We Are Not Okay

by Natália Gomes

  It’s always for nothing.

  TRINA

  Journal Entry 8: 19.12.2018 – 2018 is almost over, thank God

  106,098.

  That’s the number of people who were sexually attacked in 2016 and reported it.

  106,098.

  I Googled it. I just wanted to find out how many others felt like me. Even though I’ve felt alone, I knew I wouldn’t be. But wow, I wasn’t expecting that number. I can’t believe that many people went through what I did, and that they went to the police about it. Now I feel like I’ve let 106,098 people down. Because I’m not brave like them. Maybe Lucy’s right.

  I thought a lot about what she said after she left my house last week. In fact, it was all I thought about for days after. ‘You’re the one who’s too scared to tell anyone about what happened at the party.’ That’s what she said to me on my own doorstep before she left – without saying ‘Thanks for saving my life, Trina’ or ‘I’m sorry for being a complete and total bitch to you this year.’

  So what if I’m scared? She has no idea what I went through, what I’m still going through every single day. Every single moment, I’m transported back to that night. I still can’t sleep, I’m still barely eating. I’ve lost weight and now my mum is noticing. I will tell her one day. I want to. She’s the only person I can tell about it.

  But not yet. Soon.

  Mum’s calling me right now for dinner, but I’m not hungry. I can’t eat, not today. Because I saw Him today. HIM.

  I was walking down the high street, counting the contents of my wallet, deciding whether I could afford a new pack of cigarettes – I smoke a lot more now – and when I looked up, there he was. He was on the same side of the street as me, walking fast as if he was late to meet someone. I stopped dead. I dropped a couple of coins that I think landed by my feet. I forgot to pick them up after. Kicking myself about that too. I don’t know if he saw me, but he walked right past me as if I was invisible. Right past me! While I stood there, frozen in complete fear, terrified he’d notice me, try to talk to me, try to reach out and touch me, he just strolled by looking so relaxed, so free, so unimpacted. He probably didn’t even recognise me. I don’t even recognise myself these days. I hardly ever wear make-up, and I try hard to cover up every inch of my body in clothes a size too big. I don’t want to draw too much attention to myself anymore. I don’t want guys to look at me, to – to – want me. It was my fault last time. It won’t be my fault next time.

  By the time I got home, I had a gash on my right palm. I must have been clenching my fist so hard that my nails dug into my skin and drew blood. I hadn’t even felt it. My hands are still trembling, even now.

  I heard a rumour at school earlier this week – for once not about me. It was about a girl in the year below me, Sara something. Pretty girl, reddish hair, huge green eyes. Outside by the chem labs while I was lighting up, I heard a few people from that year talking about a party they went to last Friday – I wasn’t there. I never go to parties anymore. I don’t like to be around large crowds of people anymore, especially those who are drinking. I don’t trust anyone anymore. Not even myself. I’ll never ever put myself in that kind of situation again, the kind where I let go, where I trust, where I make stupid naive assumptions about people. No, never again. No one will catch me out again. I’ll never be used like that again. So I avoid the parties at weekends. I avoid the crowds, and the risk. Because there’s always risk.

  It’s safer for me here at home. So that’s where I stay most evenings and weekends now. These four walls that cocoon me right now are the only thing protecting me. Outside these walls, it’s too unpredictable. It’s too… dangerous.

  Anyway, after this party last Friday, I heard talk about Sara and – and – Him, about how they’d had sex in the barn outside the house. When I heard people talking about it outside chem, I threw my cigarette down and walked right over to them. I was so angry, I could feel searing heat racing through my entire body and shooting out my arms. I thought for a split second that I’d burned myself with my lighter, but I hadn’t. I was just that furious, I was boiling over. I screamed at them, told them to stop talking about people behind their back. Then I threatened to hit one of them. I would have too, had the bell not rang. I could feel it in my hand, the quiver, the tremble. I wanted to strike one of them, both of them, anyone really. And when the bell went off, I suddenly couldn’t remember how I’d got myself into that state. It was like I was in a trance or something. That’s exactly how I felt when He passed me on the street.

  All I kept thinking was what if the same thing happened to Sara that happened to me? What if this was all my fault? Because of my silence, I’d let this happen to someone else?

  I threw up shortly after that confrontation at school. Couldn’t keep my cold lunch down. Everything came up. Tuna sandwich and all. Yuck.

  I threw up today too. After I saw Him. This time I hadn’t eaten much, so nothing really came up. My chest and throat still hurt from all the dry heaving.

  Maybe Lucy’s right. I am a coward. I probably won’t do anything about it and it’ll just happen to someone else again, and then they’ll be too scared to do anything, and people like Him will get away with it again and again. Is that what I really want? Is this who I am? Am I the kind of person who’d let this happen to someone else when I could have stopped it, stopped Him? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what kind of person I am.

  I can’t even bring myself to write his name. I don’t want him to taint my journal, spoil my thoughts – poison my words. When I can write his name, when I can say it, then I’ll know I’m ready. I’ll do it. I will. Soon.

  Just give me more time, please. Just a few more days, maybe a week, or a…

  What if I never do it?

  SOPHIA

  ‘Steve?’

  I stand in a crowded room of people, the speaker only inches from my feet, the music vibrating against the hardwood flooring by my brown suede flats. Bodies move beside me. Shifting. Swaying. Shuffling to the rhythm seeping out from the black cone, coated in ceramic and metal. They dance as if in slow motion. As if everything is in slow motion. Except me. I’m the only one moving at a normal pace through the crowd. I think I’m moving. Maybe my feet are still.

  I don’t know. I can’t tell anymore.

  When I open my mouth to say his name again, my voice gargles out, lost in a sea of spit and foreign sounds. My lips tingle. My tongue feels too big for the inside of my mouth. So I part my lips, and let it hang out a little.

  I didn’t know it would feel like this.

  I only took one pill. Washed it down with a gulp of cheap newsagent vodka. He said that I would feel relaxed. Confident. Normal again.

  But I don’t feel normal. I feel…

  Weird.

  Where am I again?

  I look over my shoulder. Left. Then right. A party. That’s right. I’m at a party.

  Why am I here though?

  ‘Steve.’

  Did I say that or think it? I don’t know.

  I’m freezing all of a sudden. Is there a window open? My fingers trace the goosebumps all over my bare arms, right up to my shoulders, bones sticking out all over. I push into my skin but my fingers just sink in deeper. No bounce. No squish. Just taut skin over sharp bones.

  ‘Steve!’ This time it’s louder when it escapes my lips. A couple of heads in front of me turn towards me, to see where the voice came from. They look at me like I have two heads. Then they shake their heads and look away, like I disgust them.

  The room starts spinning around me. I’m in a tumble dryer whipping round and round, being squeezed out until there’s nothing inside me. The floor beneath my shoes start rippling like an ocean wave, bobbing me up and down.

  Up.

  Down.

  Up.

  Steve.

  There he is, standing in front of me. He’s wearing that jumper I bought him. It looks nice on him, brings out the blue in his eyes. I’m now touching it. It’s so
soft. He holds me by the wrists and pushes me back away from him, but he doesn’t let go of me. He’s hurting me. No, he’s steadying me because I can’t stand still. He’s helping me. I think.

  ‘What are you doing here, Sophia?’

  I reach up to touch the dimples by the corners of his mouth but he jerks his head back away from my fingertips.

  ‘I just want to talk,’ I splutter out, pitching forward onto him. He catches me and puts me back onto my feet, dropping his grip from my wrists. ‘You won’t take my calls. You won’t reply to my texts.’

  He shakes his head and looks around the room to see who’s listening, who’s watching.

  ‘They’re always watching,’ I say, then start laughing.

  He scrunches his face up like he’s also disgusted by me. ‘I got suspended, Sophia. I’m not going to graduate this year. I don’t even know whether I’ll be allowed to come back and repeat the year. Tomlinson is talking about expulsion.’

  ‘They made me tell. I would never have told, Steve,’ I beg, reaching up to him again.

  ‘Leave it be. Go home. You’re a total mess. It’s embarrassing.’ He starts to walk away.

  ‘Don’t go!’ I only mean to grab his arm, pull him back towards me, into me. But I lunge too quickly, and my hands shoot out too fast, too hard. I grab him by the hair instead and claw at his head. He shields his face from my twitching snapping fingertips, and shoves me gently. But the room was already moving too quickly for me, and I stumble back.

  The floor is hard on my elbow, on my hipbone that now juts out from the waistband of my jeans. Laughter erupts all around me. People point while I lie on the floor. No one helps me up. No one extends a hand and supports me to get back onto my feet. No. They point. They laugh.

  The floor is sticky, and my fingers where I hold my elbow are warm and wet. When I pull my hand away, I see blood on the tips. I’m bleeding. But I don’t feel the pain. All I feel is numb. Cold. Hot. I feel everything. I feel nothing.

  I stumble onto my feet and limp to the door. It slams shut behind me, as a burst of cold air slaps me across the feet.

  A car pulls up in front of the house. Gravel on the tyres. Stones tremble under the vibrations. From the car. From the music inside. From the heat burning inside my body.

  It stops right in front of me, and the engine cuts out.

  The door opens, slowly. A tall thin figure emerges from inside. It’s cloaked in a dark hoodie, dark jeans, Ugg boots to shield the cold from her toes. Her tummy protrudes, like the bones on my hips.

  ‘Sophia?’ Lucy walks over to me, car keys in her left hand. They jingle and clink as she gets nearer to my side. ‘Are you OK? You look like you’re going to throw up.’

  She puts her arm around my shoulder and pulls me towards her car, but I jerk away.

  ‘Sophia, let me take you home.’

  Everything around is still shifting, swaying, shuffling.

  When she takes another step towards me, I jerk back and start running towards the side of the house, into the woods. I think she’s gone but she’s behind me.

  Lucy stumbles over broken branches, dead crunchy leaves, around stark trees stripped bare from the cold wind. She calls my name. Over and over again. She begs me to stop, to slow down, to wait for her.

  But I don’t stop. I don’t wait for her. I run as fast as I can, as far away from them as I can. Until finally, my feet reach the edge of the road.

  But I don’t cross. I see them all. Their faces. Their sneers. I know this is high school and there is so much more yet to come, but right now, right at this very moment, I don’t want to wait for it to come. I can’t wait. And what if when it comes, when it finally comes, it’s the same? What if this is it? Are we really that different when we leave these doors at graduation? No. We’re the same. We carry the same hate. But this time we bring it out into the world, spreading it. Stretching it out as wide as it can possibly go. Passing it on to each other like a contagious disease. That’s what it is. A disease. And we transmit it like the common cold.

  I don’t want to live in that world. I don’t want to get a day older, and know that life will always be this difficult, this cruel, this unchanging.

  My body tingles. Butterflies flutter in my belly, diving down and swooping back up like a bird soaring high in the sky. That’s where I’ll be. Soaring high above in the sky. Looking down at everyone here, fighting with each other, hating each other.

  My fingers graze the legs of my jeans, and my whole body trembles. I tip my head up to the sky, and feel the misty rain settle on my skin. Its coolness calms me. And when I open my eyes, tiny white stars sparkle above me. The sky really is so clear here. That’s why it’s a dark sky reserve, where thousands of people gather at the end of the month for the annual Dark Skies Festival. My mum took me once. We bundled up in our winter coats, mittens and boots, and gazed through telescopes at the vast darkness above us. A universe so infinite that it scares people. But not me. I’m soothed by it, knowing there’s so much more out there, beyond all this.

  The trees rustle, a cool breeze running through them spilling out into the road towards me. When it reaches me, I shiver. Goose bumps surface on my arms, and I feel my skin against the thick jumper underneath. I feel everything tonight. Everything is so much softer, harder, cooler, hotter, louder. Everything is louder. The wind in the trees, the distant thumping of music behind me from Lee’s house, the rain on the ground. And the car down the road. I hear the car. It’s moving fast. Too fast. It’s icy tonight. If it brakes, it won’t be able to stop.

  It won’t be able to stop.

  I hear Lucy calling my name from behind me. She can’t keep up. She won’t reach me in time.

  When I turn my head, I see the bright headlights coming towards me. And when I step out in front, I don’t feel the hate anymore.

  I don’t feel anything anymore.

  LUCY

  Posters of her are scattered across the walls of every hallway, every classroom, every locker. No longer do I see the stolen images of a young naive girl. She’s been replaced by a smiling, much healthier, vibrant young woman. It’s last year’s yearbook photo. Her hair is a little longer, curled at the bottom but not enough to be a tight ringlet. More like a loose wave. Like on a summer’s day at the beach, when the tide slowly rolls over the next, unhurried and untarnished by the previous one.

  The words ‘#WeAreNotOkay’ sit in bold across the bottom of the black and white image. The posters are everywhere. Her eyes – her once youthful, hopeful eyes – they follow me. Down the hall. Into the classroom. Past the cafeteria where I no longer sit.

  It makes me angry to see those words.

  We.

  Are.

  Not.

  Okay.

  Look what we did to Sophia, what we made her do to herself. No, we’re not okay. Definitely not okay.

  This has been such a quiet week at Birchwood High School. For the first time in weeks, months – no gossip, no whisperings, no tauntings. Just silence. We’re in shock. We’re in grief. We feel everything. And nothing all at the same time.

  I can’t even remember a time before this school year, when everything got so crazy. My mind no longer wanders back to the carefree days of camping and sitting out under the night sky. I can no longer remember a time when everything was so much simpler, so much kinder.

  When did we become these people?

  I never knew Sophia well.

  I barely remember her from last year, before she met Steve. All I know is that she was quiet, stayed mostly to herself. She was always with Ulana, and together they floated just a little bit above the rest of us. And rightfully so. She was bigger than this school. Bigger than this life. I just wish she’d realised that. I wish someone had told her that.

  She changed a lot this year, after she met Steve. She blossomed into this confident and sparkly person, and at times I envied her. I envied that confidence, her kind nature, her sweet and naive outlook on life.

  We.

&nbs
p; Are.

  Not.

  Okay.

  Then I see Steve coming out of the headmaster’s office. Is he back already? How dare he come back here, not this soon, not after—

  ‘You did this!’ I scream at him, running at him until my hands collide with his chest.

  He tumbles backwards and slams into the wall. He looks angry at first, his face all clenched up. His hands tighten like he wants to hit me. But then his face softens and I realise that he’s been crying too. No, he doesn’t get to cry. He doesn’t get to feel that emotion, that sadness. He did this to Sophia, to me. I run at him again, this time slapping him hard across his face. He turns away from me, so I raise my fist to strike him harder. But he just takes it. I pull away and stumble backwards, falling hard against the stone.

  He stands slowly and smooths his T-shirt. He looks at me, still on the floor, then steps over me. But before he pulls open the door to go back inside, I scream his name again. ‘It’s yours, you know!’

  He freezes, his whole back tensing at the doorway.

  I feel a burning in my throat, rising up. I cover my mouth gently in case it’s vomit, but it’s not. It’s words. And that burning sensation, is the truth. Finally. The Truth. ‘It’s your baby. But you already know that, don’t you?’

  A small crowd gathers around us, most of them with their mouths agape and their eyes wide. They love this. They’re hungry for drama. All of them.

  He doesn’t even turn around to look at me, to look at the faces of our classmates, of the whole school. He just walks away. Back inside, back to his normal routine, like nothing’s changed. But I know it has. No one is that empty inside. Not even him. He knows it too. He feels it too. He’s just too scared to say the words.

  I’m not.

  I’ll say them.

  WE DID THIS TO SOPHIA.

  We’re guilty.

  Both of us.

  Maybe even all of us.

  We.

  Are.

  Not.

  Okay.