The Mark

Part 1: Jamie Chapter 1: new

TW: mentions of su***de

"Hey, I’m Meghan. Do you mind if I sit here please?”

I look up at the girl standing over me and sigh. We’ve been allowed to pick our seats in form because it’s the exciting start of a brand-new year. Evidently my choice of back corner to avoid everyone isn’t as effective as I had thought.

 “Ok! Looks like we’ve got everyone then!” the top of our form tutors ginger head bobs, peeking over the monitor. He stands up revealing a matching ginger beard, “as I’m sure you’ve noticed we have a new student joining us this year so play nice year eleven.”

That would be me. It’s awful timing, beginning a new school just at my gcse year. At least they still offer the same gcses here, so I don’t have to transfer to any new subjects. On the bright side I haven’t had to do some stand up introduction yet.

“Now then if you would all like to take a seat, I’ll sort out the register,” Mr Ginger-man smiles at Meghan.

I yank my bag off the seat she’s hovering over and let her sit down.

She looks very… warm. She has at least two different varieties of sweater/jumper on and some very 80s leg warmers (although they aren’t the tacky neon coloured ones thankfully, or she’d be sat somewhere else).

……………

The bell is shrill compared to my last school. I’ll have a migraine by third period at this rate. I sling my bag over my shoulder and wait for us to be released into the next lesson.

People are discussing their next lessons, and I realise I haven’t really checked the timetable some boy threw at my desk earlier. I pull it out of my pocket where I shoved it before Meghan and her hopeful puppy eyes could make me confer over which teachers we shared.

“Do you all know where you’re going?” Mr Griffiths shouts, to a chorus of ‘this isn’t year seven’ and other similar responses.

This only reminds me how utterly stupid I’m going to look, searching for classrooms, or asking for directions when I’m clearly a year eleven. The non-uniform makes us easy to pick out.

“what about you?” Meghan says. Her voice is so soft I almost don’t hear it which is a little odd in this setting. She seems about as shy as you’d expect from someone who looks like her.

I want to say I’ll be fine, but I know ill be lost and better that only this shy blondie knows I’m inept than five different random kids I run into in the corridor.

I sigh, “not really.”

We squint at my timetable as people start to file out,” oh we both have French first, just walk with me. I think we go past your English classroom on the way, so I’ll point it out.”

………

Meghan becomes more and more chatty throughout the day as she guides me from classroom to classroom, telling me about awful maths teachers and the different options she picked. I mostly stay silent, friends aren’t my top priority, gcses and getting out of school are. Then again, I suppose eating lunch with someone instead of alone might stop me standing out so much as the interesting new topic to gossip about.

I spot her in the corridor after break, walking to maths, a lesson we don’t have together.

“Meghan?”

She starts and turns to look around. I wave awkwardly. Maybe this was a mistake. She spots me finally and smiles slightly.