Finally turning around to leave, my stupid shoe betrays me, slipping clean off my foot just a few steps away from their table. For a split second, I just stare at it, my shoe lying there on the floor like it’s mocking me. I try to stay calm, try not to make it worse, but I can feel all their eyes zero in on me like they’re watching a car crash.
They all stare at it like they’re trying to figure out what exactly they’re looking at, and it makes my cheeks go nuclear as I bend down to slide on the too-big, barely surviving Converse.
I don’t look back as I leave, but I can still feel their eyes.
FOUR
Rule Number One ofAdeline’s Guide to Overcoming Loneliness: Adeline, remember to find comfort in your own company. Learn to sit with yourself and find peace in being on your own. You’re not missing anything here; there is strength in simply being. Sometimes, people fail to understand that it is important to embrace the quiet of your own presence. So, learn to be your own best friend, as stupid as that sounds, and the world will become a little less hollow. A little less boring.
Today something’s been off. There’s this odd, prickling sensation that trails down my neck, like a pair of eyes burrowing into the back of my head. I glance over my shoulder, scanning the empty street.
Nothing. Just dark windows and lamplight spilling across the concrete.
It’s been happening for a while now—random moments when I can’t shake the impression of being watched, followed by an eerie emptiness, and I turn around to find no one there. At first, I ignored it. This was the result of too many suspenseful movies I used to watch with my father, or my own clearly overactive imagination.
It’s ridiculous, really. But every little sound—the scrape of a tree branch, the echo of a far-off footstep—never fails to set off tiny alarms in my brain. And sometimes, I swear, I catch a glimpse of something in my peripheral vision—a dark figure, ashadow that slips out of sight the moment I look straight at it. I don’t even believe in stuff like this, but tonight, the quiet feels heavier. There’s something about the stillness that I just can’t shake.
I should probably be questioning my sanity right now.
I quicken my pace, desperate to get home. I clear my mind of any unsettling scenarios. This is just a feeling; I have to just get over it.
I have way more important matters to attend to anyway. Like paying bills, for example.
But even though I know how absurd this is, the feeling follows me all the way to my door.
***
I stand in Sam’s room, since her room is the only room besides the bathroom that has a mirror. A massive one at that. Right about now she’s doing God knows what in the bathroom, and frankly I’m scared to knock.
Naomi is perched in front of the mirror, casually dabbing concealer under her eyes. I’m behind her, just… staring. The uniform hangs loosely on me—a little too long in the skirt, a bit tight in the shoulders—but there’s no denying it: this isBrentwood. The polished navy blazer, complete with a golden crest and trimmings, the blouse so pristine it seems almost unfitting that someone like me is wearing it. And then there’s the skirt, of course. The pleated skirt that I can’t help but tug at, trying to roll it up so it sits at an almost-normal length.
“That skirt is way too long for you,” Naomi points out. “Maybe they got the sizing wrong.”
“It’s fine, it looks nice anyway.” I shrug.
As I examine my reflection, something like uncertainty comes over me. But this school, it’s a new beginning. Maybe a real one. Away from the bullies that tormented me at my last school, away from the horrible remarks and hateful glares.
For years I went to that school, and for years I endured the same painful routine. Those were the years I felt most alone. I didn’t understand exactly what I was doing wrong. I was everything I was told to be I was patient, I was kind, I smiled despite the ache in my chest telling me to scream at them instead.
But I didn’t. I never did, and I doubt I ever will. Some might see that as cowardice, but deep down I tell myself it’s the right thing to do.
The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.
My father taught me that line, and to this day it remains one of my favourites from Shakespeare.
I tell myself the bullies don’t matter. Not now. Notanymore. I bet the people at Brentwood have far more important things to do than to torment someone as unimportant as me. That thought alone calms me.
“Do you want me to do your mascara?” Naomi asks.
I shake my head. “I can do it myself.”
I like putting on makeup, and I always think it looks decent. Apparently, Naomi and Sam disagree. In fact, I recall Naomi once telling me, “Just don’t hang around me looking like that, or you’ll scare off my friends.” Maybe they’re right, and maybe ignorance is bliss.
“I’ve seen you doing it yourself, too clumpy and messy,” she says, then adds a little extra gloss. Naomi is naturally beautiful, and she knows it. Almond-brown eyes, inherited from our mum, smooth, perfect skin, and hair that she somehow keeps perfectly strawberry-blonde. She and Sam are almost identical, the only difference being hair colour and length.
Me on the other hand, I have my father’s eyes.And Mason’s.A soft shade of green that makes me look almost exactly like him. And blonde hair that isn’t so blonde anymore. The colour is slowly fading, and I’m glad of it. Because it’s anotherresemblance that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at differently. The eyes, the freckles. They’re a cage of flesh and blood, and one that screams his name.
Looking so much like him always felt like a theft of my own identity.
