Brewed to Perfection

Part 6

I didn't want or need anyone's pity.

I especially didn't need Benjamin to save me from moody Jerry.

It was only a day after receiving the information about Benjamin and Jerry's chat, and I had been in the shop for about twenty minutes before deciding I could no longer deal with the extremely awkward atmosphere, when Benjamin and I had no customers to serve. Hence why I was hiding in the stock room.

Jerry's final words about 'forgiving' Benjamin, made me realise that Benjamin had probably told him that I was avoiding him for good reason.

I don't know how it felt knowing Benjamin had actually told Jerry about the reasons behind me staying clear of him when we were on the same shifts.

But it seemed Jerry understood now, why in the last few months since Benjamin has been hired, my stockroom hideout sessions had increased by at least 99%.

What had Benjamin told Jerry? Did he say that he basically bullied me relentlessly for years, or did he just say something ambiguous and allow Jerry to think my grudge was pathetic.

Benjamin, who served customers and made jokes with employees at Brewtiful, was nothing like Benny, the privileged, insecure arsehole I had been forced to be around for my entire teenage life.

It even confused me sometimes. When I overheard him chatting to Paula about a Crime TV show they had both been watching, some of the comments he made were funny. I found myself sometimes going to chuckle but then feeling violently ill that this horrible monster had managed to disguise his true self and fool me.

I knew the real Benjamin Lovat. No amount of smiles or jokes would ever make me forget.

-

St Gerards, October 17th 2015

School was always the same. Whether it was a day full of Science or even a mixture of History, Spanish and English. Each day was awful.

I used to enjoy getting ready for school and re-checking my timetable to make sure I packed away all the appropriate text books.

Mum would always make my lunch and give me a ride to the bus stop. She worked at the town council, which was at the other end of town so she could never drive me to school. I never used to mind much.

In my first year, some of the girls in my form room got on the same bus. We would share earphones and listen to old Rihanna tunes.

I got good grades too in my first few years of high school. I loved Math and English. So much so that I would run home after school and rewrite all the notes that I had taken in class but make sure that I'd use my pretty handwriting. And who could forget my pink highlighter too?

Now I just didn't care about any of it.

Every subject was the same, and every day was the same.

Most days now I walk to school. I stopped getting the bus around a year ago, Mum doesn't know, because I haven't told her.

On days where it's raining badly, or it's a literal storm I make myself get on the bus. And that's where my identical day begins.

Getting on the school bus, I'd be lucky if someone's leg wasn't trying to trip me over. Most often it was Archie Cauldwell. He had huge clown feet, so it made sense to get him to target me.

He did it in January of last year, i had been distracted, trying to put my bus ticket in my bag when all of a sudden I tripped over his outstretched legs and slammed into the floor of the bus. I slammed face first into the ground. Nose first actually, if I wanted to be technical.

It wasn't until I went to my form room with a bloody nose, Mrs. Rosemund sent me to the school nurse. The nurse then sent me to A&E, where a junior doctor confirmed my nose was broken.

So during days i made myself get on the bus I always kept my eyes on the ground

I knew not to look for a seat. It was the eye contact they wanted. It was the eye contact the HE wanted.

And i wouldn't give it to him. Maybe it would have made life easier just to let him see how much he had managed to crush me, but I never gave him the satisfaction.

When the bus would set off, I'd stand, holding on to any bar available. Normally I would be lucky if any of them let me near a handle. I'd stand, looking at the ground being moved from one side to the bus to the other from how unbalanced I was.

I used to have a pair of headphones. My dad sent them over to me for my christmas last year. They were noise cancelling and basically my saving grace.

I don't have those headphones anymore.

Actually, they only lasted two weeks before they were ripped from my head and snapped in the middle. I didn't tell this to dad of course, I never told anyone.

Then like normal, I'd hear him speaking. He would make it sound like he was trying to be discreet but I knew he was ensuring he was just loud enough I could always hear the verbal blows.

I never used to have any type of insecurity about myself. I was oblivious to the fact society and societal expectations existed. I never used to care what anyone thought, or what I thought I looked like to other people.

Now it is so far the opposite it's actually scary.

I know how many spots I have on my face, every scar, every freckle. I know that I'm chubby compared to other girls, I know I'm taller than other girls. I have stretch marks around my hips that I know will never go away and boys think are disgusting.

I know I'm not naturally pretty like other girls. I know I'm not funny, or even very clever. I know where I live means that I'm poor. I know my brother killed himself because he didn't want to spend anymore time around me. I know all of this because Benjamin Lovat told me so.

It's hard to explain how words confirming your own thoughts feel when someone states them to you as a downright fact. I had already thought all of this. But hearing Benjamin say them for the first time felt like a gunshot to my body. Each one, adding pain and I'd bleed.

When I was told again, the bullets still hurt but there was already pain. I was already bleeding. So what would one other little gunshot wound really do? I hadn't died from the others. Why would the next one kill me? I'd be hit, and hit again before eventually it stopped hurting.

And it didn't stop hurting. I became completely numb. They say, when the body is in too much pain it shuts down. You either pass out or you just stop feeling. I feel like I stopped feeling a long time ago. I'm truly empty.

So yes, each day now is the same. I am nothing, I have nothing and I feel nothing.