You Don't Know Me

by Sophia Bennett

  There have been good messages too, supportive ones from good friends and people I hardly know, but it’s the bad ones you remember.

  . . . freak of nature . . .

  . . . selfish bullies . . .

  . . .. mean cows . . ..

  . . . #totalloser . . .

  And another chilling text to my personal number:

  I’m still watching you, freak. You can’t get away from me now.

  Between The Lines

  Those texts are the worst. It’s like there’s someone inside my phone, watching me. I don’t feel safe anywhere, but my room feels less unsafe than most places. I don’t go shopping; I don’t go to work. I just shut myself away until there are less than forty-eight hours till school starts again for the summer term. I know I can’t stay hiding at home for ever, but I have no idea how I will face everyone. All I can think of is a sea of faces, all pointing at me, all staring and jeering. With Nina Pearson in the foreground, calling me a witch.

  Over breakfast, Mum tries to cheer me up before she goes to work. She suggests various jobs I could do in the café to help her. I put her off, because I really don’t have the energy and besides, I don’t think it’s a great idea to be seen in public places. Instead I sit in my room and work through my revision for school. I never thought I’d be grateful for exams, but it helps to think about the War Poets, or the Periodic Table, rather than How Sasha Bayley Got Carried Away And Ruined Her Life.

  I listen to music. The same songs, over and over: The Killers. The Cure. The Smiths. They sing the pain, so I don’t have to. Later, I watch TV.

  Mum comes home at half past three. She says the café was quiet, but I can tell she’s worried about me. Not long afterwards, I hear her on the phone to Dad. Oh God, I am so famously messed up that even Dad is calling to find out how I am.

  Mum’s trying to keep her voice down, so I sit on the top stair to listen.

  ‘I worry about her. She’s not talking. She hardly eats. She spends all her time in her room on her computer, or that bloody phone you gave her. I think she might be checking out all those vile things people are saying on the internet.’

  There’s a pause while Mum listens to Dad.

  ‘But it wasn’t like that, Pete. She’s been trying to apologise from the moment it happened.’

  Oh great. So even my Dad thinks I’m the kind of person who just dumps my friend and abandons her.

  ‘Do you want to talk to her?’

  I certainly don’t want to talk to him, I decide, rushing down the stairs and past her. I’ve been cooped up here too long. It’s time to go out. Go anywhere.

  It’s April: one of those sharp, blue days where the sun tries to remember how to warm the fields. I huddle in the porch of the cottage, shrugging on my jacket and my wellies as fast as I can so I can be out of the house before Dad persuades Mum to try and make me talk to him. I put my phone and my house keys in my pocket and head down the lane. I’m aiming for the track that starts beside the railway, which takes me up into the high fields of Mr O’Connell’s farm.

  There’s one good thing about living in a cottage in the middle of nowhere: the paparazzi don’t like being so far away from the city, and they hate it when a passing tractor drives a huge, long dent down the sides of three of their cars. I’m sure it was an accident, but Mr O’Connell, the farmer who owns the land opposite, is an old friend of Mum’s, so a part of me does wonder slightly.

  Anyway, they haven’t got any decent pictures of me, and I’m not doing any big interviews to up my profile and give ‘my exclusive side of the story’ – although goodness knows, they keep asking – so they’ve gone.

  I start down the lane. From the ridge at the top of the hill opposite the cottage, you can see the bowl-shaped area that Mr O’Connell gives over to the Bigelow Festival every summer. In July, it’s like a medieval village or a circus, full of tents and flags and colour and noise. Now, it will just be a patchwork of green and brown, spotted only with sheep and their lambs, and the occasional black-and-white cow. Far away from people. Far away from everything. Just where I want to be.

  I stick my earbuds in and put on the first track I come to. It’s Youssou N’Dour, a musician from Senegal who Rose introduced me to ages ago. He’s very different from my recent choices, but still – I let him play. The warm rhythms of his music help distract me from the sharp breeze that whips round my legs, freezing the denim of my jeans.

  Far ahead, the lane goes over a little bridge over the railway line, leading towards Castle Bigelow. Just as I’m about to turn off it, onto the track that heads up the hill, my phone vibrates in my pocket with a text. Instinctively, I pull it out to look.

  The time is getting closer, freak. And when I see you, you are going to die.

  Oh no. Nonononono. Not this. Not more. Not that.

  Before I know it, my legs have given way and I sink to my knees. I look around, but there’s no one there. My hand starts to shake so much that I can hardly read the words on the screen. Then, gradually, the panic slowly subsides into a sludgy, icy feeling of dread.

  They hate me and they want to kill me. Thousands of them. Thousands and thousands. But I don’t know who they are and I can’t stop them. Nobody has ever taught me how to be hated this much. I don’t know how to do it.

  Oh, Rose, if I could apologise again, I would. But you won’t let me.

  I don’t know whether to go back or go on. My brain is numb. Someone could be here, hiding anywhere. I move ahead, dragging myself on as much as my jelly legs will let me, pulling my earbuds out as I go. Youssou N’Dour is not the soundtrack to how I’m feeling now. All I can hear is my blood pumping in my ears. I have no idea where I’m going, or what I’m doing. I just want to get away.

  After a while I find myself on the railway bridge, looking down at the track. My brain feels like jelly too, and I’m tired. So tired. I still seem to be alone, apart from a train far away in the distance, snaking through the countryside. I know the line well. The train must take a big detour behind Crakey Hill before it reaches the stretch of line leading to Castle Bigelow station. It will take about five minutes. Meanwhile, the sky is still cloudless, blue. The air tingles with suspense.

  The sound of the engine is strangely hypnotic. I don’t want to walk any more, so I pull myself up onto the high stone parapet and look down. The train is out of sight now – gone behind the hill, but I can hear it getting closer, swiftly carrying passengers on their journeys. Strangers, going about their busy lives. Some will be on their phones, texting or talking. Are any of them talking about me?

  My mind starts to wander. What is the driver up to, I wonder? It can’t be that complicated to drive a train, can it? Stop for the red signals, stop at the stations. Always stay on the lookout for awkward things on the line.

  Soon the train will come out from behind Crakey Hill and reach the bit of track that comes straight towards me, sitting on my little bridge. I wonder if he will be surprised to see a teenage girl here. A girl in a country jacket and bright yellow wellies, with her hair in a ponytail and her mind in a mess.

  My phone vibrates again. This time I ignore the message, but I can’t resist going onto Interface and checking the latest numbers. The habit is too deep-rooted.

  15,672 likes for the Manic Pixie Dream Girls.

  157,100 ‘haters’ for the hate page.

  593,101 hits on the clip that shows us dropping Rose.

  It feels as though the whole world has an opinion about me.

  This morning, when I Googled my name, I read a report saying that a Member of Parliament mentioned me on TV yesterday, wondering if the government should intervene in schools, to encourage girls to have a more positive body image. I was quoted as an example of the kind of girl they need to do something about.

  Sasha Bayley. She’s famous. But by now I’m not sure who she is. Even my own father doesn’t seem to know me any more.

  I’m still looking at the screen when I feel a presence behind me and whip round, terrified
. It takes me a while to register the face. I know him. I’ve seen him on posters round town, and onstage at George’s party. What is the guitarist from Call of Duty doing standing three feet away from me, in the middle of the bridge, looking like he’s just seen a ghost?

  He licks his dry lips. ‘What are you doing here?’

  I breathe out slowly.

  ‘Sitting.’

  He looks at me, and through me, and beyond me to the track, and moves forward two gentle paces. A long way behind me, I can hear the train round the corner of Crakey Hill, beginning its journey down the straight.

  Suddenly, I see what he is thinking. I do seem to be perched quite precariously on the edge of the parapet. I wasn’t concentrating when I sat down. I wasn’t really thinking at all.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say, to reassure him. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  That seems to make it worse. He looks more anxious than ever, flicking his eyes from the train to me, and back again. He takes another step towards me and spots the phone in my hands. He looks at the screen, and I suppose he sees the numbers. Those great big numbers that grow bigger, every day, showing how famous I am.

  He catches my eye and says: ‘Don’t. Please. Just . . . don’t.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I repeat, holding up my hands to reassure him. But again, it seems to have the opposite effect. The train is nearly here now, braking gradually for the station, but still travelling at high speed, too fast to stop. He grabs me around the waist with his left arm and holds me.

  ‘Get off!’

  I manage to yank one of my arms free, my phone still in my hand. He tries to grab me again, pulling at my arm with his right hand. In a smooth, fast swish, the phone flies from my grasp and arcs into the air, over the parapet and down towards the approaching train.

  The driver glances up to see the two of us above the parapet, and I watch, in slow motion, as my whole life smashes to pieces on the wooden sleepers between the bright silver lines of the track.

  This is Sasha Bayley

  For a long time, we just stare at each other. Me and the guitarist from Call of Duty, with his tousled hair hidden under a beanie. His name’s Dan, I think. Somebody told me. One of the girls from the band’s fan club, probably. They said his eyes were the colour of stormy seas, or something like that. It may be true. They’re grey, or blue, and troubled. But that’s understandable, because HE’S JUST MADE ME SMASH UP MY FOUR-HUNDRED-POUND PHONE.

  It’s in smithereens, with endless train carriages still trundling over it. I bet the driver didn’t even see it happen.

  ‘I can’t believe you just did that! Look what you made me do!’ I pant, when I get my breath back enough to talk.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asks, pulling back from me. ‘I mean, you said you were OK, but I thought you were going to . . .’

  He’s wearing an old green jumper under a muddy shooting jacket. Now that I look closely, I realise that he has a rifle bag over his shoulder. He must have been going out shooting. It’s always dangerous to attack a boy with a gun, of course, but I am so incandescently angry that I could punch him or slap him or pummel him. I could throw something at him, if I still had anything to throw.

  ‘OK? Of course I’m not OK. You made me drop my phone . . . down there.’

  I’m so furious I can hardly explain myself. Instead I lean forward and point under the disappearing train. Dan grabs me again and I shake him off.

  ‘How could you?’

  ‘I’m sorry!’ He looks white and shocked too. ‘I just had to do something! It looked like you were going to . . .’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t.’

  He steps back from me again, still breathing hard.

  ‘Right. OK. But maybe it’s for the best. Whatever you were looking at on your phone . . .’ He stops and gazes out down the track, taking a deep breath before continuing. ‘It looked like it was hurting you.’

  There’s a pause, while I take in the total ridiculousness of what he just said.

  ‘Hurting me? That phone’s my lifeline. Don’t you understand? It’s the only thing I have that tells me anything. How am I going to tell my mum where I am? How am I going to find out what people are saying about me? How can I tell my dad you’ve just made me smash up the last thing he ever gave me? He’s in Vegas, by the way. I can’t exactly shout.’

  I am shouting, though – at Dan. I’m getting hoarse with it, because it feels like I haven’t used my voice for so long. He looks as if I’ve just slapped him.

  ‘Your dad? I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s no good saying you’re sorry. You hardly know me and you’ve just smashed up my life. If people need to call me . . . If someone needs to call me . . .’

  If Rose ever decides to call me, how can she do it now?

  I turn on my heel and start heading away from the bridge, up the track that leads towards Mr O’Connell’s fields. Dan comes after me, still hangdog apologetic, which is good, because I can keep telling him off. It’s such a relief to let off steam after so many days of hardly talking. And how could he do that? My tone is as scathing as I can make it.

  ‘I hardly ever see my dad and that’s the first thing he’s given me since a Barbie doll.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It was the latest version. It had HD video and voice commands and everything.’

  ‘I said I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re sorry, but I bet you can just go out and get yourself another phone whenever you want to. I have to earn my money.’

  He falls into step beside me. He has long legs, like mine. And he’s athletic. When he walks fast, his cheeks get a ruddy glow. I have to admit it suits him. For an unprovoked iPhone-smasher, he’s not bad looking at all.

  ‘Oh, God, and it wasn’t insured,’ I remember. ‘I bet I have to keep paying that stupid contract. Look, don’t let me keep you.’ I stop and turn to him. ‘I’m sure you need to go and . . . shoot something.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ He looks at the bag on his shoulder, almost as if he’s forgotten it’s there. ‘It’s not a gun, actually. It’s a telescope. I lent it to a friend. I just use my dad’s old gun bag for . . . carrying.’

  We’ve reached the end of the stony track and from now on it’s a question of climbing stiles and tramping through muddy fields. Dan clearly doesn’t know where I’m going, and has no reason to come with me any further. He sighs.

  ‘I didn’t mean to . . . Look, I didn’t know about your dad. Or your contract. I didn’t really think. Promise me you’ll look after yourself?’

  I stick my chin out and glare at him again. ‘I always do.’

  He doesn’t seem so sure. Even so, he turns away, with his telescope in its bag knocking gently against his shoulder, and doesn’t look back. I watch him go.

  Once he is halfway down the hill, I pause and instinctively feel for the smooth lines of my phone case in my pocket. My muscles seem to move faster than my brain, which has to remind them it won’t be there. No way of telling Mum where I’ve got to. No way of finding out what’s happening with the numbers, or if the crazy stalker is still watching me. I can’t plug my earbuds back in and listen to music, either. I have to put up with the quiet of the landscape: wildlife in the hedgerows, a tractor at work in a far-off field, and another approaching train, travelling in the opposite direction.

  In the peace of the countryside, it seems harder to believe that those messages really happened. Do thousands of people really want me to die?

  I mean, really – I made one stupid mistake. I tried to put it right. I can’t help it if the TV cameras were there for that one bit and not for all the others.

  It was never me who called Rose fat. Never, ever me. I didn’t care what size she was. I still don’t. I was only uncomfortable with her being in the band because she didn’t want to dance and she was . . . different. She was totally different! Surely everyone can see that now: more talented, more dedicated, more unique. I have nice legs, apparently, but she has a voice and a deep, poetic soul, and an extraordinar
y talent for the piano, and a whole career ahead of her. I always suspected it. I always encouraged it, as much as I could.

  Actually, it’s good to stride through the fields and think, really think.

  There’s this Sasha Bayley, and the one everyone else thinks they know. This Sasha Bayley is not a freak or a witch, and she will make it through somehow. I don’t know how, but somehow. Mum and I survived when Dad left us and our world fell apart. I can survive being hated by strangers. And even, perhaps, by Nina Pearson. As long as I can stay alive, of course.

  That last text still haunts me. Being stalked takes things to a whole new level, but I will cope with that too, somehow. I’m angry now, as well as frightened. The anger helps.

  The walk home seems strange. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t listening to music, or a podcast, or at least checking my mail as I trudged along. This time, in the near silence of farm machinery and birdsong, I can feel a lyric forming in my head. It’s about railway lines and battle lines and lines in newspapers. I feel as if I’m fighting a war. The song might be called ‘Between the Lines’. Its images shimmer around me and gradually form themselves into words and a tune.

  I’m still humming it to myself as I head for home.

  You Don’t Know Me: Part 1

  When I get in, Mum’s busy doing accounts at the kitchen table. She smiles with relief when I walk through the door.

  ‘Sasha, darling. I was worried about you. You’re all right, aren’t you? You’d tell me if you weren’t?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Of course I wouldn’t. What’s the point of explaining if there’s nothing the other person can do? I mean, she can’t exactly find out who’s stalking me, or give me twenty-four-hour protection. Knowing she’s there is good, though. I kiss her forehead through her frizzy, grey-streaked fringe and make us both a mug of tea.