The most popular girl in school is braiding my hair in gym class, and I am too nervous to speak.
I was sitting on the benches, trying to force my thick curls into a neat ponytail like Miss Kentworth had insisted, when Hannah sat down behind me. She’d placed her hands on mine and pushed them away, then ran her fingers gently through my hair. My scalp tingled; my skin felt electrically charged. Goosebumps rippled along my arms.
“Here. Let me do it,” she’d said, and I couldn’t say no. Struck dumb by insecurity.
Now, she chatters behind me as if we’re old friends. We’re not. I hardly know her.
She taps me on the arm, and I pass her my hair tie. She finishes the plait and gives it a gentle tug.
“There you go,” she says. “That looks cute on you.”
I don’t know how to respond.
Hannah Burnley; tall, slim, and devastatingly beautiful. Long, auburn hair almost to her waist. Brown eyes with a flash of emerald. She has perfect teeth and flawless skin and a delicate aroma of roses that follows her wherever she goes.
I’ve adored her since I first saw her. Since I caught a hint of her scent.
I know shouldn’t think like that, it’s dangerous. I can’t risk a repeat of Hartfield. Of everything that happened with Jessica.
But that’s all in the past. That’s over. I won’t jeopardise my future for a crush.
Miss Kentworth barks an order, and we take our places by the vaulting horse, waiting our turn to jump. Hannah leaps first, a perfect spin, and lands in the middle of the crash mats. I follow her and land a little heavier. I’m not as poised, but my form is good. It’s an act, of course. I know damn well I can do better, but I can’t be seen to be outshining Hannah. Such a thing would be social suicide.
Despite the rough edges, Miss Kentworth approves. Hannah grins at me and flashes a double thumbs-up then skips away to mingle with her friends. I watch as she engages in an animated conversation with four other girls. All slim, all blonde, all gorgeous. This is her gang. Her high school posse. The popular crowd which I am not a part of.
My best friend Danielle walks over to me, her eyes wide, mouth agape.
“What the actual fuck was that about?”
I shrug and stay quiet. I still don’t trust my voice.
Dani flicks my braid with a finger and turns to me, her face deathly solemn. “You know, you can never take this out now. A present to the lowly from the great Hannah Burnley. You’ll have to keep it like this forever.”
I scowl and she can’t stay serious. Her face cracks and she laughs.
“Yeah, nah. Only kidding, Skye!” She spins and grabs the braid again, slips the hair tie from its end. My heavy hair untwists and splits. The braid comes loose. Hannah’s work is destroyed.
I feel like screaming, like bursting into tears, but I don’t do either. I force a laugh and shake my curls until they’re fully free.
Three days pass before Hannah speaks to me again.
I am standing at the sinks in the girl’s bathroom, soap suds on my hands, staring straight ahead. A printed sign in Comic Sans warns me that the tap gets very hot. A message from the school administration stuck with Sellotape to the tiles. No one under forty years of age would ever use that font.
I see her in the mirror as she leaves the stall. I focus on the peeling, yellowed edges of the tape, trying to pretend that she’s not there. She catches my eye in the reflection and flashes her flawless grin. I try to respond to her in kind, but both my lips feel stuck.
“Hi, Skye,” she trills. “How you doin’?”
There’s a hard lump in my throat that doesn’t want to move. “I’m okay,” I manage.
“You did so well in Gym the other day. Like, that handspring was aah-maze-ing!”
I smile weakly. I know it wasn’t, but I appreciate the compliment. Especially coming from her.
“Do you take cheer class? Because if you don’t, you really should. You’d be so awesome on the school team.”
She’s lying. She must be. No one on the team would want me there. I could be of Olympic standard, it wouldn’t matter. I’m not part of that tribe.
“I used to rep for my old school,” I tell her quietly. “I won a few medals.” My face feels like it’s on fire.
“Oh! I knew it! I told Lacey you must have been on a team. She didn’t believe me, but then Tilly pointed out how good your landing had been, and Kari was just like, ‘I know, right?’ and I’ve seen you do some gorgeous strength work…”
I stand there awkwardly, letting her babble. I feel like I’m floating, unstuck from reality, pulled away like a piece of old Sellotape. The water from the tap begins to steam. I yelp as it scalds my hands.
She reaches behind me and pulls out a paper towel. She passes it to me before taking another for herself. My focus drifts to her hands as she dries them. Her nails are tipped with sparkling red, shimmering with flecks of gold. Like fresh blood reflected in a dying sun. I’m struck with shame at such a thought. Like I’d said something awful out loud.
She throws the paper into the bin and turns to leave.
“It’s always so good to talk to you, Skye. Come and find me if you want to join the cheer team, okay?”
I nod awkwardly and move to put my used towel with hers. I watch as her mirror image slips through the door. It seems different somehow. Wrong. My eyes must be playing tricks on me. I thought I saw something, like an echo or a likeness, superimposed and unclear. My head is flooded with fractured images, like memories floating somewhere just out of reach. I scrub my eyes with the fleshy part of my palms and try to sponge them from my mind.
Please, God, I think. Don’t let me go back. Let the past stay behind me where it belongs.
At lunchtime, I sit with Dani in the cafeteria. We push damp macaroni around our plates. My eyes drift to where Hannah sits with her friends. Dani sees me looking and nudges me with her foot.
“So, what’s with you and the future Prom Queen?” She’s not jealous, that’s never been her style, she just loves hearing gossip.
I pause, uncertain about what to say.
There’s a hierarchy in schools, everyone knows it. I’m settled somewhere in the middle. Never cool enough to rise to the top, not quite weird enough to scrape the bottom. I’m mostly ignored but occasionally acknowledged, and the bullies don’t bother me here. People always say it’s the outcasts who are invisible, who slip through unseen. That’s not true. It’s the middling, average, outwardly normal ones who roll with the tide and float into mediocrity. The ones destined to be nine-to-fivers. Two kids and a white picket fence.
I don’t mind. I’ve worked hard to keep that image. It’s a peaceful place to be. It’s different from Hartfield, that’s for sure.
I take too long to respond. Dani flicks pasta at my face. “Hey? Earth to Skye. You in there?”
I shake my head over-exaggeratedly, as if woken from a trance. “I don’t know, Dani. It’s weird. She wants me to try out for the cheer team.”
“Will you?”
I shrug. “Doubtful.”
“You did alright at your old school though, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. And my dad would love it if I went back to it, but I don’t think that’s really me anymore. If it ever was, you know? The competition stuff was so hard.”
Dani nods as if she understands, but I know she doesn’t have a clue; about cheerleading, competing, or my old school. There were so many things that I hadn’t told her. Regrets about things that I’d done.
She points her fork in Hannah’s direction. “Have you told her that?”
“Not yet. She’ll probably forget about me soon anyway.”
Dani makes a face. “Well, you know you got the skills if you wanted to.”
“Yeah,” I say, but I’m not convinced. “Maybe I’ll think it over.”
But I won’t, I know. I can’t take that risk. The shit that would go down if they found out.
We carry on as we always do. School life follows a never-ending routine. Classes and homework; timetables and tests. I don’t see Hannah much. Sometimes we smile as we pass in the hallway or wave across the yard. Every so often, I’ll smell roses, warm and sweet. Her unmistakable scent.
Weeks pass. I get an ‘A’ on an end-of-term exam, and my dad takes me out for a burger. His idea of a cool reward, he has forgotten that I try not to eat meat. We sit in the window and watch the evening light fade. Halfway through the meal, he stops mid-chew. I notice his eyes are damp.
“You’ve come a long way, kiddo,” he says, small-voiced. “I’m proud of you. This time last year...” he trails off. No need to finish. I know what he means. Moving schools changed both our lives. With Mom gone, he’d done his best for me, always had, since I was small. But there are some things parents cannot do. No matter how hard they try.
We’re on our way back to the car when I see her. Or at least I think it’s her. Standing in the shadows, a few feet away from the streetlight, embracing another girl. I can’t see their faces, but their bodies are so close, it seems like their limbs are entwined. I feel awkward and embarrassed, but totally thrilled. I can’t seem to look away.
“Hey, Skye. You okay?”
“Yeah, Dad. I was just...”
I look back into the darkness. I can’t see them anymore. Perhaps I’d been mistaken, and it wasn’t Hannah anyway. I pause at the car door. The streetlight reflects bright lines on the window. I think I see something moving in the glass. I turn my head in time to see a shape run into the bushes. A figure. A girl? What looks like Hannah’s dress? She flickers like a glitch in an old home video. Too many limbs, a misshapen head, her spine all curved and sharp. I gasp and blink and she is gone. If she was ever really there.
The nightmares are strong that night.
Long hands reach out to tear at me. Stiletto claws. Webbed skin between the fingers. Knuckles cracked and raw. They catch my hair and pull me down. They slit my eyeballs and split my cheeks. They slice at my gums and tear out my teeth, and ram hard fists down my throat.
I spin and I see the carnage at my feet. Familiar faces, bodies broken. Their skin flayed from their shattered bones. My hands are dressed in gloves of blood, my stomach filled with rage.
I wake up screaming, drenched in sweat.
Oh, God. Please. Not again.
It’s Miss Kentworth who eventually persuades me to stay after school and watch Hannah and her crew perform. They spin and flip and lift each other to form a fabulous human pyramid. Afterwards, she asks me to join in.
I’m not as good as they are. I’ve grown rusty, and I falter many times. But every girl smiles and is supportive. It’s not too long before the movements come flooding back.
Strong hands lift me and send me soaring. I fly through the air and feel amazing. I feel no fear as I plummet to the ground. Those same hands are waiting to catch me. They never once let me fall.
Miss Kentworth calls out her approval and throws in a few words of praise.
At the end, we hug and share our elation. Sweaty and riding endorphin highs. In the changing room, I peel myself out of my damp shorts and top, get re-dressed as fast as I can. The others laugh and talk amongst themselves. It seems strange not being excluded, like I am finally a part of their world.
Hannah comes and sits beside me. She has showered and I smell roses again.
“How was the burger?” she asks.
I’m surprised. “That was you I saw?”
She nods.
“With...?”
“Oh. Just a friend.”
“A girl… friend?” I ask, and immediately I feel stupid. Did I seriously just ask that question?
She chuckles. “Not a girlfriend. Just a friend who happens to be a girl. Actually, I’m not dating anyone right now.”
“Okay.” I bend over to pull my socks on. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to assume. I mean, I know you’re not…” She moves even closer, and I feel awkward. I’m not sure what she expects me to say.
“Do you? Because I know all about you,” she whispers.
Oh, fuck!
I can’t get up; my muscles are frozen. My heartbeat thumps in my head.
“I know about what happened at Hartfield, Skye. With those other girls.”
I feel her hand rest on my back and my spine feels like it might turn to jelly. Here it comes, I think. The backlash. I should have known it was too good to be true.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she says. “No one should be hurt for who they are.”
The cheer squad has left the changing room. It is only us now.
I force myself to meet her eyes. “You know what they did?” She nods. “And you know what I did?” A smile.
How? I wonder, but the words tumble out before I can find the good sense to stop them.
“They said I was a monster. An abomination and an affront to God. They set me up and they filmed me. They showed the entire school! And Jessica, she was my best friend, we’d known each other for years. But she was the one who told them all.
“I thought she loved me, Hannah. Oh, I loved her so much…” I feel the prickle of tears start to sting my eyes. I curl my fingers and dig my nails into my fists.
“Principal Higgins kicked me off the cheer team. He said I made people uncomfortable. I was so angry! So ashamed. I wanted an explanation, but when I found them all after school that night… They laughed at me. Called me horrible, spiteful names.
“I never meant to break them. I didn’t realise my own strength. I just wanted to make them hurt.”
She reaches out and holds me, pulls me close to her breasts. “Oh, Skye. People always see what they want to see. They use names and labels to try and destroy you, but their words have no power over you if you don’t let them. They’re afraid of people like you, you see. People like us.”
“Like us?” I begin. “What are you...?”
And I watch, dumbfounded, as her head splits open, as her skin peels from her face in two halves. Her mouth expands and her teeth grow into points. Her pupils constrict and shrink. Her tongue is a pink cat-o’-nine-tails of flesh. She flicks it like a whip.
I’m not afraid. Somehow, I’d known the truth all along. Her smell, the roses. Of course I knew.
I bask in the glory of her image, awed by her immeasurable beauty. She grins and a thousand glittering shards reflect like cut diamonds in her mouth.
“Go on,” she urges. “You’re safe here.”
I put my hands to my cheeks and dig my nails in, tear the unwanted flesh from my bones. I slide from the confines of my body, discarding it like an old suit.
It feels good to tear the scabs away. To feel fresh wounds and new blood.
We touch and explore and weave ourselves together, lost in our passion and our need. She swallows me whole and spits me out. I gorge myself on her desire. She enters places no other has ever been. I allow her to fill me, to make me whole, to give and take all that she craves.
Afterwards, I look in the mirror. I feel changed, but not how I expected. My reflection looks exactly the same.
Hannah holds me from behind, both hands around my waist.
“Look there, what do you see?” she asks me. I wriggle in her arms to face her.
“I see something amazing. Something powerful and mighty. Gorgeous and confident and passionate...”
She puts a finger to my lips and shushes me.
“No. Not me. I’m talking about you. How does it feel to embrace what you are? To know you are beautiful, powerful, and strong? That you don’t have to hide anymore?”
I turn back to the mirror and let my mask slip. I see my wide mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. My black pupils and splintered cheekbones. This is the image I’ve kept hidden for so long, so afraid to show the truth to the world.
I take her hand in mine. “I feel free,” I say, as my reflection flashes between who I am and who I thought I was.
She kisses the back of my hand and grins. “You know how I said I’m not dating anyone right now? Well, Skye, I’d really like to change that.”
The most popular girl in school wants to date me, and I am no longer too nervous to speak.