by Mia Hoddell
The bus arrived shortly after and before long I was taking my regular seat, plugging in my iPod and on my way to what I predicted would be a hard day at college. I had turned up my music loud enough to drown out the incessant chatter of everyone gossiping and was staring out of the dirty window, so when Chloe sat down beside me and hugged me I almost flew out of my seat with fright.
“What the..” My words were cut off by Chloe’s contagious laughter and we both sat there clutching our stomachs in pain from laughing too hard at my reaction.
“Who else did you think it was Rea?” she said when we both had calmed down.
I knew Chloe had done it on purpose as she loves scaring me. And for once I wasn’t going to complain. Chloe had managed to brighten my day and momentarily made me forget everything else that cluttered my head.
“I was thinking. I didn’t realise we were already at your stop, you just startled me,” I said, looking slightly embarrassed as I took my headphones off and bent down to put them away in my bag. As I struggled to find the inside pocket in my bag to put my iPod in, I heard Chloe’s faint murmur. Her serious tone surprised me as it contrasted so drastically with what she was like minutes before.
“Um... If I were you Rea I would not look up right now.”
As her words registered, I noticed that the bus had gone unnervingly silent, which was something that never happened. Turning my head to look at Chloe I mouthed the words “why not,” as I didn’t want everyone to overhear our conversation.
“Just trust me and pretend you’re looking through your bag a little longer,” she whispered, not looking at me as her eyes were focused on something at the front.
Choosing to ignore Chloe’s warning I uncurled myself and noticed that practically all of the college students on the bus were staring at me with eager expressions on their faces.
“Chloe... Why is everyone staring at me?” I said nervously as I looked around.
Chloe didn’t reply though; instead she nodded towards the front of the bus. That was when I saw what everyone else had noticed and hurt flooded through me. Ian was making his way down the bus, holding hands with the girl he had been with yesterday. I hadn’t noticed before – as I wasn’t really interested - but it was a girl from my photography class, Alesha.
I thought that it was typical of Ian to pick one of the prettiest, most popular girls in our year as his new girlfriend. She was captain of all the sports teams, editor of the college newspaper, as well as many other extra curricular groups and top of all her classes. I couldn’t help but think that they made a perfect couple as they walked down the bus; his tall athletic figure, tanned skin, short brown hair, strong jaw line and her beauty was bound to make them the new power couple in the college. It didn’t make sense as to why he was ever with me in the first place when I saw them together.
As they approached us Ian’s eyes locked with mine, a cold expression washing his face as he led Alesha past us. The suspense on the bus heightened in that moment; everyone hoping for a fight or argument to kick off presumably, but it wasn’t going to happen unless Ian initiated one.
Once they had sat down and everyone had resumed talking Chloe turned to me. “Can you believe him? You only dumped him last night and he’s already parading her around!” she said in an angry whisper before adding, “you going to be OK?” in a more concerned tone while squeezing my arm in comfort.
“I know, I thought it would take at least a week before he made that official, especially after all of the texts he sent me last night. I had ten when I woke up. Oh well I’ll cope with it.” As I mentioned the texts a thought registered in my head. “Hang on, Alesha lives over the other side of town doesn’t she? Why would she get on this bus unless...”
Chloe could see where I was going with this and her face set in a grim line as she cut me off. “Rea don’t. You will only make yourself feel worse.”
She rested a calming hand on my shoulder but her words were no use. I had already connected all of the dots in my mind.
“That asshole text me begging for forgiveness and a second chance while she was still at his place doing god knows what,” I said incredulously. I wasn’t able to comprehend the fact that the Ian I had known for two years would have ever considered doing something like that.
I spent the rest of the short bus journey staring into space, trying to avoid thinking about what those two did after I had left. I didn’t even notice the bus had come to a stop. It was only when Chloe tugged at my arm did I move to get off it and start what I expected to one of the worst days in my life.
CHAPTER TWO
The day just kept on getting worse and worse as it moved on. Everywhere I went people parted with hushed whispers, accusing glances and sniggers. It was just as unbearable as being in high school and that fact I found hard to believe.
My morning classes were pretty much all the same, they came and went in a blur of unhappiness. A few people questioned me for intimate details but once faced with silence and a steely glare from whatever friend was with me and myself they tended to return to gossiping amongst themselves.
Facing all this inquisition I had never been more thankful to have Chloe’s support. After every class, she was waiting to walk with me to my next lessons, snapping at anyone who uttered a word about me; the most common ones being, “can’t see what he ever saw in her,” or “I’m not surprised he cheated.”
By lunch time I was feeling worse than I thought possible, and just wanted a black hole to open up and consume me so I wouldn’t have to sit through anymore of today.
Making my way out of a typically boring Geography lesson I headed towards the cafeteria but was stopped when someone pulled me into one of the empty Spanish rooms I was passing.
“Oh stop struggling Serena. It’s only me.”
His voice sent a nervous shiver down my spine and I was appalled that he still had that effect over me.
“I’m sorry, but when someone you can’t see drags me into a room it’s an automatic reaction,” I snapped, aware that I still had my back pressed too closely into his chest. “What do you want Ian? You made it perfectly clear this morning who you chose,” I said as I pulled myself from his embrace and turned to face him. He grimaced at my comment, while reaching his hand out to cup my face. I swatted his hand away as he began to speak.
“How you doing?” he asked, avoiding my question entirely.
“What the hell? How do you think I’m doing?” I hadn’t realised I was shouting until Ian placed a silencing hand over my mouth, which caused me to glare at him. He held it there for a few seconds, but when he removed it once again I continued to speak in a furious whisper. “In the past twelve hours I have been cheated on, lied to, been made a laughing stock and I’m providing the main source of gossip and entertainment for the whole college, all because of you, and you have the audacity to ask me how I’m doing?” My hands were moving in erratic gestures as I spoke.
“You haven’t given me a chance to explain,” he said, his eyes pleading with me for a second chance.“Rea it’s always you I -”
“Don’t bother Ian, if you care about me at all, do not finish that sentence,” I said harshly, cutting off the words he was about to utter. “It’s over Ian, you made your choice when you paraded Alesha around like a trophy this morning. Just leave me alone OK,” I said, my voice fading as I added the last few words.
I could feel my heart re-breaking all over again as I turned to leave and a few tears escaped from my eyes, which only made me want to leave quicker, so as not to let him see. I had just reached the door when he was suddenly behind me, spinning me around and pinning me against the wall. I was too stunned to react and before I could stop him, he bent down and let his lips touch mine. As soon as they met mine everything else was forgotten. It was just him and me in that moment and much to my resentment I started to kiss him back. It was only when I felt his rough hands toying with the edge of my shirt did I snap back into reality.
“Ian stop,” I mumbled again
st his lips and I felt him smile as he continued, his hands moving higher underneath my shirt.
“Ian stop it now,” I said more forcefully as I turned my head to the side, breaking the kiss, while pushing his chest.
My force momentarily shocked him and he stumbled back slightly, hurt spreading across his face.
“What the hell Rea?” he questioned as anger began masking the hurt he had shown.
“We are not together anymore. You don’t just get to randomly start making out with me whenever you feel like it Ian.” My voice was getting louder as I spoke.
“You kissed me back Rea, I know you still have feelings for me.” He started to walk back towards me, his expression cautious, like a hunter who was trying not to spook its prey. I hated to admit it but he was right; I had kissed him back and for a split second it felt like nothing had changed and even though I had these feelings still, I knew I would only get my heart broken again if I let him back in.
“I’ll get over you Ian, hopefully as quickly as you got over me. This ends now OK, you don’t talk to me, I don’t want to see you and you definitely have no right to touch me anymore! Just leave me alone OK?” Before he could reply I rushed out of the room, only vaguely noticing Alesha who was stood resting against the wall nearest the door.
Hurrying towards the cafeteria I tried to hold back the angry tears that were threatening to fall. I didn’t want to give people more topics to gossip about. As I walked into the big white room that was filled with rows of wooden tables, Chloe flew instantly to my side and was not long followed by the others, who were bombarding me with questions.
“Guys give her a break OK?” Chloe said, turning on the three girls behind her before looking back to me, “you want to go somewhere quieter Rea?” she asked, noticing I was about to lose it. Nodding I let Chloe lead me away, the others picking up our lunches and following behind.
We headed for the textile department, knowing that Sue, the teacher, wouldn’t mind us being in there as Chloe was one of her best students. As we sat down around one of the large, fabric covered tables we waited for the teachers to leave, Chloe explaining we just needed somewhere quiet as I wasn’t feeling too well, before we started talking.
“Rea what happened?” Mel asked.
I sniffled my reply. “Well I was on my way from geography to lunch when Ian dragged me into one of the Spanish classrooms, telling me I needed to let him explain.” Four faces stared at me, all of their mouths were wide open and speechless, which was an unusual occurrence. “Anyway when I told him we were over, and tried to leave, he pushed me against the wall and started kissing me,” I said, leaving out the part about his hands wandering up my shirt. “I pushed him away and when I told him he had no right to do that anymore he started going on about how I still have feelings for him because I kissed him back and all that.” I buried my head in my hands, trying unsuccessfully to hide my tears.
“Rea he’s a jackass, just forget him OK, he’s not worth it,” Chloe said while rubbing a hand up and down my back in comfort.
“He’s right though Chlo, I did kiss him back, and I couldn’t help but only be aware of him when we were so close. It was like nothing had happened.” I sighed.
“That’s normal Serena, you just need time to adjust, it will get better if you stay away from him,” Lindsay said from across the table.
“Yeah, Linds is right. I know everyone is being a real pain in the ass right now but you’re just going to have to ignore it Rea, show him you don’t need him and don’t care what anyone says. Do the same with Alesha too,” Becka chipped in.
I was thankful to have them as my friends, but Bec mentioning Alesha made me groan. “Ugh I have photography with her next...”
My friends looked at me sympathetically.
“It’s only an hour Rea, and you’ve never talked to her before, I’m sure you can last that long. We can all go out and get a smoothie after, seeing as it’s so warm today if you want as well,” Chloe offered and I gladly accepted, slightly happier I didn’t have to go home to face my parents so soon.
Lunch ended faster than I wished and before I knew it I was headed toward photography with Chloe giving me her idea of a pep talk as we walked.
“Just ignore her, think about the money we’ll spend on clothes and food after college OK? We’ll buy you a new outfit to make him jealous.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, which I’m sure was her goal to begin with.
As I walked into photography with a smile on my face, I blanked Alesha like Chloe had said and found that the hour went by surprisingly quickly. I spent most of my time in the back, experimenting with inks and photos so I didn’t see much of anyone during the lesson anyway.
After college Chloe dragged me shopping, fulfilling her promise but Lindsay, Mel and Becka all had stuff to do so made their excuses and left.
The sun was scorching as we walked down the street to our favourite smoothie bar and Chloe made sure that the conversation topic stayed away from anything that could be remotely related to Ian. We both ordered our favourites and took them out into the park as I had managed to convince Chloe that I had no money to spend on a new set of clothes. My mum would have thrown a fit if I had brought home another new outfit that was destined to sit in my wardrobe, unused like a lot of items found there.
As we sat there talking I focused more of my attention on what was going on around me rather than listening to what Chloe was saying. There were a few couples holding hands, dog walkers and little children who had broken up from school for summer already. While I watched the carefree kids, Chloe’s words vaguely registered in my mind.
“All I’m saying is she shouldn’t have ditched everyone for him. She hasn’t...um earth to Serena?”
I looked up guiltily. “Sorry, was just thinking. What were you saying?”
She let out an exaggerated sigh in mock annoyance but she was probably pleased about being able to talk some more.
“I was saying how wrong it is of Nat to continually ditch her friends for this guy off some social networking game; I mean she hasn’t even met the guy.”
“I don’t understand,” I said looking confused.
“Nat, you know, Natasha Thomas? Well she downloaded one of those social networking games onto her phone and no one has seen her since, it’s like she dropped off the face of the planet. She apparently met this guy on one of them because no guys here would date her. Anyway that’s all I know so that’s all anyone knows.” I laughed at that comment. It was true though, if Chloe didn’t know it then the likelihood of anyone else knowing was slim to none.
An idea suddenly came into my head as I thought about what Chloe was telling me. I stood abruptly, making the excuse that I had forgotten that my mum wanted me to do something. I added that if I hadn’t got it done by the time she was home from work, I would end up grounded with no social life in future.
Then I rushed home as fast as I could, my mind already thinking up ideas about what I could do on those games. I knew I was fed up of wallowing in self pity and a random guy to take my mind off Ian seemed like the perfect solution to me. Especially as all the people at my college were either laughing or gossiping about me.
Running up to my room, I took the stairs two steps at a time, before I entered my room and grabbed my iPod off the side table. Collapsing on my bed I let my heart rate slow and my breathing level out as I unlocked the screen, smiling at my background: Things to do today: Get up, Survive, Go back to sleep.” That pretty much summed up my life in that moment, I was just trying to get through each day.
After scrolling through a list of different games for twenty minutes I found five that I liked the look of. They were all made by the same people but had different themes: Ninja, Vampire, Fashion, DJ and Mafia. The fashion and vampire themed games were for me but I figured the others would be the ones that most guys would be attracted to.
After installing games I learned that the main objective of it was to build up an empire or skill level by comple
ting missions or attacking other players who had a smaller friend group (or allies). Being a newbie though at level one with no friends, I didn’t want to start attacking others.
Finishing the tutorial on the vampire game it finally asked me to enter a username to which I would go under. I was unsure as to why I thought of the name Darcie, it just happened to be what I typed in. As I was about to press enter I had a second thought and added a little pink heart after my name just to make it obvious that I was in fact a girl.
With my all my profiles set up under the fake name of Darcie<3, I began completing missions and building up my resources, hoping some people would start talking to me as I climbed the levels. Fortuitously I soon ran out of battery and was forced to stop which was okay with me as I was already getting bored; besides the odd person attacking me I had received no messages so far. After checking each game on the last drop of power I put my iPod on charge and decided to go out and work on my photography project seeing as the sun was still blazing high in the sky. Besides, after a claustrophobic day I needed some fresh air.
I was studying natural forms in photography so headed towards the outskirts of the Andaco Forest. I had changed my flip flops in favour of my worn and battered looking trainers, and as I reached the tree line of the start of the forest I was thankful I had. The ground was still wet and slightly boggy from the previous day’s downpour as the canopy of thick pine trees allowed very little light through.
Walking deeper into the trees I noticed the city getting smaller and obscured with heat haze, until the treeline swallowed it completely from view. But I didn’t mind as I had been into the forest hundreds of times, since I was little. I knew my way around and had never seen anything besides deer.
Carrying my Canon DSLR camera in front of me I kept my eyes focused on finding some good shots to add to my college portfolio. I came across one patch where the sun had managed to escape through the dense tree tops and shone down in beams, highlighting the water drops that were hanging off the ends of some curled up fern leaves. Setting my camera to the right exposure and shutter speed, I knelt on the nearly dry, pine needle covered floor and took a few shots. Moving on I took some pictures of the rare wild purple flowers, shaped like a butterfly’s wings, that can only be found in this part of Mavera. I noticed that the deep rich purple contrasted with the greens and browns brilliantly as I quickly flicked through my image reel.