Lies Like Love

SEPTEMBER: AUDREY

The next day at break I asked Jen about Leo. He’d appeared the day before, in the afternoon when I’d been dodging Science, and now he was walking past the lockers where we were standing. He raised his hand, a brief wave, mouthed hello, then strode on. I just wanted to know if she knew him, that was all, but another girl, I didn’t know her name, butted in.

‘Leo? In Year Thirteen? That Leo.’ She gestured with her thumb down the corridor where he’d gone. I tried to smile at her and nodded.

‘Yeah. I think so.’

‘He’s taken,’ this other girl said. Jen grabbed her books and slammed her locker shut. She didn’t look at Lizzy.

‘What do you mean?’ I couldn’t help asking.

‘I mean taken, like, you know. Taken.’ She leant back against the wall and folded her arms, so I smiled quickly, not meaning it, and looked away.

‘Thanks for your help, Lizzy,’ Jen said, rolling her eyes and pulling me with her.

‘So, what do you want to know for, anyway?’ The girl, Lizzy, followed us, moving herself into my line of sight. Her eyes picked at me, searching for something to hate.

‘No reason. Forget it.’ I shrugged and smiled at her again. Leo was nothing to me; I didn’t even know him.

‘You should stay away,’ Lizzy called after me, but I ignored her and followed Jen into the classroom, taking our seats and arranging our books.

‘Take no notice of her – she’s a bit of a bitch. Plus she has a major crush on you know who,’ Jen whispered as the teacher called the register. ‘But I don’t actually think they’re an item.’

‘I’m not bothered.’

‘Well, just ignore her anyway, OK? I’m afraid it’s a case of the green-eyed monster.’ She looked over at Lizzy. Lizzy looked back, stuck up her middle finger. Jen just raised an eyebrow and looked away.

I wondered if I could follow Jen everywhere, make her my friend just by virtue of my presence as her shadow. It wasn’t necessary.

‘Come on,’ she said at lunch. ‘I’ll show you the cafeteria. It’s pretty grim, mind you. I hope you brought lunch from home. Lesson one: don’t trust the natives. Lesson two: don’t eat their food.’

Jen pulled out a magazine, stuck it between us and munched her way through a plastic tub of pasta and pesto. She didn’t talk much and I picked at my own food, glancing at the pictures of bands I’d never heard of and looking up now and then to scan the big echoing hall. Lizzy and her mates, whose names I didn’t know, spotted me and strode over.

‘Where’s your boyfriend, then?’ Lizzy said, her breath too near. I could smell cheese and onion. Jen looked up, then back down at her magazine. I did as she’d suggested and smiled. These girls weren’t really a threat.

Last year there’d been dog shit in my school bag; coins stinging my skin, flicked by boys from the back row; bile in my mouth and Aidy Parker standing, his crotch in my face, grabbing my head and pulling it against the rough scratch of his trousers, his fists in my hair. Laughter bouncing of the ceilings and walls. Lizzy was nothing, compared.

I grabbed my bag, stood up and pushed into the little throng.

‘So, come on,’ said Lizzy. ‘You should go look in the sixth-form common room, maybe he’ll be in there. We’ll take you. Then we’ll see, won’t we?’ They closed in. No. If she touched me, I would freak. No one is allowed to touch me, no one except Peter and my mum.

‘No, it’s OK, thanks. I’m busy.’ My voice sounded smudged, wrong. Not as sure as it should. Help. Now.

Jen stood up, slung her arm around my shoulders. That felt OK.

‘Actually, we’re on our way somewhere, Liz, so you know, sod off,’ she said, towing me out of there, past them. She looked at me when we were well away, considering.

‘You know what, Audrey, I reckon she’s got it in for you.’

Mum’s voice drifted through the walls, from wherever she was – I saw her standing, legs akimbo, finger wagging: You’re a victim, Aud, she was saying, a born bloody victim, and underneath her concern I knew she thought I brought trouble on myself. But this school was supposed to be different. I was different here. I wasn’t going to take it.

‘It’s OK,’ I told Jen, ‘I can handle it.’

‘Good. Don’t let her think you’re weak. She’s like a cat chasing mice. You need to show her who’s boss. Right?’

‘Right.’ I nodded and followed Jen back inside. She strode, head high, her boots flashing like sunflowers, and I caught up, walked beside her, my insides turning over when she shoved her arm through mine, linked me like I belonged.