The Woodleigh House doorbell is the kind that plays a jangly little tune. As he listens to it echo, Peter almost loses his nerve. He’s never been here before; it was only reluctantly that Alyssia told him where she lived. If she’s in, she’ll be angry with him for intruding. But it’s been two days, and she hasn’t come back to school. He needs to find out what’s going on.
By the time the door swings open, his heart is racing. Yet the woman on the other side just looks like someone’s mother. Jeans, a cardigan, brown hair streaked with grey. A vague frown sits at the top of her nose, as if she’s constantly wondering where she left her keys.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
“Alyssia,” Peter blurts out. “I mean … is she here?”
“You know her?”
“She’s in my class at school. She was meant to come back on Monday, but … they’re saying she ran away. Is that true?”
The woman’s expression hardens. “If you’re here to feed the gossip mills – ”
“No! No, I – I’m her friend.” Was her friend, he adds silently and guiltily. “I won’t spread rumours, I swear. I just … I was worried about her.”
“What’s your name?” she asks, still stern.
“Uh – Peter. Peter Lampforth.”
Something new enters her eyes. “You’re Peter?”
Shit. He resists the urge to run. “She talked about me?”
“She barely talked at all,” the woman says. “But I learned to read between the lines. Now, I suggest you go away before you do any more damage.”
And the door closes in Peter’s face.
Frustrated, he thumps the unyielding surface with his fist. It makes more noise than he thought it would; he backs away a step or two, calling a half-hearted apology. Then he turns and flees down the street.
It isn’t as if he’s known Alyssia very long. They met near the beginning of the school year; a few weeks later, their friendship was over. It barely meant anything. It shouldn’t have done. Yet the look in that woman’s eyes told a different story. She knows what he did, just as well as he does.
The first time he ever ran into Alyssia, he did it literally. An accident, of course. He’d been standing in the schoolyard, pretending to look at his phone so that no one would notice he didn’t have anyone to walk with. Wondering desperately if it was always going to be like this, for him – if there was something about him, no matter where he went, that marked him as a poor social prospect. Yet what else could he do? He hid the interests that would get him teased. He hid his cleverness. He camouflaged himself in every conceivable way that would keep him from becoming a target, that would make him acceptable. But somehow, the act of blending in that seemed to work so well for other people just made him invisible – as if they could tell he was faking it. It had been that way at his old school, and apparently it was going to be that way here too.
Still. Only three more years to go.
Shoving his phone in his pocket, he started walking again – and collided with someone. A girl. Pale skin. Dark hair. Eyes … well, it was hard to tell. Because her eyes were closed.
“Ow,” he said pointedly.
Her eyes opened – it seemed with some reluctance. They were the grey of a cloudy sky. The expression in them was a curious mixture of defiance and resignation.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
He pushed his glasses up his nose with one finger and peered at her through them. “What were you doing anyway, wandering around with your eyes shut?”
“Pretending I wasn’t here.” The emotion he’d glimpsed from her was gone, now. He couldn’t read anything from her face at all. The words, though … they were like a small explosion going off in his mind. Because here, apparently, was someone who cared nothing at all for blending in.
Before he could reply, she turned on her heel and began walking towards the gate. He hurried to catch up, words spilling from him in an embarrassing flood.
“I know what you mean. It’s a dump, isn’t it? Only been here a few days and I’m already wishing we hadn’t moved. But you know what it’s like once your parents get an idea in their heads …”
He sounded desperate. Trying too hard, as usual. And she hadn’t replied, or even looked at him. He forced his steps to slow, let her go on ahead. Clearly, he was doomed to be friendless for the rest of his –
“My parents are dead,” she said.
“I – what?”
She stopped and turned, her face still expressionless. “I said, my parents are dead.”
Oh. Fucking hell. He began to splutter, “I’m sorry – I mean – ”
She watched him squirm for a moment, studying his face, before the hint of a smile touched her lips. Not a malicious smile. Even through his embarrassment, he read it as relief; as though his awkward reaction had somehow reassured her.
“It’s no big deal,” she said. “I don’t even remember them.” And she lifted her hand in a half-wave, as if to restart the conversation at hello. “I’m Alyssia Gale.”