by Jon Jacks
Heartache High: The Wakening
Heartache High Series Vol III
Jon Jacks
Other New Adult and Children’s books by Jon Jacks
Heartache High (Vol I)
Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II)
The Caught
The Rules
Chapter One
The Changes
Sleeping Ugly
The Barking Detective Agency
The Healing
The Lost Fairy Tale
A Horse for a Kingdom
Charity
The Most Beautiful Things
The Last Train
The Dream Swallowers
Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night
Jonah and the Alligator
Glastonbury Sirens
Dr Jekyll’s Maid
The 500-Year Circus
P
The Endless Game
DoriaN A
Wyrd Girl
Coming Soon
Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg
The Wicker Slippers
Text copyright© 2013 Jon Jacks
All rights reserved
Chapter 1
I wake up, still drowsy, still half-asleep.
I can’t open my eyes for some odd reason.
I’m ridiculously weak too.
I can hardly move my arms
Hardly move in fact.
Like I’m heavily drugged.
I feel around with my hands.
I’m in a bed.
Reasonably soft, if over-tightly tucked in sheets.
Reasonably hard mattress.
It’s a narrow bed.
Like a hospital bed.
Again.
Perhaps it hasn’t worked.
Perhaps I’m still in Heartache High.
*
I’d been doubtful from the start that it would work.
But Gillian had insisted that I at least give it a try.
She’d come to me for help, having heard that I’d briefly managed to break free of Heartache High. If only for nothing more than a few minutes.
No one had ever achieved even that before.
In those brief few minutes, I’d managed to retake control of my own body and re-enter the real world.
I’d thought, in those few, exciting moments, that I might have managed to leave Heartache High for ever.
Gillian, of course, wanted me to try something harder.
Something even more impossible.
She wanted me to try and take over her body for a while.
*
It turns out that, just because I thought it was impossible, it didn’t mean it was impossible for me to move into Gillian’s body.
Because here I am.
In Gillian’s body.
Yet, strangely, weirdly – and it has to be really weird for any student of Heartache High to be surprised – I still seem to have woken up in the narrow, hospital-like beds our school dormitories are infamous for.
‘Gillian!’
It’s a girl’s cry.
Incredibly loud, incredibly excited. Even though it sounds like she’s only a couple of feet away.
Suddenly, someone’s by my side, leaning over me, breathing heavily, excitedly.
An eye mask is ripped away from my face.
I can see at last.
It’s a young girl. A younger version of Gillian.
Heddy.
This has got to be Heddy, Gillian’s younger sister.
She’s crying, but wildly, elatedly. She’s smiling too.
She’s crying from happiness.
‘Gillian! Gillian! You’re back, you’re back!’
She’s kissing me, hugging me.
I’m too weak to respond. Too weak to even speak.
Heddy briefly turns her head aside.
‘Nurse! Nurse!’ she yells urgently.
Nurse?
I am in a hospital bed?
‘Gillian’s come round!’ Heddy screams out elatedly.
‘Come round?’ I manage to croak.
There’s some form of thin, flexible tubing inserted into my mouth.
I can also feel other pieces of plastic tubing snaking over my body. Sense pin pricks too, where something like cold, thin bits of metal have been inserted.
The room around me has that spare bareness of a hospital room. I can hear the beeping of monitoring machines, catch glimpses of small, brightly flashing lights out of the corners of my eyes.
‘Gillian? Can’t you remember?’
Weeping yet also chuckling. Heddy gives me another loving hug.
‘Remember?’ I say confusedly.
Heddy is heading for the door.
‘You were in a coma Gillian! But I’ve got to tell everyone! You’re back now!’
*
Chapter 2
It wasn’t until Gillian had first smiled that I’d realised just how amazingly beautiful she was.
She’d found herself waking up at Heartache High little more than a day after me.
She had wandered around in an unbelieving daze even longer than I had.
She’d been miserable.
She’d refused to talk to anyone.
She’d moped around like it was the end of the world.
Which, of course, in many ways it was.
The end of the world she’d known, at least.
So, when she’d approached me, smiling, looking like she had hope again, I’d been more than a little surprised.
‘I need your help,’ she’d explained. ‘I just know my boyfriend’s in big trouble, back in the real world.’
Course, when she says ‘boyfriend’, she means the guy she spent all her waking hours, and most of her sleeping hours, dreaming about.
The guy she wished would be her boyfriend.
The guy who, in reality, ignored her.
Didn’t even know she existed.
That’s why we all end up here, at Heartache High; because we’ve all retreated into a little compartment of our mind where we can imagine our love has at last been recognised by the boy (or girl) of our dreams.
Though how any boy could be unaware that Gillian didn’t exist, I just do not know.
*
I really hadn’t thought it would be possible; to somehow move into Gillian’s body back in the real world.
When I’d achieved it in my own body, instead of wallowing in thoughts of nothing but Iain I’d had to open up my mind once more.
Open up to the other things in life I’d wilfully ignored.
My mum and dad, whom I’d hardly talked to when I still existed in the real world.
Cherry and Mary, whose calls I’d refused to take. Whose trips to the movies and the mall I’d no longer taken part in.
That’s how stupidly wrapped up in thoughts of Iain I’d become.
Turning my back on the real world.
Allowing my body to be taken over by the succubus Panthia. She’d effortlessly yet securely trapped me in that little part of my mind I’d already so willingly retreated into.
What a lonely existence that could have been.
Well, it would have been, if there hadn’t been so many other people just like me. People so wrapped up in their unrequited love that we’d all created some kind of telepathic connection between ourselves.
Created Heartache High.
But by thinking once again of all those things back in the real world that I’d ignored, I’d begun to spread back into areas of my mind I’d left unused for so long.
It had given me, however briefly, full control of my body back in the real world once more.
I’d seen Iain. Held him. Tightly
Heard fr
om him how he’d loved me all along after all.
But he’d been too shy, too afraid of a humiliating snub from me, to even talk to me.
It was Iain’s love for me that had given me the power to briefly displace the succubus Panthia who had taken possession of my body.
Of course, she had soon regained control.
So what chances did Gillian have of regaining control of her body?
Almost none, I’d sadly explained.
As far as she was aware, the boy she was in love with didn’t share any such feelings for her.
Still, we’d sat down, tried it.
I’d told her to open up her mind to all those things in her life she’d cut herself off from.
Her parents.
Her friends.
Her life around town.
Life as it had been before she’d made the mistake of falling for a boy who’d shown no interest in her.
She’d tried it; but she didn’t feel like she was spreading throughout her mind once more, not the way I’d explained it.
She was still trapped in this deep, dark corner of her mind.
She’d wept in frustration.
‘I need to do this! He’s in trouble, I know he is!’
‘Look; let’s try something else,’ I’d said.
I’d held her hand.
‘Thinking about it,’ I’d pointed out hopefully, ‘we already have a connection, don’t we? The Heartache High connection?’
I didn’t really know how this would help in anyway; I mentioned it only in the hope that it would spur Gillian on to trying harder.
There was some small part of me already linked to her mind, I pointed out.
I just had to help her walk through her own mind, didn’t I?
Leading her by the hand into areas she’d refused to enter for so long.
Perhaps I had more confidence that this could be achieved because I’d more or less done it before.
I’d seen my mind as a world I could move around in.
So we held hands.
We closed our eyes.
We concentrated hard.
She told me about her family.
About her younger sister, Heddy.
(‘Her real names Henrietta; she’s wonderful. Do anything for you.’)
She didn’t mention her friends at school. Or even any friends outside of school.
I told her I didn’t want to know anything about him.
I could have added:
He didn’t exist.
He was the problem.
He was the reason why she was here, at Heartache High.
But that, of course, would have simply made her think all the more about him.
What a wonderful family Gillian had, I thought.
How foolish she’d been to cut them out of her life.
Heddy especially sounded truly wonderful.
The kind of sister I wish I’d had.
And, as I’d thought this, I’d found myself waking up in Gillian’s body.
*
‘I could see her! I could see Heddy! Sweet little Heddy! How could I have ignored her like I did?’
Back in Heartache High, Gillian is still alongside me, still desperately clutching my hand.
Yet, as I’m in control of her body, she can see through her real eyes, see the real world as if she were the one in control.
That’s how it works, see?
When I’d regained control of my own body, that part of my mind linked to Heartache High hadn’t just vanished of course.
So I’d existed, for real, in the real world.
Yet still retained contact with the friends I’d made at Heartache High, Jassy and Dave.
Odd, yeah?
Welcome to the strange world of Heartache High!
‘You didn’t tell me you were in a coma!’ I say accusingly to Gillian.
‘I wasn’t; at least, I didn’t know I was!’
‘Okay; that figures.’
There are quite a lot of things you forget about your previous life when you enrol at Heartache High.
Particularly around the period when you first move here.
‘You do realise, Gillian, that this didn’t quite work out the way we planned? I reckon I’m the one in control of your body.’
‘Yeah, I sort of figured that out when I could see Heddy, but couldn’t feel her hugs or kisses.’
I’d spent a great deal of time with Gillian explaining my own experiences.
When I hadn’t been fully in control of my body, I’d only had brief glimpses of the real world as if I were daydreaming.
I hadn’t been able to just conjure these insights up whenever I wanted; they just happened, much as you just suddenly find yourself dreaming.
‘And all this is okay with you?’ I ask Gillian. ‘I could try and–’
‘No no, stay where you are, please! This is better than nothing! Better than I could have hoped for a few days ago!’
‘It might be a brief stay; I’ve been lucky so far. I can’t understand why the succubus hasn’t put up more resistance.’
There has to be a succubus.
That’s the only thing that would have been keeping Gillian’s body alive, once she’d retreated into that little corner of her mind where she could just while away her time wishing life could be fairer.
‘It’s true nurse, its true! Gillian’s back!’
Heddy rushes into the room, almost dragging a dubious looking nurse with her.
It’s only when I slightly turn my head to look at them that the nurse’s face breaks into a surprised smile.
‘Well I never!’
‘So can we turn it off now?’
Heddy dashes over to my bedside, excitedly throwing her arms around me once more.
She turns to the nurse, who’s diligently inspecting one of the beeping, blinking monitors surrounding my bed.
‘She doesn’t need all these machines now, does she nurse?’
Of course!
Gillian was in a coma – which means the only thing keeping her glorious body alive was all these life-support machines!
*
Chapter 3
Hah!
Some escape from Heartache High this is, eh?
We’ve woken up in a hospital bed.
Kept alive by nothing more than life-support machines.
I’d almost have preferred the succubus.
Which, by the way, doesn’t seem to be in residence.
Perhaps even succubae can’t do much with a body on life-support.
Perhaps the succubus moved out, taking over some other unfortunate girl.
Wait!
It’s just dawned on me!
‘Heddy,’ I croak, ‘you can’t turn off the machine!’
‘Why not?’ she asks. ‘You’re better now!’ she declares happily. ‘You don’t need it!’
Ah, but we do, we do!
I want to say it out loud.
But I know I can’t explain why the machines need leaving on.
Not to Heddy anyway.
If they turn off the machines, what happens to Gillian’s body when I leave? When I fully return to Heartache High?
Without the machines, without a succubus, Gillian’s body will die.
And when her body dies, the Gillian standing alongside me will also simply vanish too.
*
A dishevelled, exhausted looking man steps into the room.
His thick, dark hair is unkempt, his chin unshaven. There are dark blue bags under his eyes.
Even so, he has that rugged handsomeness of the sort of man advertisers just love to star in their TV commercials.
‘Dad!’ Gillian cries out, sobbing as soon as she sees the haggard state he’s in.
As he peers down at the bed, his eyes are full of disbelief.
I put on a pained smile for him, knowing once again that this is how Gillian would want me to greet him.
Thing is, I reckon he deserves it; he’s obviously got himself into th
is condition over the endless worrying he’s gone through as Gillian has lain here in a coma.
He strides across to my bedside. He throws his arms around me, presses his face tenderly against mine.
‘Gillian, Gillian! It’s true, it’s true!’
When he pulls back from kissing my cheek, he’s crying without any hint of shame.
‘These machines have already been either switched off or disconnected!’ the nurse declares angrily.
‘It was me,’ Heddy confesses. ‘I’ve seen how they all work before; I flicked the switches as soon as I saw Gillian didn–’
‘You can’t just go doin–’
‘Yes she can,’ her dad defends her adamantly. ‘My daughters have always been independent minded.’
‘I’ll switch them back–’
‘No, you won’t!’ Gillian’s dad stretches out a powerful arm, stopping the nurse from reaching the switches. ‘She won’t ever get her strength back if she remains reliant on these machines.’
‘But the doct–’
‘I’ll answer to the doctor.’
The nurse purses her lips irately. But she doesn’t make any further protest.
Instead, she moves round to me, pulling back the bed sheets, taking my bare arm in her hand and checking my pulse.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s racing.
If the machines are off, I’m stuck here in Gillian’s body a while longer.
I can’t go back to Heartache High just yet now, can I?
*
Chapter 4
‘How can you forgive me Gillian?’ her dad says, taking my hand in his. ‘I’d gone for a coffee! A stupid coffee! And I missed you coming round!’
I grin.
Alongside me back in my Heartache High bedsit, however, Gillian is in floods of tears.
Should I be crying too?
Is that what her dad would expect of her?
‘Can you forgive me?’ he says.
‘Course I can dad!’ Gillian weeps.
‘Couse I can…dad,’ I say for her.
Heddy’s also leaning over me, crying with happiness once again.
The nurse lets go of my arm with a satisfied ‘Humph!’
My arm limply drops back down onto the mattress.
I’m weak, I realise. I’ve probably done little but lie here for a few days, being fed little more than drips.
‘How…how did I get here?’ I weakly croak.
‘You can’t remember?’ her dad asks with a surprised chuckle. ‘We were hoping you could tell us!’
‘You were just found out on the streets,’ Heddy explains. ‘Unconscious, with just enough of your body ticking over to keep you alive until we got you here, to hospital.’
