Not Pretty Enough

by Jaimie Admans

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry, you’re right. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

  “It’s fine. Thank you for the leaflets. We should… um…” I point towards the cafeteria. “Go… We should go. Before we’re late for class.”

  “Yes,” he says. “You girls have a good day. I’ll see you in maths, Chessie.”

  “Great.” I smile. “See ya.”

  I never thought I’d look forward to maths.

  As soon as we walk away Debs pulls the pamphlets out of my hands and starts rifling through them.

  “NSPCC,” she reads. “Anti-bullying. Domestic violence. Childline. Victim No More. Chessie, what the hell is all this about?”

  “Can you believe Lloyd Layton is actually talking to me? He knows who I am, Debs. In fact, he went home last night and actually thought about me. He thought about me at home. As in, outside of school. He must have because he thought about me enough to find all that stuff for me.” I take the pamphlets back from her and look through them myself.

  God, this is serious stuff.

  “Chessie, I’m not sure I want to know, but why is Lloyd Layton bringing you leaflets about Childline?”

  “He might think, you know, just a little, that mystepfatherisbeatingmeup,” I mumble.

  “Pardon?”

  “All right,” I say louder. “He might think that my stepfather is beating me up.”

  “You don’t have a stepfather.”

  “I know that, but he doesn’t, does he? And in the meantime he’s talking to me like a normal human being. That makes two conversations he’s started with me now. Two. In as many days.”

  “But he thinks your stepfather is hitting you?”

  I nod.

  “The stepfather you don’t have.”

  I nod again.

  “I swear, Chessie, I don’t know what planet you’re on sometimes. Where on earth do you get these crazy ideas? What was that about going to see Miss Gleave at breaktime?”

  “Oh, he wants me to report it to Miss Gleave.”

  “Report what to Miss Gleave?”

  “You know. It. About my stepfather beating me up.”

  “You don’t have a stepfather.”

  “I know that,” I say, getting increasingly frustrated. “But it was his idea. It’s not like I went up to him and told him, he just assumed it was that way.”

  “And you didn’t think that it might be a good idea to correct him?”

  “Well, yes, but then I would never have the chance to get to know him. If I play this right, then we could become friends and by that time he won’t care that I don’t have a stepfather who hits me.”

  Debs bursts out laughing. “You know something, Chessie? I would really, really like to see how you’re going to get out of this one.”

  Me too, to be honest.

  CHAPTER 25

  You know that scene in Liar, Liar where Jim Carrey beats himself up in the bathroom to get out of a court appearance?

  That’s me. Right now.

  I tried to create a fake bruise on my arm by mixing eyeshadow together and sealing it on with lipstick sealant, but I only rubbed my hand over it once and it came right off, so I’ve decided there is no faking it. It’s too risky. That’s why I’m currently locked in the bathroom, banging my arm against the sink. It’s quite painful, to be honest, but it’s worth it. Lloyd is going to feel so sorry for me.

  In all honesty, I kind of wish I’d never started this whole thing with the parental abuse. I’m in a little over my head. This is serious stuff. I’ve been reading through the leaflets Lloyd gave me, and I feel bad for exploiting it because it’s not a joke for kids who actually are being beaten up by their parents. It’s really bad. The statistics are just plain scary.

  But I can’t just go to Lloyd and admit I lied because he’ll never speak to me again. But I did figure out a solution, and I only have to pretend to be an abused child for a little while longer. I figure it’ll look too suspicious if I just have the one bruise on my stomach and then never have one again, so I’m going to go into school with a couple more, like one a week for a couple of weeks, then I’ll tell Lloyd that my mother and stepfather broke up and he moved out. And that’ll be it. It will all be over that easily, and no one will have gotten hurt.

  Except for me if this arm doesn’t start turning blue soon.

  Lloyd and I will be firm friends by then, and he’ll never know any different. He’ll never know that my stepfather never existed. Where’s the harm in that?

  Take today for instance. Lloyd sat next to me in maths. He actually switched seats just to sit by me, and I sat in maths with Lloyd on one side and Ewan on the other. Two geniuses. I’ll never have problems understanding the lesson again. I wasn’t even nervous to have him sitting that close to me. Well, maybe a little nervous, but it’s not like I was so nervous that I stuffed a fluffy pen up my nose and had a sneezing fit. In fact, I’m still barely over the shock that he would ever sit next to me again after that particular incident, but he did.

  I think he’s the protective type.

  I realised that I don’t even have to try to be cool in his presence anymore. Thanks to this little domestic violence pretence, now I can just look all pathetic and victimised and flash my bruises at him, and he’s all like, “Hey, are you all right, Chessie? Do you want to copy my work?”

  It’s so good.

  Except for the fact that he really wants me to go and see Miss Gleave. That’s not so good.

  But I think he might like me. Not quite in the way I like him, but I’ll take what I can get.

  I don’t want to get ahead of myself or anything, but he actually asked me to go and eat lunch with him in the archway today, and he blushed while he was doing it. Like I blush when I’m talking to him, but not as much because Lloyd even looks cute when he’s blushing, whereas I look like an oversized lobster. I can’t believe that Lloyd Layton, most confident boy in school who could have any girl in the building eat lunch with him, would get nervous asking me. Me. By lunchtime I was so nervous that I couldn’t actually do anything other than nibble the corner of my roll. If I had stuffed myself with cheese salad and flapjacks like I normally do, he would have thought I was disgusting and greedy.

  But it was a nice lunch. We sat and talked and it wasn’t even just about domestic violence, he even started telling me about what car he’s going to get when he can drive and why he’d chosen that particular car over all the others. It was a little bit boring, to be honest, but he seemed to enjoy himself. I just nodded and tried to look like I knew what he was talking about.

  Now I just have to get him off this whole idea that I am an abused child, because the sooner I don’t have to lie to him anymore, the better.

  And my arm is really hurting.

  CHAPTER 26

  A week has gone by when I decide to tell Lloyd that my stepfather has moved out. I leave it until a Monday morning, thinking that I can tell him my parents had a huge row over the weekend, and my stepfather left, and now they’re getting a divorce so he’ll never beat me up again.

  I just hope that it’s enough time for Lloyd to realise that he likes me and that we can still be friends even though I’m not a victim of domestic violence anymore. I’m actually thinking about telling him that my parents’ argument was because of me telling my mother what my stepfather had been doing to me, and that I only had the confidence to stand up for myself because of Lloyd’s support. That should make him feel good about himself, like he’s really done something to help.

  Debs goes on ahead to the cafeteria that morning while I stand in the archway and wait for him.

  “Hey,” Lloyd says, coming in the opposite direction than usual. He’s late as well. “I have some news for you.”

  Hah. See how kismet we are? We both have news for each other at exactly the same time.

  “I have something great to tell you as well.” I smile at him, trying to go for my best helpless-but-pleased look.

  “You go first, Chessie. I woul
dn’t want to steal your moment.”

  That’s weird. He’s got a funny tone to his voice. Oh well. I shrug it off.

  “You’ll never guess what… My stepfather moved out. Can you believe it?”

  “Really?” he asks, flashing what looks like a fake smile at me. “That’s great. I can hardly believe it. In fact, I can’t believe it at all. What happened?”

  I think Lloyd must have gotten out of bed on the wrong side this morning because he’s being really off with me. I wonder if I should have left my news until after he’d had a cup of coffee or something.

  “I finally stood up for myself, and it’s all down to you. I would never have been able to do it without your support. I think I owe you, like, my life or something. I told my mum what he’d been doing to me, and they had a huge fight and he left. He’s gone forever. My mum said she’d never speak to him again in a million years, and she was so apologetic to me afterwards. I told her it was only because I’d met this boy in school who was encouraging me to speak up and tell the truth. So… Thank you, I guess.”

  “Now can I tell you my news?”

  “Sure.” I smile.

  “I’ve just been to see Miss Gleave. About you.”

  “Me?” I ask, getting a bit worried.

  “I figured you were never going to do anything about it on your own, and I can’t just stand by and watch a friend getting hurt, so I reported it to her. Told her in the strictest confidence, and she promised me that she’d take care of it. She was horrified that this kind of abuse could be happening right in front of her, right in front of all the teachers, and that no one knew a thing about it. She was really grateful to me for telling her.”

  I laugh nervously. “Well, there’s no need to now, because he’s gone, see? He won’t be back. Why don’t you go back and tell her that it’s all sorted out and I don’t need any help now. I’m fine, thanks to you.”

  “Oh no,” Lloyd says. “We can’t just let you – oh, sorry, I mean him – get away with it. Miss Gleave will tell the police, and they’ll go and arrest him.” He smiles at me in a horrible sort of way. That is not Lloyd Layton’s normal smile, and honestly, I’m getting really worried here.

  “Or maybe they’ll arrest you for wasting police time.”

  “Me?” I ask innocently. “Why would they arrest me?”

  “Oh, come on, Chessie, even you are not that stupid. Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”

  “Find out what?” Somehow, I don’t think playing innocent is working.

  “That you don’t and never have had a stepfather, Chessie.”

  I nod and swallow hard. Okay, I’m busted. “How did you find out?”

  “Ewan,” he says. “I happened to mention something about your stepfather to him at the weekend, and he said, ‘oh, that’s funny, Chessie’s mum isn’t married,’ and I—”

  “He was just a boyfriend. They weren’t married.”

  “Well, after that, Ewan went and asked his mum, who happens to be good friends with your mum, right?”

  I nod.

  “Do you know what she said?”

  I shake my head. I think these are rhetorical questions anyway.

  “She said that your mother was single, and had been single since your dad died approximately seven years ago. Strange, huh?”

  Okay, so I’ve blown it big time. Why didn’t I realise that Lloyd might think to ask Ewan?

  “Funny, right? Because you told me this guy had been living with you for two years.”

  “I’m sorry.” I figure that maybe truth is better than fiction this time. “Really sorry. I just wanted you to talk to me. I think you’re a great guy and when you came up to me after gym that day and you were so sweet, I thought that if I said I wasn’t being beaten up, that you’d go and then you’d never talk to me again.”

  “And what do you think you’ve achieved now, huh?”

  “I’m sorry.” I hang my head.

  “I can’t believe you would lie about something like that. It’s not a joke. People die, Chessie. Children die because of their own parents. It’s not something you can exploit or lie about. I bet you went home every night and had a really good laugh at their expense.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I say. “I felt really bad about it, but I was in over my head. How could I just suddenly say to you that it was all a lie? You’d hate me.”

  “Good guess,” he says. “So you were going to lie some more to get out of it.”

  “I didn’t intend for anyone to get hurt.”

  “Except for the children who get hurt every single day. I’m sure you don’t give a damn about them.”

  “I do,” I say, sudden inspiration striking me. “I’ll do something to make it up to them. I’ll help raise money for charity, like you do, right? I’ll do something, I swear.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Right.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  He just stares at me. I take that as a yes.

  “If you found out at the weekend, why did you go to Miss Gleave this morning? What did you tell her?”

  “Revenge is sweet, Chessie,” he says. “You can’t just go around saying shit like that and not get called up on it. You can’t go around accusing imaginary people of something they never did. As for what I told her, well, you’ll find out soon enough, I’m sure.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I say again. “I just wanted you to notice me.”

  “Well, here’s a wacky thought, you could have just come up to me and said, “Hey Lloyd, I really like you, wanna go out sometime?” But no, you have to lie about something serious like this.”

  “What do you want me to say?” I ask angrily. “I’m sorry. I knew I was wrong, and I swear that I’m going to do something to make it better.”

  “I don’t care, Chessie.”

  He slings his bag over his shoulder and goes to walk away.

  “Oh, by the way, where did those bruises come from?”

  “Have you seen the film Liar, Liar?”

  “Oh yeah, where Jim Carrey beats…” Comprehension dawns on his face. “I get it. I don’t want to hear any more.”

  He walks away just as the buzzer rings.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I’m sitting in French but I can’t concentrate on a thing. Lloyd is sitting directly behind me, and I swear I can feel his eyes burning into the back of my head. If I were flammable, I’d be a pile of ashes by now.

  I know I’ve blown it hugely, but I can’t just let it go. I can’t just let Lloyd Layton walk away from me when I was so close to having him like me. I know I’ve screwed up big time, but I’m sure the answer is simple. I will do what I said. I will do something for charity, something big, like a bungee jump or something but not a bungee jump because I’m scared of heights. But something big that will get Lloyd’s attention and make him realise that I really am sorry, and then he’ll like me again. But it has to be huge. It has to be something that will be really hard on me too, just so he knows that I’m making a sacrifice. I thought about donating all my old clothes or something, but that’s just too small scale. Anyone can donate a bunch of clothes they don’t wear anymore. I need something big, maybe something that I can get Lloyd involved in because he said he raises money for charity too, right? Maybe we could do something together, you know, if he ever speaks to me again.

  The other thing bothering me is Miss Gleave. What did he tell her, and when the hell is she going to do something about it? I’m expecting to be called to the principal’s office at any moment, or worse. What if the police come in with a battering ram and break the French class door down to arrest me for, I don’t know, false accusation, or creating an imaginary person, or wasting police time like Lloyd said.

  I wonder what prison is like.

  Miss Gleave leaves it until double technology that afternoon to talk to me. Just as Mr Vale is giving us a run through of the lesson, she knocks on the door and announces to the whole class that she would like to speak to me in private.
r />   I look helplessly towards Lloyd as I make my way to the front of the classroom, but he just winks at me as I pass.

  “Come with me, Chessie,” Miss Gleave says, and we go out the door and into an empty classroom further down the hall.

  “Take a seat. Now then,” she says gently. “It’s come to my attention that you might be having some problems at home. Is there anything you want to talk about?”

  Now, I’ve been playing this very conversation over in my mind all day. I expected that it would go something like this, and there are two options I can take here. I can play dumb, say no, I don’t know what she’s talking about, or I can play the Lloyd is an idiot card. I could say that he and I had a row and he was just looking for a way to get back at me, or that he’s made a mistake, and then I could hope that someone believed me because Lloyd is every teacher’s favourite student, and as far as I know, has never done anything wrong in his life.

  My body decides for me though, because when I go to answer her, my throat clams up and I can’t get my words out.

  “I’m fine,” I struggle eventually. “Everything’s fine.”

  She nods slowly. “A fellow student expressed some worry about you, some very serious worry. I just wanted to talk to you, and let you know that you’re safe here and you can talk to me about anything, and I will believe anything you tell me, no matter what. You should know, Chessie, that if there is anything, anything at all that you need to get off your chest, now is the time to do it.”

  “I’m fine,” I say again.

  “Okay.” She nods. “Well, I can’t make you talk if you don’t want to talk, but I feel you should know that some very severe accusations have been made and it is my job to take them seriously and ensure that this situation is thoroughly investigated. Is that okay with you?”

  I shrug. I have no idea what else to say.

  “I won’t keep you from your lesson any longer, but I just want you to know, and to keep in mind that my door is always open to you, Chessie. If there is ever anything, anything at all, that you want to talk about, please come to me anytime you need to.”