Three whole days. It’s nearly 3pm on Wednesday afternoon. I rest my head in my hands and stare blankly at the pages in my thick paperback book. The letters are just little black squiggles. The book smells of paper and ink. The classroom smells of cheap cleaning products and Lynx spray. I’m so tired, but I dread going home. I don’t want to sit in my tiny bedroom, jumping at every tiny sound, so scared I’ll hear her crying, or hear him shouting. But I won’t, I know it. I never do. Sometimes, when I’m lost somewhere between waking and sleep, I half imagine that I can hear the low murmur of voices, the rumbling beginning of a fight. But when I wake I can’t remember what they said.
But she’s not here. And for three days, her seat next to me has been empty. I have no idea where she is. I try my hardest to not care, but it doesn’t work. I just want her to sweep through the classroom door, slamming it behind herself as she strides across the room. The boys would whistle under their breath, but she’d ignore them. She would sit beside me, and fix her eyes on the whiteboard, her chin up, her back straight as she perched on the plastic seat. And then she’d glance at me. Quickly, almost involuntarily. But for an instant our eyes would meet. And then she would smile, her dimples pressing into her cheeks. And then everything would be okay again, and my world could continue spinning.
But she’s not here. Her seat is empty. The classroom seems cold without her. And very quiet. I want to hear the gentle taps as she flicks the end of her pen onto the table, in time with some tangled rhythm in her head.
The girl sitting in front of me leans back to murmur “this is such bullsh!t” to me as she rolls her greenish-grey eyes. I nod and smile a fraction, but keep my eyes down on the book. For the last few days I’d vaguely hung around her and her friends at lunch. Her friends were nice, and she was sweet, funny. A lot cleverer than she thought she was. She didn’t need to read the book, because she’d already read it, so instead she was doodling tiny pencil flowers in the corner of her notebook. She was nothing like Cheryl. She wasn’t dangerous, complex. She wasn’t beautiful. If Cheryl was here, Cheryl would be reading, her black pupils contorting into oily blurs as she devours the pages.
So I glue my own eyes to the clock, counting the minutes to the end of the day. And when the final bell tolls, I’ll go home. And do my homework. And maybe read, or go get some shopping for my mam. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do without her.
And the bell rings. There’s a flurry of coats and bags and scrunched-up balls of paper being thrown into the bin. I dawdle. I don’t want to go home and help Amy with her maths homework, and then re-heat last night’s lasagne for tea. I’m not sure what I want any more. So I take my time stuffing my books into my bag. And I drag the toes of my trainers along the squeaky linoleum. And I step out of the swinging double doors, and out onto the tarmac courtyard. My eyes fixed down. I don’t want to attract attention. I want to blend away into the grey concrete, become lost in all the cracks of the city. I don’t want to live like this.
And then amongst the Nike trainers and Primark plimsolls, I see something that stops my heart from beating.
Beat-up hi-tops.
And I glance up.
And she’s leaning on the railings. Her hair all scooped over one shoulder, curling, cascading down her neck. Her eyes are half closed, earphones in her ears, a thing white wire trailing over her shirt. A cigarette held limply between her fingers, a thin stream of smoke trailing from her lips. No fresh bruises on her skin. None that I can see anyway. I don’t want to think about the endless inches of skin covered by her black shirt, but I can’t stop myself. I watch the ways she moves, the way her ribs rise and fall. I want to know if there are more angry red bruises slashing across her skin. And the railings must dig painfully into her spine. Is she hurting? I step closer to her.
