fractures

before she died

Layne

Abbey and I find a quiet spot in the library during lunch break for her to tell me whatever she's guessed. We've pretty much put whatever happened yesterday behind us, and I'm glad Abbey doesn't seem awkward about it at all.

"So basically, what I'm about to tell you is almost entirely based on guessing, okay? I don't know anything for sure," Abbey says as she opens her laptop and types in the password. "But just don't get too worked up over whatever I say...it might not be true."

"Okay," I reply, watching as Abbey logs in to Instagram.

Using Marlene's username.

I know it's Marlene even though I don't use Instagram because Marlene's showed me her account before. And I remember her username.

"What are you-"

"Remember I told you I knew Marlene?" Abbey interrupts.

So apparently, Abbey didn't just know Marlene. They were friends. And I'm assuming they were pretty close, since Marlene went to the extent of telling her the password for her Instagram account. She never told me. But maybe it's because she knows I don't use Instagram?

"Look at this," Abbey says, clicking on the direct message icon.

There are numerous chats with usernames I don't recognise. Abbey scrolls down the list of chats, chats Marlene had with all these people I don't even recognise. She finally stops at one and clicks on it.

It's from someone called '__p.e.nelope__'. The picture sent to Marlene is of herself, smiling like she was on top of the world. But the message below does not suit the picture completely.

"you're so ugly that when your mother dropped you off at school, she got fined for littering."

Some people are just so childish.

Marlene's reply is like the typical old Marlene.

"sorry, but i don't argue with idiots. they'll just lower me to their level and beat me with experience."

At the start of their chat, it's just insults going back and forth and back and forth. But then '__p.e.nelope__' sends something that ignites a bomb inside me.

"why don't you kill yourself like celia wants you to? no one'll miss you anyways. not even layne. you think she's your friend? well she's not."

Marlene doesn't reply to that. But who does this '__p.e.nelope__' think she is, saying such things about me!?

"Who is this?" I ask Abbey, struggling to keep my anger under wraps. "Why would she say such a thing!?"

Abbey shrugs, clicks on the username. It brings us to '__p.e.nelope__'s account page. She's got more than a thousand followers, and she's only following twenty seven people. I remember vaguely Marlene talking about fake followers. The name below her profile picture is 'penelope hayes'. We look through the pictures she posted, most of them selfies.

The girl that stares back at us has brownish blondish straight hair, dark blue eyes, cheekbones that jut out and left her cheeks hollow, a mouth and nose that seems too big for her face...I'm just exaggerating. She's actually rather pretty, probably the reason she got so much followers. Also, she's actually rather familiar. I know I've seen her somewhere. It's just that I've never taken much notice of her.

"Is she in our grade?" I ask Abbey, analyzing Penelope's face even closer to try and spark some memory in my head.

"Should be," Abbey answers. "She's got quite a few pictures with people in our grade."

Abbey shows me those pictures. I nearly throw her laptop across the library.

"You mean quite a few pictures with The Regium." So Penelope is part of the group that terrorised Marlene and I for years.

I remember her now. I remember her laughing alongside Celia when they tore up my class notes, when they locked me in the toilet, when they threw my bag into the pond. 

Abbey's brow furrows. "What's The Regium?" 

"Well, you're new and they've been keeping to themselves recently for some reason, so you wouldn't know. But do you know how every school has that popular group? That group that acts like they're the monarchs of the school? Well, over here, it's The Regium. It's led by someone called Celia King. Do you know her?"

"Yeah, I do," Abbey says softly.

"I'm guessing Marlene told you?"

Abbey just nods.

"Yeah, well, like any other popular group, they terrorized the rest of the school. They terrorized Marlene and I."

"Marlene told me about Celia, but I didn't know there was a whole group after her," Abbey says, looking at the pictures of The Regium on Penelope's account.

I'm too caught up with my memories of The Regium going after Marlene and I to reply. We are silent for a while.

Then I say, "Seems like Marlene told you a lot of things."

Abbey shrugs. "We were close."

"She never told me about you."

"She never told people a lot of things."

Abbey's right. Looking through all the various chats of people insulting her, taunting her, bullying her, I realize. 

Before she died, Marlene was going through a lot of things that I didn't have a single clue about.