Read Marcher: The Author's Preferred Text for Free Online Page B

I’m fucking not alright,’ she muttered, but she was half smiling at the same time because Jaz was someone she liked. It was true that Jaz was a social worker, but she was funny and pretty and she wore sexy ear-rings.
    Jaz started the car. The arrangement was that she would take Tammy for a burger before she returned her to the Assessment Unit.
    ‘Tough session, eh?’
    ‘That Ripping bitch does my fucking head in. And don’t tell me this therapy will help me because it won’t make no fucking difference and you know it. That Ripping is just a creepy old cow who gets her kicks from poking about in other people’s lives.’
    Tammy pulled a face.
    ‘ And her breath stinks,’ she added.
    ‘Four more sessions, Tammy,’ said Jazamine. ‘That was the deal. We agreed you could move out of the Roberts’ house and move back into the Unit, as long as you agreed to go for these six sessions to try and figure out what went wrong.’
    ‘Well I’m not going no more,’ said Tammy flatly. ‘So what are you going to do about it? Send me back to the Roberts? I’d fucking trash the place.’
    They came to the Line, the boundary of the Social Inclusion Zone. Jaz showed her ID to the cop and drove on through and out. Then she turned to Tammy.
    ‘Do you know what I wish? I wish that just once in your life you would discuss the pros and cons of something without immediately starting to make threats.’
    Stung, mortified, devastated, Tammy remained silent.
    ‘I mean apart from anything else,’ Jaz went on, ‘I spent literally days negotiating this deal for you, trying to convince people, trying to get the funding, trying to persuade people that you really were going to use your time in the Unit constructively this time and not just take up a valuable bed which someone else might have been able to make use of. And what do you do? You take all that work and just chuck it out of the window! It’s the same thing every time you decide you can’t hack one of your placements and want to go somewhere else. I feel as if you don’t give a damn.’
    Tammy gave an incredulous snort.
    ‘What? About you? Of course I fucking don’t! You’re just doing your job aren’t you? Plus you get paid good money for it. I mean, when you go off on your holidays in Greece and fucking Thailand, don’t tell me you’re thinking about me when you’re lying on the beach out there sunning your fucking tits because you never. “Thank fuck I don’t have none of those bloody dreggies here to deal with,” is what you’re thinking isn’t it? You might as well admit it. So why should I care about you? You give me one good reason!’
    Jazamine was silent.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Tammy, ‘and you can stuff the fucking burger while you’re at it. Take me back to the Unit. That’ll save you some of your precious time and money. Just take me back to the fucking Unit.’
    Jaz pulled the car over, did a three-point turn and headed back to the Line. This took Tammy completely by surprise.
    ‘Hey! What are you doing?’
    ‘Taking you back to the Unit. As you requested.’
    Tammy felt the rejection like a stab wound. She didn’t want to go back to the Unit. She wanted to have a burger with Jaz and to chat and laugh and wind her up about her ear-rings and her boyfriends and her trips abroad. She’d been looking forward to it all week. But nothing would make her admit to a thing like that. Nothing.
    ‘I’m sick of your games Tammy,’ said Jaz, ‘and I’m not going to play them any more.’
    Tammy shrugged.
    ‘Well, that’s all right then, because soon you won’t have to worry about me anyway. I’ve met a shifter. He’s got loads of slip and he’s going to give me some. I’m getting out of this shithole for good.’
    Jaz sighed. ‘More threats, Tammy?’
    She pulled up outside the Asphodel Assessment Unit.
    ‘See you next week.’
    ‘I told you. He’s got slip, Jaz. You won’t never see me again!’
    ‘Well that’s up to you,’ Jaz said with a