Anywhere
“I’m sorry,” I say, although that isn’t actually what I mean. It absolutely isn’t. It’s capitulation of the worst kind, because I have no choice.
My voice has never sounded as flat. As if I didn’t care what this means right now, when the opposite is true. I do care. I care more than anything.
What have you done, what have you done, what have you done?
The right thing. It was the right thing. Wasn’t it? A moment ago, I’d been sure of that, but now I’m overcome by doubts.
I turn around. I grab the heavy black iron doorknob. I don’t know how my legs carry me. I don’t know how I push open the door and walk out of the head teacher’s office without losing my composure. I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.
I hear the voices in the corridor, the laughter that echoes off the high walls. The sounds of rapid footsteps on the old, uneven tiles in the arcaded walkways. Sunbeams fall through the panes of the lancet windows; dust glitters in the air.
Faces turn toward me, my fellow pupils smile at me, say hi, the same as ever, and I don’t reply because I can’t. I run blindlypast them. I have to get away, but I don’t know where to go. I no longer have a home.
The thought hits me like a punch in the belly, but it’s true. For a moment, I feel the need to stop and curl up. But I keep on running.
My feet fly over the tiles, taking routes I could walk with my eyes shut. Across the courtyard to my dorm wing, brown-brick facades covered with twining ivy. High lattice windows, dark roofs, pointed towers. I see it all but feel nothing. Coming toward me down the worn stairs from the first floor are the fourth-formers; they slow as they recognize me, then run all the faster once they’re past. The heavy, dark wooden door to our wing is shut. I have to lean my whole weight against it as I reach for the key in my trouser pocket and open it, then my bedroom door.
Silence.
And then I pull my suitcase from beside the wardrobe and start packing.
1
Emma
It didn’t go off. My stupid alarm clock just didn’t go off. It stayed silent because my phone’s dead.How can you forget to charge it overnight when tomorrow you’re flying to Scotland for a year abroad at boarding school? How?This probably sounds like a bad joke, but sadly, I have to confirm that it’s not.
I just plain overslept. On the day I’m traveling. And there’s no way Mum can find out about this or she’ll freak. She was so doubtful yesterday, after it had been confirmed that, with the stupid ground crew being on strike in France, she couldn’t get back in time to fly to Edinburgh with me. Like an eighteen-year-old was totally incapable of getting to the airport alone and flying to Scotland. Mind you, I’d be going into a class with people younger than me, because I needed to start at the beginning of the A-level course, not halfway through.
What can I say? Looks like she was right.
I always plug my phone in before I go to sleep, but yesterday, I forgot. After all, it’s not that common to spend half the night crying your eyes out because you’ve suddenly realized that goingto Scotland for a year might actually be a crappy idea. Maybe my subconscious was trying to give me one last chance to come to my senses. Don’t catch the plane, don’t be the new girl at Dunbridge Academy tomorrow, just enjoy the rest of the summer holidays, and start my Abitur at the Heinrich Heine grammar school in September—as if I hadn’t been about to make a major mistake. But that’s impossible because all my friends know I’m going to be away for a year. If I bailed now, I’d really make an idiot of myself. It’d look like I didn’t know what I wanted. But I know exactly what I want. And for that, I have to get to Edinburgh.
I chuck the last few things carelessly into my toiletries bag while I brush my teeth.
I have to get there. I’ve known it since I found that cassette and lay awake into the early hours of the morning listening to that song on my old Walkman. “For Emma.” The title was like a mocking promise.
That was ten weeks ago now, and deep down, I’m sure I only got a place at this school at such short notice because Mum pulled some strings somewhere. She’s supergood at that. As a lawyer, she always seems to know someone somewhere who owes her a favor. And I was totally sure that I was doing the right thing. Even though Mum didn’t understand why I suddenly wanted to go to boarding school after years of rejecting any such suggestion. I can’t tell her that I have to find my dad. That his voice on the tape sounded totally different from the way I remember it. That it sounded so close, as if his lips had been brushing the mike the whole time he was singing “For Emma.” That I listenedto the song with goose bumps and a fluttering heart for a whole night, like my life depended on it.
That “For Emma” wouldn’t leave me, not even once I googled his name, for the first time in years. Jacob Wiley, still waiting for his big break, still just a man with a guitar and no conscience—there’s no way you can have a conscience if you leave your family for a dream and don’t look back.
Jacob Wiley was born in Glasgow and is a Scottish singer-songwriter.
And he’s living back there again, at least according to his Wikipedia entry. He’s in Scotland, so I have to go to Scotland. I knew it the first time I voluntarily pulled up the Dunbridge Academy website.
“Airport, please,” I pant a little later, as I clamber into the taxi. I want to close my eyes, not to have to look at the time, but unfortunately, it shines reproachfully at me the moment I reach for my phone. This is going to be seriously tight. I’m such an idiot. I have to get to baggage check-in and hope it’s still open, then get through security and make it to my gate. All inside an hour and twenty minutes, after which the plane is due to take off—ideally with me on board.
No idea what I’ll do if it doesn’t work out. I’m sure there’ll be another flight to Edinburgh later on, but do you just get rescheduled if you miss your flight entirely through your own fault?
Mum would know this stuff. But unless I absolutely have to tell her, she’s never going to find out that I’m not even capable of catching my plane. She’d end up interpreting it as a sign that I don’t want to go to Dunbridge Academy. And it’s not a sign. It’s just a stupid, stupid fuckup.
I send her a WhatsApp claiming to be on the way to my gate—which is kind of true.
It’s seven thirty on a Sunday morning, but even now, the Frankfurt traffic is remorseless. I shut my eyes as the taxi slows down more and more. Oh, God, I’m so screwed. I’m going to miss the flight and be late to the school. Right from the start I’m going to be the new girl who couldn’t even make it to the first day of term on time.
My pulse is racing when, an eternity later, I jump out of the taxi, grab my luggage, and pay the driver. I’ve flown millions of times, but Frankfurt airport is and always will be above and beyond, even when you have plenty of time in hand.
