Dark Days at TAC

by Richard Pinkerton

CHAPTER 21:

  Nasty Surprises

  Holly couldn’t get over Rex’s manhandling of Mr Sanders. There was no doubt the creep deserved it, but there was no escaping the fact now that the knock over the head had certainly had a negative effect. Even Vanessa seemed shocked by it, as evident by the wide-eyed stare when it happened.

  ‘What do you make of that?’ Holly asked her as Mr Sanders sat down to recover from his bout of the shakes.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Vanessa said. ‘What’s happened to him, Hol? How can something like this happen to somebody?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And Melissa Mason? Rex always used to tell me he never much liked her. Said she was a conniving, manipulative, backstabbing, bitch.’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘It just doesn’t make any sense at all.’

  When the bell finally rang for class to end, Vanessa made for the door, with Holly close behind.

  ‘Vanessa!’ Mr Sanders called out as she neared the door. ‘I want to talk to you!’

  ‘Go to hell, creep!’ She did not stop.

  ‘Is it true?’ Holly asked her once outside. ‘Is that really not your assignment he gave you?’

  ‘No! It’s someone else’s. He’s just gone and put my name on it, that’s all.’

  ‘Are you sure? Maybe somebody actually switched it to get you into trouble?’

  ‘Who would? And how could they?’

  ‘Maybe when you handed it in somebody… you know… did a quick switch?’

  ‘Nuh uh,’ Vanessa said. ‘I know his type. He’s a vindictive creep who’s pissed off because I rejected him. I get that vibe, Holly. I get it all the time with guys like him. I can smell them from a mile off.’

  Holly didn’t argue. Over the last couple of months, she had come to learn that Vanessa was a great judge of character and could see through the facades people put up. Even she had tried to pull pranks on her in the past, trying to trick her or mislead her for a joke, but Vanessa never fell for it. ‘This term is starting out absolutely horrendously. It’s like we’re in some kind of nightmare or we’ve suddenly gone to Hell or something. Everything is completely messed up.’

  ‘Yeah huh, I know what you mean. I’m just hoping I’ll wake up soon and realise it was all a horrible dream.’ She sighed and then smiled. ‘I know, why don’t you and I have a bit of a pity party. Come over tonight and we’ll watch a depressing movie or something and be miserable together.’

  ‘I don’t think we need the depressing movie for that.’

  ‘Or maybe we should watch something funny. Something to cheer us up.’

  ‘Sweet.’ Holly forced a smile. ‘I’ll be there.’ They only lived a few doors down from each other, so it would be cool. They’d never hung out together before outside of school, but Holly was really starting to see a close friend in Vanessa.

  The girls had PE and they changed into their shorts and T shirts. They joined up with Jacqui and Chelsea out on the fields where they were to play baseball. Holly ended up on the same team as Jacqui and Chelsea and sat down with them to await their turn to bat. Holly couldn’t help but give Jacqui the evils, thinking about what Paul Burgess had told her. She didn’t want to believe that Mav and Jacqui could possibly be seeing each other, as it was a detestable thought, not to mention a ridiculous one, but Jacqui had barely talked to her all week and Holly’s mounting suspicion was getting the better of her.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ Jacqui asked.

  Holly nearly said nothing, but at the last moment, couldn’t hold her thoughts back. ‘Why are you seeing Mav behind my back?’

  Jacqui’s jaw dropped. ‘What?’

  Chelsea, who sat next to her, turned her head too and gasped.

  Holly continued to glare at Jacqui. ‘You’re seeing Mav behind my back. I know it. Someone told me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘So, it’s true then? You are?’ Holly could feel the anger bubbling up inside her. ‘I can’t believe it! You never give up do you? You can’t bear to not get what you want!’

  Many of the other girls peered their way now, although the teacher, Miss Potter was out in the field and couldn’t hear them.

  Jacqui’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Holly!’

  ‘Oh, please. Don’t give me that crap. You’ve wanted him since last year and it irks you so much that he rejected you. But now... now somehow you’ve got your meat hooks into him and I can’t believe you’d do this to me, me your supposed best friend!’

  ‘Holly, calm down,’ Chelsea said. ‘Who told you this?’

  ‘Paul Burgess.’

  ‘That kid who’s been following you around?’

  ‘Yes. He saw them together... alone!’

  Jacqui’s eyes widened. ‘Oh no, you have got that all wrong! We were not seeing you behind your back. We were just talking.’

  Holly felt the anger and the bitterness well up even further and her emotions pushed and prodded at her to get out. She had gone this far, so she’d go the rest. ‘What about? That’s what I’d like to know. Was it about how you can get to see each other without me knowing? Did you know he had a card to give you? A romantic card?’

  ‘No! It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Then what was it like, huh? What?’

  ‘We were just talking. Mav was confiding in me.’

  Holly let out a burst of laughter. ‘Oh, right. Mav confiding in you? You must think I am totally stupid. You must think that I’m a retard or something.’

  ‘It’s true!’ Jacqui declared. ‘I found him there, miserable. He’s a friend. I couldn’t just walk on by. I had to find out what was wrong.’

  ‘Oh right, and I guess you really didn’t enjoy that cuddle you got from him.’

  ‘He hugged me afterwards, that’s all. Holly you are blowing this way out of proportion.’

  ‘Am I? Am I really?’

  She expected Jacqui to say “yes”, but it wasn’t her that said it.

  ‘Yes’, Chelsea said. ‘You are Holly.’ Her eyes lowered to the ground. ‘Mav had good reason to confide in someone. He’s been tormented by this since the holidays.’

  ‘By what?’ Holly gazed at Chelsea. ‘Do you know what’s going on?’

  ‘Yes, I do. You see... there’s something I have to tell you. I didn’t go to the Bay of Islands over the holidays like I said I did.’

  Holly froze and stared at her. ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘No. As a matter of fact my parents took me to the Blue Lake. I had no idea that Mav was going.’

  ‘W...what?’ Holly

  Tears began to well up in Chelsea’s eyes. ‘We hung out. Just as friends. But... but...’ She turned her head away. ‘One thing led to another... and... Oh, God Holly, it was never meant to be like that and I felt so terrible. Mav felt so terrible...’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Suddenly the horrible truth dawned on her. ‘Are you saying it’s you Mav has been seeing? That it’s you he had that card for?’

  Chelsea nodded her head and closed her eyes. ‘Yes. And I am so sooo sorry.’

  ‘I can’t believe this! You of all people? You?’

  Chelsea nodded. ‘So you see… it wasn’t Samantha Drysdale and it wasn’t Jacqui. It was me.’

  Holly turned her head to Jacqui who now had sympathy in her eyes. ‘Mav confided in me. He was so upset about it. Said he couldn’t help how he felt and I tried to cheer him up a bit and I tried to convince him that he needed to tell you, Hol. And I hugged him afterwards. There was nothing in it. Just a hug.’

  ‘Holly, you have to believe me.’ Chelsea eyes filled with tears. ‘We didn’t mean it to happen, it just did.’

  Holly wanted to be angry. She expected to be. She expected all the frustrations inside of her to explode but all she could think about was how she had made a similar mistake the year before with Rex. She had never meant that to happen either, but it did. So how could she justify being angry with Chelsea?

  Still
the pain was there, bigger and more intense than before. To think that one of her best friends had been with her boyfriend. She couldn’t look Chelsea in the eye. She couldn’t even look Jacqui in the eye after the harsh words she had uttered. ‘This has got to be some kind of sick joke! Oh, my gosh! So this guy you said you met at the Bay of Islands. It was really Mav?’

  ‘Holly, you have to believe me, I said to Mav afterwards that it was over. We couldn’t continue.’

  ‘How could, you Chelsea? Knowing he was mine?’ Tears began to push their way up to her eyes. She fought desperately against them.

  ‘I’m soooo sorry... It’s been eating me up.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be my friend!’

  ‘I am, Holly, I am and I know I’ve messed up big and I’ll do anything to make it right, I really will.’

  Holly rose to her feet, knowing that she was not going to be able to hold back the tears much longer. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, Jacqui!’

  ‘I couldn’t. I promised not to. I wasn’t happy about it, but I gave my word.’

  Holly said no more. She turned and fled across the fields, tears gushing forth. All she wanted to do was go home. She ran across the grounds to the locker blocks to retrieve her bag. From there she made straight for home. None of her parents had gotten home yet and she was relieved, because she just wanted to be alone for a while. She rushed inside and ran to her room where she dived on her bed and buried her head in her pillow.

  For ten minutes, she cried non-stop then just lay there for the thirty minutes. It seemed that ever since she and Mav had become a couple there had been huge obstacles. Things that seemed almost insurmountable, but each time their relationship had survived. However, this time it couldn’t possibly survive. Not knowing what had gone on between Chelsea and Mav.

  She didn’t want to see Mav again. Nor Chelsea. If she could now, she’d move to a new school and never see any of them again. What did she have left? Nothing. Mav was obviously more interested in Chelsea. Jacqui had completely pissed her off and Rex had turned into some kind of a sociopath. There was nothing.

  Her cell phone rang. At first, she didn’t want to answer it, but then she saw Vanessa’s name as the caller.

  At least she still had one friend.

  She picked it up and answered. ‘Hi Vanessa.’

  ‘Holly, are you ok? I was really worried when I heard you had done a runner.’

  ‘It was Chelsea, Vanessa,’ she sobbed. ‘She was the one seeing Mav.’

  ‘I know. I just heard. Look, I’m coming over ok?’

  ‘Ok,’ mumbled Holly. She needed someone to talk to and Vanessa had been a good friend to her lately, unlike the others.

  Another fifteen minutes ticked by and Holly decided to leave her room. She went into the kitchen to get herself a cold drink. She took the jug from the fridge, turned and let out a shriek when she came face to face with someone else there in the room. She let go of the jug and it bounced off the floor sending liquid splashing all over the floor. She shrieked again and backed up, knocking into the kitchen bench. ‘What are you doing in here? Get out!’

  ‘Hi, Holly. I just wanted to come in and see you.’ Paul Burgess stood there, a wide-eyed expression on his face.

  ‘How did you get in here?’

  ‘The door was unlocked.’

  ‘Don’t you knock?’

  He shrugged and continued to gaze at her.

  ‘Get out of here or I’ll call the police!’ She peered over at the telephone on the kitchen bench and moved over towards it.

  Paul’s eyes widened and then a scowl came over his face. He intercepted her, grabbed the phone, a cordless one, and held it away from her. ‘No! You’re not calling the cops.’

  ‘Give me the phone!’ She tried to sound brave, but her voice wavered.

  ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I can’t. I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Well I don’t want to talk to you. Just go!’

  Paul’s voice lost its authority. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

  ‘Why am I doing this to you? Are you for real? You’re the one stalking me! You’re the one sneaking into my house.’

  ‘But… but you and me. We’re together.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re my girlfriend. You invited me here.’

  ‘I am not your girlfriend and I did not invite you here!’

  ‘But you are. You told me how much you loved me, remember?’

  ‘You are seriously deluded!’

  His face darkened and a scowl came over his face. ‘You shouldn’t speak to me like that! That’s not the way you speak to someone you love!’

  ‘I don’t love you!’

  ‘You do! Don’t lie to me, you do! You and I are going to be together for ever!’

  CHAPTER 22:

  The Deal that Turned Sour