By Any Other Name (6 page)

At first, it’s all full of where am I and has anyone seen me, and worry and then fear. But then . . . and I swallow hard here . . . then it all gradually goes back to normal. Lea’s
seeing a new guy. Kirsten’s blown away by this track from a band she’s just discovered. Talia’s slaving away on a portfolio of photographs for her art project. Hardest of all,
Tasha’s mum is sick and it’s serious.

Their lives are going on without me. I feel like a peeping Tom, spying on them. There’s no place for me with them now. I don’t even exist.

Four weeks since the last message on my page. They’ve forgotten me. They’ve moved on.

And then I do it. I force my finger down to tap the touchpad and open up Dan’s profile page. I read his wall.

It’s like someone’s spun me upside down and round and over and . . . I feel sick . . . I don’t know whether I’m standing up, lying down . . .

He has a new girlfriend.

It should be no surprise. He hasn’t posted on my wall at all since I’ve been gone.

But still, to see it there in text on the screen . . .

I know I’m crying. I can feel the tears on my cheeks, but I don’t know what to do to stop them. It’s like I could cry forever.

I
realise I’m angry when I’m sitting in assembly the next day. I’m not angry just with Dan, or Kirsten, Talia, Lea, Tasha.
I’m not even just angry with
Them
, the reason I have to be Holly. I’m angry with myself. If I hadn’t stuck my nose into stuff that was none of my business then we
wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t have lost my friends, my boyfriend and be marooned here in Boringsville. This isn’t a red mist of anger. It’s more like embers smouldering
inside, heating slowly until I feel their burn all the way through me.

This morning I went into registration and everyone looked at me. I didn’t recognise anyone from yesterday. One or two might have been in a class I had but the faces merged together into
one big mess as I tried to avoid their gaze. A girl with a dyed blonde ponytail looked me up and down and sniggered. I eyeballed her. My stomach wobbled – part stress and part anger at the
attitude she was giving me. Who did she think she was? She had a face like a camel.

There was an empty chair by the front and I dropped my bag beside it.

‘Are you the new girl?’ Ponytail Girl’s friend didn’t waste any time, sauntering over.

‘Yes.’

‘Where did you go before?’

‘You wouldn’t know it. I’m not from around here.’

She shrugged and walked away, back to her friends in the corner. I got my timetable out and looked where I was supposed to be next. The girls glanced over at me a couple of times, but mostly
they lost interest. I’d checked that timetable four times already since yesterday, like a nervous tic, but I couldn’t just sit and stare at nothing.

The room hummed with conversation. I could have listened in, but I couldn’t be bothered. I didn’t want to be here at all. Speaking to those people would make it feel more real than I
could stand. My mind was with my heart – back home, wanting to pick up the pieces of my life.
Holly
could go to hell.

A teacher came in and walked to the front desk. She did a double take when she saw me sitting there. She was youngish with OK-looking clothes, which seemed to be a rarity among teachers in this
place.

‘Hi! You must be the new starter. I didn’t know you were going to be in my form. Sorry, I’ve forgotten your name. They did say but . . .’

‘Holly.’

She smiled, and pathetically I felt a puff of tension release at the sight of a friendly face. ‘Hi then, Holly. Do you know anyone?’

‘I don’t think so. The girls who showed me around yesterday – Nicole and Ella – I don’t think they’re in this form?’

She frowned for a second. ‘Oh, I know who you mean! No, they’re not. I’ll introduce you once I’ve done the register.’

She took the register quickly and then beckoned a couple of girls over and asked them to take me to assembly. They smiled and nodded politely, eyeing me with faint curiosity. The bell rang
quickly, one blast, and I got up and followed them to the hall, feeling like a spare part. It appeared we had to sit on the floor, because there were no chairs out. I hadn’t sat on a hall
floor since primary school.

Another form trooped in and sat behind us and younger kids arrived to sit on the other side of the hall. I recognised the Head standing on the stage from the day I came to look around.

People were talking noisily, but the teachers didn’t try to stop them, nor did the Head. Nicole and Ella came in with a bunch of other girls I vaguely recognised from lunchtime yesterday.
They smiled over at me and I was surprised by how grateful my return smile was. The Emo was obviously in their form because he came in after them. A girl was talking to him, but he didn’t
seem to be listening to her. Ignorant pig. He sat down a couple of rows in front of me and a flash of a skinny but very toned bum caught my eye. I blinked, and remembered the girl from yesterday
copping a good look. OK, she had a point, but his personality definitely didn’t match the quality of the rear view.

The last few people shuffled in and the Head started the assembly. It was much less formal than I’m used to, with no standing for a hymn or a prayer. Just a long and patronising reading
about racism, which she gave in a monotone that could cause an insomniac to fall asleep in seconds.

It’s during this lecture that I understand I’m angry. It takes a while for me to recognise the burning feeling inside, which gets stronger and stronger as we sit in silence and I
think about what I saw on Facebook last night.

Dan and I were never a forever thing. I’m not ready for one of those. There’s exams and uni and a career to build before I think seriously about all that. But Dan was hot and good
fun to be with. It wasn’t love with a capital L, but that doesn’t mean I want to think of him being with another girl. It gives me a pain like bad tummy ache to think of Callie –
who I never liked much – stroking the back of his neck while they kissed, the way I used to. I don’t even have Tasha to bitch to about it like I would if we’d had a normal
break-up.

Tasha. And the others. They’ll be out this weekend, in our old haunts. And I’ll be here in Dump Central, thinking of them, wishing I was there, wondering what they’re doing.
They’ll be having fun and not giving me a second thought. Or if they do, it’ll be something like, ‘I wonder what happened to her. Wasn’t it weird how she disappeared like
that?’ And then they’ll shrug and forget me again.

I wish, wish, wish I’d never done it now. I wish I’d stayed silent, never run out of the cottage that night last summer, never listened to Katie when she told me what she saw. I wish
Katie hadn’t seen the car. I wish she wasn’t so stupid and retarded so I could just have told her to –

No!

I close my eyes and drown in shame.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I hate myself for a moment.

Because the awful thing is that, no matter how bad this feels for me, it feels worse for Katie. Routine and ritual are her twin gods and we sacrifice them every time she has to move.

I know why she screams now. I’ve learned the hard way how it must feel to be in her head. I want to scream too at everything I’ve lost, and the much-too-newness of how my life is
now. I wish I could sit here and rock and scream until someone with familiar arms comes and makes it all better.

Two rows down and six to my left, the Emo boy shifts on the hard floor and I glare at the back of his dumb, floppy-haired head. He’s chewing on a hangnail as the Head starts reading out
notices. I shift my glare to her for a second. I didn’t like her to begin with and I like her even less after being bored to death by her for fifteen long minutes. But I dislike Emo even
more; when I imagine what it’s like to be inside his head, I shudder. I bet it’s all about him, the self-centred loser.

I’m angry with Dan, yes. I’m angry with Tasha and Co. too. I’m angry with me, and with Katie when I’m honest. I’m angry with the world’s most tedious head
teacher for having such a sucky school. I’m angry with the Emo just because. And I’m angry with Holly for having to exist at all.

For having to be dull, mousy, unobtrusive little Holly. Hiding from shadows. Passive. Always running, never fighting back.

So sick of it all. The endlessly long months of it. Months of her. Of the real me being squashed down, like I’m the one who did something wrong.

Well, I didn’t.

I didn’t do anything wrong at all and I’ve taken as much as I can of my life being destroyed.

Screw Holly. Screw
Them
. I don’t care what happens any more.

F
irst lesson is maths. I get there quickly and take a seat on the back row, second from the corner. The other students come in gradually, but the
teachers often arrive last, I’ve noticed, as if they don’t want to be here either.

Predictably, I’m stared at.

Yes, I’m new and I dared to take a back-row seat. What are you bumpkins going to do about it?

The first few people into the room sit at the front, but eventually a group comes in who head for the back. They don’t need to get there early. Their status is established and no one will
take their seats.

Except today someone just did.

They stop and look at me, three boys and three girls. ‘Don’t you know who we are?’ their shocked faces ask.

Don’t you know I outrank you in every way possible? You’re top set in a grotty comp in Nowhere’s End. Get over yourselves.

I feel hot all over with the anger still burning inside me.

Is it a stand-off
 
? I’m not sure yet. But I’m not backing down. Because Holly can be this person instead. Holly can be whatever I want her to be.

The girls are pretty. The boys are cute – not smokin’ hot in the case of two of them, but the third is gorgeous. He looks right at me and I look back without any discomfort.

Holly is going to be confident and unintimidated now. I choose
this
.

The teacher comes in behind them and the gorgeous one tilts his head on one side. ‘You’re the new girl.’

It’s not a question but I answer anyway. ‘Yes.’

He grins. It’s mega cute. ‘Got a name?’

The girls laugh and roll their eyes in a way that tells me he’s not with any of them.

‘Holly.’

His grin settles into a smile that melts my insides in a totally different way to the anger I was feeling just a few seconds ago. He nudges the boy closest to him, who shakes his head
good-naturedly and takes the seat in front of me with exaggerated resignation. The hot one sits down beside me, and the others sit at the tables to the right of us. I’m too distracted by the
dark-haired, blue-eyed gorgeousness next to me to pay much attention to them.

‘And do you?’ I say, trying to sound cool and unruffled.

His grin dispels any calmness I’ve managed to gather.

‘I was wondering when you’d ask.’ He winks at me and my stomach twirls again. ‘Yes, I do.’

I wait . . . and wait . . . and then I can’t help laughing. ‘What is it then?

He laughs too. A proper laugh, head thrown back. ‘Fraser.’

‘Can we get started now?’ the teacher calls, making me jump. I’d forgotten she was there.

Fraser gives me a slow, lingering smile and then faces forward. The teacher starts her introduction, writing the ‘aims’ of the lesson on the board. Seems pointless to me but they all
do that here. Halfway through her scribbling, the door opens and Emo comes in. He walks to the back and takes the empty table to my left. Suddenly I understand why Fraser’s friend
didn’t sit there.

Again, nobody shows any reaction to his lateness, not even the teacher. What is it with him? Is he the village mafia or something?

I notice him glance at me as he sits down. Then his eyes slide over to Fraser and he suppresses a snigger. Idiot. Who does he think he is?

I know exactly who he is – a nobody with no friends.

As the teacher doesn’t seem to notice me, Fraser gets up and walks to the front and I get a great view of the back of him. It’s just as good as the front. He’s tall and toned,
as if he does a lot of sport. He picks up an exercise book from a pile on the shelf behind the teacher. She doesn’t register this at all, and he brings it back and passes it to me.