Misfit

by Charli Howard

  He wouldn’t answer my calls. He would no longer speak to me online at night. He literally completely disappeared from everyday life, yet remained incredibly active online. It didn’t make any sense. I’d been watching what I ate and had been losing weight. I wasn’t as fat as I once had been. What was there not to fancy?

  Now, with the added of bonus of Mark dumping me, the eternal arguments with my parents, hating boarding school and my dad gone for yet another billion months, my eating disorders and body image became worse. It became a game of How Much Can I F*ck Myself Up? except there were no winners, only a loser, and that loser was me.

  I needed to reinvent myself and have a complete image overhaul. I wanted to become the girl I thought boys would fawn over – the Angelina Jolie types, who smoked and who had men hanging on to every word they said. OK, I wasn’t at my desired weight yet, but I could change other things.

  First off, I began getting piercings – weird and wonderful piercings in the most painful places possible, like the back of the neck and, on one particularly rough weekend, my wrist (I mean, WTF?). I liked the relief I felt once the needle went through my skin. I got my tongue pierced one Saturday as a way of not being able to eat for a week. It worked, but my tongue was throbbing and swollen for days. I dyed my hair black and wore kohl around my eyes, thinking I was some sort of femme fatale, when really I looked like a femme fail.

  Then my behaviour in school got worse. One time, I went to the boys’ school with this random girl I knew and smoked in the toilets. Can you imagine how much trouble I’d have been in if I got caught? Well, luckily I wasn’t, but even if I had been caught I wouldn’t have cared. I didn’t care about anything.

  I was in Heartbreak Mode, where all I could think about was Mark, Mark, Mark. Although I came across fine from the outside, deep down I was truly beside myself.

  I cried about him before I closed my eyes and dreamt about him in my sleep. This was the man I was destined to be with; I was sure of it. It was just he didn’t know it yet. I had visions of him driving to my house with a dozen red roses (though I’m not sure where that came from, seeing as he had yet to learn to drive) and begging me for forgiveness, telling me what a prat he’d been, and how I was the only girl for him. And then, out of the generosity of my heart, I’d graciously welcome him back.

  I’d like to tell you Mark was the only boy in my life I’ve obsessed over, but of course he wasn’t. When you’re as insecure as I was, you’re drawn to these characters like an addict, because their words and treatment of you confirm any doubts you ever had about yourself to begin with. Hurting yourself won’t ever help you, but you don’t care. You become hell-bent on destroying yourself, because what’s the point? If they don’t want you, who else will?

  When you’re that insecure, and once you’ve learnt to hate yourself that much, it’s very difficult to snap out of that mindset. How do you magically erase the effects of bullying like I’d dealt with in Belgium, or the feeling that you’ve never been able to form relationships properly because you move all the time, or the chronic homesickness, or the fact you’re a hideous and ugly person inside and out, or that the so-called love of your life doesn’t want you?

  Well, you can’t. Not straight away anyway. You need to address your problems bit by bit, one by one. The last thing you need when you’re at a low point is someone coming into your life and making your nerves worse, or believing a relationship will cure any insecurities you have about yourself. I can assure you that they won’t.

  You know those parties you read about in the newspapers, where teenagers post an invite on the internet and then a million people decide to show up and trash it out of the blue? Well, let me tell you about a now-infamous party called Dave’s Rave, which actually made the local papers, and became somewhat of a local legend. (A legend to us, maybe, but not to Dave’s mum.)

  It all started when Dave the Woman got a phone call from her mum, telling her she was going on a very posh detox holiday to Jamaica during the Christmas holidays (or, in other words, doing a juice fast for two weeks with a bit of yoga), and because Dave was now a responsible seventeen-year-old, she was allowed to stay at home all by herself with a couple of friends. This was the best news we’d ever heard – it meant staying in a nice house on our own with some money for food (i.e. vodka) and other necessities (wine).

  ‘We should have a get-together!’ I announced one evening as Dave and I chatted in my dorm room (now-infamous last words). It was a genius idea. Having a get-together would mean Dave and I would be viewed as sophisticated socialites. It also gave me the opportunity to try to win back Mark, who I was still convinced was the love of my life, despite the fact he was mugging me off left, right and centre.

  Dave and I spent the next few weeks planning and curating a list of the people (mainly fit boys) we were going to invite. It was the most exciting thing to happen to a couple of schoolgirls bored of being confined within the walls of a boarding school in Wales. We told our parents that we were going to Dave’s to study. How they ever bought this with my behavioural record, I don’t know – but it worked. Our plan was underway!

  I hadn’t seen Mark for around three months by this point, but I still thought about him daily, building him up in my head like some demigod. And religiously stalked his MySpace page, but whatever. I needed to show him how mature and glamorous I’d become.

  It was the Christmas holidays, two days after Christmas to be exact, and I had just arrived at Dave’s house with a couple of friends, ready for the party of the century. I loved Dave’s manor house, though it felt weirdly bigger without her mum there. We couldn’t have felt more grown-up being alone there if we tried. Dave and I squealed with excitement in the kitchen. Weeks of party planning were finally coming to life!

  We’d posted an announcement on MySpace, and the party was going to take place the next day.

  But some random friend of Mark’s called Craig, who was ‘MySpace famous’ (he had about 20,000 ‘friends’ on there), also wrote about the party, posting the address and telling people to BYOB. Dave and I had never met Craig personally, but we did know that if he came to your party it would be considered cool. Rather than see this as a potential problem, we viewed it as though a Kardashian was about to rock up.

  As part of our epic weekender, Mark, George and a few other friends were going to stay with us the night before the party. God, we felt grown-up, having a sleepover with actual BOYS!

  The doorbell rang, and I answered the door to Mark and George. I’d preened myself beforehand so that I looked perfect. I felt butterflies as Mark strolled through the front door, looking like some sort of model, but I tried to play it cool. I wanted to show him what a strong, sexy and independent woman he was missing out on and, most importantly, one who no longer vomited all over the floor in his presence.

  ‘How much money has your mum left you, Dave?’ George asked.

  ‘A hundred pounds,’ Dave replied.

  ‘That’s more than enough for alcohol then,’ Mark said.

  ‘Well, some of that has to go on food …’ Dave began, but Mark and George began reeling off the alcohol brands they could buy with all that money, which we had never actually tasted but pretended to know about.

  ‘How many people have you invited?’ I asked them both, and I could’ve sworn Mark gave George a ‘look’, but I wasn’t too sure.

  ‘Just a couple,’ Mark said. As though by magic, two of Mark’s friends rocked up. We downed some drinks for a few hours, laughing and having a whale of a time.

  ‘Here’s to a great party!’ George announced, and we cheered.

  As we all camped out in Dave’s mum’s bedroom that night, I turned to Dave in the dark.

  ‘I don’t think this is such a good idea,’ I whispered.

  ‘It’s too late to cancel it now!’ Dave replied. ‘Anyway, what could possibly go wrong?!’

  The next day, we went to buy alcohol for the party. Picture me, Dave and a group of emo lads outside Sainsbury’s
handing me wads of notes. I was all dolled up in one of Dave’s mum’s expensive designer dresses. Dave had helped me do my make-up, and for added effect sprayed some gross Chanel perfume on my neck to help me smell ‘older’, too. None of us could drive, obviously, so the group of us had had to get the bus down there.

  ‘Why do I have to do this?’ I asked George, as Mark smoked a cigarette with the other lads against a wall.

  ‘Because you’re the one who looks the oldest,’ George said. ‘Girls always get served anyway. Go to a cashier who’s a boy if you’re worried.’

  I bloody well didn’t look older. I looked like a seventeen-year-old in an expensive designer dress and heels I couldn’t walk in. I counted the notes: £160 in total, £100 of which was Dave’s money. It wouldn’t fit in my purse so I shoved it in my handbag like some sort of pimp.

  ‘You’d better be waiting for me if I get chased out by security,’ I hissed at George, as the others looked on. Mark didn’t seem to care. I knew he thought I wasn’t capable of getting the drinks. Part of me wouldn’t have been surprised if he wanted me to get caught by security.

  ‘We’re not going anywhere!’ George said reassuringly as some old woman walked past. ‘I’ll come in with you and help choose the drinks anyway to begin with.’

  I took in a huge breath and George and I marched into Sainsbury’s with a trolley. We wandered down the alcohol aisle, my heart pounding. If you’ve ever been underage and tried to place bottles of wine, vodka and beer into a trolley as inconspicuously as possible, you’ll know how scary it is.

  ‘See you outside,’ George said, then pulled his hoodie over his cap and walked out.

  This was it. I was on my own now. I pulled my dress down and pushed my boobs up. Taking a deep breath, I walked to the till, pushing the trolley full of alcohol. Find a male cashier, I thought to myself, scanning the checkouts.

  I found my prey! A checkout guy who couldn’t have been older than twenty-one, with a floppy brown fringe and acne problem. Here went nothing.

  The checkout guy looked at my boobs first, then my face.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. My heart was racing. Any minute now, he’d call security – I just knew it.

  ‘Hello there!’ I answered in the poshest voice known to (wo)man, placing the bottles of alcohol on to the conveyer belt. ‘How are you, dear?’

  ‘Could be better, like,’ he said, and began scanning the bottles. ‘Do you need help with your b–’

  ‘No, no!’ I replied quickly. ‘I can quite manage myself.’ Pause. ‘Kind sir.’

  Kind sir?! The 1800s called – they want their phrase back.

  ‘I’m actually having a party tonight,’ I said, hoping to distract him with conversation. ‘I’ve just bought a house in the local area and was having a bit of a gathering.’

  Beep. Beep. No reply from Mr Checkout Guy. Was I being convincing enough?

  ‘You’re more than welcome to join!’ I said anxiously.

  There was a pause.

  ‘That’ll be £143.50, please,’ he said. Mr Checkout Guy looked at me in a way that said, ‘Pay up now and get out.’

  ‘W-what? Oh yes, right. Of course.’ I handed him the bunches of crumpled ten- and twenty-pound notes from my handbag and smiled. ‘Well, that should be enough. Good day to you.’

  I didn’t even wait for the change. I grabbed the bags and legged it, rushing past a security guard with the sound of clinking beside my legs. OH MY GOD!!! I’d only gone and bloody done it!

  ‘No way,’ Mark said quietly as I walked out of the store.

  ‘You legend!’ George said as I held the bags up with a smile. Screw you, Mark! I knew I could do it. As if. I still secretly wanted him, even if he was being mean.

  Once we got into the house, we made our way to the kitchen and began to crack open some vodka and Diet Coke. Much to my delight, Mark’s latest girlfriend showed up not long after – I couldn’t quite keep up with what number he was on now – and while some boys told me how ‘great’ I looked, he didn’t say a thing. Oh, wait, he did say one thing actually when his girlfriend’s back was turned:

  ‘Your boobs look massive.’

  What a guy.

  At 8 p.m. the party was quietly underway. Any boys I’d ever remotely had a crush on had arrived, which was nice for me, and one boy had travelled up all the way from Brighton to be there. People were cracking open the drinks, Dave had poured snacks into a bowl and some guy called Death Jesus (a ginger guy with a beard who dressed like a goth) was completely stoned in the corner. In our naivety – and also in our defence – we truly believed that around thirty people would show up. Besides, everyone who’d arrived so far was very nice.

  To fast-forward the events of the evening, I’d gone upstairs to chat to someone for half an hour when suddenly the party sounded very loud outside the bedroom door.

  I poked my head out.

  ‘Oh my f***ing God.’

  It was manic. Standing in Dave’s house were around two hundred lads who we’d never seen before, dressed in tracksuits and swigging cans of lager, yelling loudly. They were all aged about fifteen up – some of them looked like they were in their mid-twenties. Where the hell did they come from?!

  I ran to Dave’s bedroom, trying to find her, to discover that it had already been ransacked. There were muddy footprints all across the expensive cream carpet. Mine and Dave’s iPods had been nicked, as well as Dave’s hair straighteners, and her money box had been smashed everywhere. Some girl I’d never met before was staring at herself in the mirror.

  ‘Some boys just tried to steal your Ugg boots but I told them to put them down,’ she said, as though she was doing me some kind of favour. I hid my new boots in a cupboard and ran out again, trying to find Dave.

  ‘Coming through!’ I yelled, squeezing myself through the hordes of people on the stairs. Where the hell was she?!

  God – so many people, swigging out of cans and yelling and chanting. I ran outside to the hot tub, which was now somehow a pitch-black colour with beer cans floating on top. How could this have happened in such a short space of time?!

  ‘DAVE!’ I yelled, running back into the house. ‘DAAVVEEEE!!!’

  The house was totally trashed from top to bottom. Mirrors were either broken or covered in beer. Someone had ripped the sofa with a knife and smashed photos. I eventually found Dave in the kitchen, looking petrified. She was lodged between some guys in their thirties who were snorting cocaine on the kitchen table.

  She rushed over to me and I led her out into the hallway. She glanced around at the hordes of people and began hyperventilating. I tried to console her, but kind of understandably she lashed out and slapped me across the face.

  ‘Wahheeyyyy!’ the lads yelled, but Dave was having a panic attack.

  ‘GET! OUTTTT!!!’ she yelled furiously, throwing her hands to her face.

  Rather than make them leave, this thrilled them even more. They began cheering. We couldn’t find our phones so she tried ringing the police on the landline, but the phone line had been cut. I rallied George and a couple of other people together, telling them to spread the word that the police were on their way.

  ‘THE POLICE ARE COMING!’ people began to yell, and this scared the idiots the most. It wouldn’t have surprised me if half the boys here had already been in juvey anyway.

  I ran outside to the front of the house. Some boys were sat in Dave’s mum’s Mercedes convertible, trying to get it to start – how they opened the door, I have no idea, as we later found the car keys in the kitchen drawer.

  ‘GET THE F*CK OUT!’ I yelled, and weirdly they did clamber out. There were dozens of suitcases scattered across Dave’s front yard, full of expensive stolen goods, like silver photo frames and lamps and jewellery, but people were legging it down the country road before the mythical ‘police’ could get there. Once all the thugs had left, the rest of us were left standing in shock amongst the wreckage.

  I don’t think we realized how trashed the house was. All the
doors in Dave’s house were made out of solid wood, and someone had smashed a couple in half – I have no idea how, but it would’ve taken some effort. Dave’s sister’s room was totally destroyed – the cupboard doors had been ripped off, clothes stolen and her piggy bank smashed – and someone had broken into the attic. We got one of the boys to check and see if anyone was still up there. In one room, someone had thrown a crate of beer into the wall, leaving a huge dent in it. There was liquid all over the walls and mattress. Jelly beans had been thrown everywhere for a finishing touch.

  ‘We are so dead,’ Dave said, crying. ‘I need to ring my dad.’

  Dave’s dad lived a few miles away in a nearby town, but it was around midnight now.

  ‘Don’t!’ I said, snatching the phone off her. ‘We need to try and fix some of this ourselves. Everyone can help clean up, can’t we, guys? It’s not … too bad, I suppose?’

  Everyone nodded and agreed, though how we’d ever clean this mess up, I didn’t know. There was a solid cream carpet that ran throughout the entire house and it was completely trashed with burn marks, wine stains and other fluids probably not worth mentioning.

  ‘Look, maybe we can pay for some expensive cleaners to come and fix it?’ I said hopefully. ‘How much does a cleaner cost? We can lie and say Mark got drunk and fell into the door and broke it …’

  Speaking of Mark – where was he? Oh yeah, that’s right: he’d legged it an hour or so ago, hiding back at his house. Everyone was scrambling around to help mend and clean whatever broken thing they could find, but he’d run off in the heat of the moment. We tried calling him to help but he rejected all our calls. In that moment, any attraction I felt for him disappeared. It appears I can fancy boys who treat me like sh*t, but not wusses.

  Everyone clambered in together to help clean that night. I will never forget the sight of my campest gay friend dancing and hoovering to the sound of Jay-Z’s ‘Big Pimpin”, which couldn’t have misdescribed that evening further if we’d tried. We were going to be in so much trouble. Despite our best cleaning efforts, the house was royally f***ed. The following morning, we called Dave’s dad to come round, who, despite having been divorced from Dave’s mum for a while now, went mental on her behalf. Within a few minutes, he’d called Dave’s aunt, who came round to inspect the damage.