She has a wildness about her

Kennedy

The moment Anna Josephine stepped into my office five months, six days and four hours ago, I knew she was one beautiful package of trouble.

She dropped herself into the seat opposite, sitting just as she is right now, with the same world-hating scowl on her pretty face, the same hunch of her perfectly sloping shoulders, and the same nervous tap of her right foot. She told me back then, just as she will today, that she doesn’t give a fuck about anything.

She doesn’t give a fuck about claiming assistance and applying for college.

She doesn’t give a fuck about the fact she’s less than a week away from being homeless.

She doesn’t give a fuck about the latest foster family she’s run ragged these past few months.

Anna Josephine has a chip on her shoulder bigger than the file of case notes with her name on the cover. She has a wildness about her, and if those feral looks of hers could kill, I’d be a dead man right now, along with half of my colleagues in this building.

Her long black hair is glossy and thick, even though I’m sure it rarely sees a brush. The sprinkling of freckles over her nose give her a softness at odds with the rest of her appearance. Her teeth are surprisingly perfect given the generally dishevelled state of her.

They say she’s from Romany descent, although little is known about her actual lineage. She offered to read my palm once, then cackled when I handed it over.

I don’t know why she comes here. Half of me wishes she wouldn’t.

Half of me.

The other half is in the pits at the knowledge that this is our last official session. In four days’ time she will turn eighteen and her funding here will cease. I will refer her to other agencies, of course, but I doubt she’ll turn up.

For all my efforts over the past few months, I’ve failed her. My words have been for nothing, my time has been fruitless. Anna Josephine will leave my office today in a far worse position than she was when she first stepped foot in here. Eighteen and soon to be on the streets. A failure of the system.

Who knows where she’s going to end up.

I’ve got twenty minutes to make the last five months count, but she’s barely even looking at me.

“How was your week?” I ask, as though I think she’ll grace me with an answer.

A shrug. That’s all she gives.

“How are things with Rosie and Bill? Did you apologise for the carpet?”

“I tried.”

I take a breath. “You tried? Good. And what did they say?”

“Rosie gave me that prissy smile of hers. Bill said nothing.”

She’s wearing the same filthy boots she soiled their new cream carpet with. She tugs at the laces absentmindedly. There’s a trail of mud through my office showing just how well she learned her lesson, but I don’t care about that. Cleaning the floor isn’t my job.

Anna Josephine is.

I’m a community support assistant for a non-profit organisation handling disadvantaged youths, and this gem of a girl is my client. One of twenty I’ve currently got on my books, and the only one that makes my heart race.

She shouldn’t.

On paper she’s still technically a minor with a history of substance abuse and behavioural issues. On paper she’s a bad kid who doesn’t want help from anyone.

But that’s not true. If it was, she wouldn’t be here. At least that’s what I like to tell myself.

“They’re gonna throw me out on my birthday,” she says. “The minute I turn eighteen I’ll be out of there.”

“Maybe if you tried again… offered another apology…”

She sneers at me like I’m a total fucking imbecile. Like I have no idea how the world works.

She’s right. I have no idea how her world works. I have no idea how it would feel to grow up in a world where no one gives a shit about you. Without a family.

“They’re dicks,” she snaps. “I hate them.”

“You don’t hate them,” I begin.

“I do hate them,” she insists.

“Rosie and Bill are good people, Anna. They care about you.”

“They don’t give a fuck about me.” She stares me right in the eye and I feel it in my gut. “They hate me. They’ve always hated me.”

She strikes like a snake, launching her skinny little body at my desk in a heartbeat. I have to fight to keep my composure as she learns right over, my stance easy and non-threatened even though my heart is pounding.

She tugs up the sleeve on her grubby bomber jacket and shoves her wrist in my face.

“They did this to me.”

They didn’t. I know they didn’t.

Someone was definitely responsible for the yellowing bruises on her pale skin, but it won’t have been Bill and Rosie. Those bruises on her wrist have been a constant throughout her file.

Rumour has it they’re self-inflicted, but I’m not so sure on that either.

“Bill and Rosie did this to you? Is that what you’re telling me?”

She sits back down. “Gonna call the cops?”

“Is that what you want?”

“They wouldn’t do shit if you did.”

She’s right about that. My agency called the police out ten times in a twelve-week period when she first landed on our books. Ten tall tales, ten instances of accusations with no substance to back them up. Her account of events changes every five minutes, just as they would today if I pushed her on them.

I fell into the sob-story trap myself on day one, even though my colleagues told me I was being played. I wasn’t the first, and I sure won’t be the last. The girl is difficult, but she’s compelling. Her wildness is addictive.

I breathe through the silence as she examines her grubby nails. I wait patiently until she speaks again.

“Bill wants me.”

“Wants you?”

“He looks at me.”

“Bill wants what’s best for you,” I insist.

“He wants to fuck me. You do, too.” Her eyes bore right through me, and I don’t move. I don’t look away, not because she’s right – which she is – but because playing her game is the last thing she needs from me.

I’ve wanted to fuck her ever since our first session when her pouty little mouth sneered at me and told me I was just another useless cog in the useless fucking system.

I’ve wanted to bend her over my desk and fuck some manners into the snarky little bitch ever since she spread her legs in that very same seat and asked if I was hard for her. Asked if I wanted a go.

Asked if I knew she was wet for me.

Anna Josephine is a beautiful package of trouble, just like I said.

We have CCTV in this room. One false move and I’d be out of the job I’ve dedicated the last fifteen years to.

And I wouldn’t make one false move. Of course I wouldn’t.

Couldn’t.

I’m waiting for it – the stream of obscenities as she loses her shit and tells me I’m disgusting. That I want to smell her. Want to taste her. Want her to rub her tight little pussy in my face.

I wait for her to tell me I’m an asshole and she never wants to see me again, that my help isn’t worth shit.

But today she doesn’t.

It’s the breath she takes. The shaky little rasp of air that sets my nerves on fire.

It’s the way she looks at her boots and not at me.

“They really are gonna throw me out this time,” she whispers. “I said sorry, too. I mean, I’ll be alright, I can take care of myself, find myself someone to bunk with, I just… I like my room there. I feel safe.”

“Apologise again,” I tell her, but she shakes her head. “Tell them how you really feel.”

“No point.”

One false move and she’ll storm away and I know it. One stupid comment and she’ll be out and away from here long before our remaining fifteen minutes is up.

I should ask her the standard questions. Tick the right boxes. I should be professional, just as I have been every other session up until now.

But I can taste it. The tiny little crack in her beautifully plated armour.

“Who really hurts you, Anna?” I ask her, and those green eyes crash right into mine.

“Who do you think?”

“Tell me,” I insist, willing that just this one time she’ll finally be honest.

She fiddles with her grubby fingernails. “You think I do it to myself. Everyone thinks that.”

My skin prickles. “Do you?”

She shrugs. “I trampled mud across Rosie and Bill’s posh carpet. And I put that hair dye in with Rosie’s washing. I did it on purpose, all of it. Maybe I hurt myself too.”

“Why did you do those things?”

“I wanted them to be angry. I wanted to hurt them.”

“And what about now? Do you still want to hurt them? Do you want to hurt yourself?”

“Maybe.” Another shrug. “No.”

Make or break. I take an audible breath. “This is it, Anna, last chance saloon. Five months you’ve been coming here, and for what? Tell me how I can help you. Let me help you. Why come here every week if you aren’t going to let me do anything to help?” I sigh. She says nothing. “Just tell me this, what do you want?”

“I want you,” she says, and this time there’s a guarded honesty in her eyes, a burn that matches the one I feel in my gut whenever I look at the wild creature across from me.

There’s no snide smile on her mouth. No arrogant cock of the head. No fidgeting. Nothing.

My mouth is dry as a bone, and my cock is a fucking traitor to everything I stand for. Everything I believe in.

“You’re why I come here and you know it,” she says. “I wanted you since you saw my bruises and called the cops even though everyone said you were a jerk for believing me. I wanted you since you got angry they’d hurt me. You were angry, I saw it. And then you were angry with me, and I liked that too. Not angry like Bill and Rosie, not angry like that cop who came here and took my stupid statement. Angry like real angry. Angry like you wanted to hit me worse than any stupid bruises on my arms. But you didn’t give up.” She pauses. Breathes. “That’s what I’m doing here.” She uncrosses her legs and lands her muddy boots right back on the carpet. “And that’s the only thing I wanted to say. That and thanks for trying. See you around, Mr Warren.”

She’s up and out of her seat before I’ve collected my words.

“Wait…” I say, but she holds up a hand. “Anna…”

But there are only a trail of muddy boot prints in her wake.

My office door swings on its hinges behind her and there’s already a pair of nervous eyes waiting on the other side.

I welcome in my next appointment and try to brush Anna Josephine from my mind.

We’re done. Finished. I did everything I could. More than I should have.

Session closed.

She’s not my problem anymore.

If only I could believe that were true.