Afterlife Academy (24 page)

“One time in PE, we all had to
leave our bags in the changing rooms and one of the boys had found a carton of
gone-off milk in the bin. He took it and poured the entire thing into Anthony’s
bag when no one was looking. Those are just a few of the things we did. I know
it was awful…”

I turn to face Anthony and am
horrified to see that he has tears in his eyes. I want to hug him. I really,
really want to sit down and hug him, but I don’t think I’m the best person to
comfort him given the circumstances.

I put my hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry doesn’t even begin to cover it, Anthony,” I say, blinking back tears
myself.

“It’s okay,” he says quietly.

No one mentions how sad he
looks.

“Anything else you’d like to
share, Riley?” Mrs Brown asks me before I can sit down. “Anthony wasn’t the
only person you were cruel to, I assume.”

“No.” I swallow hard. “There
were others. My friends and I would pick on anyone who didn’t fit in with our idea
of perfect. Year Sevens were our favourite target because they were either
terrified or running around screaming and shouting and thinking they owned the
place. One boy in Year Seven had red hair, glasses, and braces. Mainly we would
just shout insults at him because we weren’t in the same year and only saw him
at lunchtimes. Wade found his Facebook page and spammed him with comments about
how ugly he was, and I got some pornographic pictures and pasted a photograph
of his head where the bloke’s should be and posted them on the Internet. We
were a pretty rotten gang. I didn’t think about it at the time. I didn’t think
it was important as long as people liked me. I would say sorry to everybody if
I could, but I know that just saying it doesn’t change anything. I know that
you have to mean it as well, and I do now. If I could go back, I’d apologise to
everyone, and I’d stop my friends behaving the way they did.”

“Good work, Riley,” Mrs Brown
says. “You can sit down now.”

“Okay?” Anthony says, bumping
his shoulder against mine. He’s not crying anymore but I still have a strong
urge to hug him.

I nod and am overwhelmed by how
nice it is that he’s asking me if I’m okay after all I’ve just admitted doing
to him.

Anthony and I eat dinner
together that night but neither of us talks about what I said in Redemption
class. I want to tell him how sorry I am for what I did to him, but it seems
useless. How can you even begin to make up for treating somebody like that? If
I was Anthony, I wouldn’t have even spoken to me when we got here, and yet he’s
been so nice to me. I don’t know how to put what I feel into words.

We stick to small talk instead.
Eventually Anthony says goodnight and that he’s looking forward to the dance
tomorrow. Funnily enough, so am I.

CHAPTER 29

The next day is Saturday, the day of the big ball. Our dorm
is full of excited girls and the buzz is infectious. This feels like the prom
that I never had. Except without Wade, obviously. Instead I have a date with
Anthony, although I can’t believe he still wants to go with me after everything
I said yesterday.

Being in the dorm room today
doesn’t feel like being dead. It feels like being at a sleepover. There is
squealing, hair straighteners, and catwalk shows in the corridor as people get
opinions on their dresses, hairstyles, and perfume. Some of the girls even ask
my opinion. They seem to think that because I still have brown hair that I’m a
good person to ask about all things beauty related.

I’m in my element. This is just
like being with Sophie, except none of these girls are sleeping with my
boyfriend.

It’s actually better than that.
It’s fun. People come in and out of our dorm room all day. They always give
Charlie a stroke, and one girl even brings him a dog chew. I don’t know where
she got it from but Charlie doesn’t approve and spits it out onto the floor
with a growl.

I’m so busy talking to other
people that I almost forget about my own dress until Caydi reminds me.

My dress is grey. Everyone’s
dresses are grey though, so that’s not a surprise. Dresses appeared for
everyone in our wardrobes earlier this week. Whoever put them there has really
good taste. Caydi has customised both of ours by making a few cuts and sewing
some buttons and safety pins on.

It’s only as I’m changing that I
notice something.

The rose around my neck isn’t
pink anymore. It’s grey too. I stare at it for a moment. I have no idea what it
means.

Maybe it means I’m not connected
to Wade anymore.

Maybe that’s a good thing.

I think that I should be upset,
but I don’t really feel anything.

Clearly Wade is not connected to
me anymore, either. He’s connected to Sophie now. Which is fine. Honestly.

I hope they’re very happy
together.

Personally, I have a date with
Anthony to go on.

Except Anthony isn’t here.

I’m standing outside the main
hall, freezing. I’m the only one here. Everyone else’s dates have come along
and escorted them inside.

But not mine.

Maybe this is it. He’s paying me
back for the way I’ve treated him. Maybe he’s not coming at all. Maybe this is
his idea of revenge.

I stand there and stress myself
into a bleeding ulcer for ten more minutes, debating whether to just go back to
the dorm room or go inside and enjoy the party without him, and then I spot
Anthony. He is running towards me, looking all flushed and panting.

Bless him, he must have been
worried about being late. He wasn’t trying to stand me up after all.

“Riley,” he pants, coming to a
stop next to me. “I found it.”

“Found what?” I ask.

“
It
,
Riley,” He waits for realisation to dawn in my eyes. “It.”

“It? You mean… the way out?”

“Come on.” He grabs my hand and
pulls me. “You have to see this.”

“So where is it?” I ask, running
to keep up with him.

I look behind me to make sure
that no one has seen us go, but the place is empty. Everyone is inside having a
whale of a time.

“Under the chemistry lab floor.”

“I knew you’d come in handy,” I
tell him. “It must have taken a real maths-geek-science-type formula to uncover
it.”

“Er, no,” he says. “There’s
trapdoor.”

“Seriously? How’d you find it?”

“I was walking through the room
and one of the floorboards creaked, but it sounded weird and hollow. So I
pulled the floorboard out and there’s this trapdoor. I opened it and went in,
and there’s a door with exit written on it.”

“Did you look inside?”

“No, I just came to get you.”

“What are you even doing in the
chemistry lab at this time of night?” I ask.

“I left my bag in there this
afternoon when I went for an extra-credit lesson.”

I roll my eyes. Some things
never change.

We’re lucky that the whole
school is preoccupied with this ball and we’re able to sneak into the lab
unnoticed.

We leave all the lights off and
Anthony points the way. Sure enough, there’s a floorboard up, revealing a
trapdoor.

“Come on,” he says, leading the
way.

I follow him down and we’re
standing in a dark basement area.

At the far end is a door with a
little “EXIT” sign on it.

“Whoa,” I say, surprised. “If
it’s so easy to find, how come no one’s ever found it before?”

“Chemistry is an optional extra
here,” Anthony says. “How many people do you think actually
want
to take chemistry? No one comes in here.”

I stare at the door for a
moment, then walk up to it and pull it. I’m surprised when it opens easily
because I was half expecting it to be locked.

Inside is a swirling vortex,
just as Caydi thought there would be. It fills up the whole doorway. It looks
scary. And kind of cool.

“So…” I say.

“So…” Anthony says.

“This is it.”

“We have no idea if that’s the
exit back to home,” Anthony says. “It just says ‘exit’. It could lead to
anywhere.”

I stare at the vortex in front
of me.

He has a point.

But… It’s right there. Right in
front of me.

The way home.
Probably
the way home.

“Everyone said this is what it
would be like,” I say quietly. “Besides, where else would they need an exit
to?”

“The bowels of hell?” Anthony offers.

“Don’t be silly.” I’m drawn to
the vortex. I can’t take my eyes off it.

“What are you thinking?” Anthony
asks.

I stare at it. “I’m thinking
this is our only chance. If we don’t go now, we never will. The teachers will
find the floorboard. Or they’ll read our minds or something. They’ll make sure
we never get near this place again.”

“I thought you were settling in
here,” he says. “I thought you weren’t trying to get out anymore.”

“I stopped actively trying to
get myself expelled, but to find the secret exit literally handed to us on a
plate and the opportunity to use it… We’d be stupid not to.”

I reach my fingers out and
gingerly touch the vortex.

“Riley, don’t,” Anthony warns.

My fingers slide into it, but
I’m careful not to go any farther.

It feels cold to the touch. I
expected it to be made of liquid, but it’s just air.

I pull my hand back and look at
him.

“You’re thinking about going,”
he surmises.

“Aren’t you?” I ask.

He shrugs.

“Anthony, come on,” I say
angrily. “This is a one-time deal. We have to go now and you know it.”

“What about us?” he asks. “What
about everything here? What about the friends you’ve made? Caydi? And
Narcissa?”

“They’ll live,” I say, even
though his words make my stomach sink. “You know, in a manner of speaking. I’d
given up on going home. I was resigned to staying here, but this… This is the
only opportunity I’ll ever have. I can go home. I can fix things. I can stop
things between Wade and Sophie. I’ll stop everyone being so nasty to you. You
can be part of our gang.”

“What happened between Wade and
Sophie?” he asks.

Oh crap. I knew I’d forgotten to
mention that.

“They’re cheating on me,” I
mumble. “I saw them in Visualisation class. But it was probably just the once.
For comfort because I’m dead, obviously.”

“Oh, Riley, why didn’t you tell
me?”

I shrug. “Because you hate Wade
anyway. What’s the point in giving you further ammunition?”

“You don’t think I have a right
to hate the guy?” he shouts, suddenly angry. “You don’t think that what he did
gives us a right to hate him? I don’t know how you can still give him the time
of day considering what he’s done to you!”

“It was an accident,” I shout
back at him. “Ac. Ci. Dent.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Anthony says.

I stare at him. “What?”

“It wasn’t an accident,” he says
finally. “You, maybe. He didn’t mean to kill you, but he did mean to kill me.”

“What?” I ask in disbelief.

“Riley… I can’t believe I’m
telling you this. Sophie’s not the only person Wade’s been cheating on you
with. And it isn’t just since you died. Wade has been sleeping with anything
that has a pulse since before you two got together. The reason he hates me so
much is because I’ve seen him with a few different girls. He sits in our form
room texting them. A few weeks ago I caught him with Sophie and I was going to
tell you. Wade said he’d kill me. Ever since then he’d been taunting me,
telling me he was going to run me down with a car. I didn’t think anything of
it until you two came screeching up beside me in a car that night. And I—”

“No way,” I interrupt him. “I
don’t believe you.”

Except that I do.

I do believe him. Anthony
wouldn’t lie. I know he wouldn’t. Unlike that useless prick I’ve been dating
for a year.

Anthony is just about to say
something when I stop him.

“I do believe you,” I admit.
“I’m sorry. I knew there was something going on between you that night, I just
didn’t think it was that.”

“Sorry I had to be the one to
tell you.”

“Well, you could have told me
earlier, I’ll give you that.”

“You wouldn’t have believed me,”
he says. “You’d have just thought I was making it up because I hated Wade.”

I think about that for a moment.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“So…” I say.

“So…” Anthony says.

I stroke my fingers over the
now-grey rose around my neck.

“So what are you going to do?”
Anthony nods towards the vortex.

I stare at it and then back at
him.

“I could still go,” I say. “Go
back to my life. Tell Wade exactly where to get off. And Sophie. I could
apologise to everyone I was horrible to. You and I can start afresh. It’ll be
different this time, I promise.”

I reach my fingers out towards
the vortex and feel the cold air swirl around them for a moment.

“It’s now or never. Besides, if
we don’t like it we could always just off ourselves again,” I say, but my joke
goes down like a lead balloon.

“I’m not going,” Anthony says
quietly.

He’s so quiet that I almost
don’t hear him.

“Oh, come on,” I say just as
quietly.

“I don’t want to, Riley. I like
it here. I fit in here. This is the only place I’ve ever fitted in, and I don’t
want to go.”

“It’ll be different this time,”
I repeat. “I’ll make sure it is. I’ll make sure you fit in.”

“I know you want to go,” he
says. “I don’t want you to, but I know I can’t stop you. But I’m really, really
going to miss you.”

“I’m going to miss you too…” I
can’t say anything else past the lump in my throat.

“Ri…” He steps forward and hugs
me.

I sag against him in relief.