Oh God, he’s going to tell me about him and Ashleigh.
Ben stopped walking, turning to look at her. ‘It’s OK, you know.’
She squinted at him. ‘What’s OK?’ She had no idea what he was talking about.
‘That you didn’t want to see anyone. Your mum . . .’ He ran his fingers through his hair, making it dishevelled. ‘I mean, stepmum, came to see the principal. Said you didn’t want to see anyone. That you were concentrating on getting better.’
‘What?’ Kara’s face scrunched in disbelief.
‘There was a big announcement at assembly. Respecting your wishes and all that.’
‘I don’t . . .’ She was struggling for words, her mind processing the information. All that time in the hospital, alone, no visitors calling to see her, no contact with her friends.
Ben nodded his head in the direction of her house.
‘Nearly there.’
The smell of home baking teased Kara’s nostrils as they rounded the corner to her street. It smelt like chocolate orange muffins. Rosemary was baking. She hadn’t baked since the funeral. Kara, in her distracted state, let herself be led right to the front door. Instantly, she knew she’d made a mistake. Ben rang the doorbell.
Damn.
She scowled up at him. She should have rooted out her key from her satchel when they were at the street corner.
The door opened and Rosemary stood there, her apron flecked with white flour, a string of congealed cake mix stuck to her hair. She took one look at Kara and the blood drained quickly from her face leaving it porcelain pale.
‘What happened? Are you OK? I knew I should have come to collect you . . .’ Rosemary’s voice escalated an octave or two.
Kara needed to get rid of Ben. She and her stepmum were overdue a conversation. Kara opened her mouth to lie, but before she could get a word out Ben had launched into a rendition of events. She thought of stomping on his foot or barging in the door, closing it firmly on his face, anything to get him to shut up. Rosemary seemed to be getting paler by the minute. When he got to the part about her screaming, she shifted nervously from one foot to the other.
Why had she been screaming? The question ricocheted through her brain. She searched her memory of the journey home and couldn’t remember. She had been thinking about the accident, her heartbeat on that day and about the fact that it had stopped for a moment or two.
In effect she should be dead.
She looked at Ben and tried to establish a concrete emotion towards him. Did she like him? Did she lust after him? Did she even really know him? She shouldn’t be thinking of these things. He was with Ashleigh . . . not even interested in her.
What was that irritating noise? Thump, thump, thump. She switched her attention away from her thoughts and listened. It was the kid from two doors up, bouncing a ball against a wall.
She grimaced again, completely disregarding the conversation going on around her. There was nothing unusual about being capable of hearing that far . . . if she were an elephant.
She wouldn’t let go of the belief that she was normal, not just yet. She didn’t want to face the rising questions and the feeling of impending doom they brought with them, not just yet. Not just yet.
It looked as if Ben had finished his retelling of the evening’s events; he and Rosemary were looking at her anxiously.
‘What?’ she snapped. ‘I fainted. That’s all.’
She moved in a straight line through the front door and down the hall, not looking back. She didn’t even say thanks to Ben for walking her home. She was too annoyed. Why had Rosemary gone to school to tell everyone to stay away? Was she embarrassed?
Kara heard the click of the front door behind her and the soft footfalls of Rosemary as she moved along the hallway into the kitchen.
The countertop was covered in flour, the sink overflowing with dirty dishes. The smell of chocolate orange muffins enveloped her, so delicious. But Kara wasn’t interested.
She wanted to fight.
‘Are you –’ began Rosemary but Kara cut her off.
‘What the hell did you do? You went to my school and told my friends to leave me alone?’
‘Excuse me?’ Rosemary stood in the doorway, her floured hand on her hips.
‘You went to the principal. It’s because of you that no one came to see me? Because of you I have no friends!’ Kara knew that this was a slight exaggeration, but she didn’t care. She was saying the words loudly, on the cusp of a shout. She could feel the anger rolling inside her, stirring itself up. The heat of it was intoxicating.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. I went to the school, yes, but the principal was busy. I didn’t speak to anyone. Only Ashleigh.’
‘Ashleigh?’
‘Yes, I met her outside the office. She kindly delivered a note to the principal for me.’
Kara walked to the countertop, leaning against it.
‘What is all this about, Kara?’ Rosemary went to the sink, stacking dishes ready to be washed. ‘Are you on drugs?’ She untied the strings of her apron, turning slowly. ‘I mean if you were on drugs then that would explain your behaviour these last eighteen months, even the . . .’ She stopped, her voice faltering.
‘Even the what?’ pressed Kara, knowing where this vein of conversation would lead.
‘Even the incident with the coroner’s report.’
‘That was not an incident, Rosemary.’ Kara laboured over her name, dragging the syllables out, one after the other. ‘That was me standing up for my father, challenging the lies in that report. But all you wanted to do was shut me up, have me fixed. You and that counsellor, convincing me that I was stupid, that I was just grieving. I should never have listened to you. Dad would never . . .’
‘Kara, please.’
‘No. Don’t you please me. You want to have this conversation now, after all this time? Fine.’ Kara stepped away from the counter, her voice shaking. ‘You never loved him. Not for one second.’
‘Stop it.’ Rosemary’s voice had taken on a steely undertone.
‘How could you love my dad if you believed what they said in that report? It was a lie. It was all lies. You gave up on him! You gave up on the truth.’
Rosemary’s shoulder sagged. ‘I don’t want to fight, Kara. I’m tired.’
‘Ya, well I’m pissed off!’
‘Kara!’
‘We could have found out what really happened. We could have got an answer, if only you hadn’t given up. The truth would have made things better.’ Her voice cracked.
‘Nothing can make things better. Patrick is dead. And he’s not coming back.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ said Kara, slumping against the countertop, the energy of her anger trickling away, leaving her empty.
A feeling of helplessness settled around her. There was nothing she could do. No appeal process, no reassessment. The verdict was final. She was alone in her belief and it was a cold, barren place to be.
Chapter Eleven
The bathroom mirror fogged with condensation. Kara wiped it with the edge of her towel. She had barely slept all night. There were so many things to think about, her elephant hearing and Superman vision for one. She boxed that away for contemplation later. She was good at that, compartmentalising things, like her grief, the pain of her recovery, weird medical side effects. It was kind of a skill, a high level of concentration.
The argument between her and Rosemary had rotated round and round in her head, keeping sleep at bay till the early hours of the morning.
Then there was the business with the announcement at assembly. Rosemary had given Ashleigh a note to deliver to the principal, a message detailing Kara’s recovery, asking for school work, talking about repeats and exam scheduling. Somewhere along the way the note seemed to morph into a request for solitude, for people to leave Kara alone.
Ashleigh Jameson forged her father’s signature on a regular basis, had no compunction about falsifying letters both to and from the school. Coul
d she have substituted the note? Changed the content?
It would explain why Ben hadn’t come to visit, why the rest of her friends had given her a wide berth.
‘That little . . .’ Kara hacked at her hair with the scissors, dropping the wet mess into the sink. She leaned forward eyeing herself in the mirror. She needed to calm down or she’d end up giving herself a buzz cut. That was definitely not the look she was going for.
Earlier that morning, when she could no longer stand the annoying chirping of the birds, Kara had set to work on her uniform, tailoring it to her specifications. She had taken in her school skirt so it sat correctly on her slim hips. She’d thought about taking the length up but decided against it. She knew she would be drawing enough attention to herself with her scar and her history, so why tempt fate. Her school jumper had gone in a boil wash. It now fitted her properly. She had sewn two dark felt patches on to the elbows of her blazer and ornate silver clasps along the wrists for decoration, giving it a gothic feel.
Her hair she had agonised over. Tentatively she’d snipped a few strands, then a few more, all the while envisaging Ashleigh and her long blonde tresses. At least Kara’s hair was somewhat even now, flicked out slightly at the collar of her shirt. She’d cut a wide, side-sweeping fringe.
‘Not bad,’ she said to her reflection in the mirror.
She had thought about trying to hide the scar on her temple and tried several different ways but, in the end, she had swept her hair back from it. This was the way she looked now; there was no point in trying to hide it.
She concluded that she had done a relatively decent job. She looked . . . Well, she had to admit that she looked individual, a little bit punk with a touch of funky thrown in for good measure.
Rosemary insisted on driving again. They didn’t speak on the journey. With relief, Kara got out of the car a distance from the main gates. She didn’t bother to say thank you.
It took a great deal of self-control for Kara not to cringe away from the crowd massing in front of the school. She managed to concentrate on the faces of the people she passed, keeping her head held high. Some of them stared, like she’d known they would. Whispers had already gone around of the events of yesterday, like she’d known they would.
‘. . . Kara Bailey turning goth . . . sweet . . .’
‘. . . Oh my God, have you seen Kara? Her hair . . .’
‘. . . I heard she had a fit yesterday on the way home from school . . .’
Kara winced at the cascade of conversations from groups of students. She began to count the number of footsteps it was taking her to get to her locker in a bid to get rid of the whispers.
Fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three.
‘Hi.’ Ben was beside her, his smiling face inches from her own.
She swallowed loudly and spluttered out a shaky, ‘Hi.’ She cursed her bad luck. Not only was everyone already staring at her on the back of yesterday’s humiliation in the canteen, the rumours of her fit last night and her new look this morning – now Ben was actively seeking her out.
The old Kara would have been delighted at the attention, but the old Kara was long gone. She blushed at Ben’s proximity as he looked, unabashed, right into her eyes.
‘How you feeling? Any more fainting on your way to school this morning?’ A cheeky grin plucked at the corner of his mouth.
Kara’s heart skipped a beat. ‘No,’ she replied.
‘I like your hair.’ He reached out and tweaked a stray strand back into place.
Now I actually do feel faint, she thought.
She could hear a group of GCSE girls at a locker a few paces away: ‘Ashleigh Jameson is going to spew when she hears about this.’
Kara frowned. She had enough to worry about without the wrath of Ashleigh. She turned her head and glared at the group across the corridor. They immediately stopped gossiping and began to gather their books.
‘How did she know we were talking about her,’ hissed one of them as they hurried down the corridor away from Kara’s stark gaze.
She turned back to Ben who was looking at her curiously, a question brewing. She shrugged her shoulders and moved to her locker, conscious of his proximity.
‘Are you coming to class?’ He inclined his head in the direction of her next class and she noticed the corridor was thinning of students. ‘It’s biology.’
Oh crap. She wondered if Ashleigh would be there.
She yanked open her locker door in frustration. It came undone at the top hinge, drooping at an awkward angle. She stared at the metal door swinging precariously. Her hands began to shake.
Ben whistled quietly under his breath. ‘Geez, there’s no need to be like that – it’s only biology class.’ He took the door in a firm grip and wrestled it back into place, pushing the twisted hinges together. ‘I’ll get the janitor to fix it.’ He looked at her for a moment, assessing her shocked expression. ‘Don’t worry, the guys on the weights team are always doing things like that.’
Kara stared at the grey metal, her brain frozen, all thoughts at a standstill.
‘You’re going to be late for class!’ called Ben as he walked in the opposite direction, pushing up his shirtsleeves to just above his elbows.
‘Crap.’
Kara picked up her bag and hurried down the hall. The locker door had just come undone. She slipped into the classroom just as the teacher was placing her books on the table. The nearest seat free and far away from Ashleigh, was in the front row. Kara sat down.
She stared down at her hands in her lap; she flexed her knuckles and examined her palms. She was lulled out of her contemplation by the sound of incredulous whispers behind her. Ashleigh and Jenny, well more so Jenny, yammering on about Kara’s new ‘look’, wondering aloud what hairdresser Kara had gone to and if they did colour as well as cut. Ashleigh issued a sharp shut up and they both fell silent.
The classroom door opened and Ben strode in, presenting Miss Conway with a folded piece of paper, as well as a dazzling smile. Miss Conway glared at him suspiciously as he strolled in the direction of his desk, which was three seats behind Kara.
Kara kept her eyes cast down and listened to him walk by; she could feel the air around her move as he passed. She was just breathing out a sigh of relief when she heard the chair beside her scraping loudly. Ben dropped his bag on the floor and sat down. He leaned back in his seat, absorbed by whatever the teacher was saying.
Kara’s mouth hung open. What was he doing? Why was he sitting beside her? She could envisage the steam coming out of Ashleigh’s ears. This was not good. She glanced at him. He shot her a conspiratorial grin. Kara dipped her head and feigned absorption in her notes.
‘OK, class, I want you to have a quick recap on osmosis. Today we’ll be doing a practical class, testing potato cells and their ability to carry water. You have five minutes, then goggles, lab coats and petri dishes at the ready.’
Kara scanned the index of her biology book. She had no idea what was happening, having missed all of this section. She hadn’t caught up completely on her home study and had no choice but to turn to Ben.
He was watching her, leaning back in his chair, the front two legs raised off the ground.
‘You need my genius, Bailey?’ He was enjoying this.
‘No!’ He was so cocky. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Page 124, Solanum tuberosum. It’s Latin for . . .’
‘Potato. I’m not a total moron. I remember some stuff from first term.’
‘Do you?’ He rebalanced the chair, dropping on to the four feet. ‘Do you remember things from the start of the year?’
Kara swallowed loudly. He was staring at her, looking straight at her, as if he could see her, really see her.
‘Yes,’ she croaked.
‘I should have come to visit you.’ He frowned. ‘I should have come to the hospital.’
Kara shook her head. What did it matter now anyway? It was too late. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Mr Shephard?’ The teache
r called his name from the top of the classroom and Ben looked away, breaking the connection between them. ‘I’m going to show Miss Bailey the two previous experiments we worked on so that she can catch up with her work. Can you join the others at the lab bench, please.’
Kara exhaled. She wasn’t sure which feeling was more prominent, relief or disappointment, but, either way, she wasn’t working with him.
The class passed far too quickly, Kara couldn’t concentrate for a minute on what was going on. She kept being distracted, not just by the whispers of her classmates, all of whom she could hear clearly, but by the proximity of Ben. He was so close. Every time she looked up she caught him watching her. Ashleigh glared from her bench, the laboratory goggles doing nothing to filter the look of pure hatred. Kara needed to forget about Ben. It was too complicated. She needed to concentrate on her exams, on getting out of school. Then she would never have to see them together again.
The ring of the bell made her cringe. She wanted to clamp her hands over her ears to stop the shrill chiming. Gritting her teeth, she waited for the noise to pass. This bell was going to be an almost hourly occurrence; she’d better get used to it, compartmentalise the discomfort, like she did with everything else.
The next class was her least favourite: PE. She gathered her books. If she was going to stick with her resolution to get out of school in one piece, then it meant avoiding Ben Shephard at all costs. Kara didn’t look up to see if Ben and Ashleigh were holding hands, if her ex-best friend was still sending dagger-glares at her.
Shifting her books from one arm to the other, she hurried out of the classroom and down the corridor. Passing through the hallway, she noticed the janitor screwing a fresh hinge on to her locker.
That’s why Ben was late for class.
Kara couldn’t hide her smile.
Volleyball, a sport that involved effort and sweat. Her shoulders drooped as she entered the gym from the changing room.
Normally Ashleigh would have made up some excuse for them both, feigning a tummy ache, headache or period pain, so they could get out of class. Sometimes they would pair up in teams and play so badly that the PE teacher would shout at them till she was red in the face, eventually sending them to sit on the sideline. Kara was out of the loop today for definite and would probably have to play through an entire class. She sniffed the air, the smell of body odour assaulting her nostrils.
Blood Entwines Page 6