CHAPTER ONE
OPHELIA
My head slamsback into the puddle, filthy water bubbling in my ears. I claw at my attacker, but she’s skipped out of reach.
“You’re looking a bit pale,” Chelsea mocks from a distance, letting her minion do the dirty work as usual. “Alyssa’s just trying to help you with that.”
“Your ex didn’t seem to mind.” I struggle into a sitting position. “Maybe you should stop with the fake ta—” Alyssa’s weight crashes onto my torso and her knees pin my arms against the soggy ground, the pain sharper than Chelsea’s piercing laughter.
She scoops a handful of mud and smears it across my face, dirt pressing into my mouth. The gritty taste of decay coats my tongue, and I gag. Chelsea circles closer, a tang of sweat souring her expensive perfume, like something uneasy lies beneath her polished outer shell.
I twist my hips. Arch my back. But I can’t buck Alyssa free, and each failed movement drives me deeper into the sodden earth.
A second handful lands in my hair, plastering the white strands flat against my skull, clogging my dark glasses.
“Get off her.” Chelsea’s order is sharp, rushed, then she gives a brittle laugh. “I want a picture of the freak as a brunette.”
The sudden absence of weight lets me gasp in a breath, and I sling my own handful of mud towards their laughter.
“Missed me,” Alyssa taunts. “You blind bitch.”
Her kick catches high on my cheek and snaps my head sideways, skin flaring hot. My glasses tilt, the glaring sunlight increasing my dizziness. People-shaped blurs aim their phones, tittering.
By the time I clamber upright, the girls have drifted away. Dirt falls off me in clumps, and I rinse away more under a leaking faucet behind the old Scouts’ shed. Cool handfuls ease the frustration burning in my cheeks.
The snide slurs—ghost, albino, freak—are bad. Echoes that follow my solitary footsteps as I navigate the school corridors, each repeat drawing curious stares, whispers behind cupped hands. But these escalating physical attacks are dangerous, and I’ve abandoned asking for help from Regency High.
Mediation was their best response. Useless. Chelsea fawned while the counsellor wanked on about ‘two sides to every conflict,’ and I should’ve known better.
My family isn’t making six-figure donations.
I abandon the clean-up job and start walking, moving slow enough that if my foot catches on the uneven ground it won’t send me flying. I can make out the blurred details at my feet, but beyond that the world turns into a fuzz of shapes and shadows, the sun washing all the colours white.
This shortcut has been a convenient route home when I don’t want to bus, but now that the girls have jumped me once, they’ll attack again.
I could avoid the park altogether. ‘Better safe than sorry,’ Bryan will say, and his voice loops in my head, tinny and distant.
Safe.
My fingers trace the tender swelling on my cheekbone.
As if safety isn’t just another cage.
Altering my routine won’t stop them. If these girls are coming for me outside of school, I should take real-world precautions, not top up my bus pass. Instead of following the cycle track alongside the train tracks, I veer left, heading for the row of corner shops ten minutes from home.
Body heat warms my blouse, and I pluck at it, grimacing as the damp fabric clings. Halfway there, a notification pings my phone; the text-to-speech informing me I’m tagged in a new post.
The photo of my matted hair makes my throat pinch tight. A second round of humiliation from Chelsea’s sycophantic followers.
I could report it, but by the time anything happens, everyone will have seen it and laughed.
All it’ll do is let her know she upset me.
I resume walking, taking the pedestrian bridge over a narrow stream. A chittering Tui calls from a flowering kowhai, the New Zealand native where it’s made its home, and the sound soothes me.
A bell tinkles when I push inside a dingy pawn shop, greeted by the scent of mildew and burnt plastic. The dim interior bulbs and crowded shelves make me wary enough that I unfold my cane.
“You need a hand, love?”
