Ceasefire {girlxgirl}

Douze

Weekends at Allexton Girls’ Academy are surprisingly relaxed for a school that prides itself on the length and depth of the stick up its ass. Most of the girls go home, with only a handful staying behind due to distance, or the need to study. There’s not a lot of supervision; we’re free to come and go as we please, aside from the still-standing eleven o clock curfew.

                For Molly and I, that weekend it was like we had the whole school to ourselves. We holed up in her room for a lot of it, only venturing downstairs when we got hungry or needed to use the bathroom. We knew Twitch was around, but didn’t see her, and didn’t let ourselves feel nervous that she might be planning something. We only had eyes and thoughts for one another, spending a lot of time in bed, exploring each other’s bodies and talking about pretty much everything.

                On the Saturday evening, as we reclined against her pillows in our underwear and unwrapped some snacks from vending machine on the ground floor, Molly cleared her throat and glanced at me warily.

                ‘What?’ I asked flatly. The room was hot and my chocolate bar was soft.

                ‘Can I ask you something personal?’

                I raised my eyebrows, but decided not to make a smart remark. ‘Sure.’

                ‘It’s about...’ she swallowed. ‘It’s about your parents.’

                I looked down at the chocolate slowly melting in my hands. ‘Oh.’

                ‘I mean, you don’t have to tell me,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I was just... I thought...’ she trailed off, biting her lip.

                ‘No, it’s okay. I mean... Just don’t let it change your opinion of me, okay?’

                I knew she wanted to roll her eyes sceptically and say she couldn’t promise that, but instead she just nodded and said, ‘Okay.’

                I sat up straighter and put the chocolate bar on her desk, not caring that it would make a mess, twisting the wrapper in my hands for something to look at and concentrate on as I told this most awkward of stories.

                ‘So, when I was thirteen I was pretty... Well. You know. Dark. Troubled. A bit fucked up. My parents taught at the secondary school I went to so that didn’t really help. About half way through first year I met this guy... I can’t even remember how. Oliver. He was older than me, a lot older, about eighteen or nineteen; he was in his final year. And we just... clicked. He got me. It never occurred to me how strange he was, how he never really talked to anyone or had any other friends. We’d go to this abandoned building in our area and get drunk and get high and just talk. He was the only person I knew who got me. And I thought I got him as well, he told me I did, he said I was the only person he could talk to. But he didn’t tell me everything, he didn’t tell me anything really, aside from the usual angsty, existential stuff we all go through. If I was a bit fucked up, then he was really fucked up, and I was the only one who could have had any idea, but I didn’t.

                ‘Towards the end of the year, his final exams were coming up and I guess the pressure and everything got to him, because he snapped. He texted me at morning break to meet him at that abandoned building at lunchtime, and I went, but he wasn’t there. He was back at school with a drum of a petrol and a box of matches, setting the place on fire.’

                ‘Oh my god,’ Molly whispered, covering her mouth with her hand.

                ‘By the time the fire brigade put out the fire he was dead, my parents were dead, six other kids were dead, and I think about two hundred people had to be treated for smoke inhalation and burns.’ I paused, biting my lip and trying to tell the story without actually having to remember it. ‘I ended up in the care of my aunt Marie, she’s seventy six. She’s wealthy and she can’t handle me, so after a couple of years at the local secondary school she sent me here instead.’