When I get on the bus, I wish I was as tiny as a mouse and that no one could see me. I sit as near to the back as I can manage. (The very back seat is taken by two scary-looking men chugging Monster energy drinks.) I’m huddling against the glass as if I might meld into it and become invisible. Sparks of panic are crackling all over my body; my breathing is all over the place. It seems like ages since I felt this way. I suppose Tori has to take the credit for that. She sure can keep my mind off the horrible stuff.
I wonder where Amy is now. Is she already in Richmond building? Or has she decided not to bother? I hope it’s the latter. I pray it’s the latter. Oh, I should have told her not to bother, it’s probably online, I’d find out that way. Then I could ignore it. This was so much easier before I found a friend. I should have known other people cause complications. Just look at my family.
I’ve run out of fingers to chew on, so I resort to the inside of my cheek. It isn’t long before the skin starts sloughing off, and I taste the bright tang of blood. I suck on this, hoping it will give me something to focus on, but it doesn’t help. The worries won’t be silenced, even with a blood sacrifice.
I want to eat. I want to gorge and gorge and gorge until I can’t think of anything else but how wonderfully, painfully full I am, drowning myself in a world of taste and texture. Crunchy, smooth, wobbly, stringy, hard, chewy, lumpy, crisp, chunky . . . I go through the words of food, and my heart rate begins to slow. I might order in a burger for lunch. And fries. And onion rings. And those little jalapeno popper things—
My phone buzzes, and I almost fall off my seat. Behind me, one of the Monster-drinking men snorts in unmistakable amusement.
My mouth runs dry. All thoughts of my lunchtime burger feast flee. I turn my phone off.
I’ll deal with that later.
***
Mrs. Olgive has just left for her class, and I still haven’t turned my phone on. Haven’t checked Facebook, either.
If I don’t read it, I don’t have to deal with it. If I don’t acknowledge it, I don’t have to accept it.
The kids want a bedtime story, so I read Sometimes I Like to Curl Up in a Ball to them. It’s a cute story about a wombat who likes to curl up with his mum at the end of the day, because that’s where he feels safest. I used to like that too. When I was small, I’d curl up into a ball with my mum and my dad. Can’t do that now. Don’t think I’ll ever be able to do it again.
I toy with my switched-off phone. Its surface looks like a black void in the low lights of the kids’ bedroom. They snuggle down under their covers, and I run my hand over both their silky heads. Oh, to be that small, that innocent again. When your biggest worry was what your mum had packed in your lunch box, or whether your friends would want to play with you at breaktime. Those worries felt so huge then; right now, I’d do anything to go back to those days, to when the world was simple and made perfect sense.
I snap the light off as I leave and linger by the door.
“Sleep tight,” I murmur.
“Ni-night,” they chorus back to me, sleep already infecting their voices.
I creep downstairs, my insides growing heavier with each step. My laptop is on the sofa. I know I can bypass all my Beth accounts and go straight into troll mode, but for some reason I’m not that into it tonight. I kind of want to talk to someone—Tori, mainly—but at the same time, I kind of want to be alone. But I also don’t want to be alone with only my own thoughts for company, because they scare me and I don’t want to deal with them, and I need to switch my phone on just in case Mum needs me, but I can’t because Amy’s going to be on there, asking where I am, what I’m doing, have I spoken to my tutor yet, workshop, workshop, workshop . . . I close my eyes, my heart thrumming in my head, making it ache so badly that I feel sick.
In my bag, I have three Mars bars. I mainline the lot, and for five blissful minutes, I let my mouth calm my mind. Chew. Swallow. Savor. Get lost in this. No one can harm me here.
I switch on the TV. Mrs. Olgive has Netflix. Netflix is another good way to waste time and forget yourself. I put my phone in my bag.
Out of sight, out of mind.
It’s the only way, really.
***
I awake with a little snort. Must have drifted off. My right hand feels all weird and fizzy. Shit. Are the kids okay? What woke me up? Is Mrs. Olgive home already? Only feels like five minutes since I sat down.
It’s longer than five minutes, but only just. Out of sheer habit, I reach for my phone and switch it on, and the world crashes into me.
My home screen is flooded with messages, mainly from Amy. It takes all I have not to fling the fucking thing at the wall.
Okay. Okay. Okay. All I have to do is say, Thanks for looking—I’ll ask and find out. That’s it! Just that, and this nightmare will be over.
Except it won’t be over, because then she’ll want to know whose group I’m in and what did my tutor say and who is your tutor and all sorts of little questions that I simply don’t want to deal with, so I drag my laptop over and log straight in to Metachat, where I know Tori will be waiting for me. I send her my chat key and sit there, waiting, waiting, waiting, oh, come on, where are you? It’s never taken you this long before, come on, Tori, I need you, I need you to tell me everything’s going to be okay, to reassure me that I’m fine . . .
No reply.
For the first time since I met her, Tori isn’t there.