Conviction(14)

We made love in the car that last night, we were both so excited and so in f*cking love, that I still can’t understand why she didn’t show. I kissed her at the end of her drive and she told me she’d go to the ends of the earth with me, and that she couldn’t wait for us to spend the rest of our lives travelling and just being together. She kissed me one last time and walked up the drive to that big, f*ck off mansion she lived in with her mum, dad and Pearce, her prick of a brother. By the time I’d walked to the end of her street and gotten back in Miles’ car she had texted me and told me again how much she loved me. She texted me a good morning the next day and told me she was going shopping with Sophie, and then nothing. I didn’t hear another thing. She didn’t show, she just didn’t show. I called her and I called Sophie but got nothing. I finally got a hold of my best mate Josh, who was Sophie’s brother and he told me that his mum had rushed off to meet up with them and they were going to some millennium party at a fancy hotel that night.

I have no idea what happened that day to make her change her mind, but it must’ve been something big because she never showed and I never heard from her again.

Miles could see I was devastated. He knew how much I loved her and how hard I’d worked to pull our plan together. So, he took me to the pub and we had a few drinks. It was the last night of the millennium and the place was mobbed, so at around nine, we left the pub and went to a party at his mate’s house. It was rammed, people everywhere. The place stunk of weed and as soon as midnight was done with, I wanted to get home. I was tired, pissed off and had a banging headache. I wanted to go home, charge my phone that was now dead and hopefully wake up in the morning to a million missed calls and messages from Meebs telling me we were still on and this had all been one great big f*cking balls up. I never made it home, not that night, not any night since.

We were about half way across town when I noticed the blue light flash behind us. “The old Bill’s up your arse Miles, will you be over the limit?” I’d seen him drinking at various times during the night, surely they would’ve all topped up in his system and he’d be over the limit by now.

“Fuck,” he said out loud and banged his palm down onto the steering wheel. I looked at him, he was completely freaking out.

“What’s wrong, did you have a tote on that joint earlier as well?”

He shook his head before looking at me. “It’s a cut and shut Reed, the car’s f*cking dodgy. If they pull me over, I’m looking at doing time.” His eyes were back on the road and his foot was now back down on the pedal as we roared forward.

“What the f*ck, Miles. Why? Why the f*ck are you driving around in a cut and shut?”

“Because Reed, because for once I wanted something nice around me. For once, I wanted something that everybody else was jealous of. I didn’t want to be that poor kid whose mum got murdered by her drug dealer. I didn’t want to be Miles, you know, his dad’s the piss head that used to be in the SAS,” he grips the wheel tighter as he shouts. We’re travelling down country lanes and as I look down at the speedo, I can see that we’re hitting tops of one hundred and twenty, one thirty miles an hour. The blue flashing lights of the police car are still following in the distance behind us.

“Slow down Miles, slow the f*ck down.”

“No, no Reed, I can’t. I can’t get caught. Don’t you see, if I get caught, I’ll get nicked. I’ll probably go to prison, and all those arseholes that talk about us, the people that look down their noses and think they’re better than us, that think we’re scum, like your girlfriend’s mum and dad, I’ll just be making them right. I’ll just be making things worse for you.”

Then everything seemed to happen in slow motion. A car came toward us, I think Miles tried to swerve and we ended up going down an embankment. That’s when the car split in two. The back end of the car rolled and pulled the front with it. A branch came through the window and I ducked down in my seat, Miles didn’t and snap, his neck was broken. We came to a stop with the car on its roof. I could still hear the sirens for a while, then people shouting. While I hung upside down, trapped by my seat belt, staring into the eyes of my dead brother, and all I could hear above everything else was the Chili Peppers sing about their lonely view.

Physically, I walked away unscathed. I had some bruising, some scratches and the nylon of the seat belt caused a friction burn across my neck and chest but other than that, I was fine.

The car was the result of two insurance write-offs being salvaged and welded together to make one car. Miles was well aware of what he was purchasing, but he didn’t care. He was driving around in a thirty thousand pound car that he’d paid five thousand for, and that’s all that had mattered to him. His safety, the safety of his passengers or anyone else on the road was inconsequential to him. He’d given Tyler’s wife Jenna, a lift in that car when she was pregnant with their little boy Ethan.

As well as the details about the car, the coroner’s report also concluded that he was three times over the legal blood alcohol limit and traces of cannabis and MDMA, otherwise known as ecstasy were found in his system. There was also a small amount of cocaine found in his pocket. It turned out, I didn’t know my brother at all.

And because I’d been in a bit of trouble with the police when I was fourteen and fifteen, I spent three months locked up on remand before the courts decided there was nothing they could charge me with. I had no idea the car was illegal and no idea that my brother was over the limit. Well, maybe with regard to the drink, but I had no idea he’d smoked weed and had popped a pill. I knew he was no angel, none of us were. We were of the generation, and from an area where doing a line of charlie and popping a few pills on a Saturday night, was as normal as going for a few beers and a curry. It’s just how it was. I smoked my first joint when I was about thirteen, which was old compared to a lot of the kids at my school. What we didn’t do though was get in a car and drive once we were stoned or high… ever. Apparently, my brother didn’t live by that rule and that, combined with the condition of the car we were in, cost him his life.