...
❝He was the poison I was dying to taste on my lips.❞
...
I was a coward.
The coward who wanted to leave behind the wreckage of her life for the man who had tormented her for as long as she could remember. The boy who had spit venom at me gro...
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september 2006 — age eleven
FAYE STAYED TRUE to her words.
Over the course of the past year, things slowly but surely got worse. Less passive aggressiveness and more upfront violence, where girls even stopped pretending that it was an accident and just completely ignored me, other than to push, shove and ridicule me. Teachers noticed it, of course, but did nothing. All I could do was bite my tongue and live through it, dreading school every hour of the day. Thankfully, I had Faye — just as she'd promised — and I was forever grateful that the universe had given me her.
"Hey, Miss Jalal," a chirpy voice said behind my shoulder and I turned to roll my eyes at Faye.
"Hey, Faye."
It was her turn to roll her eyes. "Would you stop saying that? I already want to change my name enough."
I shrugged. "It's a habit now, but it never gets tiring. Literally everything rhymes with your name, Faye. There's nothing I can do about that."
"You know what?"
"What?"
"It's the first day. None of the teachers here really know me, apart from what's on the register. So I'm going to give myself a new name," she announced and I groaned.
"That's like the hundredth time you've told me that over the past six weeks. Your name is fine. It's better than fine; it's perfect. So just shut up and keep it."
"You're no fun, you know that?" Faye huffed, but then quickly smiled and linked her arm through mine. "Are you excited?"
"For the first day of secondary? Not even a little."
Her smile turned sympathetic. "I'm sure it'll be different from last year. Most of the bitchy girls from Clement are at Frasier. That's bound to make this year better, right?"
"No, Faye, it's only going to make it worse. River and his friends are going to be right here. Looming in the corridors. Maybe even in some of our classes. I don't belong in a place where people have more money than God, let alone a place where there are only kids coming from old-money families. It's going to be hell."
Faye didn't try to say something to comfort me after that; she knew I was right, and that things were only bound to get worse from here. Everyone was a year older, meaning they only had more creative ways to bully others.
There were two different secondary schools in Glésford — once again unnecessary, but a stupid tradition. Frasier Academy was where all the kids coming from new-money families went, and LeSaux-Blackstone Academy was where kids of old money came.
