At the End of the Garden

Chapter One

November 2016

It was going around the school half a week before I heard about it. In fact, it completely stole our thunder. A ghost story had spread it's way through school just in time for Halloween and the worst thing was people were more interested in it than two of their peers dating. Sure, one of those things was far more obscure than the other, but a group of Year 11's really shouldn't have been bothered by something so obviously fake.
   Although, the level of interest came from who was involved rather than what it was about. No-one was surprised that we had started dating, the identity of the ghost on the other hand grabbed people's attention.

I first heard the rumour the first week into November. Me and Angie were wondering around the school aimlessly like we often did every morning. Despite my dad's willingness to drive me to school in the morning, I would meet Angie at the bus stop and we would take the bus to school together. She hated public transport, but her parents left for work too early to drive her.
This arrangement hadn't started until Year 9 when we became friends. She wasn't the type of person I thought I would still be close with in Year 11. Her sense of fun came from shopping and make overs, gossip, boys and constantly complaining. I enjoyed these things with her, but in moderation. She didn't seem like the person who would be my best friend. Or more accurately, I didn't seem like the type of person who would be hers.
   "We have double English." Angie said, her first complaint of the day. It would be one of hundreds, with possibly some repeated.
   "It's not that bad." I replied. Usually I would agree with her so we could move on but today I felt a sudden urge to defend the two hour lesson.
   "It's fine for you, Mr Collins doesn't hate you like he hates me." She answered, crossing her arms like a child.
   "I don't think he hates you. I don't even think he likes me that much either, actually."
   "No, he always gives me awful death glares, and I've done nothing."
   I let Angie rant about her rivalry with our English teacher, whose crimes didn't extend past giving her a harmful look and telling her to be quiet one time two years ago. Eventually, she got bored with it and moved onto something that interested her more.
   "Did you get any further with your boyfriend troubles?"
   I shushed her. She just continued walking and playing with her hair like she hadn't noticed me.
   "Someone might hear you!" I spoke in a hushed voice, but still equally as loud, voice. "And forget what I said the other day, Eden just isn't the type."
   "What type? The boyfriend type?" Angie scoffed at me.
   I made whiny noise in response, not wanting to accept that Angie had a point. She didn't press it any further right now though. We just continued to wander around the school as I attempted to draw the conversation away from my relationship with a harmless chat about our surroundings.
   It had been almost three years since the school building had been rebuilt and every thing just looked as clean and sparkly as the day it first opened. Each carpet was unstained and as soft as they always had been, each poster on the wall was fresh and relevant and there was hardly ever a ghost of a muddy P.E shoes or any crumbs along the floor. Each student walked in neat lines of one or two with corridors wide enough to have no need to push one another.
   Angie allowed this topic until we turned a corner and saw Eden at the end of the corridor. Not much about him had changed since we were children. Except his height, obviously, and his voice, and his jaw and whatever else you'd expect to change with time. He'd kept the same hair cut, just below his ear like he wanted to grow it longer. The same attitude. Perhaps his posture had changed. He walked with more self-assurance now. But he was still as serious as ever, like he was pretending to be the CEO of some company.
   My boyfriend? A title he had been given just a week and a half ago, but a title was all it was. He had been the one who'd asked, and I hadn't been sure what to say at first. It wasn't that I wanted to say no, but I'd only ever considered him a friend, even when people asked if we were dating. Each time someone pestered us about it I denied it with realistic and sincere disgust. With the amount of time we were forced into each other's company, this happened a lot. Yet I had been full of optimism that it could work, wondering if maybe my feelings would grow over time. Angie had gotten herself a boyfriend over the summer, she told me everything about what it was like. I guess I wanted to see for myself.
   Angie and her boyfriend had broken up a few days after me and Eden started dating. The chatter we had about her relationship turned to mine. I'd told her all about my boyfriend's tendencies to not treat me like his girlfriend, and similar things. His definition of boyfriend was to spare me a conversation a day and that one time he gave me a really awkward hug. To top it all off, he refused to let me tell our parents. Our relationship was purely for the ears (or imaginative minds) of the Quinn's academy alumni, even though I found it hard to believe that Victor Quinn wouldn't hear of if when it was being spoken about around his own school.
   Still, Eden and I had plenty of alone time, which was why the rumours started in the first place. With my parents and his father being close friends as well as nine to five workers, they arranged that after school I stayed at Eden's house being watched by his mother. This had been happening since Year 7, and when Eden's mum passed she was replaced with a childminder until the adults deemed us old enough to go without one. It was actually my dad who encouraged me to keep going to Eden's after school even though he thought I was mature enough to be home alone. I didn't mind, at first I enjoyed Eden's company but nowadays we just do our own separate thing. Eden usually did his homework, I would try do the same but end up playing one of his game consoles in the living room while he paid no notice. I got further in games at Eden's house then I did on my own consoles at home. The routine was somewhat normal now. Sometimes, we didn't even speak to each other until I left, even if we were in the same room. Sometimes I would leave without saying goodbye. Eden had been my main conversation partner all my life, but he may have lost his best friend status to Angie. He was a man of few words which made you think he didn't want to talk to you at all, so we didn't.
   Considering I knew all this about him and had known for such a long time. I shouldn't have been nervous to see him. Should I? Or maybe I was nervous because I knew exactly what Angie would do when she saw him. Apply peer pressure.
"Go talk to him!" Angie said while pushing me in Eden's direction. "If you want an actual relationship, you can start by discussing it with him."
"I, cannot, do that here!" I whined, putting all my weight against her arms in hopes she would give up on pushing me.
"Then you could at least say good morning! You haven't seen him yet today, right?"
I gave in. "Fine. I can do that." I hoped that a small exchange of pleasantries would shut her up. I slowly began to approach Eden while Angie stayed fixed on the other side of the room. The closer I got to him, the more confident I became. Until I was stood in front of him. As I felt Angie's eyes on my back, expecting something of me, all the confidence I gained was drained like someone pulled the plug in a sink. I had no clue what to say, as if my brain had switched off. I got lucky, he spoke first after noticing me standing there.
   He had been reading from a sheet of paper and looked up at me like nothing was different between us.
   "What's wrong?" He asked.
   "Nothing." I replied, quickly. Usually it wasn't hard to talk to Eden, but the thought of talking to him as his girlfriend, while Angie was watching, caused me to stutter my way through my next sentence. "I just wanted to see how you were doing."
   "I'm fine." He replied, returning his gaze back to the paper. "Father wants me to speak in assembly today, I was going over what I'm supposed to say."
   "That's great." I tried to feign interest. While I supported him with my bias, I didn't care much for assemblies. It wasn't new or exciting that he was speaking in one either. Last year, he was vice president for the school council, now being in the eldest year he could run for leader. A title he would obviously get. With his grades and evident attitude for learning, it was no wonder his father (the head teacher) wanted to make an example of him. He was even more 'admirable' when you consider he was on a scholarship and had aced the school induction test in Year 6. My grades weren't bad, but they were compared to Eden's. Our year groups motto was 'don't compare yourself to Eden Quinn and you'll feel a whole lot better about your report.'
Eden only nodded at my response, leaving us in more silence.
   Well, I had done what I could. "I'll see you later." I told him and rushed back to Angie. If he replied, I was too far away to hear it. Being so caught up in my anxiety, I failed to notice that I was unfortunately joined by another person on my commute back.
"How romantic." The mocking voice said. "With all that personality, your boyfriend must have great game." His tone was light-hearted, always was, but I still rolled my eyes. Not many people here made fun of the headteacher's son. They probably did in private, but not to his girlfriend.
   "That is my boyfriend you're talking about."
   "Then you shouldn't need me to tell you." Sidney Mathews replied, grinning like he always did.
   This boy wasn't exactly my friend, but we got along. He got a long with everyone, actually, but was dubbed as a weirdo (allowed to mix with the rest of us because he was sometimes funny). With his auburn curly hair and strange personality. It didn't really help that he joined the school just last year, making it harder for him to get into a permanent friend group. He'd kept his life before Quinn's Academy safely to himself, but rumour had it he came from Peckham or Croydon or somewhere south of the Thames.
   He was the closest thing our class had to a real trouble maker. When he first joined he'd become a bit notorious for his behaviour. He wasn't awful. But he wouldn't do his work and then argue with the teacher when he got caught. He'd talk through lesson, once he started throwing things in a supply teachers class. He fell asleep in Science once. Most people found him annoying but for a while a small group of kids from the other sets started copying him and following him around. This lasted a few weeks until they all got in trouble. The detentions hardly bothered Sidney, but he must have gotten bored of his own antics because by the end of the year he only ever got pulled up for smaller crimes. Such his constantly undone top button, untucked shirt as well as picking and choosing what homework to do. The main thing he was famous for now was constantly being late despite living only around the corner from the school. He still misbehaved in class, but perfected not getting caught. And he seemed to have lost the energy to talk back to teachers too. His only redeemable quality was that he could be very funny, and it got on my nerves how often he made me laugh.
   By the time Sidney was done speaking we'd arrived back at Angie who completely ignore his presence. Instead, she turned to me, unimpressed. "You could have, oh, I don't know, kissed him goodbye or something."
   Without hesitation, Sidney burst into explosive laughter he didn't seem to be able to control. If he hadn't have covered his mouth in time he would have spat over us both.
   "Hey..." I tried to make the face of a puppy being scolded. "You don't know, we could have been talking about something romantic."
   I hoped Sidney was too consumed by his laughter to call out my blatant lie.
   My hopes were in vain. He controlled his laughter to say: "yeah, if you're into assembly speeches."
   Angie acknowledge Sidney only to hear his comment. She didn't say a word to him, she only continued to stare at me with a very displeased expression. "I thought you wanted to actually have a relationship."
   I buried my head into my neck and looked at the floor as if films were being projected onto it. Sidney began to laugh again.
   I made a series of whiny, embarrassed noises before eventually speaking. "Let's just... go to form. We'll be late if we stay hear forever."
   I wanted this excuse to get rid of Sidney (who wasn't in our form group), but knew it wouldn't. He was late anywhere guiltlessly. At least Angie had agreed to move away from where Eden was standing, but as expected, Sidney walked besides me with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Different from how Eden walked.
   "Doesn't it make it easier that you've been like, best friends forever?" Sidney asked, he seemed somewhat sincere, but it still had his condescending tone. I was too embarrassed to answer properly.
   "Can we drop it?" Was all I managed to say.
   When Sidney, or any other boy she disliked, was around; Angie put on this grumpy and childish façade to let them know they weren't liked or wanted.
   "Don't you have your own class?" She asked. She was already quite well-spoken, but it seemed to be emphasised when she was annoyed.
   "Nah."
   "Yes you do." Angie replied, "go away."
   "Can't blame me for not wanting to be alone right now." Sidney said as we approached a junction in the corridor. He shrugged his shoulders sarcastically too. "You know, with all this talk of a ghost in the school."
   He laughed quietly to himself quietly as he pushed open the doors to a separate corridor he was going through alone, not waiting for Angie or I to say goodbye. Not that we would have.
   "What's he on about? Ghosts?" I questioned.
   Angie shrugged. She hadn't cared at this time. She didn't give a second thought to the possibility there was an undead set of eyes watching us as we walked down the corridor. Nobody cared until they gave it a name.

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YIKES, I'm rereading this chapter after almost a year and the info dumping in the chapter is awful. I cannot believe I made so many drafts of this. I swear it gets better