by Sarwah Creed
Mom’s death had stopped me eating as much sometimes. Not all the time. But since I’d been here, I’d been eating only once a day. Not because I didn’t have access to food. I had that. But not the type I had before. The plate was given to me mostly with salads and lean meat, if that. Most of the time it was fish. A type that I didn’t recognize and didn’t want to sound like a complete idiot, so I didn’t ask. I’d eat not knowing what was on my plate.
So, I didn’t ask, and I didn’t eat all of it.
The first time, I was so sick, and the thought of food had made me want to barf. Then after that, it kind of came naturally, only eating once a day. Yeah, I haven’t been doing it for a full week so I couldn’t start counting how many pounds I’d lost, but it made a change actually eating to survive rather than eating to forget.
I thought about what it would be like after a whole year at the academy. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. It had a rocky start, but that didn’t mean that it would end bad.
Maybe having Mr. Hawk by my side would make a difference. After all, he knew my father. Not my mom. Which made me want to know him even more.
Chapter Eighteen
The first day back at the academy. Technically, it was my second, but I was trying to move on and get past my worse fear. They’d done the worse to me on the first day. I just hoped that they couldn’t do any more. I knew that Mr. Hawk was on my side, but I didn’t want to be the kid that told on other kids every time they were mean. But these guys weren’t mean. They were downright cruel.
But that was all in the past. I could only fucking hope that we could all move on.
I was the orphan.
I was not even close to a size six.
And my parents weren’t rich. One was dead and up until four days ago, I thought that both were dead.
I sighed as they looked at me, the same way that they did the first day. But I knew that no one was laughing at my tight uniform or the fact that I looked as if I was in the middle of a monsoon. I recited in my head a hundred times last night and this morning about how to get to each class and back. I didn’t want to ask anyone the way. I wanted no reason to be anywhere that I shouldn’t be and fuck, I was so paranoid.
I had every reason to be.
It didn’t help that Mr. Hawk said, “If anything goes wrong, anything that doesn’t go the way that it should, you come to me.”
I spent my first day at the school with him. Was I supposed to run to him every time someone did something? No, I had to get on with it. I had to be bigger than that if I wanted to know who my father was and that was something that I was desperate to learn. The man who fathered me wasn’t my dad, he wasn’t event someone I knew or could pick out in a line, but he was my flesh and blood. So, until I knew who he was, I was staying and there was no way I was running to Mr. Hawk every time the going got tough.
I could be tough too.
I had to be, after all I was an orphan.
Chapter Nineteen
I sat down in class early that Monday morning, and it wasn’t long before I became a student. Something that I had forgotten how to be, not because of the academy or the tragedy that I’d encountered over the last few weeks, but the summer vacation. It felt at the time as if it was going on forever and then when it did come to an end, it felt too short.
Crazy.
I was kind of a freak when it came to books. I loved to read, eat, learn and eat, Oh and now the thought of food was playing on my mind so much that it had me thinking about eating once more.
No, I just had breakfast and the joy of eating again wasn’t going to happen again for another three hours and twenty minutes. Not that I was counting, but then as I looked at the time, I knew that wasn’t true. The teacher came into the class and shut the door, and I closed the door on my thoughts about how much of a comfort food was.
He looked like a drill sergeant, or like the teacher out of that movie Matilda. A male version of Agatha Trunchbull, he was a big man with an overgrown stomach in a tight suit, that seemed to be his old Army suit, something that he hadn’t stopped wearing even years after leaving the Army. Or maybe this is what the teachers were like.
Shit.
I wasn’t going to be intimidated, I refused to think that my second first day would be my last. Until they walked in. Two guys that clearly were twins but had different haircuts and blue eyes. The type that a girl could get lost in. The type that made me forget how nervous I was before today.
It was as if they cruised in and everything came to a halt. Even the teacher stopped talking as he waited for them to sit down and then everything went back to normal. My eyes were fixed on them, and it was clear when one of them spat out, “What are you looking at?”
Shit! I turned away thinking that they would forget the stare, that the class would go on, but I was wrong as he stood up and repeated his words.
“What the fuck are you staring at?”
“Language, Mr. Hawk. I will not tolerate such language in my class. Now sit down.”
He didn’t. And his eyes didn’t move from me, and now they were joined by the rest of the class.
“Sorry,” I whispered hoping that my second first day at the academy wouldn’t result in me leaving here. I couldn’t forget Mr. Hawk knew my dad and I needed to know who he was, I’d spent the last few weeks thinking that I was an orphan. Now, that I knew there was a chance that there was something more to know, I had to find out what it was.
The young man hesitated for a minute, but I knew that this wasn’t over. That I would have to respond, so the eyes would no longer be on me and the first day, take two, led to me actually going to classes the following day.
I never knew that it would be tough, but I was the girl. The orphan as I’d been asked so many times from the first time I came here.
“What did she say?”
I sighed, as his brother answered the question.
“Sorry.”
They both laughed as he sat down, and their laughter was copied by everyone else in the class. I wondered if I was set up to fail from the moment I came here. Part of me didn’t care as the teacher started to teach and everyone forgot what was going on earlier. Everyone apart from one of the Hawk’s whose eyes never left me. As much as I´d wished that the he would look away, another part liked it.
Chapter Twenty
Lunchtime couldn’t come any sooner, as I rushed into the line and wished that I could point to everything that was being cooked. The kids may be rich, but the food was fit for royalty. Damn, one thing was for sure, they’ve got everything on the stove when it comes to lunchtime.
Chicken, lamb, fish and even vegetarian. It was like a buffet at a five star hotel, that I’d been to only once and even then it didn’t smell as good as what was on offer in front of my eyes. I must admit that my heart was beating so hard as I heard the lunch bell that all I could think about was eating and how good it was that first day and every meal that I’d had here had been the same.
But food wasn’t that great that it would keep me here, not against my will.
“Chicken and fries please with some peas,” I said as my mouth was watering and I was almost too damned hungry to speak but dying to ask for her just to put every damned thing on my plate, like the lamb and fish too.
“Ok, sugar. Here you go.”
The cafeteria worker was neatly dressed in a polo and matching dark pants as if she did work in a fancy restaurant and not an academy. Even the ones that tidied up and cleaned the floor were dressed the same way, I couldn’t even call them cleaners because there were dressed too fancy to be called that.
Everything about the academy made Rock Hill High look like a dump in comparison, and until I came here, I thought that we were fancy. We had a lot of books, equipment, descent grounds and loads of sports, not that I’d ever participated in any of them. But, everything about my old high school never seemed to be lacking in any way. That was until now.
Funny in a way.
I hummed as I thought about the barbec
ue chicken and fries that were going to be filling my mouth and sink into my stomach. The place that they belonged, I just needed to get to a table. I raced at an uneven pace to my table. I didn’t care where I sat, if it was alone or if someone joined me, as long as I was eating. I saw an empty space and I claimed it from the moment I put my tray down and my backpack swiftly followed. I took the time to take the cutlery out when what I really wanted to use my hands. But I wanted to eat like a lady. Even if all I really wanted was to eat it like a bull head on, showing no mercy.
Fuck, I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I saw the food in front of me and claimed it like some cave woman.
Yes, yes, I wanted to say out loud, but I kept repeating it in my head as my fork took on as much chicken as possible and a little of the peas. Don’t get me wrong, the fries looked good. Just like McDonald’s. But the chicken looked as if it had just come off the barbecue.
It was about to reach my mouth when all of a sudden, another hand decided that it shouldn’t touch my lips. I bent down trying to meet it, but in the space of a second, there was a crash that was my tray on the floor and my cutlery soon to follow.
“Did you think that you could look at him and get away with it?”
That was her voice, I recognized it anywhere. She’d introduced me on my first day and tortured me from the second I got here.
“No,” I whispered which seemed to be my new voice in the academy as if I’d lost the will to speak.
“Good. Know your place, orphan. Know your place.”
I didn’t get up to get more food. I knew that the only thing for me to do was to leave and agree with her, so I did that.
Again, I repeated in a voice that I didn’t recognize, but knew that it would soon be familiar, “Yes.”
Sarah and Claire laughed as they walked away from my table and I kept my head down as I grabbed my backpack. I didn’t need someone else coming and telling me what I already knew. I was an orphan. But the moment I found out who my father was, then I would be the last one laughing and an orphan no more.
Chapter Twenty One
Who laughs last wins!
As the saying goes, or maybe it was from a movie. But it was my motivation for the day. I didn’t know if the Hawk twins were Mr. Hawk’s sons or even brothers or maybe his cousins. Curiosity was getting the best of me as I started to grow ears like eagles and a voice like a Great Night Owl. There was one thing that the students loved to do here, just like Rock Hill High and that was to gossip. So far I learned, without actually talking to anyone, that the twins were called Trent and James. James was the arrogant one, the one who asked what I was staring at and Trent was his brother; just as arrogant but a bit slyer about it. They were the ones that ruled the school, even the teachers were scared of them.
The question was, why?
Apart from their name, what did it really mean?
Every high schooler was scared of their principal, what made these two so different. I hated the idea of being curious. I was here to be cozy with the principal, so that he would tell me about my dad. Not cozy sexually, God I was too young for that. But enough for him to tell me the truth. Let me know if I wasn’t the orphan that they called me and as the day came to an end, I tried to focus less on the twins and more on my future.
No, I had to stop thinking about the gossip and focus on my future which would mean one academic year and counting, nine months in total until I was out of here and I couldn’t wait for it to come to an end.
“Yeah and I heard that they’ve got the ritual set-up for the end of the month,” I heard one student whisper as we exchanged books at our lockers for the next classes. They were two lockers away from me, the two that were whispering loudly, and I couldn’t see them, but I could definitely hear them.
Ritual? What did that mean?
I couldn’t listen to them anymore. I had to get back to my room and see if there was any way I could have dinner earlier. It was set for seven. I couldn’t wait that long, otherwise I would have to eat my own hand. And I had to survive here and hopefully have dinner with Mr. Hawk tonight and get closer to learning the truth somehow.
***
“You awake, girl?” Teresa asked as I answered her call on Snapchat.
I was happy for the company, so I sighed. “Sure. I’m up. Got shit loads of work to do. I have no choice but to be up.”
“Oh. You’re such a good student. But that’s not what I called you for. How you been?”
I smiled thinking that seeing her smiling face, big earrings and matching hair was welcome right now.
“Good seeing you. So, good.”
“Those rich kids giving you a hard time?”
I nodded.
“Well, you knew that it wouldn’t be easy. Just cause they’re rich don’t make them nice. It’s like me going to Brooklyn. Girls see me and they’re like, you look like us on the outside but you ain’t nothing like us.”
I corrected her, “They’re black and so are you. You’re just from different districts. Whereas I’m not rich, I’m an orphan, I’m poor, and I’m a very big girl. So, like I have nothing in common with the girls and even less with the guys.”
“Damn, that sounds rough. I was trying to make you feel better.”
I sighed wishing that I hadn’t pointed out the obvious and that we did have something in common, but she was my girl and there was one thing I couldn’t do to her and that was lie.
“How’s Ava doing?” I asked trying to change the subject, I’d talked about my problems enough already. I didn’t need to rehash the same shit, I just needed us to talk like the old days and not as if something was up. Not for the first time, I wondered if it was a mistake saying no when her parents offered to me stay with them until I graduated, but now I knew that there was a reason for refusing it and that led me here.
To my father.
I hesitated as she gave me the low down on Ava and her new love interest, while all the time that she was talking all I could think about was if I should tell Tereasa about Mr. Hawk knowing my father. I shook my head at the idea, but Teresa was all up in Ava’s love life as always.
“Wow, so Ava and Abe?” I asked quietly.
He got over me pretty quickly.
“Yep. But she’s holding back. We never had the green light from you, and we didn’t know if you were interested or not, because I wasn’t sure if that door was open, otherwise I would be in there.”
I chuckled. “But you’ve already got a man.”
She sighed, “I know, but I’m not dead down there and a girl could dream.”
“You’re dating the head of the basketball team and you wanna dream about the baseball team too? What’s up with you?”
“I’m eighteen not eighty. That’s what’s up with me. High school isn’t the end of our lives you know? We have around sixty more years or so of living to do and I’m not settling down with the first man that comes along. We haven’t even had a conversation about what happens when we leave high school, no doubt that relationship will be over.”
“But you guys have been together for so long.”
“Too long. Sometimes that’s part of the problem. What do you hear from most of the girls our age or younger, whose parents have got divorced?”
“We were together from high school.”
This wasn’t the first time that we had this conversation and I knew that it wouldn’t be the last, because as much as Teresa tries to play down her relationship with Rich, I know that if they both decide to split then they will both be brokenhearted. Fuck statistics. That would be one heart break that I could visualize in the future.
“Can we talk about something else please?”
Not Abe and definitely not Rich. We had nothing else to talk about, because I wasn’t in the mood to tell her, how hard of a time they’d been giving me in the academy. Things that for sure, she could never visualize, and I was fucking living it.
The conversations turned to the popular kids at Rock High. Their lives were m
ore popular and interesting, this was why they were the popular kids. Something that we never were, and then I knew that I didn’t feel like talking about them, so I finally told her I had to go. I had homework to do, talking didn’t feel like something that I craved anymore. Doing homework and silence did.
“I need to get on…” I interrupted her as she kept talking. Thinking that I couldn’t keep up the pretense anymore. I just didn’t want to.
“…and study. You see they’re a little ahead of where we were at in Rock Hill.”
“Now, you’re being polite even to me. A little ahead or a lot more?”
“A lot more.”
“Sure. We’ll keep in touch, Vicki. Even if it’s just on the weekends. I miss you girl.”
“I miss you more.” I smiled hoping that she saw that I meant every word. I did miss her and everything that she represents from being back in Rock Hill when I watched the needy and desperate fight for another day in high school.
I’d become one of them and I felt too weak to even confess it to one of my best friends and Abe had moved on. I should have been happy, but it all felt too soon. I shook my head thinking that I had to be realistic. Abe and I wouldn’t amount to anything and neither would telling Teresa the truth about this place.
The place that I had to call home.
“Give my love to Ava.”
She smiled. “Will do. Take care girl and try not to work too hard.”
Exhausted, I blew her a kiss and hung up. It was nice seeing a familiar face even if all I did was lie. It made my night more bearable and I knew one thing for sure. I would finish my work and get to sleep. Mr. Hawk didn’t show up for dinner tonight, but I knew that our paths had to cross eventually, they just had to.
Chapter Twenty Two
I did a crazy thing this Tuesday morning just to be two steps ahead of the game. I ate not one plate of breakfast, but two. I smashed pancakes, bacon, egg and French toast. They were all laid out, but the strange part of being in the main house is that I eat alone. Which in some ways is good, I don’t have to be shy about what I’d put on my plate but was also kind of lonely.