and looked over at her.

‘Well then,’ she smirked and began to roll down her own window ‘I guess you leave me with little choice’ She took the scrunchie out of her hair to let her long curls fold over her shoulders and down her back ‘But if we’re actually going to do this, we’re going to do it right’ she reached up and opened the sunroof before rummaging in her bag for a hairbrush to sing into and a set of sunglasses which she shoved onto my face.

‘That’s more like it!’ I shouted, grinning all the time as I watched her unbuckle her seatbelt and kneel up on her seat. We shot out our arms out of the windows and screamed at the top of our voices, not caring who was looking or what we looked like. I pulled into the third lane and plunged my right foot through the accelerator as we tore noisily down the motorway.

I pulled up outside the house. The stereo had been turned off when we had both lost our voices and become far too tried to jump about the car anymore. She pulled down the mirror of the passenger seat sun screen and tried to make herself presentable again. ‘That’s the last time I do that with you’ She ran a comb through her hair and re-applied her makeup.

‘You had fun didn’t you?’ I looked at her briefly before gazing out of my window and staring at the house opposite the car. It was a small bungalow that had obviously been turned into a shared house for local students. She grinned at herself in the mirror,

‘I always have fun with you, you know that.’ She circled her eyes carefully with eyeliner ‘You make me laugh more than anyone else.’ Satisfied, she stuffed her makeup into her bag and faced me. ‘Thanks for the lift, I really appreciate it.’ I smiled and managed to look at everything else in the car apart from her,

‘It’s no problem at all.’ I mumbled.

She sighed. I played with the mirrors. She bit her bottom lip some more. I tapped my fingers on the wheel. Our silence was broken by the opening of the bungalow door and a shout from across the road.

‘Hey are you coming in?’ The voice came from a man standing in the doorway. She looked over at the sound of his voice. I could see her mind racing again.

‘You should go,’ I said finally ‘He’s waiting.’

‘I know it’s just...I’ll see you tomorrow wont I?’

‘Yeah of course’ I forced a smile and looked up at her.

She got out of the car, walked over to the house and kissed the owner before looking back at me and waving and closing the door behind them.