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DUE TO HER ANXIETY, Sarah Longdown started university late.
She moved into the student halls and tried to forget the reason she was several years older than all the other girls here. She caught them giving her strange glances, as though they could already tell she was the odd one out. On moving in day, the other girls had somehow instantly bonded, though none of them had met each other before, and she was standing on the outskirts looking in. She wished she could understand this somehow easy congeniality other women had with each other. For her, the moment anyone tried to talk to her, she flushed bright red and looked down at her feet, stumbling over her words.
But she’d convinced her parents it was time for her to do this. She was an adult now, twenty years old, and she needed to have a life of her own. She was smart and had done well at school and her exams, despite everything else, and now she felt like she was ready to take the next step.
Besides, student halls was practically like being at home. Or at least it was a good halfway house to having a place of her own. They had security here, so she had someone she could call if anything was bothering her. She’d made a promise to herself that she wasn’t going to allow every little thing to spook her, however. The last thing the security guard needed was her calling every few hours because she worried all the time.
Still, those first few days were hard, with everyone seeming to make friends so easily, and her always feeling on the outside. The university did their best to try to encourage everyone to mingle, including a ton of events in the first week of Freshers.
It was at one of the Fresher socials that she first met May. The university social club was at its worst and finest at this time of year, when everyone was putting on a show and many were experiencing freedom for the first time in their lives. It wasn’t really her thing, but she hadn’t wanted to stay in her room—her need for inclusion warring with her desire to hide away. She’d bought herself a drink, though she knew she couldn’t have many or they’d interfere with her meds, and then found herself a corner where she could sit down and watch everyone else dance to a DJ she’d never heard of but who apparently used to play on Radio One.
A second glass slammed down on the table in front of her. “You look like you could use this.”
She looked up to see a pretty blonde with thick black-rimmed glasses that she somehow managed to make appear cool and funky standing in front of her. She glanced down at the drink and then back up at the girl, unsure if she’d meant the drink to be for someone else.
“Go on,” the blonde said, nudging the drink closer. “It’s for you.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I’ve already got a drink.” She was flustered, her cheeks heating. Attention from anyone—male or female—always caused this reaction in her, and her red hair and pale skin always made the blushing worse.
“Yeah, I know. But if we got to suffer this bunch of dickheads, I figured we’d need some more alcohol.” She slid into the seat beside her. “I’m May, by the way.”
She surprised a smile out of her. “I’m Sarah.”
The blonde, May, stuck out her hand. “It’s good to meet you, Sarah. You look like the only sane person in here.”
Sarah laughed. The girl couldn’t be further from the truth, but she wasn’t going to tell her that.
May leaned in closer. “Is it just me, or does everyone here look like they literally left home yesterday.”
“I think that’s because they did leave home yesterday.”
“Losers. I left home when I was seventeen. I couldn’t wait to be out of there.”
She piqued Sarah’s curiosity. “Yeah? How old are you now?”
“Nineteen now, though I’ll be twenty in three weeks. How about you?”
“Already twenty,” she said, her shoulders sagging in relief. It might have been only a matter of a year or two, but she was relieved to find someone who was basically the same age. All these eighteen-year-olds were driving her crazy.
May laughed. “So, we’re the old gits in here, huh?”
“Looks like it.”
She lifted her glass and clinked it to Sarah’s. “Well, I’ll drink to that.”
***
FOR THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, Sarah finally started to feel as though she fit in. May was easy to talk to, and it seemed others felt the same way. May acted like a bridge between Sarah and the other students, and gradually Sarah found herself pulled into the different social groups. May didn’t seem to have one group in particular, but lurked on the outskirts of many, yet somehow didn’t seem to have the same crippling anxiety Sarah had when it came to going up and speaking to people. They joined a couple of clubs together and got to know people that way, too. But deep down Sarah always knew the new friends were May’s friends, really. They tolerated her because May brought her along, but that was all.
Sarah didn’t care. Life was easier with May around. They didn’t share many classes—May was studying drama, while Sarah was doing English Literature—but it didn’t matter. May had a room down the hall from her own, so she was always around when Sarah needed her.
Things were good for awhile. Sarah had finally found her place in the world. Her parents were happy she was doing so well, and it was agreed all round that going to university had been the right decision.
Then May met someone.
Zach was an older guy, in his third year studying marine biology. He and May hit it off right away. He was one of those easy-going, cool guys, who loved to travel and had big dreams of all the exciting places his degree was going to take him. May was besotted, but Sarah could see he wasn’t right for her. May followed him around, desperate for even a crumb of his attention. He treated her as though she was only a bit of fun, happy to have around at the weekends, or at a party, but never wanting anything more than that. Sarah tried to get May to understand, but the more she spoke badly of Zach, the more May distanced herself from Sarah. She even tried to warn Zach off a couple of times, telling him that May deserved better than him, but that got back to May, and the two of them fought.
Sarah could feel the distance growing between them, pulling them apart with every passing day. She did everything she could to try to bring them back together again, but the more she tried, the worse it got.
Thoughts started to creep into Sarah’s head that something bad would happen to May when they weren’t together. At first it was all about Zach, her worrying he would only end up hurting May, but then other things started to creep in. Sarah worried May would be run over by a car, or electrocuted by a rogue plug socket. And then her fears and paranoia, all the little voices whispering in her head about all the bad things that would happen to her, often describing them and the aftermath in detail, started to move outside of her head. She heard the television telling her these things, even when the TV was off, or the radio whispering them into her ear. Then, one night when she was lying in bed, listening to the voices, she realised something. The voices weren’t coming from all those other places. No, they were inside the walls of the building.
It wasn’t her imagination. Whoever the voices belonged to lived inside the walls, and they were going to hurt May.