The Mouse

by Lauretta Hignett

  With a sigh, she pressed the on button and waited for her phone to come on. In a few moments, it loaded up all the messages she’d missed.

  It was worse than she thought. Social media had a lot to answer for; she had more than one hundred messages across all platforms – Snapchats, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Twitter. Some people had even Instagrammed their support-face selfies and tagged her, and she had quite a few messages from classmates who just sent emojis. Kids who she had barely spoken to before had sent her messages of sympathy. Sunny felt both supported, and completely overexposed.

  There were a few comments on Facebook suggesting that she was as much to blame as Jake was, mainly for splitting his lip, and some random hate from students who thought she’d overreacted by getting him arrested, but she tried to ignore those. It wasn’t worth explaining that she didn’t get him arrested – the police decided to do that themselves.

  Most people were in support of her, and they managed to beat down anyone who suggested that she was in any way to blame.

  She hadn’t opened her phone or text messages yet. She knew Hunter couldn’t get in touch with her on social media, as he didn’t even know her real name. But she was expecting a few missed calls.

  There was nothing. He hadn’t even messaged her once.

  Annabel had rung and left a voicemail saying she was on the way over. Her dad had done the same, his voice high pitched and frantic with worry.

  There were a few text messages from other students, all emoji-heavy and over the top. Not many of her classmates had her phone number, so she wasn’t expecting them, but the ones that did have her number obviously shared it out.

  But nothing from Hunter.

  She’d been dreading the pity, the awkward explanation and sympathy from him. When she left his apartment last night, he sounded like there was more he’d like to say.

  But he’d apparently decided that he’d gotten a lucky break when she’d stormed out of there.

  The tears welled up in her eyes again, and her chest ached with the pressure. She hugged herself tightly and curled into a ball, and let the misery wash over her, rocking her in waves of humiliation, despair, and finally emptiness.

  Chapter 29

  Sunny jolted awake, heart pounding, ice rushing through her veins. Her eyes snapped open like defective shutters, and raced around her darkened bedroom, looking for the danger, the threat.

  There was nothing.

  It was another nightmare. Gradually her pulse slowed, and her breathing returned to normal. She had been waking up like this all through the night, her subconscious torturing her in her sleep, waiting for the next hammer to fall. It felt like her body was seeing the extremes of everything – ice in her veins, her nerves on fire. A buzzing head and a sluggish body.

  She rubbed at her head to try and shake loose the cobwebs in her brain and picked up her mobile next to her to check the time. It was six am – and Annabel had just called her, that must have been what woke her up. There was a dim light outside, dawn was breaking, and a watery light was starting to trickle in through the cracks around her thick curtains. Sunny gave a sigh – there was no way she was going to get back to sleep, so she called Annabel back.

  She answered in an instant. “Hey. Have you heard from Simon?” Annabel was curt, ruder than she usually came across.

  “Uh, no. Why?” Sunny croaked.

  “His mother’s been calling me – he didn’t go home last night.”

  “Oh shit, really? Where was he yesterday?” Sunny was suddenly wide awake.

  “That’s just it; I haven’t seen him since we met outside Hillingsworth’s office. I was on my way in to answer his questions, Simon was on his way out. He didn’t go to his next class. Nobody has seen him since.”

  “Oh God! Where do you think he might be?”

  “If I knew that, genius, I’d be there looking for him. Yes, I’ve tried his phone, many times, but it’s switched off. Judy is terrified – she’s been out all night looking for him. I would have been too, but I didn’t know he was missing.” Annabel’s rapid-fire voice cracked with anxiety.

  “Judy waited until this morning to tell you?” Sunny was confused – if Simon was anywhere, it was always with Annabel.

  “I was at training last night; I didn’t answer my phone when she called me, so she called my mother, who told her that he wasn’t with me. Judy didn’t see the point in worrying me just then, but when he didn’t come home last night, she freaked and rang me first thing.”

  “Shit. What do we do?”

  “Judy’s already rung the police.”

  “Don’t you have to wait twenty-four hours to file a missing person’s report?”

  Annabel snorted derisively, sounding a fraction like her old self. “That’s the biggest misconception. The first twenty-four hours are crucial in finding a missing person, especially a child. The cops would be pissed if you didn’t call them as soon as possible.”

  “Oh,” Sunny was momentarily sidetracked by this new piece of information. “So, what do we do now?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied, a hitch in her voice.

  This admission from Annabel worried Sunny more than anything. Annabel always knew what to do.

  “I’ll come over to you,” Sunny tried. “We’ll go out looking for him.”

  Annabel sighed. “I’m headed to school. I think you should too. Wherever Simon is, he wants to be there for now.”

  Sunny was confused. “Wait, am I missing something? What do you mean by that?”

  Her friend sighed again. “I didn’t want to go into this with you. But I think Simon might be missing… because of you.”

  “WHAT?!” Sunny felt immediate anger, a hot scorch of injustice. Why was this being pinned on her? What the hell was Simon doing?

  There was a pause before Annabel spoke again. “Natalie De Burg – the nurse who was in the office with you…”

  “I remember,” Sunny said impatiently.

  “…She told her daughter that Jake kept insisting that you were into him. That he knew you liked him, despite you telling him to bugger off every time he approached.”

  “Yeah, I know all that. The police officer who interviewed me told me...”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Annabel said testily, a shadow of her former self creeping back in. “Anyway, the cops asked him how he knew that you liked him, and he said that one of your best friends kept insisting that you were into him.”

  Sunny paused for a moment, letting what Annabel was saying sink in. “And that friend wasn’t you.”

  “Most definitely not,” Annabel said grimly. “Which means, if that jackass is telling the truth, then Simon told Jake that you liked him.”

  Sunny gasped. “Why would he do that? He knew I hated him!”

  Annabel noisily huffed out a breath. “I don’t know. He’s not that stupid. He might have figured you were protesting so much that you might actually be into him.” She paused for a second, and her voice broke. “I don’t know. I do know that he wouldn’t have meant to hurt you. He was horrified when he came out of Hillingsworth’s office. I don’t think he meant for this to happen at all.”

  Sunny took a deep breath. “Well, on the bright side, I’m not that worried about Simon anymore. It sounds like he expects he’s going to get into lots of trouble, so he’s checking out of reality for as long as he can.”

  “Please don’t be too mad at him,” Annabel pleaded uncharacteristically. “He can’t have meant it – he wouldn’t realize Jake would take it so far.”

  “I’m not mad at him.” Sunny realized it was true as soon as the words were out of her mouth. “It’s not his fault that Jake reacted the way that he did. I’m sure Simon never told him that I was into the rough stuff.”

  “Yeah, he did that on his own. The asshole,” she added absently.

  “So, like I said before, what now?”

  “I don’t know.” Annabel was resigned. “I guess we wait. He’ll pop up eventually, I think.”

&nb
sp; “So, we go to school?”

  “Yeah. I’d feel better about it, except Judy is going out of her mind. I haven’t told her about what Simon said to Jake. I’ll wait a bit and see if he shows up today or not.”

  Sunny thought that was wise – she didn’t want Simon getting into even more trouble on her account. “Alright, I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

  Annabel hung up without saying goodbye. Common courtesy had always eluded her and was especially absent during her more stressful moments.

  Sunny lay for a moment with her phone in her hand, checking again to see if she’d had anything from Hunter overnight.

  There was nothing. Her heart constricted, and her chest ached again, suddenly she could see her state of existence. It stretched out from this point, right to infinity, with absolutely nothing in between except a void, empty space.

  She slapped herself a few times across the face, hard, to jolt herself out of her mental downward spiral, and forced herself to take a shower. The water was helpful. Warm and soothing, it did a lot to ease the spiny thorns of nightmare that were still lodged firm in her brain. With little thought to her appearance, she struggled into her school uniform and scraped her hair back tight.

  She could hear twin snores coming from down the hall – she peeked into her father’s room and saw him still splayed out on the bed in his pyjamas, head back and mouth open, deep in noisy slumber. Archie lay beside him, a perfect tiny echo, fast asleep and snoring away, clutching a spatula tight in his little fist, hugging it close to his body.

  Sunny took a quick video on her phone and smiled sadly to herself. You’ve got to find the joy in every moment, she thought to herself. That’s how you’re going to get through this.

  And she posted the video to her Dad’s architecture firm’s Facebook page. It made her feel marginally better.

  Steph was in the kitchen; she poured her a cup of herbal tea from the pot she had made. “I’m not going to ask you how your night was,” she said, handing her the cup.

  “Well good, because it’s not worth hearing about.”

  “Are you sure you’re ok to go to school?”

  Sunny stared into her cup. “Yeah, I think I’d rather be busy than hanging around here feeling sorry for myself. Plus, there’s a new problem,” she added, wondering to herself when Steph had turned into her confidant.

  Steph went still, pausing with her hand on the kettle. “What’s that?”

  “Simon has gone missing.”

  Steph’s eyes flew open. “Oh no!”

  “I don’t think it’s that serious. It would appear that Simon was the one that told Jake that I was interested in him, which explains his persistence.”

  Steph’s eyes tightened, and she looked uncharacteristically angry. “It doesn’t excuse his actions, though.”

  “Of course not,” Sunny agreed. “But Annabel suspects that Simon feels awful about what happened, and in his usual cowardly custard manner he has made himself scarce somewhere, too frightened to face me.”

  “Oh, honey.” Sympathy etched itself back on Steph’s face. “I’m so sorry. As if you don’t have enough to deal with.”

  “That’s not the half of it,” Sunny muttered under her breath, Hunter’s image piercing her brain.

  “I’m sure he will show up when he gets cold and hungry. His mother must be frantic.”

  Steph clattered around in the kitchen for a while, throwing together some cold pesto pasta salad and cherry tomatoes in a lunchbox while Sunny finished her tea and stared morosely out the kitchen windows at the garden.

  While they were talking, it had gotten darker instead of lighter outside. It was unsettling her circadian rhythm and adding a layer of unease to the veritable tiramisu of dark emotions settling within her. Sunny could see the bulbous bottoms of enormous coal-black clouds cluster in the strip of sky above the garden fence, and she could feel the atmospheric pressure building slowly, adding a vice-like compression to her tired, weary head.

  She snapped back to attention when she noticed Steph looking at her expectantly – she must have asked her a question. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Did you want a ride to school?” Steph repeated, concern tinging her eyes.

  Sunny shot another look at the darkness outside. A different day, a million years ago, she would have scorned Steph’s offer and gotten drenched on the way to school. “Yeah, that would be great.”

  “I’ll just let your father know. He’s taking the morning off, so he can mind Archie.” Steph bustled off upstairs, leaving Sunny to toy with some cold, chewy toast

  She ruminated on the irony of Steph driving her to school, when in fact she could disappear and reappear at school within seconds, avoiding the storm that was settling in. Steph was back in a moment, dressed for the cooler weather in baggy fisherman’s pants and a sloppy knitted poncho slung over her shoulders, a cheery grin on her face. “They’re still snoring – aren’t they classic? I swear I’ve given birth to a carbon copy of your father.”

  It hadn’t yet started to rain when they left the house, but the clouds seemed to be sinking lower and lower. Sunny wordlessly played with her mobile all the way to school, half-wishing it would beep with a message from Hunter, and praying that it wouldn’t. In only a few minutes, Steph had pulled up outside the front gate of the school.

  “Here you go. Now listen,” she said, turning off the motor so Sunny would focus on her. “If you feel in any way uncomfortable, ring me, and I’ll come get you.” She craned her neck so she could meet Sunny’s eyes and get her attention. “I’m serious, Sunny. Just call me, and we’ll spend the day on the couch. I’ve got some TV I need to catch up on anyway.”

  Two days ago, Sunny couldn’t have thought of anything she would like less than to spend time with Steph. Now, she could think of worse things. She was unexpectedly touched by Steph’s concern.

  “Thanks. I’ll be okay, though. But I’ll bear your offer in mind.” She gave Steph a weak smile and pushed open the door of the little Honda.

  Annabel was waiting for her at the gate, umbrella in hand, looking anxious.

  “No word yet?” Sunny called to her.

  “None,” she responded curtly, and they turned started walking.

  Sunny was hyper-aware of all the whispers and glances from other students as they walked the short distance towards the entrance to the school. As they walked past groups of students clustered together, the group would fall silent and watch her pass, or become far too enthusiastic about a random topic. She could feel a million eyes on her back as she strolled that short distance to class. Annabel provided silent support by her side, radiating scorn to keep the car-crash gazers at bay.

  They had got all the way to their lockers before they had to speak to anyone else.

  “Hey! You’re here!” Sophie De Burg gave Sunny a cheerful smile. “I would’ve taken at least a week off, after what you went through.”

  Sophie would have got the full, gory story from her mother, and probably embellished it before spreading it around the school.

  Sunny gave her a half-smile. “No point moping at home.”

  Sophie threw back her golden hair and studied Sunny; sympathy stamped all over her face. “I reckon it was a matter of time before Jake did something like this. He’s such an asshole.” She leaned in closer. “You know, he got a bit grabby with me at last year’s formal. I almost broke his fingers wrenching them off my thighs. He hasn’t spoken to me since then, thank God.” She grinned, then the smile dropped from her face. “I’m just really sorry it happened to you too,” she added sincerely.

  “Thanks, Sophie. I appreciate it,” Sunny replied, and Sophie gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder and flounced off.

  “You’re lucky it was her mum that was in the office with you,” Annabel commented as she gathered up her books. “It could have been lots worse. Some of those part-time nurses would stir up shit just to have something to talk about during their coffee mornings.”

  “Yeah, I get th
e feeling the online hate would have been so much worse if the story had have been more in Jake’s favor.”

  Annabel rolled her eyes. “You can’t stop the trolls, unfortunately. There’s been lots of dickheads, most from other schools, that have posted some narky stuff about how you probably led Jake on.”

  “Apparently, I did,” Sunny closed her eyes and leaned her head against her locker, the coolness of the hard metal soothing what she thought might be the beginnings of a tension headache. “Or, rather, Simon led Jake on. I was the destination.”

  Annabel nodded. “But go easy on Simon. He probably thought he was doing you a favor.”

  Sunny wrenched her head away from the lockers reluctantly, and they headed for their first class.

  “So what’s the plan if Simon doesn’t show up to class at all today?”

  Annabel sighed. “The police are already searching his usual go-to places. They’re checking out all relatives, that sort of thing. It’s totally frustrating, but there’s nothing we can do. Just wait for him to show up.”

  Sunny had a slight flicker in her head, a faint memory that flitted through her head like the most elusive of butterflies. It was gone before she could catch it.

  The two girls reached the classroom and took their usual seats, front left near the windows. Sunny rustled around a bit, getting the right books out. “He’ll be ok, though, right?” She wondered aloud. “I mean, it’s not like he’s some shrinking violet that might be prey to someone on the lookout for a toy to play with. He’s big, he’s strong. I know he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but…”

  “Yeah, the lights are on, but there’s no one home,” Annabel said dryly.

  “Vacant like a bad hotel,” Sunny agreed.

  “Makes a garden snail look like Stephen Hawking.”

  “Yes, he is a few eggs short of a dozen.”

  “He’s bright like a coal mine,” Annabel tried.

  “His mind is like a steel trap, but one that’s been left out in the rain and has gone all rusty so it lets everything in, but everything gets let out just as easily…”

  Annabel snorted. “That was shit.”