by Rina Kent
“I’ve tried to be nice to you,” I tell her. “I can’t help the situation we’re in, it’s no more my choice than it is yours. Why don’t you direct your fury at your dad?”
I catch her turning her head towards me and I glance over in her direction to see her eyebrow raised. “Because winding you up is too much fun.”
“It’s only fun because I’m not even playing. You want me to play? Believe me now darlin, you don’t want that. I’ll bring hell down on you and I’ll laugh when you find yourself stuck there.”
She watches me carefully, studying my face. She’ll find no sign of a joke there. I’m not into childish games like she is, but if that’s the way she wants it, she’ll find out what it’s like to lose.
When she turns away, she takes a sip of her coffee and then exhales a deep breath. “I’ll be the only one laughing.”
Chapter Eight
MICHELLE
I’m out of his big flashy pretentious as fuck Mercedes before he’s even switched the engine off, ducking around to the boot and grabbing my bag. I slam it shut before he has the chance to get his, causing his perfectly chiseled face to thunder in annoyance.
I’m not enjoying being so immature — really I’m not. It’s so not me. But it seems to work. I can feel his annoyance in the tension between us.
For once, I finally feel like I’m fighting instead of running, which is something I haven’t experienced before now. Not in ten years. I mean, I always stood up for myself, but that came from the place inside me that knew I was going to run. When that plan didn’t work out, I was scared I would lose that. I was terrified that subconsciously, I would admit defeat. But I didn’t. Maybe it is immature, but it’s exhilarating, and there’s a spring in my step as I cross the car park — even though I make slow progress in these ridiculous shoes.
There’s spring in my step and spring in the air, too. The brushed metal letters of ELGINVALE HIGH SCHOOL catch the low morning sun along the front of the red brick building, and the smell of fresh-cut grass, still wet from the overnight downpour drifts over from the playing fields. I look over at them, seeing the janitor painting football lines on the turf, stark white against shamrock green, and think he probably has the best job out of the whole school.
Well, this morning he does, anyway.
This morning it’s almost impossible to believe that two weeks ago, they sent us home because of heavy snowstorms. Not when the bright yellow daffodils poke up in clusters at the edge of the carpark, and the birds sing on every branch of every newly sprouted tree. This morning I’d like to be the janitor, but last week when the poor guy was shoveling snow and stockpiling grit salt like it was rare diamonds? Maybe not so much.
It takes Tommy no time to catch up with me — because heels. I knew this was a stupid idea, I hate the things, but I wanted a reaction and I think they served their purpose. And the short skirt and heels combo will come in handy for what I have planned later.
We cross the paved front and head up the stairs to the main entrance, and since we’re late by twenty minutes, we have to go to the office to sign in.
I walk up to the glass and give the lady my best apologetic look. “Michelle McLean. I’m so sorry I’m late, Miss, I was feeling poorly this morning, but then I had a little breakfast and felt much better.”
“No problem, pet.” The lady smiles at me sympathetically and marks my name down on the sheet. “And who do we have here?” She doesn’t even look up from her sheet. “Tommy Heenan, I don’t even want to hear it.”
“That’s alright, Brenda, I had nothing for you anyway,” he says with a chuckle.
First-name terms with the reception staff? Just as I suspected he would be.
She marks his name down with a shake of her head and the faintest of smiles playing on her lips.
I should have known better.
Tommy has that effect on women, doesn’t matter their age, their marital status, the fact he’s a cocky little arsehole… There are few women who don’t have a soft-spot for him.
But then again, there are few women who see the things I’ve seen, so I can’t say I blame them. They’re not stupid; they're just blinded. That’s what happens when you look at something shiny for too long. And Tommy is the prince of diamonds.
I do suspect, though, that Karma is a woman — a queen — who thought it apt that the one he should end up with, would be the one woman who wasn’t born with that built in soft-spot for him. I know that not all diamonds are equal, and not everything that shines on the surface is pure on the inside.
I head off along the corridor. “I’ll meet you out the front after school, taxi boy,” I tell him.
“That’s my girl,” he shouts back.
My first lesson has already started and so I have to do the walk of shame, made even worse by the fact my heels are so fucking noisy on the parquet floor. I pulled my skirt down as soon as Tommy was out of sight so I don’t look totally ridiculous, but still.
“Miss McLean, thank you for joining us,” Mr Callahan says sarcastically.
“Sorry I’m late,” I say, keeping my head down. Unlike the office staff, Mr Callahan actually knows me, so he’s not going to buy my angelic act.
The morning lessons go by quickly and by the time break rolls around, I have myself all worked up. I sorted my phone out over the weekend, although I lost all my contacts and photos and apps. So I haven’t spoken to Lawrie and Ada yet.
Technically, I could have logged into social media and sent them a message letting them know what happened, but I suppose I was too proud to do that. Or maybe it was that doing that would force me to admit defeat. I wasn’t ready to admit defeat over the weekend, but now I have a plan I feel much better about things.
And I can’t avoid them forever.
I’m going to have to come clean about everything and now seems as good a time as any.
I go to the spot we usually meet, in the sixth-year exclusive common area on a set of couches near the back of the room. I’m sitting there when I see them come in, and they both do a double take when they see me.
“What are you doing here?” Ada mouths to me while they approach.
I shrug as if it’s not even a big deal. “Tommy found me.”
They both look at each other as they sit down on the couch opposite. Lawrie is the one who speaks first. “He was over at our table asking questions, we said you were in the toilet and he wanted to come looking, but we said we would go. When we got back he’d disappeared, we assumed he was away looking for you.”
Ada continues. “Yeah, we were thinking it was dead strange because, like, no one made a big deal out of it? There wasn’t a commotion or anything. It was your birthday, and they didn’t have you up to cut the cake or anything! How weird is that? We just assumed they didn’t want the news getting out, but that you’d made it. Now I’m guessing you didn’t make it. What happened? Why didn’t you tell us?”
Ada gets like this when the slightest bit of anything out of the ordinary happens. She speaks too fast. It’s like she’s an excitable puppy, she wants to hear everything, she wants all the information right now but she can’t shut herself up enough to listen to it.
Lawrie is much cooler, much calmer, and much more level-headed. If Ada is a puppy, Lawrie is an old Tomcat who’s seen it all before and learned to think before she speaks. I love them both equally, just in different ways.
I don’t even know how to unpick everything Ada said, so I try to sum up the whole weekend in one statement. “I’ve basically been under house arrest since the party. No phone, no computer. Tommy dropped me off at school today.”
“Bastards,” Ada says apologetically.
I tell them all about what happened with the pier, and afterwards.
Lawrie shakes her head and looks from Ada back over to me. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t think there’s anything I can do,” I tell them. “I can’t run again — I have no money, no car.”
Ada sits forward on t
he couch, like she’s just had a revelation. “If it’s money, then surely we can help? I mean, how much are we talking? I have some savings. Lawrie, you could ask your dad for a lend. We could both get jobs!”
I cut her off before she mentally signs herself up to babysit for some poor innocent child who — lets face it — hasn’t done anything wrong and doesn’t deserve that. Their parents would never leave the house again, that’s if they ever made it out the door in the first place.
“Thank you, but I couldn’t do that,” I tell her. “And it’s not just a few hundred. I had thousands saved. Rent, bills, enough to keep me going until I found a job. The only thing I can do now is try to make him hate me so much that he decides I’m not worth it.”
They both look at each other, but Ada is the one to speak up. “Michelle, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I mean think—”
“Yeah, it's a fucking stupid idea,” Lawrie says, cutting her off again. We’re good at that — thirteen years of practice. “We’re talking about Tommy Heenan here, right? I mean we’re not getting confused and talking about a different person? You’re actively trying to provoke Tommy Heenan? Have you completely lost your marbles?”
I shake my head at her. “I’m going to lose more than my marbles if I have to marry him!”
Ada clears her throat. “She has a point there, Lawrie. If you think about it—”
“She has a point, but she’s not seeing the bigger picture. He’s left you alone for years, who’s saying he won’t leave you alone after it as well? If I were you I’d shoot for a marriage in name only first. Surely that has to be better than provoking his anger?” Lawrie makes a good point. We both look at Ada to see what she thinks. Ada is definitely the softer one of us all, the sensitive one.
“I wouldn’t want to marry him, but I wouldn’t want to provoke him either,” she says.
Well thanks, Ada. That was enlightening.
It’s like the pair of them have swapped roles, and this is the first time Ada has ever said a single sentence and stopped at the period.
The bell rings and we get up. I tell them I’ll think about what they said and meet them back here for lunch, even though I know I’m not really going to think about it. Lawrie makes a good point, but she’s underestimating Tommy. I’ve already fucked him off too much. He will never give me what I want now, and if I tell him I want a marriage in name only, then he will probably try his hardest to make sure that doesn’t happen.
No. I had a plan, and it failed. Then I came up with a Plan B. I’m not going to abandon it now for a Plan C I’m not even remotely convinced will work. I’ve only been at this a day, and I feel I’ve already learned how to get under his skin. I’m there, I’m not deep enough to do any real damage — yet, but I still have time. And now I’m learning what makes him tick.
It’s a learning curve, a process.
It's a war, not a battle.
The bell rings for the end of the day and I’m making my way down the corridor towards the main entrance, but my eyes are everywhere.
A backpack slams into my stomach as the little first-year shits in front of me stop dead when an eight foot wide corridor turns into a three foot wide door. It’s like a river, you don’t just stop — you slow down and you squish together. I should have been looking where I was going, but they should know corridor etiquette by now, and I’m scanning the crowd for a specific someone.
Kieran Townsley.
He’s geeky as hell and a little strange, but he’s not bad looking. So it wouldn’t be completely inconceivable that I could have a “thing” for him.
And I’m pretty sure he’s been obsessed with me since we met six years ago, when we were first years and hadn’t learned the basics of walking in corridors yet either.
I had quickly put him in the friend zone back then, mostly because he’s geeky. Not just geeky though, that would be shallow. He’s a tech guy, the type who would happily not leave the house for a full weekend because they had to look after some virtual village online. We’re just chalk and cheese.
Or cheese and… an orchestra.
That’s how far apart we are. But Tommy doesn’t know me, and I doubt he knows Kieran, so he could never know that. And now I’m thinking it’s the perfect time to unlock the gate and let Tech boy into the wild.
Except I can’t find him.
I stop in the middle of the hall and look around. There’s the Goth and Emo kids. The football kids. The semi-popular girls who wear too much lip gloss. The boys who smoke behind the gym hall at lunch. The sweaty bastards. The math geeks.
Kieran is firmly in the Tech geeks, and I don’t see them anywhere.
I wipe my clammy hands down my skirt, trying not to stress. I’m supposed to be outside with Kieran by the time Tommy comes out. At least that’s the way this whole thing plays out in my head. But since I can’t find him, I abandon my plan and head outside to the front of the school to wait for Tommy Taxi.
Bingo.
Kieran is standing with a group of kids just at the foot of the stone steps. I head over towards him, taking my time coming down the stairs in my heels. My skirt gets hitched up again, not as high as it was before but definitely not sitting on the knee as per regulation.
“Kieran?” I shout over to him and he looks up, doing a double take when he sees who’s shouting on him.
“Michelle, how are you doing?” He pushes his glasses further up his nose and takes a step away from the group.
“Good! I’ve been meaning to catch you, actually. I saw the photos you took for the school newspaper — they were amazing! I’m thinking of trying to get into modeling and I wondered if you had any tips for me?” I put my arm on his shoulder and he looks at it, then looks to my face in surprise.
He quickly recovers and smiles. “Sure! I mean I’m no expert, but I do know the makings of a good photo. For me, it’s all about the lighting. And the subject, of course! But if it was you, then that wouldn’t be a problem.”
I giggle coquettishly, tapping him on the shoulder. “Oh behave. No, seriously your stuff is really good. Do you have a professional camera?”
He shrugs, trying to hide the fact that he’s blushing. “I actually prefer the writing parts of the newsletter; the pictures are just to give the articles an extra something. So my setup isn’t great, but I could definitely try to get a few shots of you if you’d like?”
I practically gush over him. I’m being ridiculous. I feel ridiculous, but fuck it. “You would? Kieran, that would be totally amazing. I’m a bit shy, so having someone I know, even if it’s just for the first time, it would make things so much easier.”
“Of course. It wouldn’t be a problem,” he tells me. His smile changes and I sense what’s about to happen before I even turn around.
Kieran takes a step back, and I pluck up the courage to turn around because I want to see his face.
He’s absolutely livid, but I give him my sweetest smile. “Taxi! Nice of you to eventually show up. Kieran here was just discussing my modeling career with me.”
“Oh really, that’s nice.” His tone is not amused. He wraps his hand around the back of my neck and turns me around, his eyes boring into Kierans. “Michelle here was just leaving.”
And then we leave. Whether or not I wanted to, we are definitely leaving. He marches me at a frighteningly quick pace around the side of the building towards the car park.
“Why do you always need to manhandle me?” I ask him, as casually as if I’m asking him the weather forecast for tomorrow.
“Would you rather I break Kieran Townsley’s jaw? Because the way I’m feeling right now, that’s your only two options, princess.”
He’s angry. Really fucking angry.
“You need to calm your tits, son. Kieran was just being friendly,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “I wasn’t going to break his jaw for being friendly. I was going to break his jaw so you could live with it on your conscience. Or would that not even bother you? Are you that cold?
In fact, you don’t need to answer that.”
I swallow. “I’m not responsible for you acting like a psychopath.”
Tommy shrugs, giving my neck a squeeze. “And I’m not responsible for the things you’re driving me to do. Get in the fucking car.”
He holds the door open and releases my neck, and I jump in like he told me. I’m not a complete idiot. I can see for myself the tick in his jaw and the clenched fist.
He’s pissed.
He jumps in and doesn’t even put his seat belt on before he reverses out of the parking space, and I wonder if maybe I’ve gone a little too far. Not because he’s angry — fuck him. But because I might have put Kieran in danger and that was a shitty thing to do.
I turn my head and look at him. He’s leaning back in his seat, but his knuckles are white against the steering wheel.
Well shit, Michelle. I think I’ve just achieved the goal.
Hopefully, the reward is worth it.
Chapter Nine
TOMMY
She gets out of the car at her house and it’s only now that I’m finally calming down. It’s the fact that she knows exactly what she’s doing, that’s what gets me so fucking angry.
The look of satisfaction on her face.
I want to do something that’ll make her think twice before ever crossing me again.
I told her just this morning I would bring hell down on her and now she’s backing me into that corner. She’s leaving me with no choice. What would hurt her though? I realize I don’t even know her that well, and she already seems to have worked out how to push every button I ever had.
Then I remember her face when I told her no one gave a fuck about her tits. I took her pride away then. Could I do it again without going too far?
Depends how far she pushes me, I suppose.
She’s already inside the house and I had intended to go home, but now I switch off the engine. I give it ten minutes before I cross the drive and open the front door. Stupid girl should learn how to lock a door.