*Watty's 2021 Shortlist*
Samantha Roberts and Ben Evans have one thing in common - they both attend Sir Robertson's School for the Gifted, an elite boarding school for the children of the world's wealthiest. Both scholarship students, they gravitate...
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I guess it's understandable that I'm nervous.
I know that I'm getting weird looks, that the boys don't expect me to be here, strolling through their dorm like I belong. And to be fair, I definitely don't.
I haven't been here in ages, and all I can say is... It looks the same, I guess. It might actually be cleaner, and it's definitely brighter. I think they might have repainted a couple of walls.
Am I focusing on weird details to avoid the death stare that one of the twins is giving me? Yes. Am I going to keep doing that? Also yes.
I guess they must have talked to Ben, and finally picked a side. It makes sense. They've always been closer with Ben than Anthony.
The hallway is quiet, and my socked feet barely make any sound on the carpet. As usual, being in any of the hallways of the dorm on my own makes me feel weird and out of place.
Ben's door is closed, and I spend far too long trying to work up the courage to knock. But eventually, I do, rapping on the door three times: two long and one short, our knock.
He opens the door quickly, and I bite my lip to stop myself from either blurting out something embarrassing or running away. I don't know what to do with my hands, and there's this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I hate that we're fighting. I hate it.
Why can't I just have this one thing? Why does it feel like I traded whatever I have with Anthony for my friendship with Ben?
"Hey," Ben says, his voice a little stiff.
"Um, hi." I sound just as stiff as him, despite my best attempts. I swore to myself that I'd just act naturally, but so far, it seems to be a lost cause.
He opens the door wider and gestures for me to come through. His room is different, and for a moment I can't put my finger on it. Then I realize:
It's clean. His bed is made, his shelves organized—I don't think I've ever seen the surface of his desk before.
And maybe the most noticeable things are the drawings. I'd suspected that Ben was an artist, but I hadn't imagined anything near to the scope of this.
Drawings cover the entire back wall of his room, thick drawing paper stuck up with tape and tacks and clearly ripped out of a sketchbook.
The drawings are done in pencil, amazingly intricate and lifelike—and painfully, devastatingly, familiar.
My face peers out of some of them, but that's not what's drawing my attention. There's a series of drawings in the centre of the wall, a little hastier, a little more desperate than the others.
I take a step forward, reach out a hand. In one, I'm standing in front of a long mirror, wearing nothing but a blurrily outlined hospital gown, my head shaved, my face thin. In another, Ben and I stand hand in hand, chins up, shoulders back, eyes fearful.
