Back To School

"Look Sasha, I've told you I don't want to go" I said for the hundredth time. I was starting to get exasperated with my best friend but she just wouldn't let it rest. Since I received the invitation for the Ten-year School Reunion she has badgered me about going. I have even been asked to perform by the organisers but I just couldn't bring myself to go.

"Why don't you want to go thought?" she shot back at me. "You haven't given me a good reason, Iz." How can I tell her that I was still afraid of the girls I went to school with? The popular girls that everyone loved and followed, and ultimately made my school life a misery. Me, Isabelle Rice, a famous musician with a few chart songs under my belt, still recalling those horrid days locked in school classrooms with my tormentors. I gave a little shiver at the thought and Sasha must have seen. "What is it?" she asked. "Tell me."

"Oh Sash, I really don't want to be in the same room as those bitches" I said shaking my head. "They made my school life hell. I was the scholarship girl. I was a chubby, boring, quiet, nerd, who did her homework during break times because I had no friends. I have no one at this reunion that I want to talk to, or even be in the same room with."

"But it's different now. You are different now" she said placing her hands on my arms as if to ground me. "You are a star now. You are somebody, not just a ghost at the back of the class" she said with a little humour and I had to smile at her.

"I know what you are saying but I'm still a wimp when it comes to those girls" I said adding my own humour to the mix.

"Anyway, wouldn't it be good to find out what they all ended up doing?" Sasha said. "I bet they didn't graduate from Uni with a first class Honours degree. I bet they haven't had five top ten hits. Come on, you might enjoy it" she added chucking my arm with her fist.

"I suppose you are right" I said. "Face the fear and all of that."

"Definitely" she said.

"Alright I'll go" and with that Sasha filled in my RSVP and headed out to post it before I could change my mind.

Six months went by very quickly and soon the reunion was upon me. Sasha had helped me pick out my outfit for tonight. My only stipulation to her was that if she was putting me in a dress, it had to go past my knees so when I was on stage I wouldn't be flashing my audience. She had rolled her eyes at me for preaching to the converted and I had laughed. She had settled on a pair of black palazzo pants, as I wasn't allowed to wear jeans, a silver sequin top, not too flashy but enough to catch the lights and a black suede jacket. I wasn't one of these people that religiously dieted to keep the weight down. I was more of a natural eater and exerciser. I wasn't big in any sense of the word but sometimes it was difficult to get clothes to suit my fuller figure however, thanks to Sasha the clothes she had picked accented my curvy figure and I felt good.

Thorpe Towers was a private girls' school set in its own grounds. The rich families of the county sent their daughters here from the age of eight. I had won a scholarship at ten to attend here and I often wonder if my life would have been different if I had gone to the local comprehensive instead. While attending the school, when I used to stand here in a morning looking up at those Gothic spires and gargoyles, the school's dark facade matched my emotions within. Knowing that when I walked through these doors I would be subjected to nightmarish behaviour. I couldn't wait to leave and when it was finally time, I ran from the place and never looked back. So as I'm standing outside the main school doors, the fear began washing over me again. Imagining the snide remarks of the teachers, the jabbing comments and bullying tactics of my fellow pupils all for a girl that really didn't belong in their world. Most if not all would be here tonight. I took a breath and walked up the stone steps to the open double doors.