“I dyed my hair back to normal and stopped speaking up in class. When we weren’t in uniform, I tried to match what everyone else was wearing and see the movies and shows everyone talked about and none of it worked and one day I couldn’t…”
Natalie shifts on her chair, prompting me when the words won’t come on their words. “One day you couldn’t…?”
“I took pills,” I blurt, closing my eyes so I can’t see the effect on her. “Sleeping pills and painkillers.” I give a jagged laugh. “Even over-the-counter stuff.”
Which, ironically, was the thing to cause the most damage. Nobody had explained the finer points of a paracetamol overdose to me.
“My mum was really great. Once she knew what was happening, she sold her business to relocate here. She knew the school had a good arts programme and figured she could be a hairdresser anywhere.”
“And how have you found the move? Has it improved things for you?”
I wring my hands together in my lap, hard enough my joints protest but that doesn’t stop me. I need the comfort more than I need to avoid the pain.
“The school’s been good. I’ve been working on a submission to get into a tertiary arts academy.”
“That sounds promising.”
I nod, unsure if I should touch on Saturday night; whether the school will take matters into their own hands if I say anything.
And it doesn’t matter.
Perhaps if I hadn’t just gone through years of hell before showing up at the party, what happened, what Zane did to me, would be the worst thing in my life.
But it’s just another rod on my back. Nothing like the crawling self-hatred that I can’t quite shake, not when the urge to make myself into a different person occupied my every waking thought for years.
“I ruined Mum’s life. Everything is so much harder for her down here. The rents are higher for less and she hasn’t been able to replace her client list. Every day is a struggle.” Even though the box of tissues is right there, I brush the new tears away with an impatient swipe of my hand. “She was finally adjusting to dad’s death, getting back to normal, when I disrupted her life all over again. She must hate me.”
And this time when the tears come in a new flood, there’s too many to even try to wipe them away.
CHAPTER NINE
ZANE
The weekafter the party drags along in slow-motion, each new minute as unrelentingly awful as the one before. The weekend doesn’t offer much respite and on Monday, Avon goes to another counselling session, not even hinting at anything she shouldn’t.
If I needed another reason to hate myself, listening to the agonies she suffered at her last school gives me plenty.
The twisted voyeurism of eavesdropping is like a late-stage addiction, leaving me wretched but with the overwhelming compulsion to take another hit. She’s so raw in the sessions, exposed and vulnerable, tears being sniffed back while her voice grows husky; another glimpse at the perfection I’m not allowed.
And the intrusion on her privacy is pointless.
She hasn’t breathed a word about the party.
By the time it gets to the following Friday, school has become a long drawn-out torture designed to bring me to my knees. I try to avoid her but every day I catch glimpses of Avon and get a gut punch of guilt.
Outside it’s drizzling, the light rain not enough for the teachers to unlock classrooms for use but crowding the halls with pupils who turn up far too early for their lessons, hoping to stay dry. I push through the doors to the science block, headed for chemistry, the other students so far below my level of interest they don’t even register.
Then I hear a cry and glance along the perpendicular hallway to where a boy has knocked into Avon. Her binder hits the ground and bumps open, pages scattering for metres along the floor.
My eyes snap back to the front.
She’s off-limits.
But my peripheral vision ignores the warnings, instead watching as she crouches, reaching for her spilled papers. The boy films like she’s about to pleasure him, one hand holding his phone while the other makes a rude gesture at his crotch.
Not my problem.
She’s got friends. I see her talking to a girl most mornings when I’m not meant to be looking her way at all.
