by T H Paul
To Penny's frustration, as the last song finished, and the final half a dozen students vacated the dance floor, the evening had mostly gone without major incident. There had been a few kicks, one or two fallouts, but nothing that involved Jack. Nothing that would have shown him up again, giving Penny the revenge for which she was looking. Maybe he had learnt his lesson after that football match? Maybe he had mastered how to control what was brewing inside? Even when another couple had accidentally backed into Jack while messing around on the dance floor, he'd barely flinched. Had he learnt to control it all so quickly?
Penny walked with a couple of the boys from her class to get a final drink from the canteen before it closed. Once outside, the dance now over, it was dark, street lights on so that it wasn’t overly dark and those students who were still there able to see their way home. Most were being picked up by parents––there were no limos this side of the event. Penny said goodbye to the two boys she'd walked out with, no one else from her class initially visible, besides Abbey; who she spotted was being led by the hand by Jack, as they both headed up a path that led to a wooded area behind the school. Penny kept her distance but followed.
It was darker than she thought it would be under the trees, their leaves now open and forming a shelter from any light that might have been able to reach them. Penny hung back behind a large oak tree, still cautious of being spotted, as she watched the couple sit down on a log, both Jack and Abbey using the light on their mobile phones to illuminate the area around their feet. It helped Penny see them so that she could watch them from the darkness. It felt wrong to be standing there, spying on two classmates, though she couldn't resist the temptation to remain.
Jack started kissing Abbey, who seemed to return his affection, initially, before his hands once more started wandering down her back and onto her backside, then continuing to reach up the inside of her skirt. She tried to pull away as he did this, though he wouldn't let go. She went to slap him, but this time he caught her hand mid-air.
Penny would never forget the look in his eyes at that moment, the light from a phone capturing the gaze as if it was a photograph.
What happened next nearly took the breath from Penny's lungs. She wanted to do something but felt powerless, transfixed by the scene unfolding before her. Within just a few moments, Jack had pushed Abbey to the floor, his hand on her mouth as she'd tried to scream out, his arm then holding her down. Slapping her hard around the face, so that she went dead still, Penny watched as Jack lowered his trousers and forced himself onto Abbey.
The rape lasted just about a minute.
Penny would recall through nightmares the silence that befell the scene, besides the rustling of leaves and undergrowth. Abbey had remained silent, shocked and scared no doubt, overpowered by force much stronger than she could repel. Penny could only see Abbey’s long legs as Jack lay above her.
Then he stood, pulling up his trousers and barely glancing down at Abbey. He left her and ran back down the path they'd come a few minutes before. Penny could hear Abbey beginning to sob. She knew she couldn't shout out, couldn’t call to Abbey and otherwise give away her presence––if Penny had been there all along, why hadn't she stopped it, why had she let it happen? Instead, Penny backed out of the woods and left by another route, though hung around the school for twenty minutes until at last, she spotted Abbey reemerge from the woods, her dress dirty and stained, her face red with tears, mascara running down her cheeks. Abbey started walking home, her new house not too far from the school.
Penny left her to it.
"Quite a night," came a female voice from behind Penny. It was Kelly, which Penny realised as she turned to see who was speaking to her. Penny had not spotted Kelly there that night; her focus fixed on Jack and Abbey.
"You could say that." Penny's thoughts flashed back to the woods, the deafening silence of the rape. "I didn't see you in there."
"That's not too much of a surprise. You were rather preoccupied."
"Sorry?" Penny said, a little at a loss as to what Kelly meant, the girl’s bust hardly contained in her ball gown. There had been few options in her size.
"Do you have a crush on Jack?"
"What?"
Kelly looked a little cautious for a moment but then spoke her mind anyway. "Or maybe it's Abbey? It doesn't bother me."
“What? No!" Penny said, understanding what Kelly was suggesting finally.
"It's no sweat with me, Penn, you just spent the whole time watching them."
"Did not!”
"Did so!" Kelly said, convincing them both that what she had said had in fact been the truth.
"It's not what you think, okay."
"Yeah, sure," she said, apparently not convinced.
"Did you enjoy it? I didn't see you on the dance floor?" Penny knew that much.
"Got stood up. Should have known a year eleven boy couldn't be interested in me."
"Sorry to hear that."
"As if," but there was a smile. "See you on Monday," she said, walking away from Penny at that moment. Penny didn't say anything back. Her thoughts flashed back to Abbey, who had disappeared down the road during the conversation with Kelly. They might no longer have been friends, but seeing Jack do that to her was something she wasn't easily going to be able to forget.
Penny knew she was the reason it had happened.
A car horn tooted. It was her mother. She looked angry like she'd been waiting for ages for Penny to find her, though couldn't have been there for more than a minute. Penny got into the front passenger seat, her mother driving off with barely a word spoken. As they travelled across town, the feeling of rage and disgust built in Penny so much so that her stomach was in its transformative state, she focused everything on Jack and undid what she'd done, taking away his man-sized level of testosterone. Penny didn't care what side-effects it would cause; he'd since given up his right for compassion. Monsters don't deserve mercy, and yet even as that thought was there, she knew she was the monster. Penny had done it all. She'd caused Abbey to be raped.
11
In my nearly fourteen years I'd never seen anything remotely criminal, so seeing one classmate raped by another right in front of my eyes had a profound effect on me. I know it did. It also brought home to me the fact that what I could do to others––my gift––could also lead to bad things happening. Terrible things. I’d never considered that as possible before the night of the Ball. But that night also placed in me a disgust as I'd never known before, a hatred directed towards one boy. A boy with a chemical imbalance, but someone who'd nonetheless decided to overstep the mark so much that he was beyond saving. I would one day get my revenge on him, though not before I'd allowed this same boy into my world.
The school was noticeably different for all of 9W the week after the Ball. The students of year nine pressed on regardless with their final seven weeks left before the summer holidays could finally begin. Abbey wasn't in school for the first two days, and Jack was a very different self, more sombre than Penny had ever seen him, as far from the beast of Saturday night as was now humanly possible. When Abbey did come back to school on Wednesday, there was a noticeable distance she was keeping from Jack and his whole group, which the rest of the class picked up on immediately. Few voiced anything straight away.
For a couple who'd been so inseparable, their distance was screaming questions which no could answer. What had happened? Who had been the one to end it and why? And the two people who most expected to know these answers were not speaking about it. No one would have asked the one girl who also knew, Penny, neither would she have said anything, anyway.
Penny caught Abbey crying in the toilets once. She left pretending she didn't know who it was. Penny felt bad, as if, somehow, she had betrayed Abbey. Abbey used the return of the athletics season to throw herself into everything like she had never done before and soon that aspect of her life was quite literally back on track. She ran with a wave of anger that her coaches didn't know what to do with, though h
er times were already better than the previous season. Whatever the new drive was, it seemed to be working. Soon the talk of national tryouts would sweep the school again. Abbey was one day destined to run for Team GB; it was surely just a matter of time.
By the middle of June, the summer holiday now less than a month away, gossip was spreading around 9W––Jack and Abbey were the hottest subject of all, speculation mounting as to what had happened. The pair would even avoid each other in the corridor, Jack turning around when it was just Abbey coming towards him, much to the amusement of his mates in the football team. None of the other boys had yet tried their luck with Abbey––she was very much Jack's girl until they understood otherwise––and besides, Kelly had become the object of most boys fantasies; the chest of Kelly at least, anyway.
As summer drew nearer, Kelly's tops seemed to lack less and less material, just as Abbey's legs appeared to grow longer and longer. They were tanning nicely too, something she'd never been able to manage before, though had never been as exposed as she was now––both to the sun and her limbs.
Things changed for Penny on the day of sports day. Suddenly the star athlete in the class was away––national trials were happening the same week her little school had deemed it wise to host its own sport's day. 9W no longer had the monopoly on running superstars. Penny was asked to stand in.
She barely made fourth place.
"If only we had Abbey running for us instead," someone said. It didn't matter who, Penny had heard variations of the same sentiment all day. She was a poor substitute for someone so naturally talented. A talent that she had bestowed upon her former friend, to save her that day from a dog in the process. And all for what? That less than a year later, she would be shunned by her, playing stand in and yet even that wasn't good enough?
When Abbey returned to school at the start of the following week, all the talk was about her and what had happened in Sheffield––the venue for the trials––and soon the discussion got round to 9W’s dismal showing in the sports day the previous week. Penny watched as Abbey chatted with some friends, catching Abbey looking over at her: they were talking about her. Abbey just smirked as she spotted Penny. Enough said.
Two weeks later, Abbey was on the starting line at the National School Championships, which were taking place nearby on the edges of London. Most of the school year were there to watch, as well as some teachers. When Abbey crossed the line in first place, recording a new national record for someone her age, there was already talk about the next Olympics, coming up in London in three years time. Abbey would be seventeen by then, and a Games on home soil deemed a brilliant target for her development over the coming years. The school was already looking forward to having their own Olympian. For the first time, someone other than a football player was making waves in that tiny little school.
Penny already knew the next few years were going to be vile. She had long since made up her mind, however, to wait for the perfect moment. Penny had to knock Abbey down a few pegs, and what better stage to do such a thing than at London’s very own Olympic Games?
12
Abbey Lawrence is someone whom I’ve dwelt on a lot recently. In many ways, she’s been so central to who I am. She was the reason I discovered my secret in the first place. She was the first friend I lost because of it. Was it because I was jealous of her that I did what I did? No, it wasn’t. Did I envy her boyfriend, someone she knew I liked all along? No, it wasn’t that, either. I would soon deal with Jack as I would ruthlessly deal with Abbey. The truth is, I did what I did to her because she had it coming. She’d brought it on herself, the moment she turned her back on me. I saved her––I’m sure deep down she knew that too––yet it drove a wedge between us, and as much as I was there, she wasn’t. She’d become too good for me, too pretty, too successful. I was wasted on her from the moment she started running.
Year in year out over those final three years of school, I had to watch her exploiting the gift I’d given her, without the slightest word of thanks from her. Nothing I could do would ever be good enough. So judge me however you want, but she had it coming.
As far as Abbey Lawrence was concerned, she was the standout girl to come through that year of students. By the time GCSE’s were completed and A-levels approaching, soon-to-be seventeen-year-old Abbey was a nationally known name in the field of athletics, one of many bright stars of the future expected to break onto the world stage with the Olympics just months away. Her times had continued to improve, her effort and discipline noted.
She’d had a string of boyfriends after Jack, though these relationships never lasted too long, training and competitions taking up more and more time, and the boys couldn’t compete. She had become stunning by this point, long, lean legs, a figure to go along with that, and a winning confidence. Guys wanted to be around her.
Penny had not fared too badly, either. She was an attractive sixteen-year-old, though not in Abbey’s league––few girls now were. Dancing had been Penny’s escape since before she could remember, and it had got her through such traumas as her father leaving home, so Abbey was no match. It helped Penny keep in shape too, and the praise and attention of her dance teacher were always welcome. Photos of Penny hung proudly on his wall; he would always take a quick snap when she wasn’t expecting it, always had a quiet word in her ear. He never forgot a birthday, which was more than could be said for either parent, only her mum left around to forget her last two birthdays. Penny had grown close to Mr Jenkins, and that had caused its own level of conflict over the years with her parents, her mum especially. By that summer, Penny was out of the dance group altogether. A shock she hadn’t seen coming, and a story for another day.
With year twelve coming to an end, the classes now mixed but friendship circles mostly kept from earlier on in the school, Abbey had her eyes firmly fixed on London and the summer to come. She hung out with Marlon Howe, a boy who’d been in their class the whole time, and boyfriend number six if the rumours were true. The truth was he knew she was out of his league, but he did share a passion for running, though for him the school athletics squad was certainly the limit. Abbey appreciated the company. He was a friend more than anything, and partly because of that, Abbey hadn’t wanted them to take anything on. She needed his support and didn’t want him to go the way of all the others, falling by the wayside.
Abbey was excused the last month of school so that she could take part in a special training camp organised by British Athletics. Marlon would miss her, though Penny was glad to see her leave. Penny had dreamt about this moment for years, but now it was nearing, wondered if she could pull it off. Would it feel how Penny had hoped, or would it be a disappointment? She remembered that first experiment with Jack and his swift sending off. That had been entertaining, and she’d certainly had plenty of amusement over the last few years. But Abbey was always personal. It had started with her, and until Penny could lay this one down, she would be forever trapped by her past. In destroying Abbey, there might yet be salvation for Penny.
A lot was to happen in the summer of 2012, months that would set Penny Black on a course away from which she could not move.
The school had twenty tickets for the opening ceremony of the London Games, and while three staff members insisted on being involved, including the Head Mistress, the remaining tickets were given to Abbey’s classmates, though somewhere along the line Penny’s name had been removed from consideration. The excited coachload made their way to the stadium, Abbey herself only involved in the opening parade. Athletes competitions were not due until the second half of the Olympic Games. Penny watched alone at home. She couldn’t even spot Abbey on the screen, as hundreds of British sportsmen and women made their way around the track to great cheers from the biased spectators. A few times the camera would pick out different athletes, some Penny knew, most she didn’t, but Abbey was not featured. Penny would make sure that all would soon forget Abbey, and when they did recall her, it wouldn’t be because of her incredible talent
.
The following week around the school, there was a lot of fuss made about the ongoing London Games, especially with how well the host nation was doing. Speculation always moved onto what Abbey Lawrence would be able to achieve when the athletics events started. She was competing in both 100 and 200-metre events, plus running the third leg on the British Women 4x100 relay team. Abbey was a British medal hope.
Penny kept her focus on other things––she’d long since been bored with all the talk over Abbey, a girl idolised by the year sevens, and fantasised by nearly all the boys in the school, from what it seemed. The longer it all went on, the more Penny knew she could go through with it. But she would wait until there was the most expectation on her, most pressure, before making her move.
Abbey’s first event came on the third day of August, during a Games already being touted as the best. Abbey received an automatic entry into the women’s 100 metres, and round one proved no issue for the seventeen-year-old poster girl. She qualified as the third fastest runner, having eased up across the line as she won her heat. The 100-metres would be concluded before either of her other two events had started.
The semifinals and finals were taking place the following evening, on Saturday night. Primetime viewing and Penny would make sure that it would be an unforgettable night for all. Penny, glued to the television from as soon as the show began, impatiently worked her way through two bags of crisps and a can of coke until the athletes appeared for the start of the women’s 100-metres. It turned out that Abbey was racing in the third heat. She had a middle lane, the commentators noting her fast qualifying time. Someone then said she was a genuine medal hope from Team GB.