by H G Lynch
“Ember, have you got your homework with you?” the teacher asked in his dull voice, looking at her with steely grey eyes behind his glasses.
“Uh, Sorry. I forgot about it.” She frowned to herself. The only homework she usually let slip was Maths homework, and that was often deliberate. She really had been meaning to do her English… and her Art, and her Biology. All of which she’d forgotten to do this weekend.
The English teacher frowned too and moved on, giving her a disapproving look, which made Ember bristle. She bit her tongue on her excuses.
“I thought you were all raring to get that homework done. You love the writing projects,” Sherry whispered next to her, tapping her pen on the desk.
“I was, but I was too distracted,” Ember replied shortly, knowing Sherz would understand. She saw, out of the corner of her eye, the green-eyed girl nodding. But nothing more was said about it.
Ember and Sherry hadn’t spoken much lately, partly because Ember was so caught up in her problems with Reid and partly because Sherry was so caught up in her new relationship with Ricky. Ember was sure that once things cooled down, her and Sherry would be just like before. Or, at least she hoped so. Maybe Sherry would finally get bored of her and go off with her new boyfriend, leaving Ember to her own devices.
She was pondering this miserably when something hit her in the back of the head and landed on her desk. She turned to give Reid a quick glare, knowing only he would throw notes at her - just like in detention. Then she un-crumpled the ball of paper on her desk and read it:
Hey, what happened with you the other night? You took off so fast I wondered where the fire was.
Ember sighed, not wanting to be reminded of the near disaster on Thursday night. She wrote back quickly.
I had to go before I did something stupid that I’d regret.
She put it bluntly, positive he’d know what she meant. Then she threw it back up at him, first ensuring that the teacher wasn’t looking. Sherry nudged her and raised a brow questioningly, mouthing ‘What was that about?’
“He asked why I left so fast the other night,” Ember whispered back. Sherry smiled a little. “What did you say?”
Ember quickly bent her head back to her work as Mr Waysworth passed by. Once he’d scanned the class from the back row, he returned to his chalkboard and began scribbling on it again with his back turned to the class. “I told him I had to leave before I did something I’d regr-Ow.” The paper hit her again, a sharp corner stabbing her scalp before falling onto her notepad. She opened it up and groaned inwardly at the new words on the page.
Something like kissing me?
Sherz peered over to read the note and then giggled. Ember shot her a dark look and Sherry shrugged defensively. Watching out for the teacher, she wrote back. Just one word.
Yes
She threw the note back with more force than needed, hitting him in the chest so he scrambled with it before it could fall to the floor. Ember rolled her eyes and turned back to her work. What the hell had she been writing before? Stupid distracting boy had made her lose her train of thought. See? Her mind whispered. This is exactly why you need to get rid of him. You’re going to start failing classes next.
“You know, you could give him a chance?” Sherry suggested, her voice so soft it was almost inaudible, not quite meeting Ember’s eyes. Ember gaped at her friend in astonishment for a moment before she found her words again.
“What? Why would I do that? He’s an annoying, arrogant asshole! I don’t want to give him a chance. A chance to do what anyway? There’s only one thing that guy knows what to do with a girl and I’m not idiot enough to let him try it on me. He says he thinks of me as a friend, but I still think of him as an enemy… just one that I can’t openly battle with without losing my dignity,” Ember hissed back, blue eyes flashing. Sherry looked almost guilty before ducking her head back to her work, her hair making a screen to hide her face.
Ember got that awful, pit-of-the-stomach churning feeling she always got when she was having a paranoid kind of day. “Unless… there’s something you’re not telling me?” Ember whispered gently, expecting the usual instant rebuttal of ‘Stop being paranoid. You know I wouldn’t keep anything from you’.
That wasn’t Sherry’s reply this time. Without looking up, the green-eyed girl simply said, “You’re being paranoid again.” Her voice was heavy, not light and playful.
“Yeah… maybe I am,” Ember muttered, feeling worse than before. Her paranoia came and went, depending on how stressed she was, and how much caffeine she’d drunk. Today, she’d missed her daily dose of caffeine. Still, she never usually got too paranoid over things Sherry said or did, but right now… she wasn’t having a good day today.
The note landed on her desk again and she read the fresh sentence, feeling herself blush at the words on the scrap of paper.
Come on, you know you love it really.
“Ember, passing notes in class, are we? And with Mr Ashton, too. Perhaps you’d like to share this little conversation with the class?” Crap! They’d been caught. It was always a nightmare when a teacher caught you passing notes in class. They always read the note out, and this was a bad note to have read to the whole class. She had half a mind to snatch the note from the teacher’s hand and rip it to shreds. Well, she was going to get detention anyway no doubt.
“‘Hey, what happened with you the other night? You took off so fast I wondered where the fire was’. Well, at least it was clearly Mr Ashton who started the note passing.” My Waysworth read and commented in a dry, precise tone. Ember pressed her lips together to keep from screaming for him to give the note back. “‘I had to go before I did something stupid that I’d regret’ Well, well. Been spending time with the notorious bad boy, Miss Jennings?” The teacher clucked his tongue and opened his mouth to read the next line with raised brows.
Ember prayed fervently for just point two of a second, and then grabbed the paper from the teacher’s hand. She could not afford this blotch on her academic record, but she couldn’t stand the glances and giggles she was already getting from the whole class. It felt like someone was squeezing her lungs and her head was whirring. On her less confident days like today, Ember was easily upset and this was too much. God only knew what people would start saying about her.
“Ember! You have detention with Mr Ashton for two hours after school. And I suggest you try to keep yourselves apart,” Mr Waysworth yelled, red-faced. Laughter and chuckles echoed round the room and Ember shot out of her seat, grabbing her notebook and school bag. If she already had detention, it didn’t matter if she left class now. At least it would give her time to calm down before detention, so she wouldn’t rip Reid’s face off.
She gave Reid a truly burning glare as she dashed out the door, and from what she’d seen of his expression, he looked almost as unhappy as she was. Good. He deserved to be unhappy.
Ember, without thinking, ran straight out into the cold autumn air. It was crisp and fresh-smelling, and the leaves were just beginning to turn on the handful of deciduous trees planted amongst the pines. Ember loved autumn, it was her favourite time of year, but right now she was too upset to notice the beauty of it. She headed immediately for the cover of the nearby forest, ducking under branches and stamping through dirt and cobwebs.
Once she was a good distance into the trees, she stopped and shoved her notepad back into her bag. She leaned back against a tree with her heart hammering and tears threatening to spill. She took a few slow, deep breaths and sighed. She didn’t want to go back there, because she knew what kind of gossip would be circulating already. And she wasn’t sure she’d even have Sherry to help her through it anymore. Was she losing her best friend to a guy? Ember had always thought their friendship would come first forever, that guys would come and go but they’d stick together no matter what. Maybe she was wrong?
Ember shivered abruptly, her thin black hoodie not giving much protection from the cold. She didn’t really care; the cold didn’t
bother her much. She leaned her head back against the tree and peered up through the branches of the oak tree she’d come to rest against. The branches were low and thick, and the bark was gouged with notches.
Suddenly, Ember had an idea, and decided to do something she hadn’t done in months. She stuck her foot in a gouge in the bark, shrugging her bag onto her back properly, and clasped her hand around the lowest branch. Using both hands, she pulled herself up onto the branch and searched for the easiest way up further. Reaching up carefully, she grabbed a branch three feet up, to her left. She scrambled onto it and went for the sturdy branch overhead.
She continued up the tree as nimbly as a marmoset, twisting and leaping and scrambling until the branches became narrow and close together. She shrugged off her bag and lodged it in a ‘V’ in the branches. She climbed still higher, balancing precariously on swaying, thin branches loaded with green needles. She brushed off all manner of insects, heard the flutter of birds’ wings as they took off.
Soon, she reached the highest point of the tree she could possibly get to, and settled onto the thick base of one long branch. She could see all the way back to the ground, quite a way down, and sighed. It was strange how she felt safer up here than she had down there. She smiled to herself as a large black crow landed a few branches up and cawed. Swinging her legs a little, she began to think clearly.
What did it matter what other people thought she was up to with Reid? Whatever rumours they spread, she knew they weren’t true and she’d say so to anyone who questioned her on them. It sucked that she had detention, but it’d give her the chance to let Reid know she didn’t appreciate his note passing, and she didn’t want it to happen again. And maybe Sherry wasn’t hiding anything from her; maybe she was just more observant than Ember was. She wasn’t losing her friend; Sherry just had other things on her mind. She’d never abandon Ember for a guy, no matter how much she liked Ricky.
Ember sighed in relief, having cleared her head and feeling as if a weight had been lifted off her chest. She’d simply overreacted, that was all. She’d shoot down rumours left and right if needed, let Sherry know she was happy for her and Ricky, tell Reid to go to hell once and for all, and then she’d come back here to relax. This would be her tree from now on, and she’d be safe here.
Suddenly the crow above her cawed again, and Ember flinched in surprise. She stuck her tongue out childishly at the bird and started to climb down the tree, grabbing her bag on the way down and slinging it onto her back.
When she reached the ground, her hair was a mess and full of bits of bark, her hands were scratched and her trainers were battered, but she felt more relaxed. Glancing at her phone, she realised she’d been in the tree for quite some time, and she only had fifteen minutes before detention started. She scrambled in her bag for her hairbrush and tugged out her hair bobble, brushing the bark out and tying her hair back up neatly. She shoved the hairbrush in the bag and set off for detention, memorising the path she took so she could return to her tree later.
It was getting dim outside when she reached detention, slipping in quickly and taking a seat in the far corner. Ember reached into her bag for her notepad, planning on doing her English homework now, and came up with a crumpled piece of paper, torn in a few places. The note from earlier. She shredded it in her fingers and went to ditch the confetti in the bin up front.
“Ember, this is second time I’ve had you in detention. What did you do this time?” Her maths teacher, Miss Hollander, seemed in a good mood today, looking up from her magazine. Only it wasn’t her usual fashion rag, it was a bridal magazine.
“I was caught passing notes in class. Reid started it.” She pouted falsely and, to her surprise, Miss Hollander actually smiled.
“Reid Ashton. I’m sorry you’ve been burdened with his attentions.” The teacher shook her head with a sympathetic expression. Ember caught a glimpse of something shiny on the teacher’s hand as she turned the page of her magazine.
“Uh, if it’s alright for me to ask, are you getting married Miss?” Ember was curious, wondering who on Earth would marry this woman, and why the whole school wasn’t talking about it. At her last school, news like this would spread like wild fire.
“I am indeed. My boyfriend proposed at the weekend.” Miss Hollander held out her hand so Ember could examine the beautiful ring on her finger.
“Wow. That’s great. Congratulations.” Ember smiled politely and the teacher practically giggled.
“Thank you.” She nodded and turned to the doorway as someone else came in.
Ember took her seat and sighed. Why was everyone so caught up in relationships? Ember couldn’t fathom it. She began to work on her English homework, thinking hard about the plot of the short story she had to write. She knew Reid had arrived - she could feel him leering at her across the room - but she vowed to keep her attention on her work as he took a seat at the other side of the room.
He tried to get her attention a few times in the first half hour, but she ignored him easily. She was on a roll with her story and she was determined to finish it quickly.
When a note flew across the room and landed on her desk, she sighed and shook her head. Didn’t he ever learn? She picked up the note without looking at him, got out of her seat, and went to put it in the bin without reading it. She returned to her desk and continued writing, hoping he’d get the message. He seemed to take the hint, though she felt him glare at her.
Another half hour passed, and Ember had nearly finished her short story. She chanced a glance at Reid, who appeared to be sleeping with his head down on the desk. She rolled her eyes and kept writing.
Twenty minutes later, she was unsure of what to do now, having completed her English and then her Biology in record time. Maybe she could do her Art? But she couldn’t remember any of the details about Rene Magritte, the artist she was writing her essay on. No use. Bored, she read over her story, just in case she’d missed spelling errors or grammatical mistakes. None. Checked her Biology homework. All correct as far as she knew, but she didn’t have her Biology textbook with her to know for sure.
Just ten minutes to go, she thought desperately. For the last half an hour, she’d been glancing at Reid uneasily every few minutes, expecting him to do something dramatic, but he just sat with his head down on his desk, blonde hair scruffy. Maybe she wouldn’t need to tell him to go to hell after all? Maybe he already planned on leaving her alone from now on. She could only hope.
“OK, detention’s up. And Ember, I hope I don’t see you in here again.” Miss Hollander actually winked at Ember as she fled the room. Ember smiled back tightly and made a beeline in the direction of the stairs, wanting to get back to her room and change.
Unfortunately, she was caught by the wrist halfway down the hall, and whirled to face Reid, who looked slightly distraught. She snatched her wrist away and folded her arms, gazing up at him emotionlessly.
“Hey, you know I didn’t mean for the teacher to get hold of the note, right?” She saw a flicker of the Reid she’d been with the day they’d gone horse riding; a less confident, gentler Reid. She could appreciate that and not be drawn in by it, because she was done with him. She’d made the decision and no matter how much she wanted to kiss those soft lips, she wasn’t going to waste her time with him anymore. There were always other hot guys, ones who wouldn’t screw her about – that was if she ever wanted an actual relationship.
“I know. It doesn’t matter. People talk, but rumours are only rumours. They’ll get over it. You can keep your man-whore reputation; tell them what you like. I don’t care,” Ember replied calmly, keeping her voice quiet and carefully neutral.
“Really? ‘Cause it looked like you cared a lot when you stormed out of English? Like, you looked ready to cry. What happened to that?” Reid’s eyes showed his surprise at her words, and his mouth held the droop of disappointment. She wasn’t acting like the feisty Ember he knew and loved to torture. Good. Maybe he’d get bored quickly and leave her alone.
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br /> “Yeah, I was upset. But I got over it. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go and apologise to Sherry for ditching her earlier.” Ember watched his expression melt into… well, something like vulnerability. She felt a quick pang of both guilt and lust at that, seeing how deep his eyes could be and how tender his mouth could look.
She turned and resolutely walked away without giving any indication of her thoughts, her expression blank. It was weird how it almost felt like walking away from someone important.
She received glances all the way back to her room - rumours spread fast around here - and giggles and whispers echoed through the halls behind her. It wasn’t until she reached her room that someone actually spoke to her.
“Hey, Barbie doll, what’s it like being the shortest slut in school?” Ember turned to see an ugly girl with frizzy red hair and a smirk like a donkey on crack. She tried to call up a name for the girl but couldn’t find one.
“Kara, that’s so mean!” Someone down the hall called, obviously having heard the girl’s comment. Kara. Ember had heard stories about this one, stories to make your hair curl. She eyed the unattractive girl with disgust and contempt.
“Actually, my name’s Ember and I imagine it’s better than being the ugliest slut in school. But you’d have to give me details on how much that title sucks to make a real comparison,” Ember replied with a smile, not backing down as the frizzy-haired girl stomped up to her, high heels clacking, and threatened to slap her, throwing in some expletives.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak donkey.” Ember smiled once more and slipped into her room, leaving Kara with her big mouth hanging open. Ember had to repress the urge to make a comment on how often she must’ve pulled that face, what with all the guys she’d blown, but she managed to keep that remark to herself. Ember had more self-restraint than she normally liked to employ.