Hot skin

She rounded the corner and immediately wished she could jump back the way she'd come. It was too late, though, she'd already taken a few paces round the shop door on the corner of the high street and, although the group on the bench weren't aware of her yet, she knew a flustered retreat would have drawn more attention to her than just keeping her head down and shuffling on. She felt the blush riding up her neck, clawing at her cheeks.

She tried not to look at them and made a effort to look absorbed in the passing shop windows. Her pace increased but she could still see their reflections blurred in the dark glass. All the popular girls from school were there. They seemed so much more knowing, so much more mature than her, that she would have done anything to avoid their notice; she feared them too: They were loud, they showed no respect for their elders, authority, the rules and she couldn't understand why or indeed how young women could be so lawless, so wild. They revolted her with their coarseness and yet there was something strangely attractive about them. Why did she long for their approval? Why did she want to be part of their tribe? Was it because, deep down, she longed to be free from the constraints of her own safe upbringing? Perhaps it was merely the vaguest atavistic stirrings in their last throws before the responsibilities of adulthood eclipsed them completely.