Toxic

by Nicci Cloke

  I started thinking maybe that could be quite cool. I even started writing a rough draft of a chapter where they kissed.

  Then one evening, I checked the comments again. A new user, ryecatcher, had joined in the conversation.

  omg no that would be such a Buffy/Spike rip-off. don’t do it, trilby!

  Trilby was my username, and after that I stopped reading the comments. At least until I finished the book. And after that I was too scared. Too worried that I’d disappointed kc and darkangel and the other people who’d been following the story.

  But after the break-up, as the summer started to end, I began again.

  And you? You carried on too.

  We all went to town one day: Georgie, Charlotte, JB and me. Finally time for me to buy that new notebook and start making a proper plan for the sequel. And it was nice to have Charlotte and Georgie hanging out again, the awkwardness between them finally starting to fade away now that it was clear Josh wasn’t going anywhere. I could tell Charlotte still minded, just a bit, but she was trying, and I could tell that Georgie was grateful. Grateful enough that we all sat for hours, watching Charlotte try on dress after dress for the end-of-summer party at the Wheatsheaf.

  ‘Come on, mate,’ JB sighed, after she rejected the ninth or tenth. ‘It’s bloody roasting in here and you look great in everything you’ve tried on. Just pick one!’

  Charlotte stuck her head back round the curtain. ‘Um, you’re supposed to enjoy this type of thing now, Jonathan – didn’t anyone tell you?’

  JB rolled his eyes. ‘I’m gay, Char, not Gok Wan. Shopping is still boring and I’d much rather be in the pub. Can we go to the pub?’

  ‘Just let me try on one more,’ Charlotte said, ducking back into the cubicle.

  ‘Why the big effort, babe?’ Georgie asked, elbowing JB, who huffed and leaned back in his seat. ‘I mean … it’s only the Wheatsheaf, right?’

  ‘Wouldn’t have anything to do with Billy Butler from the year below, would it?’ JB said, grinning slyly at me.

  ‘No!’ Charlotte’s head popped out again, cheeks pink. ‘Why, did he say something?’

  JB laughed. ‘I saw you guys talking at Azar’s party the other night. He obviously fancies you.’

  ‘I’m just making sure the new lower sixth feel welcome at the start of the year,’ Charlotte said from behind the curtain, though we could all hear the smile in her voice.

  ‘So, you gonna come to the party, Dais?’ JB offered me his packet of gum. ‘Last night of freedom and all that?’

  ‘Oh, umm …’ I hated the Wheatsheaf. It was OK in the day, but at night, with its sticky carpets and loud music and guys leering at girls, like us, who were too young to even be in there, it frightened me.

  ‘Come on, you have to,’ Georgie said, putting her arm round me. ‘It’ll be fun. We’ll just sit in a corner and drink stupidly sweet drinks and watch everyone else make idiots of themselves.’

  I glanced at JB. ‘Will Logan be there?’

  He chewed on his lip before answering. ‘I’m not sure. I’m trying to persuade him but he’s not keen to do much at the moment.’

  ‘Don’t worry about him,’ Georgie said, not understanding. ‘Look, it’s our last night before everyone starts wanging on about A levels and uni again. Let’s all go and get a bit drunk and a bit silly and have fun. It’ll be good for you, Dais. It’ll be good for all of us.’

  I REMEMBER THAT evening, after Charlotte had finally chosen a dress and we’d all gone our separate ways home. My new notebook was sitting on the bed beside me, but even though the words had started to flow, I was still nervous about deciding exactly what was going to happen to Hannah in book two. Still scared of letting someone down, even with my silly story.

  I flipped open my laptop and looked idly at the first book on StoryCity. I tried to remember how I’d felt writing that one, tried to get excited again about making something new. I read all of the comments users had left on each chapter, trying to soak them in. I sat and looked at the comments on the last chapter for the longest of all.

  love this so much

  aww man i was hoping Hannah would get together with Lupa

  this rocked so hard

  soooo hope the basilisk shows up in the sequel!

  don’t make us wait too long for the next book, trilby!

  Hannah Hass is my new idol. I wish I was as badass as her

  ^^^ so agree with this. we all need to be more like Hannah <3

  I wanted to be more like Hannah then too.

  And I still do. Even though Hannah’s story is done now – I finished it over Christmas just gone, a whole six months after you all set off on that Malia holiday – I want to write again. I want to tell my story, over and over.

  I know you are afraid of that, Zack.

  I DON’T REMEMBER that night, though of course you know that already.

  Well, no, rewind – I remember the beginning at least. I remember getting ready round at Georgie’s, Charlotte checking out her dress from every possible angle, JB cooking us all a couple of pizzas. We sat in the garden and drank wine his mum gave us while we ate.

  ‘I thought eating was cheating,’ Georgie said, nudging JB, but he just shrugged.

  ‘Maybe the game isn’t to get drunk as fast as possible any more. Maybe it’s time we just started aiming to have a fun night?’

  I chinked my glass against his and thought, I can do that.

  I remember arriving too; David dropping us off, pushing a tenner at Georgie and JB so they could get a taxi home. I remember feeling happy in my outfit – a cute collared Sixties-style swing dress I found on eBay that swooshed around my thighs as I walked. I’d found laces the same colour yellow for my Converse and I felt like I’d stolen the last bit of summer and saved it up. I remember JB holding the door open for me, Charlotte’s arm slinking through mine.

  It was packed, wasn’t it? Almost everyone from our year and the year below; loads of people from the year above, who were all getting ready to go to uni in a couple of weeks. It was some kind of charity night so the Wheatsheaf had booked a DJ and some lights and somehow the swoops of pink and red and green hid the sticky carpets and caught everyone’s best side as they flashed by.

  I looked around for people, for all of you. For Logan. JB had said he wasn’t answering his phone that day and Nate hadn’t spoken to him either. I’d thought about calling you, but something stopped me. I guess I was still angry with you for the way you’d treated JB. And, let’s be honest, you and I have never been close. I always got the impression you thought I was boring. Not ‘up for a laugh’ enough. You said that once, when you thought I couldn’t hear you. But I didn’t really mind. I wasn’t that bothered about being someone you thought was a laugh, which you probably noticed. So you kept your distance, mostly.

  So it was a surprise, that night at the Wheatsheaf, when you came over to me.

  But you did. You appeared on the other side of the bar and you headed right for us – for me. You gave me a hug, and you put a hand on my shoulder as you asked if I was OK. You’d heard about what happened, you said.

  ‘How’s Logan?’ I asked, and your face creased. With concern maybe, or confusion.

  ‘He’s fine,’ you said, and even though I wanted that to be a good thing, the words sliced into me. Just a little.

  You asked if you could buy me a drink, and I said yes. I needed it suddenly. I was thinking that perhaps I was wrong; perhaps Logan had just wanted to break up and that was it. There was nothing secretly wrong or anything he was hiding. He just didn’t want to be with me.

  You bought me a glass of wine and you stood beside me while I sipped it.

  ‘Not really your scene, is it?’ you said, but you didn’t make it sound like a bad thing.

  ‘Can’t hurt to have a change,’ I said, and I took another big sip of wine. I wanted to ask you if Logan was coming but I wasn’t sure what I needed the answer to be.

  ‘That’s what I always say,’ you said, and you winked
at me.

  Charlotte came back from the toilet and you disappeared into the crowd again. I drank the drink you’d bought me and then I bought myself another. I hadn’t eaten much of the pizza and my head felt lighter, it felt quieter. I sang along to the songs the DJ was playing as they turned down the lights, and when Charlotte suggested a bottle of wine, so we wouldn’t have to keep going to the bar, I agreed.

  People say now – I hear them, I’m sure you do too – that it wasn’t enough to be as drunk as I say I was. Girls at school spent weeks listing all of the times they’ve drunk a couple of vodkas and a few glasses of wine and been fine. They say I’m a liar because somehow that’s easier to believe than the idea that I am a lightweight. But I am. I always have been.

  We spoke again later – just like you told everyone. I was at a table near the edge of the dance floor, pouring the last of the bottle into my glass while Charlotte talked to Billy Butler, who’d been eyeing her up all night. You came up, asked me if I was having a good time.

  I smiled and I told you I was.

  I should tell you now that I’ve thought about that conversation a lot. I wonder what I said or what you saw that made you think the way you did.

  But I don’t remember. I just don’t.

  I remember dancing. We all do. Me and Charlotte and Nate and Dev; Hope too. Faces smiling back at me, the crappy disco lights shading them pink and then green and then blue. Another bottle of wine was bought, but then Charlotte loomed over me, a glass of water in her hand. I pushed her away; I pulled her close and kissed her cheek.

  I fell. Aiming for a chair or perhaps just losing which way was up, my weight spilling back onto the floor. Dev was there, helping me up. You OK, Dais? Want some water?

  And then you. Arm steering me away from the dance floor, to a bench outside. I’ve got her, guys. She’s all right.

  I REMEMBER THAT morning, the way my eyelids stuck together as I tried to open them, the inside of my mouth thick and dry. There was a pain in my head which worsened every time I moved – just a hangover headache, I thought, but when I put my hand to the back of my head I felt a bump there.

  When I sat up, things started coming back to me – small snatches of time, fluttering through my head without settling. JB helping me out of a taxi, my mum helping me into bed. I cringed, wishing I could throw the duvet back over myself.

  There was something else too – a memory of opening my eyes and looking up at a patch of starry sky, the ground hard underneath me. I ran my hands over the backs of my legs and found small, painful lumps there. Pieces of gravel. I pulled them out as I tried to stop the pounding behind my eyes.

  And then you. I remembered you. Leading me out of the pub, laughing. I remembered your voice, raised, JB’s even louder.

  But the words wouldn’t come. The words were gone.

  I got in the shower and got ready for school.

  I was late to registration after enduring my mum’s lecture about drinking too much, drinking on a school night, embarrassing myself and my friends. I let her work her way onto how polite and nice JB was, her anger running out of steam, and then made for the door with a piece of toast I couldn’t really stomach.

  It’s just Charlotte and me in my form – no you, no Logan, no JB or Georgie or Nate or Dev. For some reason I didn’t understand, I felt relieved about that as I hurried in and took my seat next to her.

  Miss Elsworth glanced up as she marked me in, but the rest of the room was lost in conversation, people catching up after the summer. Charlotte gave me an odd look.

  ‘You OK?’

  I nodded. ‘Feel quite rough.’

  ‘What happened to you last night? You just disappeared. I thought we were getting a taxi home together.’

  I felt my face turn hot. ‘I was so drunk, I don’t know … JB took me home, I think.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘No, he did. I’m sorry, Char. Did you have a good night though?’

  But she didn’t answer me. She was fiddling with the ring on her thumb and then she looked up at me.

  ‘Dais … did something happen with you and Zack?’

  My stomach lurched. Your name had been there that whole time, lodged in my head, my throat. I just hadn’t wanted to hear it, to bring it out and think about how it got there.

  ‘No!’ My face was getting hotter, sweat cooling on my back. ‘Of course not. Who said that?’

  ‘A lot of people. Apparently you guys went to the car park to have sex.’ She whispered the last part. ‘That’s not true, surely.’

  ‘Of course it’s not,’ I said, but there was a sour taste in my mouth, the memory of that patch of sky again. When the bell went for first period, I had to stop myself from running for the door.

  It was Dev I saw first. He caught up to me halfway across the playground, those neon Wayfarers tucked into the neck of his polo shirt. ‘All right, Dais?’

  ‘Hi.’ I kept my head down, feeling eyes on my skin as people passed me.

  ‘Good night last night?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Watching loose crumbs of asphalt skidding under people’s feet reminded me of the balls of granite I’d picked out of my skin that morning. The bump on the back of my head pulsed.

  ‘Look, I think it’s cool,’ Dev said, slinging an arm round my shoulders. ‘You and Zack. Don’t think Lo’s gonna like it, but I’ll back you guys up.’

  I shrugged him off. My skin felt white-hot and I couldn’t bear his touch. ‘Me and Zack are not a thing, Dev. How could you think that?’

  His face creased in confusion. ‘But last night …’

  Last night last night last night. It thudded through me but all that echoed back was emptiness: I can’t remember.

  ‘What happened last night?’ I asked, forcing myself to look Dev in the eye.

  He was still looking confused. ‘You and Zack … you guys left the party together. You were all over each other–’

  ‘Daisy.’ JB jogged up beside me. ‘You OK? I need to talk to you.’

  ‘I’ll leave you guys to it,’ Dev said, walking backwards with his palms held up. ‘Catch you later.’ And he turned and walked back towards Main Block – and with a sense of dread, I saw you appear there, lost in conversation with a guy from your form. A shark swimming towards me as I waited in my cage.

  And then JB’s hand closed around mine, and he pulled me into the art block, out of sight.

  ‘Daisy, are you OK?’ he asked again, and then: ‘Daisy, do you remember?’

  And I shook my head and didn’t know which question I was answering. ‘Did I –’ I shook my head again, the words too wrong to even come out. ‘People are saying I slept with Zack.’

  JB’s lips turned thin, his eyes fixed on mine. ‘You didn’t.’

  I nodded then, relief flooding through me.

  ‘You were out of it, Dais …’

  I remembered stumbling on the dance floor, laughing faces yawning over me, a forest of hands stretching out to pick me up. ‘I fell over.’

  ‘Yeah, you did. Look, I don’t know how to explain this … Zack … Zack and you were dancing a bit and then you kept falling over. And he said he was taking you outside for some air.’

  It didn’t sound like you. But the story kept coming.

  HERE’S HOW IT goes:

  You say you kissed me.

  You say I kissed you back.

  I say I cannot remember.

  You say you asked me if I wanted to go somewhere.

  You say I said yes.

  I say I cannot remember.

  I say I can’t imagine saying that.

  You say you led me away from the pub, to somewhere more private. The place you chose was the empty staff car park behind the supermarket.

  You say that on the way there I fell over. Twice. You say I laughed.

  The scrapes and cuts on my shins and my elbows agree with you.

  You say that we kissed against a wall, a wall that helped keep me upright.

  You say that when we fell, we fell t
ogether.

  We lay there together.

  We were in it together.

  Nate and JB say they came out to find me and saw you on top of me on the ground.

  They say that my skirt was pushed all the way up.

  They say that I wasn’t moving.

  When they pulled you off, you said they didn’t understand.

  You said we were just having some fun.

  I say I cannot remember.

  ‘I DON’T UNDERSTAND.’ My pulse thudding again, wine still churning in my belly. ‘You’re saying he –’

  I didn’t understand what he was saying you did or wanted to do or could have done.

  JB was leaning against a wall. He looked down at the floor and did not look at me.

  ‘I’m saying that you were passed out, and he was on top of you. Nate and me, we pulled him off you before … before anything happened.’

  ‘You’re saying …’

  I didn’t finish that sentence. We looked at each other.

  ‘Daisy, whatever you want to do, I’ll back you,’ JB said.

  I moved away, straightened the strap of my bag across my body. ‘What is there to do?’

  ‘I mean, if you wanted to report him …’

  ‘No.’ I surprised myself; perhaps now I’m surprising you too. ‘Nothing happened. It’s nothing.’

  It was nothing and yet it was everything, wasn’t it? In other people’s heads, in other people’s mouths, you and I had so many stories.

  We were getting together, we were a one-night stand. It was the first time, it wasn’t. I chased you, you’d always wanted me. I was on a rebound, I’d dumped Logan for you.

  Logan.

  I thought of him first; did you? How he’d feel when he heard that rumour, what he’d think of me. I kept picking up my phone to text him, but couldn’t find the words. Because I couldn’t remember.

  And then it was lunchtime and Charlotte linked her arm through mine and walked me to the common room. ‘Just ignore them,’ she said. But I hadn’t told her what JB had said – those words were lost as well and I was too scared to even try to look for them.