by Sienna Blake
“So, chemistry,” I said, putting the subject back on track. “Tell me why you love it so much.”
She popped the last piece of her breakfast into her mouth, chewed and swallowed. She arranged her cutlery across her plate in an angle the way I’d seen people do in fancier restaurants to alert the waiter that they’re finished. She wiped her mouth, then leaned back into the booth, one hand resting across her full belly.
“I love math. Numbers just make sense to me. And chemistry is all about numbers and how they relate to life.” Her free hand waved as she spoke, her voice growing more passionate. “In chemistry there is no grey, only black and white. It’s precise. The outcome is always known. I love the certainty of it. The safety in knowing the outcome beforehand, every time. And I love the idea of combining molecules to create something different, something new, something better.”
During her speech, I’d started leaning forward on my elbows, drawn in by the passionate way she spoke, the way she seemed to age almost a decade as she did.
I stared at her. Saoirse’s body was that of a girl, but in her head was a mind as sharp and mature as I’ve ever seen. You and I both know you can’t judge people based on what they look like. She had a confidence about her that I knew some thirty year olds didn’t have.
And yet, there was something so immature, so raw, so naïve about her. Something about her that made me want to nourish her…protect her. More than any kid I’d ever been assigned.
“That’s incredible,” I said. “I’ve never heard anyone in my life speak like that about chemistry.” Let alone a thirteen-year-old girl. “Heck, you make me want to get out all my old high school chemistry textbooks.”
She cleared her throat, glancing down into her lap, seemingly uncomfortable with my compliment. “School will be starting soon.”
I looked up at the clock on the wall. She was right. It was almost eight o’clock. I didn’t want Saoirse to be late on her first day back. I made a motion to Betsy indicating a check.
“The bill should come to 21.32 euro,” Saoirse said.
I frowned. “That’s a bit of a precise guess.”
“It’s not a guess. The two breakfasts were 7.87 each plus two coffees at 2.79 each is 21.32 euro.”
Betsy slid the bill in front of me before I could say a word. I searched for the total, finding it marked with a blue pen.
Twenty-one euro thirty-two.
My head snapped up. “How did you do that?”
She gave me a look. “Obviously, I looked at the prices before I gave back the menu.”
I shook my head. “I mean, how did you add those numbers in your head?”
She shrugged. “It was easy. That’s why I like chemistry. I’m good with numbers and stuff.”
“You’re telling me,” I asked slowly, “that you added those numbers up in your head? Do you have like a calculator hidden in your lap or something?”
Saoirse just looked at me.
The gravity of what she just did hit me. I didn’t know a single adult who could take those numbers and add them up in their head the way she just did.
“Saoirse, you’re really smart.”
She let out a long breath as if relieved about something. “I know.”
“You could do anything. Whatever you wanted. Go to a good university, get a degree, get a good job. Jesus, you could become a doctor if you bloody wanted to.”
She shuffled in her chair, her eyes darting everywhere except for on me. I wondered if anyone had ever given her a compliment before.
“Why the hell do you need to get involved with drugs?” I blurted out.
“I didn’t.” Her eyes locked onto mine. “None of that weed was mine. It was my first time smoking it.”
I nodded, suspecting as much.
“I’m not a rat,” she said adamantly.
“I know. I’m not asking you to be one. Jesus,” I let out again. “Do your parents know how smart you are? Your teachers?”
Saoirse screwed up her face.
No.
The answer was no. Nobody knew how smart she was. What I wanted to know was, why the hell not?
She had so much potential. She could do something incredible with her life. I vowed on the spot, I’d do everything in my power to make sure her life veered onto the right path. Everything.
9
____________
Saoirse
Stupid girl.
I shouldn’t have revealed so much at breakfast. What was the point? Even if Diarmuid knew I was smart, what did it matter?
When Diarmuid dropped me off, he told me that he’d be there after school to pick me up. I merely hitched my backpack over my shoulder and walked away, trying not to let hope rise inside me.
For some reason, I couldn’t wait until school finished. I wanted to see him again, I realised. He was the first person who ever treated me like an adult. Like my thoughts and words mattered. Like I mattered.
Stupid girl. I should know better than to put my faith in him. I couldn’t rely on anyone. Even my father, who was supposed to be here for me forever, let me down.
“Hey, Saoirse.” A familiar male voice broke me out of my thoughts. “Wait up.”
Kian ran up to me, his school shirt untucked, the tie around his neck askew and his fancy, probably stolen, Nikkei backpack hanging off one shoulder.
I pressed my lips together, not stopping for him, not even slowing down a little bit. I wanted to tell him to fuck off for leaving me behind and getting me into trouble, but too much of me wanted him to like me still.
He fell into step with me as we walked across the yard towards the front door of the school.
“What’s the craic?” he asked.
I shrugged with one shoulder. “Fine, yeah.”
“I wasn’t sure I’d see you here today.”
“Why? You thought I’d be sitting in some cell?” Try as I might, I couldn’t help the bitterness that infused my voice.
“Come on, Saoirse. Don’t be mad.”
I stopped and whirled towards him, making him halt too. I ignored the flow of students who had to break around us like water around rock, staring at us as they passed.
I leaned in, gripping the straps of my backpack so that my nails cut into the material. “You left me there.”
Remorse broke across his face. “I thought you were right behind me.”
“I thought you were my friend.”
“I am.”
I let out a snort and continued to walk, this time my pace like a march. He jogged up in front of me, opening the front door for me and holding it. I glared at him as I stomped past.
Inside the school building, he continued to follow me down the wide corridor as I walked towards my homeroom on the ground floor, ignoring the guys and girls who called out hello as he passed.
“I’m sorry, Saoirse, really I am.”
“Whatever.”
He grabbed my arm firmly, swinging me to face him. “Forgive me, please. I couldn’t stand it if you stayed mad at me.”
He gave me his best puppy-dog look. A look that I’m sure had most girls melting into a puddle at his feet. Despite my best efforts I couldn’t help but be affected a little. Kian was cute, popular, well liked and a senior to boot.
I let out a sigh. “Fine, I forgive you. Maybe.”
A grin broke out across his face. “You’re a doll, Saoirse.”
I walked down the corridor and he stayed by my side. I supposed this meant he was walking me to class. I could see the looks of the girls in the corridor as I passed, the envy and jealousy on their faces. Probably a question of why Kian was even giving me the time of day.
I ignored them. I didn’t care much for being popular or being seen. Just getting through the school day without event was enough for me. The only reason I was even talking to Kian was because he was genuinely a nice guy. Well, apart from leaving me behind with a joint that the Garda thought was mine.
“So,” he said in a low voice, “did you…did you say
anything to them? The Garda? About me and Dazza, I mean.”
Un-fucking-believable.
I stopped right in front of my homeroom door. “Is that why you’re being so nice to me? You want to know what I said? Whether I spilled my guts about you?”
“Come on, Saoirse. You know that’s not true.” Kian gave me a pained look.
I almost believed him. “Whatever. I gotta get into class.”
Kian grabbed my arm gently before I could turn away. He stepped up to me and leaned in, his lips brushing the corner of my mouth. “See you later?”
“Fine, see you later.” I remembered that Diarmuid was picking me up after school. Perhaps he would want to hang out after school like we did this morning at breakfast? A little thrill went through my body before I shoved it away and told myself—again—not to be so stupid. “But not tonight.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“We’ll see.”
“I’m taking that as a yes.” He backed up, his hands stuffed in his pockets, giving me his famous cocky grin so that I couldn’t help the smile that broke through on my face.
The first three lessons of the day went uneventfully. Everything changed when I entered math class. I sat in my regular seat in the far left near the back.
Mr Fletcher was our teacher, a weaselly man with thinning greasy hair that he combed over. Thick black glasses sat on his hooked nose.
Everything he taught us sank in easily to me. Like those algebra equations that he’d written up on the board in chalk.
He pointed to the sums. “Pop quiz today. I want to make sure that you studied during your holidays.”
Everyone in the class groaned.
“And it counts towards your final mark.”
Groans turned into cries of protest before Mr Fletcher silenced them with a glare.
I did what he instructed silently, ignoring the low chatter of the students around me, asking each other for help, trying to look at each other’s work. I always felt separate from them. Always. And not just because I never had to ask for help.
Because I was the one with the backpack falling apart. Who never had spare pens. Who had to write everything crammed into tiny writing on both sides of each note page because I didn’t know when I could afford a new notebook.
At the end of our allotted time, Mr Fletcher wrote the answers up on the board so we could mark up our pages. I glanced at his answers and looked down at mine. Frowning. Focusing on question number three.
I knew better than to draw attention to myself. I always made sure to make deliberate mistakes in any assignment or test. There was no point in being noticed. No point in drawing attention. I didn’t want to be seen.
Until today.
Perhaps I felt extra defiant today because I had been arrested for something I didn’t do. Perhaps it was Diarmuid’s words from breakfast that kept clanging around my head.
“Saoirse, you’re really smart. You could go to a good university, get a degree, get a good job, Jesus, you could become a doctor if you bloody wanted to.”
I stuck up my hand.
“Ms Quinn,” Mr Fletcher said, “have you found your voice today?”
I shuffled in my seat, beginning to think that this was a bad idea. “Question three, sir.”
“What do you want to know about question three?”
By this stage the whole class was staring at me. I was known as the quiet loner. The one who came into school in ratty secondhand clothes that never fit. I never spoke up in class. Until today. Today, I was invincible.
“Your answer to question three is wrong…sir.”
The class broke out into whispers. Mr Fletcher’s face turned purple and his eyes bugged out of his head. I knew then I’d done the wrong thing.
Stupid, stupid girl.
“Excuse me?” Mr Fletcher spluttered.
I hunched my shoulders around my chest trying to make myself disappear. It didn’t work. Everybody was still staring at me, eyes wide, mouths open. How dare I question our teacher.
“Well, sir,” I stammered, trying to dig myself out of the hole I had found myself in, “if you look at the sum again you’ll see that you forgot to carry the one and so the answer shouldn’t be 304, it should be 314.”
Mr Fletcher stormed towards my desk. “I am not wrong.”
I winced. “If you just look at your sum again—”
“I am not wrong,” he repeated again, slamming his palms on my desk, towering over me. “How dare you suggest it.”
“But sir—”
“Detention this lunchtime for you, Miss Quinn, for being such an obstinate, ignorant a little girl. And you fail today’s assignment.” He pulled out a red pen and leaned over my desk, marking my entire page with a big fat F. I caught the look of glee on his face before he spun around to walk back to the head of the class.
My cheeks burned, the unfairness of it swelling up inside me. I knew I was right. I was right. He had no right to give me detention or to fail my assignment. Just because he couldn’t deal with the fact that he was wrong and shown wrong by a thirteen-year-old girl. Fuck this. Fuck him. I leapt to my feet, almost knocking my chair back behind me.
“That’s not fair,” I yelled.
Mr Fletcher spun and stared at me with a calm, hateful look, his eyes running across my entire body. “I suggest you learn your place, Miss Quinn. You’ll never amount to anything or be anyone. You’ll probably end up like your father, in jail. If you’re lucky, you’ll just end up like your whore mother.”
Tears pricked the back of my eyes and my jaw ached from gritting my teeth together. I hated Mr Fletcher. I hated the words that he said. But they buried deep inside me into that soft, tearable place. To that place that knew that he was right.
“Now sit down and shut up, before I add another week to your detention.”
Fight, a voice inside me said, sounding eerily like Diarmuid’s. He is wrong. You’re right.
Sit down, another voice said inside me. Shut up. Don’t be seen. Don’t be heard. Don’t be anyone.
I can be somebody. I have potential. Diarmuid thinks so.
The other voice inside of me started to laugh, joining in with the giggles that could be heard around the classroom.
My heart sank. Why did I ever think it was a good idea to put my hand up? Why did I think it was a good idea to try to be somebody?
Resigned, I bowed my head. And sank silently into my seat.
10
____________
Diarmuid
I sat in my truck, listening to the radio, which was still set on that old rock and folk channel that Saoirse had changed it to yesterday. For some reason I hadn’t wanted to change it. To be fair, the grassy beats and melodic flutes were growing on me.
I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel as I stared through the rush of kids pouring out of the front of Dublin North public school, my eyes searching for the golden head that was Saoirse’s.
I didn’t usually pick up and drop off my kids. But I was still in shock over what I’d discovered about Saoirse this morning at breakfast.
She was the smartest kid I’d ever met. The potential for her life was outstanding. I vowed I was going to make sure she got out of her horrible home life and made herself a better one.
The stream of kids lessened to a trickle, then finally down to nothing. I glanced at my watch on my wrist, a leather banded vintage watch that had been my father’s when he’d been alive. It was ten past four. Where was she? Did I miss her somehow?
Had she gone around me deliberately? Perhaps gone out the side entrance?
I frowned. I thought we’d connected this morning. I thought I was getting through to her, slowly. Why wouldn’t she show up when she knew I was here to pick her up?
Finally, she appeared and a warmth spread across my chest at the sight of her.
My stomach dropped when she spotted me and broke into a run. Her face was red, her fists clenched by her sides.
I strode towards her, my senses on aler
t. “What’s happened?” I demanded as soon as she was near enough.
“Epinephrine,” she spat out.
“What?”
“A chemical that sends a signal to your frontal lobe to raise your heart rate and increase the rush of blood to your skeletal muscles.”
I blinked.
She rolled her eyes at me. “I’m pissed off, Diarmuid.”
“I can see that.” I squat down in front of her so we were eye level. “Why?”
Tears swam in her eyes, her lip starting to tremble, her anger dissolving into salty water. “He’s going to f-f-fail me. Just because he hates me.”
“Who?”
“M-Mr Fletcher. My math teacher. We had a pop quiz. I know I got all the answers right. I even corrected him. But he just failed me. He failed me because I told him he was wrong.” Her lip began to tremble. “It counts towards our final mark, Diarmuid. It’s not fucking fair.”
My lungs hardened, my chest filling with resolve. I wasn’t supposed to get personally involved with her schooling. That was her parent’s job. But I knew her mother wouldn’t give two shits about her fail grade. I wasn’t about to let this stupid, short-sighted, prejudiced teacher get away with accusing her of cheating.
I picked Saoirse up, spun on my heel and walked to the truck, opening the passenger door with Saoirse still in my arms. Carefully I placed her in the passenger seat. She clung to me for an extra second before letting go.
“Which room is Mr Fletcher in?” I demanded.
She sniffed, her wide pain-glossed eyes on me. “Room 204. Why?”
“Stay here. Lock the doors.”
“But—”
“Saoirse,” I cut her off, my voice curt, “stay here. Lock the doors. I’ll be right back.”
11
____________
Saoirse
I wiped my face, curiosity cutting through the swirling anger and unfairness, watching as Diarmuid strode towards the school building. He walked like he was going into battle. Like he could conquer an empire.
As soon as Diarmuid disappeared into the building, I slid out of the truck and followed him, figuring out where he was headed.