Promise you won’t show your friends?
Promise.
And don’t lose your phone!
Promise.
I slide off the bed and head back to the mirror. Phone raised, I start clicking, more than I need but I only want to send him the best. The ones where I look the prettiest and the thinnest. And definitely not ‘cute’. I turn the camera around and start the selfie mode next, filling up my picture library.
Plopping down on the rug, I start scrolling through them, deleting most of them. I choose three and edit them as best I can – ‘Enhance’ to make the colour pop, ‘Glamour’ to soften the edges, ‘Vintage’ on the last one so it looks hazy and dreamlike. I exhaust all of the photo apps on my phone within minutes. My hands are getting clammy. Thumb hovering above the Send button, I take a deep breath.
It’s just Steve. I know him. I trust him. I love him.
Send.
LUCY
‘This year is going to be amazing,’ I say, turning my hip towards Cara.
She nods in agreement, shifting the weight of her physics books from one arm to the other. ‘I hope so. It’s our last year. We have to make it epic. Do you think we’ll still all be best friends when we’re at uni?’
‘Of course! Why wouldn’t we be?’ She’s right. Once we go to university it’ll all be different. People change, drift apart. My parents did. It’s hard to predict if we’ll still be friends by the end of this year, let alone at uni.
‘Are you going to Lee’s party on Saturday night?’
I push thoughts of the future from my mind. ‘Definitely. What are you wearing?’
‘I think my faded skinny jeans with that blue sequin top from H&M…what about you?’
‘Well, I was going to wear my faded jeans and a black body suit with my rose Topshop bomber but it has sequins too so we’ll look like twins.’ I pucker my lips and scrunch up my nose, waiting for her response. She takes a few moments but then finally gets there.
‘Oh, well you wear that and I’ll just wear something else then?’
‘Really?’ I raise my eyebrows and feign surprise. ‘You sure?’
She waves her hand casually and her books slide further down her hip. ‘Yeah, it’s fine.’
The classroom door opens before I can thank her and we all start rushing in, aiming for the same tables in the back row. No one wants to be in the first two rows with ‘Mr I-Spit-When-I-Talk Anderson.’ Last year, Mollie swore she caught a piece of his fish sandwich from lunch in her hair.
My feet get to the threshold then don’t go any further. A warmness fills my insides and flows through my body, gathering into a knot in my belly. I grip onto the doorframe for balance.
‘Are you coming in or what?’ Cara asks, an unfamiliar expression spreading across her face.
I touch a cool palm to my burning cheek. ‘Yeah, you go on in. I’m suddenly not feeling well.’
She shrugs and turns around, heading for the last table in the back row.
‘Save me a seat!’ I call after her as she disappears into a sea of bobbing heads.
My brown suede ballet pumps slap the tiled flooring as I get faster. Slamming into the door, I slide my bag off my shoulder until it drops heavily to the ground, probably cracking my phone screen, then hurry into the first cubicle. I barely have time to hold my hair back before hot bile rushes from my mouth into the toilet below.
There goes my tuna salad from lunch…and that macadamia nut cookie…wait, is that my porridge from this morning?
I rest my cheek on the toilet seat and groan loudly, hoping no one else is in here with me. Sitting back up, I rock forward until I’m squatting on my toes then slowly peel myself up to standing again. Flushing with my elbow – I don’t do school germs – I wriggle out of the cubicle trying not to touch anything in the path to the sink. I splash cold water on my face, focusing more on the side of the cheek that was glued to the toilet seat. Leaning on the edge of the sink, I firmly plant a hand on each side.
I look rough. My pupils are bloodshot and my skin has a dull grey hue to its complexion. Must have been that tuna salad. I thought it tasted funny. I should have said something at the time. I’m probably not the only one who got sick after eating one. I straighten up and feel my back twinge. Now I feel like I need a massage. Maybe I’ll ask Cara to go with me after school on Thursday to that Thai spa on the high street.
When I get back to physics, the attendance has already been taken so I have to amble down the hall to the front office to correct the absence. My shoes flop weakly on the green and white floor as I round the corner. A tall familiar figure by the water fountain stops me.
He’s wearing the grey and white striped T-shirt I bought him for Christmas with his white uniform shirt on top but unbuttoned. He always did push the rules to the very edge, not enough to warrant a write up, but just enough to get a couple of disapproving looks from the Assistant Head.
I quieten my footsteps and inch towards him. Leaning over him slightly, I clear my throat. ‘Do you know how many germs are on that handle and maybe even on the dispenser itself. Didn’t I teach you anything?’
Rhys jerks up and a half smile spreads slowly across his face. He’s nervous, I can tell. I know him so well. His nostrils are flaring slightly as he’s thinking of something funny but not too leading to say. His hands are flat against his thighs like he’s thwarting the clamminess seeping in, and he’s blinking a little faster than normal. I’ve studied that face for two years, not including the months before that when I first noticed him noticing me.
He clears his throat. ‘Luce, what are you doing out of class?’
Luce.
I like it when he calls me that. It’s a nickname that I’d avoided for years but when he started using it, I didn’t mind so much. In fact, I grew to even love it. The way the ‘L’ sounds coils at the tip of his tongue before rolling down like a slide, ending with a hiss for the ‘S.’ Only he could make it quite so rhythmic. So harmonic.
‘I missed attendance. You?’
‘Just thirsty. Plus I needed to stretch my legs. Mrs Hamer is killing me.’
‘Yeah, just wait until she gets to Jane Austen on the syllabus. She gets really fired up then.’
‘She just reenacted the forest dance from The Crucible.’ His face softens and his eyes stretch out into thin slits as he starts giggling.
I hear the familiar eruption from my lips as a laugh from deep down in my belly escapes my mouth. He always could make me laugh. Even when I was mad at him, which seemed to be more frequent nearer the end of last school year when Dad’s new baby was born.
New baby = New family.
New life.
As if he remembers the past few months, he abruptly stops laughing and wedges his hands deep into his pockets. He rocks back slightly on his heels and when he lands, he bites down a little on his lip. ‘How are you anyway?’
‘I’m OK.’ I hope he doesn’t smell the vomit on my breath, although it’s hard to look cute after such a display of illness in a school toilet.
‘Did you see your dad much over the summer?’
I want to say, ‘No, he doesn’t have time for me anymore’ but instead I shake my head, and loop some hair around my finger, twisting and coiling it into loose curls.
‘I’m really sorry about the summer.’
‘You didn’t return my texts or call me.’
‘I know. I just needed a little space.’
‘Did Trina help you with that?’ I resist putting a hand up to my mouth to feign regret, though I just couldn’t help it. The words slipped so easily from my lips. A warm sensation builds in my stomach and I hope it’s not bile again.
‘Birchwood High loves its gossip,’ he simply replies, leaving me with that warm feeling to spread up to my cheeks. Sickness again? Regret? Love? Or maybe that’s irritation.
‘So it’s not true?’
‘What?’
Is he trying to make me mad deliberately? Does he want me to explode right here in fron
t of Mrs Hamer’s terrible rendition of John Proctor’s speech?
‘Are you or aren’t you seeing Trina Davis now?’
He moves his shoulders into what looks like an attempt at a casual shrug, but fails. ‘I’m not sure. We’re taking it slow.’
My belly hurts. I thought he’d deny it or brush it off as a casual summer fling, but not this. This sounds… serious. This sounds like he’s over me.
I edge a little closer to his body and soften my voice. ‘I missed you this summer.’ I reach out to touch him but he rocks back on his heels, seemingly accidental but I know he’s intentionally avoiding any physical contact with me.
Suddenly recalling the last ten minutes with my head in the toilet bowl, I take a step back away from him and tug at a loose strand of hair in front of my face, tucking it back into the section where it belongs – curled slightly but not enough to look like too much effort. Rhys liked the natural look.
‘I just don’t get it. You can do so much better than that girl.’
He shakes his head and smiles. ‘You hate everyone, Luce.’
‘No, just her.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s such a slut. She’s been with every guy at this school practically.’
‘I think that’s an exaggeration,’ he says, running his hand through his hair.
I like it when he does that. But the fact he’s sticking up for her is making that warm sensation turn into a scalding pit of fire.
‘No, it’s not! She looks like she gets dressed in the dark most days. Today I think I saw her tacky red thong sticking out from her waistband. I mean, come on Rhys! Seriously? You rebounded with her?’
His face tightens, any glimmer from his eyes quickly fading. ‘I’d better get back to Hamer’s class. And you should sort your attendance quick, before they log it in the system.’
He starts back to the classroom on the left, while I face the front office, the light from the outside streaming in and striking the tiles illuminating the green in the swirls. I know better, but I look back anyway.
He doesn’t turn around to meet my gaze like he used to when we parted. No, not anymore. Now he just walks on. I’m the one who’s standing there watching him leave.
By the time I return to physics, I’ve missed a short animation on kinetic energy and apparently Euan’s fall from the high-top chair by the 3D model table. Cara’s halfway through a mediocre sketch of Mr Anderson, not exactly of the highest quality from someone applying to Edinburgh University’s fine art programme.
I’m going to be a doctor. My grades are perfect so the rest of Birchwood High School should be a breeze for me. I can concentrate on what’s important – getting Rhys back. I miss him so much. The summer was torture for me. And while I cried over him, over my dad, he was getting ‘space’ with another girl. I loved him. I still do. I think.
I skip free period at the end of the day, having already completed and submitted my homework, and walk home early. I still feel icky after my puke session and I could do with some air.
It’s light outside, autumn only just settling in. Pine trees erupt from the soil around me and stretch high in the sky, their leaves singed with coppery reds and amber oranges, drooping slightly from the stem. The foliage is nothing compared to Glen Affric though. We took a camping trip there when I was around eight or nine years old. Me, Mum and Dad. The way it used to be. Us three and no one else. We needed no one else at that point.
While Dad struggled with the tent Mum blew up the air mattresses with a battery-operated pump. After our ‘home’ was set up and secured to the ground we went for a stroll on the trails and cooked sausages over the portable grill. There were no smartphones at that time, no celebrity magazines to be engrossed in, no arguing between Mum and Dad, no Trinas, no Ambers, or new babies. Life back then was just so much simpler. Now it’s a muddled mess of regret, insecurity and hate.
My feet crunch over the twigs and dried leaves as the trail through the woods narrows under the trees. I used to walk here with my dad when he was still around. We had a cocker spaniel called Jack which he took with him when he left. Strange. He took his dog and a suitcase of clothes, but not his daughter or any of the family photos. I wonder if Jack’s even Jack still. Maybe he’s a Rufus or a Harvey. Knowing what I do know about Amber, and that’s minimal, Jack’s probably Fluffy or Doodles, or something equally unimaginative.
My body starts to drag near the end of the trail, my house thankfully just beyond the gates. I’m so tired all the time now. All I want to do is sleep. When winter comes and darkness really creeps in and stays, it’s going to be so hard to get up in the mornings for school. I used to be such an early bird, jumping out from the warm covers at the first chime of my alarm. Some days I didn’t even need an alarm, my body just wanted to wake that early.
But not now. Now my mum has to knock on the door really obnoxiously loud and call my name at least three times. It would probably take her less time to just make me a cup of coffee in the morning and bring it to me, actually make herself useful for once. But I guess I should be grateful she’s able to get herself out of bed a bit more these days. I got a glimpse this summer of how she must have felt when Dad left. The overwhelming loss, the gossip of a new girlfriend, the confusion, then the anger. I felt all that too. But I couldn’t confide in her because she wasn’t there. She was stuck up in her bedroom alternating between antidepressants and Merlot. Up. Down. Her moods are all over the place.
Shutting the back door behind me, I trudge up the stairs towards my bedroom. I drop my book bag by the door and collapse my body into the plush grey armchair in front of the dresser that Dad painted white for me so it would match the rest of my bedroom after I complained that mahogany in a room of white was torture for a self-proclaimed ‘control freak’ like me. I lean back into it and let the squishy fabric envelop my tired body and stare at the unfamiliar reflection. My face is even more grey now, almost the same shade as the armchair and my face is breaking out, which never happens unless it’s my time of the month…wait, when is that actually? Soon. Must be.
I glance over my shoulder, eyes skimming the floor for my bag, where I keep my phone, a power bank in case it dies during school hours, which would be a complete nightmare, a MAC lip gloss, oil-blotting sheets, and what I’m looking for – my diary. I yank it out from the side pouch of the bag and flick through the pages until I go back to August where a star sits right under the 10th. It’s only been a month and a half, that’s not bad. Right? I had that spotting at the end of August so that probably counts too.
I just don’t feel right. I don’t feel like myself. Maybe I’m getting my period finally, or maybe…
Maybe…
No. That’s ridiculous. I’m seventeen. That’s impossible. Well, it’s not impossible, it’s just…no.
Oh.
My.
God.
ULANA
‘So, there’s been how many of the same movie?’
Aiden shakes his head, and lets out one of the cute exasperated laughs that he does when I ask him lots of questions about his favourite films. ‘This is the fourth. Well, six if you count the Alien versus Predator movies,’ he says.
‘Six? Was this a prequel we just saw?’
‘No, it’s another sequel.’
‘Are the others the same?’
‘Pretty much, yeah.’
‘So in all of them, alien hunters come to earth in a spaceship and kill people?’
‘Basically, yeah.’ He smiles.
‘Sounds like they need new material if you ask me.’ I’d stupidly agreed to let Aiden choose the movie, and although it was exciting to be in a public place with him, sitting side by side, legs touching, and sharing popcorn, I’d spent the last two and half hours trying to decipher the premise of a seemingly very simple science-fiction movie. But I could have seen any movie with Aiden and I wouldn’t have paid attention to it. All I thought about in that cinema was him.
As if he can read my mind he grabs my han
d, squeezing it tight to his chest. He brings it up to his lips then places a gentle kiss on my hand, between the thumb and the index. A warm sensation builds inside me, and I lower my head so he doesn’t see my beetroot face. ‘I’ve had a lot of fun today.’
‘Me too.’
‘I was definitely a little anxious at first—’
‘Really? I never would have guessed!’
‘OK, maybe I was more than a little anxious. But you’re right. There’s so many people here, it’s the middle of the day, during a week, no one knows us here.’
He squeezes my hand tighter. ‘Does that mean we can do this again?’
I squeeze back. ‘Definitely.’
We walk through the car park, up to the bus station, where yellow daffodils line the benches, standing tall against the incoming winter season. Yellow, like the buttercups back in the meadow. The meadow that I can’t walk through with Aiden.
‘So, I was thinking—’
‘Did it hurt?’
‘Funny.’ He clears his throat. His shoulders bounce up and down. Is he nervous?
‘I was thinking you could come over for Sunday lunch this weekend?’
‘Where?’
‘To my house.’
I slow my pace until my feet are no longer moving. ‘To your house? Will your parents be there?’
‘I would hope so. I can’t cook a Sunday roast!’ he laughs, but it’s not real. It’s his fake laugh. I know all his real laughs.
‘You’re asking me to meet your parents on Sunday?’
He starts rocking back and forth on his toes. ‘I know, I know. But I promise you, they won’t say a word of it to anyone—’
‘What would I say to my parents?’
‘Tell them you’re going over to Sophia’s for lunch or to study?’
‘And what if they call Sophia’s parents?’
‘They would do that?’
‘I don’t know, Aiden! But they could! And I’m not willing to take the risk!’
We Are Not Okay Page 6
