I will never leave you alone. You are mine. Tell anyone and I’ll hurt you.
It was typed, but she knew who it was from.
‘What the actual fuck?’ she whispered to herself. How the hell had he got that into her bag when it had been inside her locker all day?
‘Mia? Is that you?’
Who else would it be?
‘Yeah Mum,’ she sighed, ‘it’s me.’
‘Can you please come into the kitchen?’
Uh oh, what had she done now? Mia folded up the note and stuffed it into her dress pocket. It wouldn’t do for her mum to find it. She’d hide it upstairs when she went up to her room. She headed towards the kitchen but was suddenly attacked by two very wet, lycra-clad ninjas who appeared out of nowhere, attaching themselves to her body.
‘Eww! You’re all wet and cold!’ She laughed at Alexandra and Noah. She loved these two little goofballs more than anything. Hugging them both to her so tightly that they complained, she released them back into the wild where they scattered, heading for the back door, which slammed in their wake. Smiling, she walked into the kitchen.
She stopped cold when she saw her father was standing there, arms crossed, watching her. Shit! What had she done now? As she was rewinding the tape in her head from the last few days, her mum spoke.
‘Have a seat, honey.’
Mia didn’t like where this was going. Her dad sat next to her, which made her a little uncomfortable and she was already feeling thrown off balance. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked nervously, tugging on a piece of long dark hair, wiping it across her lips in fear. Mia glanced sideways at her father, a look that didn’t go unnoticed by her mother. She was going to have to sort that out too one day.
‘First things first, you’re not in any trouble, okay? We love you.’
Well, that was never a good way to start a conversation.
Mia stared at her mother, tears welling in her dark eyes already. She glanced at her father, but he offered no such comforting words, merely stared at her. She looked back at her mother. ‘Is this about Oliver? What did you do, Mum?’ She felt the panic rising within, the fear and uncertainty making her fingers drum the tabletop, a move that didn’t go unnoticed by her mum.
‘Well…’
Mia narrowed her eyes. ‘What did you do this morning when you went to school?’ she demanded in a shrill voice. ‘Mum, what did you do?’
‘Don’t speak to your mother like that,’ growled her father. ‘She’s trying to protect you.’
Mia tried again in a more neutral voice. ‘What happened?’ she asked, hands clutching each other tensely.
‘I went down to the school and demanded answers. Demanded to know why they hadn’t done anything about the stalking and harassment, then I find out that your guidance counsellor knew all along and didn’t report him, because he was having a hard time at home. Like that excuses his bad behaviour. Principal Peterson is talking with Ms Appleby and, in all likelihood, Oliver will be suspended for his actions against you. At least, I hope that’ll be the outcome.’
‘Suspended?’ Mia said in disbelief. ‘Do you know how much worse you have made this?’ Her eyes were wide, fearful, glittering with tears and anger.
Her mother looked dumbfounded. ‘Well, excuse me if I care about what happens to you. How has it made it worse?’
‘Because he left a note in my locker that said if I speak to anyone else about this, he’d hurt me. Now he’ll know that I told and I’ll be in trouble, he thinks he has some weird sort of claim over me.’ Mia put her head in her hands and refused to look at her mother.
‘Mia,’ Danni said, grabbing her hand, ‘I’m sorry, but this has to be dealt with at a higher level. He won’t be able to hurt you because he won’t be at school, he’ll be suspended.’
‘And what happens when he comes back? He knows where I live, you know. Why couldn’t you have just left it alone?’
‘Then we’ll make a complaint to the police.’
‘Jesus, Mum! You just don’t get it! I was handling it my way.’ Mia pushed back her chair and stormed from the room.
Danni looked after her daughter, long gone now, then turned to face Joe, finding that he was already staring at her.
‘Don’t tell me you’re going to give me a hard time too? I was doing what I thought was best.’
Joe scratched his whiskers, shot through with grey. He needed to shave and Danni longed to tell him so, but it would just end in another argument.
‘Maybe we should have let Mia handle the situation her way, like she said. We – you – stepped in, and now it may be a bigger mess.’ He stared her down until Danni looked away, tears dotting the corner of her eyes.
‘I can’t believe you’d say that to me,’ she said, getting up and pushing down the tab on the side of the kettle until the blue light winked on. Danni stood by the sink, looking out of the window at her two youngest, waiting for the kettle to boil. She’d do anything for her kids, anything she felt was right, Mia was no exception. The school must suspend or expel this boy.
‘Danni?’ She turned at the sound of her name. ‘No more, okay? Just leave it be now. I mean it.’
Joe pushed his chair back, making a scraping noise on the floorboards. He was a big man so she thought he would have left gouge marks in the sanded and polished boards. She had tried to put a rug down but Joe had asked what the point of sanding the floor was if they were just going to cover it up. She saw his point, but the patch of floor under his chair was getting ruined. Danni walked over to the table, squatted down and looked at the floorboards. Sure enough, there were fresh gouge marks there. She bent and traced them with her finger. They were rough and she felt a small prick, a splinter, stick into the pad of her finger. She removed it then put her finger in her mouth, sucking on it gently.
Danni heard a squeal and walked back over to the bench to make her cup of tea. She watched Alexandra and Noah playing under the sprinkler again, beads of water clinging to their skin, catching the light so she was momentarily blinded. Once, they’d talked about getting a pool for the kids, but pools cost money to install and maintain. Watching the kids under the sprinkler made her think again it was a great idea. She couldn’t talk to Joe about it, he was stressed about money as it was. Adding yet another big-ticket item to the list would surely push him over the edge.
While Danni was pondering the benefits versus the costs of a pool, she heard Mia’s music turn on. It was so loud it reverberated down the stairs, all the way into the kitchen, breaking the happy screams of the kids. The walls shook with the bass and Danni sighed.
‘God damn it!’ she whispered angrily to herself, before stomping up the stairs, missing the third one from the top, out of habit. No one would hear it with Mia’s racket. She had no idea where Joe had gone to, probably out to the shed to tinker with his pet project, a Holden Statesman, electric blue, or to make furtive calls on his mobile. Danni threw open Mia’s door and stormed over to the docking station where her phone rested. She pulled it out and set it down none too gently on the dresser.
‘Do you think you could use your headphones? I can hear that all the way downstairs.’
‘What does it matter what I want, you’re just going to do what you want to anyway,’ Mia said sullenly, rolling over to glare at her mother.
So this was what it was going to be like from now on? Combative? Well, Danni could do that if it kept her children safe.
‘For the last time,’ Danni said, holding in her pent-up annoyance, ‘if you’d just told us about this… problem in the beginning, perhaps we could have worked out a solution together.’
‘That’s it, blame me, Mum. I’m the victim here, you know.’
This time Danni did show her annoyance. ‘I know that,’ she snapped, instantly regretting it. ‘But what’s done is done. I expect him to be suspended any day now.’ Danni whirled around and headed back down the stairs, skipping stair three. As she reached the bottom, the music blared from the open doorway of Mia’s room.
Bloody hell, this parenting gig was hard.
Danni went outside to check on the kids since Joe was still a no show. ‘Having fun, my babies?’ she asked, smiling at them.
‘I’m not a baby!’ shouted Noah, indignantly. ‘I’m five!’
‘Of course you are, honey. But you’re always going to be my baby, right?’
Noah stopped running and pondered her question, a small crease forming between his brows. ‘I guess so,’ he replied cautiously.
‘Well then, you’re my baby.’ Danni laughed then dashed under the sprinkler to chase him. He laughed and ran after Alexandra. Danni caught up to him easily, arms outstretched, moaning like a zombie. She picked him up with ease and snuggled her nose into his neck. He smelt of sunshine and clean little boy smell. She rained down kisses on him then set him back down on the ground. He laughed then ran away.
‘What about you, Alexandra? Want to play chasey?’
‘Mum,’ she drew out the word. ‘I’m too old for chasey.’ Danni backed out of the sprinkler’s range, now completely soaked.
‘Fine, you’re a big girl now, I’ll leave you and your brother to it.’ Danni went back inside, closing the back door gently. The screen door had a tendency to slam behind you if you didn’t close it slowly using the heel of your foot. She walked back up the stairs. Halfway up, she saw Joe come out of Mia’s room. He saw her standing on the stairs.
‘Hey babe, what’s for dinner?’ he asked casually, before making his way over the squeaking stair, paying no attention to it.
She had thought he was outside. Was he talking to Mia about her behind her back? She walked into Mia’s room and found her sitting on the edge of her bed, crying.
She immediately felt guilty. ‘Sweetheart! I’m so sorry I did what I did. I won’t do it again. Okay? There’s no need to cry. I was just trying to help.’ She tried to touch Mia, but she shrugged her hand off and threw herself onto the bed dramatically.
‘You don’t understand, you’ll never understand. Just get out.’
Danni didn’t know what to say, so she left Mia’s room for the second time, heading across the landing to hers and Joe’s room to get changed out of her soggy clothes. Mia slammed the door shut. The sound was final. There would be no more talking to her today. Danni had just finished changing when her mobile phone rang. It was sitting on the dresser where she’d left it after coming home.
‘Hello, this is Danni Brooks.’
‘Mrs Brooks,’ came a familiar slick tone. ‘This is Principal Peterson. Is now a good time to talk?’
‘Not really, but it’ll have to do,’ Danni replied, feeling angry at him all over again, at herself just as much.
‘I was calling to follow up on your complaint earlier today.’
‘Yes?’ she prompted when he stopped talking.
‘I’ve made the decision not to suspend Oliver Marks.’
Danni was livid. The heat rushed to her face, and her previously chilled body was hot and itchy all over. ‘And why not?’ she demanded, her voice dangerously quiet.
‘Well, we conducted an investigation, and due to lack of evidence and Ms Appleby’s glowing recommendation, we have decided that suspending such a promising student was not in the student’s or the school’s best interests.’
‘I see. And what about the safety of my daughter? Who’s liable when he follows her home and stabs her one day? Are you going to be there, watching every move that he makes? If you’re not going to suspend her, then I want assurance that Mia will no longer be harassed.’ Danni was fuming, her pulse pounding in her wrists and neck. She could feel it in her ankles, such was her anger. A light sheen of sweat covered her face as she argued with the principal.
‘I can understand that you are disappointed with the outcome, but so far, as far as we know, Oliver has not made any direct threats against Mia, nor has he hurt her in any way.’
‘She is bloody well scared of him!’ Danni yelled into her phone. Joe walked in, catching the tail end of her outburst. He turned and walked back out again. So much for counting on his support.
‘Of course, we will monitor the situation closely.’
Danni hung up the phone in a blind rage. She wanted to scream. She had upset her daughter for what? Nothing. That’s what. They didn’t give a shit about Mia, all because some wannabe guidance counsellor had said he was a good boy, troubled, but that he’d never hurt anyone. Danni knew deep within that Mia was right, he’d hurt her, and she had to be there to protect her when he tried, but how? What could she do?
17
The bar was full of people, so packed she had to rub her breasts against both men and women to get to the counter. She wasn’t eighteen but a good fake ID could do wonders. That and a great pair of tits. She’d sauntered to the front of the line, knowing that there were people from her class in there too. They had been organising an event for an eighteenth birthday, but she had conveniently been left off the guest list, so she’d just invited herself. The birthday boy was Thomas, the boy she had lost her virginity to. The boy who had put her on this path of so-called whoreism. She expected there were many whores there tonight, woman taking back their sexuality, but only she’d be vilified, as usual, and she knew it. She didn’t care as she had a plan, one she was looking forward to enacting.
She waited, watching him. They couldn’t see her, so crowded was the place. By her count, he’d had four rum and cokes, he’d be getting loose by now. When it was his turn to go to the bar, she sauntered her way over to him. She ordered a syrupy concoction that had a cherry on top which she popped into her mouth, crunching down on it, juice flooding her mouth. She’d taste delicious now, sweet.
Thomas stumbled up to the bar. ‘Four rum and cokes,’ he slurred slightly.
She bumped into him on purpose. ‘Thomas!’ she said in surprise.
He turned and saw who it was, recognition lighting up his face. ‘Hey, how’s this that I’m running into you tonight of all nights?’
‘Yeah, what a coincidence. I heard it was your birthday and I wanted to give you a birthday present,’ she said seductively into his ear, her breath tickling the hairs on his neck.
‘Oh yeah?’ he said, and she knew she had him hooked.
There was no hidden agenda here, no girlfriend who had wronged her, she just wanted to do her first, see how much had changed. She had certainly changed from their first tryst on the bank of the river. She remembered that day, and what followed, of course, but she had become what they said to and about her. Many of the bullies had paid the price, when she took and fucked their boyfriends. Some of them knew, some of them didn’t, but it was all the same to her. Her work here was almost done. She’d be graduating school soon, she just had one more person to punch her card, then she’d be done with high school. Finally, she would get out into the real world, maybe even be someone else, meet someone decent. Was that even possible?
‘What are you doing here?’ he slurred into her ear.
‘I’m here to give you your present. Don’t you want your present?’
‘Only if it’s a fuck,’ he laughed, joking around, running his fingers down her arm.
‘Well, you’re in luck then,’ she smiled slowly.
His eyes went wide, as if he couldn’t believe what she said.
‘Are you serious?’
‘How about you follow me outside?’
‘But what about my friends?’ he said.
‘I’m not doing them, if that’s what you mean. This present is for you only. You good with that?’
‘Oh yeah, I’m good with that,’ he said, winking at her. He turned, saw his friends were busy talking and left the drinks on the bar.
She grabbed his hand and drew him through the crowd, pushing through the people. Nothing was going to stop her now. She was going to have her seconds if it killed her. Once outside, the cold wind hit her square in the face. She had on her jacket now, Thomas dressed and ready to go.
‘Do you live around here?’ he asked.
‘Nope.�
�� She pulled him into the alleyway, threw him against the wall and started to kiss him.
‘Oh, you filthy whore,’ he whispered between kisses. There it was.
She undid his pants with practiced ease and lifted up her skirt. She wore no underwear, aware of what this night would entail. He pressed her against the brick wall and, without any foreplay, thrust his cock into her. She wrapped her arms around him, drawing him close, waiting for the ecstasy to envelop her.
She had had many partners since Thomas and knew how this would go. A fuck, then he would walk away, never to speak to her again and that was fine with her. Thomas thrust into her three or four times then suddenly went still and groaned.
What? He’d come already? That wasn’t in the plan. That wasn’t how a good fuck was supposed to be.
‘You’re amazing,’ he said, kissing her on the side of the neck
She turned around and looked him dead in the eye. ‘And you’re not. Haven’t you learned anything?’ Disappointed, she pulled her skirt down in disgust and walked out of the mouth of the alley. She had the whole thing laid out in her mind, so why did he disappoint her? She was supposed to go out of high school with a bang, not a whimper. She wondered if she should have a palette cleanser before she went home. She looked down the line up of men waiting to get into the bar. Should she pick up one of them and have a couple of hours of fun? But what if it turned out to be another dud? She didn’t think she could handle that again. She wondered how, in the years since they’d first slept together, he had not got any better? Learned any new tricks? Same old, same old.
In the end she decided to go home, alone.
The Silent Daughter Page 10