‘If you’re afraid, we don't.’

Zoe whispered sharply in Sara's ear.

The two girls stood in the sun in the large empty parking lot, an immense hollow structure with a tangle of bare ramps. It literally marked the dividing line between the city and the countryside.

Zoe looked older than 17. Maybe because of her jaw and short crew cut hair, or her black T-shirt and military trousers. Her skateboard was missing a wheel.

Sara was 14. Sitting on a guardrail with her school backpack on her knees, a plastic necklace in her hands.

‘If you don't want to because you are afraid, we don't do it.’

Zoe challenged her in her usual flat tone. She returned to the skateboard, whirled around, then came back to Sara.

‘If you don't feel like it you have to say it.’

Sara sat still and didn’t answer.

Zoe kicked the skateboard sending it under a rusty car wreck.

Sara knew inside herself there was no way to get out of this.

*

It was already dark when the girls got off the bus along the tree-lined avenue. An uphill curve in the center of the residential neighborhood, riddled with luxury cars, displayed in front of the open air restaurants. Sara observed the atmosphere, loud boys in tight jeans, girls with baseball caps, fresh faces glowing in the fluorescent light of their sparkly mobile phones.

Zoe ushered her to follow her. She didn't look like the usual Zoe. She was dressed up to blend in with that place. Sara thought she hadn’t quite done the perfect job.

The buildings around them were as alien to Sara as the people. On some of them, geometric designs, obelisks, fierce gargoyles.

‘Come!’ Zoe called.

She grabbed her hand and dragged her across the road despite the red light, skimming between the whizzing mopeds. Sara felt the skin of her face tighten as she thought of what she was walking into.

*

Muffled tones in a quiet living room. A stark contrast with the loud club, only a few minutes earlier.

Smiles and chuckles following meaningless mumblings. Sara observed them from the armchair opposite.

‘How can he like her?’ she thought. ‘It’s only because he’s so ugly…’

Zoe had fished the timid stranger from the counter, after noticing him park a particularly expensive car.

Then came the dreaded sign. Zoe’s hand was very close to the bulge on the boy’s jeans. She looked into Sara’s eyes and winked.

Sara’s heart sank, she left the room with a soggy wave. The two on the sofa waited for the sound of the front door shutting.

Sara had always thought her greatest strength was her independence. Her introversion. Her not needing people around. She was invisible to her family. It was always either the oldest or the youngest. She was in between, so neither mature enough to be considered, nor young enough to need their attention. So she began cultivating her invisibility. Cherishing her loneliness at school and everywhere else.

Except for Zoe.

Her only friend.

Her only real friend, Zoe often insisted.

The two on the sofa continued their muffled conversation. Fingers fluttering around necks and hair. After a moment of silence, Zoe propped herself up and proposed they take his super car and go to a special place she wanted to show him. With a slight reluctance, the boy nodded and followed her outside the house.

The front door shut behind them, leaving the apartment in a gloomy stillness, except for the irregular ticking of an old clock.

The cupboard at the entrance loomed like a large sentinel.

Then its shutter creaked.

An eye appeared in the slot.

Sarah stepped out. She hadn’t left. She had opened and shut the front door and then had hidden in the cupboard, as Zoe had instructed.

Alone again. Up to her now to fill her backpack with valuable objects. And Zoe would criticize all her choices. Anything she would take, valuable or not, would be wrong.

Sara felt crowbarred into this situation. Why was she to take things out of there? A suffocating claustrophobia clasped at her neck. Alone again.

More than ever.

And it was no strength now.

She moved along the dark corridor opening small dusty drawers, trying to focus. But all she could think of was Zoe barking at her, yelling that she was useless.

As she moved in the dark she noticed something curious about the house. Old clocks, pale portraits with old wooden frames. No relation with the boy and his car. Was this really his home? It seemed more like a much older person’s place.

Her thoughts froze.

A faint rasping moan broke the silence. Sara was paralyzed. She stopped breathing.

From behind the corner of the corridor a distorted, suffered exhalation.

Sara began walking backwards as fast as she could, causing the floorboards to creak under each step. After what seemed like minutes, she reached for the handle of the front door. But! A jingle of keys in the lock on the outside. Someone was coming in.

Sara threw herself in the cupboard again just in time. From the crack she saw something which took away her breath.

The boy had come back. As he opened the door he turned in an unnatural position to put down a seemingly very heavy large, black plastic bag.

Then he disappeared down the corridor looking for something.

Looking for her!

Sara almost suffocated while holding her breath. The boy had unmasked the scam. She could hear him checking drawers and cupboards. She tried Zoe’s number on her mobile, instantly switching it off the moment a faint ringtone emerged from inside the sack.

Sara left the front door open and raced down the stairs making no sound. She had always been proud of her squeakless sneakers.

As she rode each one of the three empty night buses, after the long wait at the south east terminus, she kept seeing the plastic bag in the gloom reflected in the large windows.

Alone again. She smiled.

Now it was a strength again.