I Am Still That Feral Girl

Winter rain lashes the pub windows.

“To Ravi,” says Greg.

“To Ravi,” Tia and I echo.

“Can’t believe it’s been twenty years since…” I trail off. Since we were woken up by the police at our student house, telling us our housemate was dead. Since our final months of university were blackened by grief.

We all stayed in Manchester after graduation, constellating around the centre of our shared tragedy. As the miseries of adult life took over, we drifted apart, except for this yearly meetup.

“How’s the new job, Kate?” asks Greg.

“Exhausting,” I say.

Greg snorts. “Head of Cybersecurity’s no joke.”

“But I mean, so worth it right?” asks Tia. “To be part of the Pathway team?”

“I guess.” It feels like any old mundane job. Emails, Slack, arsehole colleagues. But the Pathway is a historical pagan site with a unique power: it’s a road that leads to the past. Not that anyone’s travelled down it for centuries— it’s been heavily protected throughout history and is now being tested and analysed by state-of-the-art scientific systems. I was vetted for a year before I got the job.

The conversation dies until Tia murmurs about her cat’s failing health. I complain about my running injury– no more marathons. Greg moans about his ex-wife.

God, were we always this fucking boring?

I remember sitting in these exact booths and laughing my head off when we were students, the night sparkling and alive. We were feral, ready to take big, greedy bites out of the whole world. I guess I didn’t realise how breathtakingly stupid my problems were at the time. How beautifully naïve I was.

I would re-live every second of university if I could. I would crawl back into my youth with the fervour of a soldier escaping enemy gunfire, and I would relish each £1 Jaegerbomb, each athletics club meetup, each giggling conversation hungover in bed. I would whisper to that sweet little idiot, “Honey, it all gets so much worse from here on out. So enjoy it.”

Tia murmurs, “Maybe you can break into the Pathway and warn younger-me to get Whiskers checked earlier. And tell Greg not to marry Lisa. And yourself about your injury. Fix all our problems.”

“Maybe you should save Ravi,” says Greg. His voice is hoarse, emotional.

We fall silent. It’s one thing to joke. It’s another to actually talk about breaking international law.

“It’s getting late,” I say.

Tia and Greg nod and we say our goodbyes before heading out into the rainy night.

I climb into my car, shaking. Greg’s words have knocked me totally off balance, hitting on something that I’ve been trying desperately not to think about since I got the job.

Ravi. Ravi. Ravi.

Eternally stuck in his early twenties, Ravi’s cheeky grin lights up my mind. Us four once had big dreams and bright futures. Before something Really Bad happened and showed us that the world wasn’t always magic. His death shattered the foolish confidence that propels most people through their twenties.

I drive past my apartment.

Some madness is creeping up and taking hold of me. An insane idea growing too loud to ignore.

I follow signs to the Lake District– through the rainy night, until I reach the security gate of my office complex. Nestled at the foot of the mountains, right where the Pathway begins.

The night guard leans out of his booth.

“Ma’am?”

“Kate Alston,” I say, breathless. “There’s been a massive cybersecurity breach, and I need to get in to check the digital monitoring systems.” I wave my high-clearance ID card in his face.

“We’ve not had any alerts…” he says.

“I am the alert, mate. None of the big bosses are picking up their phones. It’s midnight. Hoping to do some damage control before they wake up tomorrow and flay me alive.”

He nods and waves me through.

I pull into the gates and drive past the office, to the ancient stone archway that marks the beginning of the Path. Beyond it, a dirt road leads into the mountains. I pause for a moment, looking back.

And then I fucking floor it.

I speed through the arch and onto the dirt road, accelerating faster than I’ve ever driven in my life. Outside my windows, everything is a blur. The air crackles, electromagnetic.

Panic bites as I clock my hands on the wheel. The wrinkles are smoothing out, my blue veins disappearing, skin plumping.

The clock winds further back the more I drive.

I flick my eyes to the mirror and see bold, strong eyebrows. No more crow’s feet. I keep checking until bright pink spills down my hair—the colour I dyed it during my final year of university.

Slowing the car, the blur clarifies into imposing mountains on either side. I turn into a small lane, before ending up on a country road, and then eventually a motorway. My car is the beat-up red thing I drove as a student.

The date on the radio reads September 27th, 2005.

###

Our student house is an old Victorian, its intricate crown moulding contrasted by peeling paint, elephant tapestries, and fairy lights.

When I stumble into the living room, Greg is lounging on the couch with Tia.

In my time, Greg lives in my neighbourhood. Sometimes I spot him out my window, dragging his beer belly and his dog, his ridiculous, tiny fucking dog, down the road. I watch him bend down to scoop up its shit, and as his arse crack pokes out the top of his jeans, I just want to aim a gun at him and put him out of his goddamn misery.

Now, he reclines, stomach lean under his t-shirt. His bone structure is sharp and handsome, his curly brown hair haloing his face as he animatedly explains something to Tia.

Tia, who I haven’t seen wearing anything but a business suit for years, is sporting a lurid neon crop top and low-rise jeans, her braids spiralled into space buns. She’s laughing.

And then, the breath is knocked out of me. Ravi sits against the wall, strumming his guitar. Practicing. He’s going to be famous someday, after all.

The sun pours through the living room window, painting all of them golden.

“Katie!” says Tia. “You coming to the fields?”

“Uh, yes,” I say. I feel dizzy.

Tia drags me into the sticky old kitchen, and we mix journey juice in plastic bottles. We collect Greg and Ravi and tumble out the house, catching a bus to the countryside.

My heart beats erratically as Ravi plonks down next to me. He’s wearing a maroon t-shirt and ripped jeans, swigging out of the plastic bottle. He passes it over and I gulp it down, a dead man’s saliva on my lips.

“Katie! Don’t finish it all!” He laughs and grabs it back. “You’re a lightweight.”

“Ravi. You’re –” Decades of regret and hurt threaten to spill out. But the alcohol is hitting, and I find myself staring until I say, “Your music is so good. I honestly think you could make it.” I mean it, too. I’ve always found Ravi’s music transcendent. Magic.

He punches my arm. “Thanks. I’m dreading telling my parents that I’m going to focus on my music full-time after uni. Honestly... fuck accounting.”

“Fuck accounting,” I echo back.

The bus pulls up next to a muddy field where a bunch of students crowd around massive speakers: shrieking, dancing, and playing in the late light.

Me, Ravi, Greg, and Tia jump off the bus and into the middle of the fray. The music vibrates through my bones as the sun sets.

Ravi whirls me around, breathless. It’s cold, but we are generating so much heat. I grab Greg and Tia’s hands, and we jump, howling the lyrics into the night.

I am once again that feral girl.

Bright-eyed and here on this planet and goddamn electrified by life.

I am not a woman eating microwave meals alone on a Friday night. Not snapping at the upstairs neighbours for making too much noise. Not sending passive-aggressive emails.

None of us are. And none of us will be.

I’m going to stop the Really Bad thing from happening. I’m going to keep the magic alive.

But it won’t happen tonight. It will happen deep in freezing December. So for now, I jump around in the field, mud splattering up my shoes and tights, safe in the arms of my friends.

###

It’s only been a few weeks, but weirdly, my adult life feels like a bad dream. Like it didn’t really happen? Maybe a 41-year-old’s mind doesn’t fit into the brain of a 21-year-old. Not enough frontal lobe, or something. I honestly dunno if I just had a mental breakdown or if it was real, but anyway, it changed me.

I go to lectures embarrassingly keen to learn, and I’m throwing myself into athletics, loving the stretch and recoil of my muscles. Hitting insane paces.

Even though I can’t quite believe I was ever a depressed middle-aged woman, a sense of dread is rising in me. Like, badly. And it’s all about Ravi. Desperately, above all, I do not want him to go to his creepy fucking petrol station job tonight.

I corner him in his bedroom as he’s getting ready to leave the house.

“Who gets a student job at a petrol station?!” I ask.

“Oh my god, this again? Drop it, Katie,” he groans.

“Listen to me, then!”

“Sorry, princess, but my parents don’t have the money to pay my groceries every week like yours do.”

“That’s not what this–ugh. Ravi, just skip work tonight, okay?”

“As if.”

“Please! Please skip your shift. I’ll do anything. I’ll take you out for drinks or dinner or something, it’s my treat. Or I’ll buy you a shit-ton of hash. Please.” Panic rises in my chest.

“I can’t just “skip work”. My parents will find out.”

“Who cares? You’re about to disappoint them anyway by going after your music career!”

His face shuts, cold. “Exactly. So I’d like to squeeze out a few more months of familial peace, if I can.”

“I’m begging you, Ravi. Don’t go. I’m spiralling, dude. I think you’re going to die.”

“Are you high?” Concern clouds his face. “Hang on.” He dashes out the room, and relief floods me, replaced by despair as Tia saunters in.

“Babe, Ravi says you’re having like a panic attack?”

“Where is he?”

“He had to run to get the bus to work.”

“No!”

I dash out of the room, past Tia, down the stairs, out the front door. It’s already so late. 11pm. My heart is slamming in my chest, and I start to run, sprinting through our dark neighbourhood, through the dodgy outskirts, and into Moss Side.

Sobbing, I run through the foggy, freezing night until I hit the glow of a petrol station, beaming out like a lighthouse.

I slam into the door and launch myself raggedly over the counter. Ravi looks at me like I’m a feral animal. Maybe I am.

“Katie, what the fuck–”

The door opens again, and two lads come in wearing balaclavas.

“No!” I scream.

The lads wave a gun and shout at Ravi to give them everything in the cash register. He does, and just like it happened before, when they’re grabbing the cash, the gun accidentally goes off.

It’s all a big accident.

Except this time, I’m here. In front of the counter. And my body blocks the bullet.

Blood soaks my shirt. The lads run off as I fall to the floor.

Ravi leans over me, sobbing. “Katie, hold on, hold on.”

“Uh oh,” I mumble. “Now I’m the Really Bad thing.” And suddenly I’m laughing. Through the pain, I’m laughing. “Ravi, don’t let this ruin you. Or Tia or Greg. Show the world some magic, okay?”

His cries harder. And I start to drift away, following the call of the unexpected.

The life I was supposed to live disappearing quietly over the horizon.