The voice tells me something back. It tells me that’s not completely true.
And then I scream at it to shut up.
I get out of the shower and wrap myself in my robe and lie on my bed staring at the ceiling with its hairline cracks and stupid swirly pattern in the paint. I never had problems making friends before. People actively wanted to hang out with me. I was one of the popular crew. I was fun to be around. What happened?
I swallow as an unwelcome truth forces its way into my head, though really I must have known it already because I said some of it to Camilla before.
I’m not the same person I was back home. More than that, I’m not in the same environment. Here I’m the girl in the shitty little house with the spaz sister and the dad who doesn’t have a proper job, and I’m weird, and I don’t have Facebook, and . . .
I never realised how much of people’s opinion of me was wrapped up in who and what was around me, and not who I am.
I’m in shock . . .
I’m still thinking about it when I go to bed later. Turning it round and round in my head. Thinking of my old life and whether there were any clues I should have picked up that could have told me people’s opinions of me weren’t always what they seemed. And I couldn’t see it. I really couldn’t. I could have gone on for maybe years and never realised.
Thinking about home makes me think about Tasha, and the memory right at the front of my mind is that first day I saw her again after the summer, right before we were due to go back to school. ‘So what gives?’ Tasha said, throwing herself on to my bed with a bounce. ‘What have you been up to while I’ve been away?’
She’d rushed round the same day that they got back from their month touring the US. No jet lag for Tasha, which was typical of her.
My heart thumped erratically and my mouth went dry. ‘Oh, the usual. Had a week in France, which was cool, being down in Provence for the first time. And it’s so different there to everywhere I’ve been before. And then we were in Cornwall for a few weeks.’
‘And how was that?’ She wiggled her eyebrows at me. ‘Anything interesting happen?’
She meant boys. I knew she meant boys. But nausea rose up inside and a cold sweat broke out all over me. The words wouldn’t come out. I just couldn’t say, ‘Oh, nothing, just the usual. Nothing to report.’
No words would come at all.
Something must have shown in my face because she got up in a hurry and put her arms round me. ‘Hey, babe, what’s up?’ She examined my face anxiously.
I swallowed. Pulled myself together. Fought the nausea down. ‘Nothing. Sorry, hon. Just felt a bit sick for a moment. Must be something I ate.’
‘Do you want me to get you some water?’
‘Oh, please. Thanks, hon, and then you can sit down here and tell me all about America, which is going to be way more interesting than anything I did this summer.’
She smiled. ‘Sure,’ and ran off downstairs to get me the water. I leaned against the wall while she was gone and tried to get my heartbeat back to normal and block the hideous memories trying to invade my here and now.
I swallow and hug my arms round myself as I lie in bed, trying to get to sleep and unable to. The house is quiet. Everyone else has been asleep for ages. The display on my alarm clock says it’s two in the morning.
I wish Tasha was here to talk to now. I wish I could have talked to her back then. Then maybe I wouldn’t feel so alone. Every time I think of that day at the end of the holidays, I wish, wish, wish I could go back in time and change it and find the words to tell her.
I turn over and bury my head in the pillow. You can’t turn back time and I’m here alone and stuck with it.
Most of the time I’m caught between trying to brave it out and feeling sick about the trial coming up, and being on a constant state of alert in case I’m being followed. I can’t get down the village high street without checking behind me three times. But who can I tell that to?
I dread going to school the next day and by eight o’clock, when I’m halfway through a bowl of cornflakes, I decide it’s just too much.
‘Mum, I don’t feel too well. I think I should go back to bed.’
I never try to skip school so she immediately puts the kettle down and comes to feel my forehead. ‘What’s wrong, darling?’ she says and Dad appears from behind the screen of his laptop where he’s checking the news articles.
‘I feel headachy and sick. I don’t think I can go in today.’ I push my cereal away and get up from the table. ‘I’m going to try to sleep it off, and then if I feel better I’ll get up and do some revision.’
‘Do you want me to bring you anything?’ Mum calls after me, voice worried.
‘No . . . feel too sick,’ I mumble on my way up the stairs as she comes into the hall after me.
‘Call me when you wake up and I’ll bring you a drink.’
‘Thanks,’ I croak and disappear into my bedroom.
Actually I do have a headache, from not sleeping most of the night. And I do feel sick, at the thought of going into school. So when I lie down on the bed, knowing I don’t have to face that for another day at least, my eyes grow heavy and I do drift off to sleep. At first I wake every few minutes, as I remember something that penetrates my subconscious whenever I try to relax, like Fraser’s face when I ask him if he agrees with Cam, like hers when she tells me what she thinks of me . . . But eventually I fall into a deep and mercifully dreamless sleep.
It’s eleven o’clock when I wake again and I can hear someone moving about downstairs. I turn over and bury my head in the pillow, not wanting to face anyone yet. I can’t put on a mask at the moment and if Mum or Dad asks me what’s wrong, I think I might break down and cry.
I feel such a fool. Such a freak. I don’t know how to get back to being a proper person again.
All the people in this place hate me and it seems like that’s all my fault.
I need to feel normal again.
After a while, an idea comes to me. It’s so wrong it makes me shiver. But it’s so what I need.
I go downstairs and smile at Dad, bolstered by what I’m about to do. He’s working on the computer. He smiles back. ‘Want a cup of tea or a cold drink?’
‘I’ll get it. You’re busy. I’m feeling much better now. Is it OK if I take the laptop upstairs to revise?’
‘Sure, it’s in the living room.’
Back upstairs, I sit on the bed and open the browser. It opens slowly and I fidget with impatience before I can type the URL in the address bar. Again, it seems to take forever to load.
Finally the Facebook front page opens and I log into my account. I go to My Friends and click on Tasha’s photo, then on the message icon. The text box flashes up and I stare at it for a second, but I know just what I want to say and then my fingers are flying on the keys.
Hi Tasha,
This is gonna be a shock, I guess, to hear from me after so long. I want to say sorry that I didn’t get to say goodbye and I want you to know that it had to be that way. I can’t tell you why but please trust me – I would never have left without seeing you if I’d had a choice.
I hope you’re OK. I saw your mum was ill from your home page. Is she better now? I hope so. I’m all right. It’s pretty lonely where I’m living now and I don’t like it much but this is how it has to be so I have to get used to it. I miss you SO much. Please don’t tell anyone I’ve been in touch. It’s really important that you don’t. I just had to speak to you.
Lou xxx
I hit the button to send it and then lean back on the pillows in relief. Which is the wrong thing to feel because I should be panic-stricken at what I just did. It was exactly what I was told I must never, never do. But I need Tasha. I can’t do this all on my own. It’s too hard.
She won’t reply straight away because she’ll be at school, but it’s done. It’ll all be OK now. I get on with some revision until Dad calls me down for lunch at one. He heats me some tinned chicken soup, an old childh
ood favourite when I’m under the weather.
‘How’re you feeling?’ he says as he watches me spoon up the soup.
‘Much better. Where’s Mum?’
‘She was helping out at Katie’s school this morning because they’re going on a woodland walk. She said she would go to the supermarket on the way back so I expect she’ll be home soon. What are you going to do this afternoon? More revision?’
‘Yeah, I’ve done quite a lot so far but there’s always more to do.’
‘Never mind, a couple more months and you can have a long break from it. Why don’t you pop out for a walk before you start again? Get some oxygen to your brain.’
I look out of the window and the sun is shining. ‘Good idea, I think I will.’
I grab a coat and pull on some shoes, then I step outside and the sun shines gently down on my face. I stand on the doorstep for a moment to check for any suspicious signs before setting off down the hill. There’s a brook at the bottom with wild flowers growing and I want to see what’s come up there since I last looked.
The daffodils are still out, and little white star-shaped flowers have opened by some yellow primroses. As I lean over the white rail fence to see them better, I notice a Land Rover coming towards me down the lane opposite the brook. It takes me a moment to get my bearings, but then I realise that must be the lane to Emo’s farm. That piques my curiosity and I pay more attention to the Land Rover as it turns down the track by the side of the brook and then comes over the little bridge to join the road next to me.
There’s a man and a woman sitting in the front. They don’t look happy. Emo’s parents? No wonder he’s so miserable all the time.
As the Land Rover passes me, I see him sitting in the back, earphones in and head down, looking at his knees. He looks pale and strained and as unhappy as the two people in the front.
Why isn’t he in school?
The car drives off and takes a right turn at the end of the street, heading towards the main road.
I shake my head and walk back up the hill towards home. Emo’s weirdness is none of my business.
I get a few more hours of revision done until around four, when I check my Facebook account. Nothing yet.
Every five minutes, I check again. By four thirty, I’m checking every two minutes. Then finally just before five, a message pops up:
Babe!
Where are you! OMG I missed you so much too!
I’ve been so worried. Are you OK? Truly? You sound so unhappy. I just want to come over there and give you a great big hug.
But WHAT is going on? Please, please answer! Don’t disappear again.
Love Tasha xxx
PS Mum is better. She had to have an operation, but she’s totally OK now and I’m fine too, but REPLY AS SOON AS YOU GET THIS!!!
My eyes fill up with tears and there’s a massive lump in my throat. It’s going to be OK. It’s all OK again.
Tasha,
It’s so good to hear from you. I was sort of down when I sent you the first message, but just hearing from you has cheered me right up. It’s so tough where I’m living now because I don’t know anybody. I had to go to a new school and I don’t like it and the people there are horrible. I miss home and all of you so badly.
I’m not supposed to get in touch with anyone I used to know but I felt so miserable earlier that I had to. That’s why you mustn’t tell anyone I messaged you. No one can know. You’ve got to trust me, Tash, because it could be really dangerous if anyone found out. I know that sounds like I’m in some kind of massive trouble, but I’m not really. But I could be if people know where I am. I hope I can tell you one day what’s going on, but for now all I can say is I’m with Mum and Dad and Katie and we’re all safe.
Please tell me what you’re up to and stuff. I feel so left out of everything and so alone that knowing what you’re doing would help tons.
Love ya, hon!
Lou xxx
It’s so easy to ignore all the advice and mail her again. And so easy not to care that I’ve just put all of us at risk. But this is Tasha and she’ll never tell anyone.
That night I sleep easily and I don’t care about getting up and going to school the next day. It’s fine. I’m armoured by my past again, even if they don’t know it. A part of me is back. I don’t care when nobody talks to me at school, when Gemma sniggers and nudges her ex, who isn’t her ex any more, when I walk past them in the corridor. They don’t matter. None of this matters.
School goes quickly and I focus on work, and it’s easy to do that now. All my feelings of loneliness and isolation are gone. I walk home quickly at the end of the day and there’s a note on the table from Mum:
Holly,
We’ve just popped out to take Katie to the dentist. School phoned earlier – she has toothache. Raid the fridge if you want. We’ll be back soon.
Mum x
Katie pretty much has to be held down at the dentist so I guess Dad’s not having fun right now. I open the fridge and find some bread to toast. After I wolf down a few slices, I decide to go for a walk. I wander through the estate and down to the brook. There’s no one about so I cross the bridge and slip down the bank to sit among the willow tree roots and watch the water flow by.
After a while, I hear a sharp bark from the lane above and there’s a black-and-white collie watching me from the bank. I flinch a little – he doesn’t look too friendly. But then I see Emo behind him, snapping his fingers beside his leg and the collie zooms back to heel.
We look at each other.
‘I heard what happened,’ he says in the unfriendliest tone possible. ‘Sorry. But you should know – all that lot are dickheads.’
‘Oh.’ Well, he’s certainly managed to surprise me there. ‘Um, thanks, I think.’
He walks down the bank towards me, the collie hugging his leg in ultra-obedience. ‘They like messing with people and making them feel shit. That’s what they get off on.’
I smile a little and I’m startled to find I mean it. ‘Yeah, they certainly manage that.’
He shrugs. ‘Don’t let them bug you. Nobody really likes them. They don’t even like each other. They’re like starving rats in a trap – they’ll turn on each other if there’s no one else to savage.’
I stare at him, not expecting the eloquence, if that’s what it is. His words sound too rough to be described as eloquence precisely.
‘Basically, you see, they suck.’
That forces a laugh out of me. ‘Thank you. Really.’
He pauses as if about to say more and then nods. As he turns to walk back up the bank with the collie, I realise what it is that looks odd about him. It’s his eyes. They’re too bright and sore-looking and I feel stupid for not knowing straight away that he’s been crying.
‘Joe!’
He turns his head back.
‘That really was nice of you. I appreciate it.’
His solemn mouth quirks into a slight smile and he shrugs again, embarrassed, and turns back up the bank to disappear back down the lane to the farm.
That boy is an enigma. Why is he out walking the dog and crying at the same time? And where did he go yesterday that made him look so unhappy? At first I would have put the crying down to some pathetic Emo thing, but I’ve seen too much of him to think that’s the reason. There’s something more to this.
The first person I see at school on Wednesday is Fraser. He’s on his own and he stops when he sees me. There’s one of those uncomfortable silences where we don’t know what to say and stare at each other instead. I remember what Joe said and I don’t feel too sorry for him. I wonder if I should, given we maybe didn’t work out because I just wasn’t enthusiastic enough. Is that why he never wanted to see me outside school, or is he a loser, like Joe says? And then I remember what Cam said too, about how he’d told her where I lived . . .
But does it matter now? What is there for us to say to each other? We’re two people who thought we’d connect and found we couldn’t. Hardly fr
ont-page news. No major drama there. So I pull my gaze away from his and walk quietly away down the corridor.
I have geography first lesson and it passes uneventfully. I’m tired after another night of disturbed sleep. The dreams were especially bad last night and I kept seeing the gun coming towards me whenever I closed my eyes. At break I decide to go to the library for some quiet, but on my way there, a throng of lower-school kids rushes past me, babbling excitedly, followed by some others my age.
Even I recognise the signs of a fight, and while I definitely don’t want to see any punches thrown or blood shed, I’m curious just to see who’s involved so I follow too.
There’s the usual crowd round the bodies in the middle. I stand on the steps outside the library so I can see better. There’s a blond head, looking suspiciously like Stuart, locked in battle with a dark one . . . with familiar black floppy hair. A jock’s body battling a skinnier Emo type . . .
Joe?
Really?
I blink and look again.
No, that’s definitely Joe and Stuart.
There’s a shout from the corner, ‘Break it up!’ and two teachers run towards the crowd. A bit of pushing and shoving and they break through to the middle. ‘Lads! Lads! Break it up now!’ Stuart loosens his hold, but Joe catches him a hard punch up on the jaw. I wince and turn away so I miss the rest, but when the crowd disperses past me I realise it must be over and I turn back again. Stuart’s standing off to one side looking sullen, but Joe’s being restrained by the bigger of the two teachers who looks like he’s having trouble holding on to him. The other teacher steps in to block his route to Stuart. ‘Hopley, calm down! Pull yourself together!’ When Joe doesn’t respond, the teacher leans into his face and yells, ‘Pack it in!’
That seems to get through to him and he stops struggling. The teacher holding him turns him away from Stuart and leads him off down the side of the library, passing me on the steps. He glances at me as he goes past, but he looks numb and shocked as if he’s stunned at what he’s just done. The remaining teacher frowns at Stuart and gestures towards a door in the opposite direction.
By Any Other Name Page 11