Toxic

by Nicci Cloke

  But other words rang out clear. Joni Hart whispered, ‘Slag,’ as I passed; ‘What a bitch,’ muttered Ben Williams to his friends. By the time you appeared, Charlotte and I were tucked in a corner and I didn’t hear the words everyone had for you.

  And then there was Logan. There was you, Zack, laughing about something with Marcus, and not even noticing Logan shoving his way past the boys milling around you. Not even noticing him until his toes were touching yours and his fists were full of your shirt, pulling you close to him.

  And everyone heard the words you said then.

  ‘Don’t cry about it, Logan. Just because she fancied a go with a real man.’

  The room got quiet then, even quieter, until all I could hear was Logan breathing, his knuckles turning pale as he gripped you. Nate thundering into the room just a few steps behind, trying to get through the crowd that was gathering. And behind you that big plate-glass window and everyone waiting to see who would end up thrown through it.

  But Logan didn’t push you. You’ll remember that.

  He put his face close to yours and he said: Call yourself a man.

  And then he let you go and he walked away.

  Though he didn’t look at me as he passed.

  I HID IN my room that night, watching Game of Thrones on the projector with my laptop lid flipped low so I couldn’t see any of the messages that popped up. Charlotte, Georgie, JB. Joni Hart asking why I’d been such a bitch to Logan. Your friend Marcus asking if I wanted to come for drinks with ‘the boys’ at the weekend.

  There was a knock at the door. I didn’t want to answer. I wasn’t very good at pretending to my parents that I was all right when I wasn’t, but I tried to put on my best ‘OK’ face and paused the film. ‘Come in’.

  Except it wasn’t my parents. It was Hope Novak.

  She stood in the doorway, dressed in leggings and a hoodie, her light hair in a ponytail. ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi.’

  She came over and sat on the end of the bed. I sat up properly and we faced each other, cross-legged.

  ‘Nate told me what happened,’ she said. ‘You doing OK?’

  I shrugged, as if that might stop her words from sticking around long enough for me to think about them. ‘I don’t remember what happened,’ I said. I wanted that to be the end of the discussion, but Hope seemed to think I was protecting you.

  ‘Nate does,’ she said. ‘You know he was driving, right? He was completely sober.’

  I picked up my Marauder’s Map cushion and hugged it to my chest.

  ‘Look,’ Hope said, ‘I get that you probably don’t want to talk about this. But I just wanted to check you were all right.’

  My fingers found a thick patch of stitching – Hogsmeade, I thought, tracing the roofs – and I nodded. ‘I’m fine. I just …’

  I trailed off and Hope let me. We both watched the paused image on the projector screen: Jon Snow looking pensive, one hand on the hilt of his sword, while a blizzard swirled behind him.

  ‘I heard about Logan starting on him today,’ Hope said, reaching up to pull her ponytail tighter. ‘You know Logan knows you wouldn’t do it, right?’

  I realised I was chewing my bottom lip and pressed the top one against it to stop myself. My fingers found the turrets of Hogwarts and I tried to focus on tracing them.

  ‘It’s nice of you to come,’ I said eventually. ‘I’m all right though.’

  My laptop bleeped again, followed by the buzz of my phone. It was close to Hope’s foot and I glanced down at it a second after she did; saw the preview on the lock screen too late to pull it away. Marcus.

  Don’t be like that. I know you like a good time ;)

  I kept on looking at it even as the screen turned dark again. I could feel Hope’s eyes on me.

  ‘Marcus is a prick,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t care about him.’

  ‘Nate and JB won’t let people talk about you like that,’ Hope said. ‘Neither will I.’

  I shrugged. ‘I drank too much. I don’t even remember.’

  ‘Whoa.’ Hope leaned back against the bed frame. ‘Daisy, don’t do that. It doesn’t matter how much you had to drink. It doesn’t matter how much he had to drink. Nate and JB had to pull him off your unconscious body.’

  I stared at her. She was the first to look away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said eventually. ‘I didn’t come here to have a go at you. I just … I wanted to let you know that I’m here. If you need me.’ She glanced back up at me. ‘Is that weird?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. Thank you.’

  She glanced up at the screen again. ‘I love this episode. Do you want to watch the rest?’

  And that’s how I ended up sitting on my bed with my ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, watching TV and saying nothing.

  HERE’S WHAT USUALLY happens:

  A rumour starts.

  A rumour spreads.

  People whisper and giggle and get bored.

  The rumour fades and another takes over.

  But people didn’t get bored of this one, did they? People loved the idea of quiet, boring Daisy shagging her ex-boyfriend’s best mate up against a supermarket wall. Especially the way you told it.

  They didn’t like Hope’s version of the story quite so much.

  We spent a lot of time together that week, Hope and I. Georgie and Charlotte. At lunch we went into town and tucked ourselves into a corner of the cafe where no one else goes; after school we hung out in bedrooms and watched box sets and ate whole cakes. And Hope or Char or Georgie would try to tell me how someone else had been talking about you and me, and how they had set them straight. I would cut myself another piece of cake, or find the remote, and wait until the conversation moved on. I guess I was still hoping it would all go away; that someone else would do something new.

  But of course, that someone was you.

  It was just Hope and me in the corner of the common room that break-time – Charlotte had a free period and had gone for a driving lesson, and Georgie was off sick. Hope was showing me a video on her phone of a dog that could supposedly say ‘bacon’, and we were sharing a bag of strawberry laces. We didn’t notice you until you were standing in front of us, your arms folded.

  It was the first time I’d seen you properly since the party. Three days of keeping my head down on my way to lessons, of ducking out to the cafe and to the park when I had nowhere to be. And then you were just standing there, collar turned up, a paper coffee cup from the place down town in your hand.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ you said, and your eyes moved from Hope to me.

  ‘Fuck off, Zack,’ Hope said, but your gaze stayed on me. I looked away and I tried not to think of the bump on the back of my head, of JB’s face as he pulled me into the art block corridor that Monday morning.

  ‘Daisy,’ you said, as if you couldn’t believe I’d dared to look away. ‘You’ve gotta stop this.’

  ‘Zack,’ Hope said, straightening in her seat. ‘I’m warning you –’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said, interrupting her. I stood up. Do you remember that? ‘Stop what exactly, Zack?’

  People were looking, of course they were. People are always looking, aren’t they?

  But you didn’t like it. You took a step closer, you lowered your voice. ‘Stop saying you didn’t want it,’ you hissed. ‘Stop getting your minions –’ you glared at Hope – ‘to tell people I … forced myself on you just cos you feel guilty.’

  ‘I’m not getting anyone to do anything,’ I said, and my voice sounded calmer than I’d expected, though I could barely hear it over the blood pulsing in my ears. ‘Nate and JB are just telling people what they saw.’

  You flinched – but just a little. And then you laughed.

  ‘Daisy, come on. Everyone else is just saying what they saw. You were all over me, it was kind of pathetic. You spent half the night talking to me, laughing at my jokes and getting me to buy you drinks. You were desperate for me to make a move.’
/>
  I was quiet then; you took that as a victory, I think. You looked around, trying to build on it. You didn’t seem to understand that your words had taken my breath away.

  ‘Isn’t that right, Dev?’ you asked. I hadn’t even noticed him behind you, his phone in one hand, a bottle of Lucozade in the other. He came towards you, looking awkward.

  ‘Isn’t what right?’

  ‘Daisy,’ you said, and you were looking at him then. ‘Daisy was all over me last weekend, wasn’t she? She was giving me the come-on big time.’

  Dev wasn’t looking at me then either. He glanced at Hope. ‘Well … yeah.’ People were crowding around now, eager to hear the fight. You and I were hot gossip again. You looked at Dev and he nodded, tapping the Lucozade bottle against his leg. ‘You did seem pretty keen, Dais.’

  ‘It’s difficult to be keen when you’re unconscious,’ Hope said, standing up too. ‘Come on, Daisy. You don’t have to listen to this.’

  You stared at me and I tried not to look away.

  ‘You wanted it,’ you said, and though the words wouldn’t come, I still managed to shake my head.

  THAT EVENING, HOPE took me to play squash. I hadn’t played for ages, not since my parents signed me up for lessons as a kid, but Hope’s dad was a semi-pro when he was younger and he lent us a couple of his rackets and dropped us at the courts. It felt good, hammering the ball around, Hope breathing hard beside me. When our arms were aching and both of us had round bruises on our bare legs from the ball, we walked out into the warm evening and went to mine.

  We took it in turns to shower and then we sat on my bed in our pyjamas, Goblet of Fire on the screen and a bottle of wine Hope had brought with her to keep us company. It hit me that there were two whole days of weekend ahead of us, no school – but then my phone buzzed with a message.

  You out tonight? ;)

  Some guy from the year above who I’d never even spoken to. I hit the off button. I hadn’t posted a new chapter all week either and I was starting to get comments about it on the previous one, people wondering when something new would be uploaded.

  ‘You OK?’ Hope asked, leaning over to top up my wine.

  ‘Yeah.’ I turned to her. ‘Hey, thanks for today.’

  She took a big gulp of her wine. ‘No problem. I still say you should tell someone about what happened.’

  ‘I can’t. I don’t even remember really – and nothing actually happened.’

  ‘But only because –’

  ‘We don’t know that, Hope. We don’t know what would’ve happened.’

  She sighed. ‘Are you gonna open that Haribo or what?’

  I reached at random for one of the four bags we’d bought on the way home. I opened it and took a handful before passing it over. We sat and watched Harry run his bath as my mouth filled with Haribo egg foam.

  ‘Look, Daisy, I feel like you’ve been open with me about all this stuff. Maybe I owe you some of that in return.’

  I turned on my side to look at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This … whole thing has made me think. A lot. And I’m not trying to say I know how you feel. At all. But.’ She stopped and we were both quiet as Moaning Myrtle put the moves on Harry. ‘I guess … well, this thing happened when we were on holiday.’

  I was surprised, later, that my first thought wasn’t Logan. But it didn’t cross my mind. I knew they wouldn’t do that to me.

  Instead I just said: ‘OK.’

  ‘It was the night before the last one, and we went on this big booze cruise to some island and it all got … out of hand.’

  ‘That was the night on that TV show?’

  Hope winced. ‘Yeah, I think so. I didn’t really watch it.’

  Harry was under the water, listening to the mermaids sing.

  ‘I was out of it,’ Hope said quietly. ‘I can’t even remember the end of the night. I … I woke up on the beach the next morning, no idea how I got there.’ She picked up a cola bottle but didn’t eat it. ‘My dress was pulled up, everyone could see. These two Scouse boys woke me up and tried to help me get home.’

  ‘Where were the others?’

  She shrugged. ‘They were all wasted. They went home.’

  ‘They didn’t even notice you were gone?’

  ‘I guess not.’ She dropped the cola bottle and picked up a jelly ring, sliding it down her finger until it rested on the first knuckle. ‘It was a really messed-up night.’

  ‘Do you think …’ My mouth felt dry. ‘Hope, are you saying something happened to you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think so. I didn’t … I didn’t feel any different, if you know what I mean.’ She glanced at me. ‘Look, Daisy, I’ve driven myself crazy trying to remember stuff from that night, imagining what could’ve happened, but I can’t. I can’t remember, and I hate that. I know you’re probably doing the same. But that’s my whole point. I don’t want you to beat yourself up for accidentally having a drink or three too many. It happens.’ She flicked the jelly ring off and stared at it. ‘It’s not an invitation. To anyone.’

  I swallowed hard. ‘I know that.’

  We sat and watched Harry and Hermione trying to figure out the second riddle.

  ‘They should have looked after you,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Yeah, they should. But I feel like all of them have completely forgotten what being a friend is supposed to mean, to be honest. Like, how many times have you heard Dev say, “Bros before hoes”? But then the day Nate’s sister died, where was Dev?’

  I shrugged and shook my head. I didn’t even know Nate or Dev then, not really.

  ‘He was round Mollie’s, trying to persuade her to sleep with him, as per.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And then there’s Logan,’ Hope continued, her voice getting louder, not seeming to notice the painful ache hearing his name gave me. ‘Anyone who spends more than ten minutes with him can tell he’s having a hard time. But will he tell any of them about it? Will they ask him?’

  ‘No,’ I said, but the faint shrill of the doorbell had distracted me.

  ‘Like, to quote our good friend Mr Weasley, they need to sort out their priorities.’

  ‘Hope,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, I know, I’m getting worked up, but it’s just –’

  ‘Hope.’

  She stopped talking and looked at me.

  ‘There’s someone downstairs,’ I said.

  We crept to the edge of the landing, though the voices were already carrying up: the murmured protests of my dad. The rumbling demands of yours.

  ‘– need to keep that daughter of yours under control,’ he was saying, as Hope pressed close to me against the banister. ‘She can’t go round making claims like that. Could ruin a boy’s future, a rumour like that.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand what you mean,’ my dad said, and a thrill of fear went through me. My quiet, kind dad. Me and you, slumped against a supermarket wall.

  ‘Your daughter, going round that school accusing my boy of rape.’ Your dad is loud. The word reverberated around our narrow hall, bouncing up, up, up to Hope and me. ‘I won’t have it. You don’t get to slag yourself around a party, leading lads on, and then cry rape when someone takes you up on it. You need to tell her that. You need to control your daughter.’

  ‘My daughter is a good girl.’ My dad is small and I’m sure he was intimidated. I could hear my mum coming in from the study, trying to interrupt, see what was wrong. But my dad stayed calm. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, but Daisy does not lie. I would like you to leave now.’

  I could only imagine what was going through his head then. Imagining me. Lying. Raped. Slagging myself around.

  ‘She was drunk and threw herself at him,’ your dad said. The words sounded wet; spit landing on my dad’s skin. ‘I’ve got the whole story, mate. Doesn’t sound like you have. But I’m telling you –’ The thud of his boots on the hall floor, steps taken closer, the shadow of his jabbing finger stretc
hing up the wall with every word. ‘My boy doesn’t deserve to have his whole life ruined for ten minutes of action, just because your daughter felt bad about her boyfriend after they were done. And I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. Just so you know. I’ll make sure of it.’

  ‘Stay here. I’m not listening to this,’ Hope said, and before I realised I could move, release my white-knuckled fingers from their grip on the banister, she was gone, fluffy socks flashing past me.

  ‘Girls like yours –’ Gordon was saying. ‘Oh, hello, Hope.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Hope’s voice, firm, loud. Finally bubbling up and covering the words he’d let loose in my house.

  And me, sitting there. Doing nothing.

  ‘Hope, I get that Daisy is your friend. But so’s Zack –’

  ‘Zack’s not my friend. And Daisy is not a liar.’

  ‘Well, you would say that, she’s your mate – and I respect that, Hope, I do. But boys will be boys and your little friend needs to learn that. You can’t just strut around a party being a total prick-tease –’

  ‘Please,’ my dad said. ‘Please leave now. We’re calling the police.’

  ‘If they call the police, Gordon,’ Hope said, ‘I’ll tell them that everything Daisy says is true. I’ll tell them how Zack joked about me being easy and a slag when we were on holiday, and I’ll tell them how a girl he fancied when we were away went missing the day before we left.’

  Your dad was silent; I could hear his mouth gape. And still I didn’t move.

  ‘There’s no need for talk like that,’ he said, and I heard our door handle turn. ‘But let’s just put this to bed, eh? So to speak.’ And as the outside air rushed in, I heard him laugh at his choice of words.

  ‘They weren’t in bed, Gordon,’ Hope said. ‘She was passed out in a car park and your son was on top of her.’

  And she closed the door on him.

  IT TOOK SOME time to calm my parents down. It took me, standing in between them, trying to explain. Hope sitting at our kitchen counter, trying to back me up. My mum, her business head on, trying to reason things out, explain how we could make it better. My dad, family man, afraid and out of his depth. But eventually they let us go.