A girl with bleached ginger hair and caramel skin stared back at me in the dark window beneath the advert for sexual health, 'call this number for anonymous advice', pinned on the curving roof of the tube carriage. Holding a canvas London Fashion week bag from three years ago with a toadstool design by Eley Kishimoto and a pile of leather bound sketchbooks labelled Annabella D. Harrow. I look like any other art student who over populates London town my bright hair pulled to one side my bare legs showing two thin red scars from a play fight with a boy I barely know after a party in Dalston in which I ended up crashing down on my knees loving every second of the violence, him pulling me up laughing kindly. The train announcer speaks in a mechanical voice; the train is now arriving at Whitechapel please alight here for Shoreditch and Brick Lane.
A boy steps on my carriage and sits down blocking out the girl with orange hair and a self conscious habit of chewing the inside of her cheek as she checks herself out. The boy is wearing a plain grey hoody, unbranded but probably from Muji or somewhere like that, he’s wearing jeans, not skinny jeans like most boys in East London just regular dark jeans and plain trainers. His clothes are unremarkable but his face is stunning. Three-day stubble covers his chin and neck proving its authenticity, he hasn’t affected a casual look he is as rough as he appears. His lips are full and look smooth to the touch but the bottom left hand corner holds a deep cut and surrounding it is tinted red where blood vessels have burst on the surface. His hard blank eyes are looking down, the right one encased in a yellow and purple sickening circle his upper lid swollen painfully showing red flesh littered with veins, its grotesque but beautiful at the same time and I can’t look away. He looks up and meets my stare un-ashamedly; I look down as I have been subconsciously planning to do when he eventually looked at me, as I was sure he would. Looking back up he’s still looking at me, I bite my cheek so my lips pout slightly and look him up and down seeing the red scrapes on his knuckles and the colour of the blood thrills and intrigues me. The carriage is almost empty it’s late at night, probably the second to last train. At the next stop the drunk woman a few seats down from me who has been leaning her head against the yellow pole standing vertically by her seat and swapping her legs from one side to the other all journey stands up and sways to the door, standing on the wrong side for a few seconds before realising and going out the open door hitting the platform hard and losing balance. The boy snorts he’s been watching her too and we make eye contact again joined in our private joke over the woman who can’t handle her drink. I feel like I should be scared sitting alone late at night with a boy who’s evidently no stranger to violence but I can’t bring myself to be anything but captivated. In all honesty I know he probably wouldn’t hurt me, not tonight anyway so I stay there aware of my shirt pulling to one side showing the shadow of my curves held by lace along side the small gold buttons of my oversized grey shirt. 'Poor girl' mutters the boy although the woman is probably at least ten years older than us both. I smile knowingly, we’ve both been in that state and did so with a lot more cool though probably as little dignity. He stretches his neck looking up at the ceiling exhaling loudly then runs his hand aggressively through his hair pulling his hood down and revealing a light brown mess parted roughly to one side that he has just pulled and pushed so it lifts up slightly.
I watch him stretch, touching his hands to the roof of the tube carriage, his white midriff showing fine blonde hairs leading up to his belly button. He stands up pulling his hood over his head covering part of his face with shadows from the cold blue glow of the tube lights and walks towards me looking me up and down before settling on my face, I’m blushing but defiantly meeting his gaze. Turning his head slightly to maintain eye contact as he walks past me to the door of the tube. His bruised knuckles are centimetres away from me as he holds the bar of the carriage separator waiting to alight. I’m reminded of a dream I had a few nights ago. I was at my own party but it was full of people I hated so I hid in a room upstairs which had bunk beds in, a boy I felt I knew who had dirty blonde dreadlocks and tanned skin came to find me and asked if I wanted to leave, which we did together. Straight away I was outside alone and another boy was holding onto me trying to pull me back grabbing the hair on the nape of my neck, claiming I couldn’t leave my own party and pushing me roughly face forward against a wall crushing my ribs and pressing my head to the stone with his forearm. He continued to shake and push me violently like I was a rag doll, or an animal. Till I snapped suddenly and holding him by his face, my hands clasping his jaw covering his mouth, I threw him to the floor with all my strength and kicked him hard in the abdomen. The first boy came outside and led me away from the mess on the floor coughing blood, rolling around dramatically and I woke up feeling infinitely pleased with myself.
