Pt - 14

It was the same school. Same walls. Same lessons. Same people. Yet somehow, it was a completely different place. Nobody ran to meet her at the gate. No friends flocked to her side to hang on her every word. In the corridor the less popular kids did not move to give access to her locker.



“Excuse me,” Alissa asked the couple congregating in her way. She didn’t even say it with a condescending tone, but the couple still looked at her like she was a turd they’d stepped in. She tried to ignore it; to pass it off as a coincidence.



Rick Johnson and his gang of idiots walked by the lockers behind her back. He had never been a problem for Alissa before. He and his gang had always respectfully kept their distance from Alissa and her friends. Today, she heard him spit in her direction of her feet and utter the word “slut” as he passed.



‘Why?’ Zach had beaten the crap out of him a week ago. Why was he suddenly on Zach’s side? Alissa racked her brain for an explanation but came up with next to nothing.



‘Maybe Zach has some sort of magical powers,’ Alissa thought, recalling her dream.



She had to find someone to explain what had happened over the week she’d spent in Spain. Walking to the back of the Science classroom, Alissa grabbed Matty by the arm and guided him into the corner of the room, by the fake skeleton and posters of the period table, ignoring the looks from her other former friends.



“What the hell is this?” Alissa asked.



“What?” Matty replied, his face blank and unhelpful.



“This! Everyone treating me like crap, ignoring me... the party?” Alissa fought back tears. “You all let that psycho pull me upstairs.”



Matty made a scoffing sound. “Why cry to me? Where’s Andy? The one you have actual feelings for. The one who makes you feel alive. I’m just a puppy you like to kick about. But that’s okay right? I will keep on loving you and being loyal to you.”



Alissa vaguely remembered saying something similar to Raven. Raven had told him? Alissa’s mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for oxygen, trying to summon excuses that would not formulate. She ran to the girl’s toilets, her glittery six-inch heels almost tripping her and breaking her ankle like her mother always warned they would. She locked herself into the end stall and sat on the closed lid after a habitual wipe with a handful of tissues, head in hands.



She didn’t want to cry. Her makeup would run, and everyone would see the mascara tracks. Then don’t cry, Alissa told herself, fight back.



At lunch her usual table had no free seats because a girl she did not like was taking up her space—the girl with the stupid red dye-job. Alissa walked over, aware of eyes on her and too aware of her own body movements. She did her best catwalk strut over to her table, pulled a seat from the adjacent table and sat on the end facing the food station. The head of her table. The queen.



Pulling an apple from her bag she took a bite, giving Zach her best, ‘what’s your problem’ look. The group stopped talking briefly before continuing with lunch as usual, though nobody spoke to Alissa.



A cold, gelatinous blob hit Alissa’s cheek. As the smell of strawberry filled her nose, Alissa noticed the yoghurt in Zach’s hand, the smile on his dumb face and the snickering of her friends. Alissa had done the very same thing to a girl who had dared to sit at the table uninvited. One of her friends had obviously told Zach about it. She wondered how much they had told him, picturing them slagging her off at great length and plotting to dish out a strawberry flavoured taste of her own medicine.



She did what that other girl would have done if she’d had any gumption; scooping the yoghurt from her cheek with her finger and putting in her mouth with a smile.



“Delicious, thank you,” she told Zach with a smile.



“Oh, you like it? Here,” Zach dropped the yoghurt cup to the floor, “eat the rest of it if you love it so much.”



He stared Alissa down, challenging her, and she was out of ideas. She didn’t want to run crying from the canteen. Did not want to let him win.



Zach licked his spoon clean and offered it to her. “I’ll let you use my spoon, because I’m nice like that.”



As Adrienne burst into a fit laughter that sounded nervous to Alissa, she rolled her eyes at Zach and told him no thanks.



“What happened to ‘I’ll do anything you say’?” Zach pouted.



“You did say that,” The emo kid pointed out with a sneering half smile.



“What? You are going to hold me to promises I made when I was begging you not to make me face my worst fear?”



“Yeah, maybe I will. You wouldn’t make promises you can’t keep, would you?” Zach asked. Alissa got the feeling he was making reference to some other discretion her friends had informed him of but had no idea what it could be.



“I’m not going to eat off the floor. Fuck you.” Alissa did her best to end the conversation but the others at the table continued to whisper and laugh.



“I’ll give you five seconds to do it,” Zach said. “If you don’t you will regret it more that you regretted not apologising the first time I gave you a five second warning.”



“Who the hell do you think you are?” Alissa had tried so hard to keep her cool, to stay in control and think before speaking, but she couldn’t take the stupid smile on his stupid face any longer. She stood, scraping the metal chair legs noisily and planted her fists on the table hard enough to knock a can of coke onto its side. She was aware that the entire school was staring at her, but she couldn’t hold in the tirade any longer.



“You act like you own this place and everyone in it! What on Earth gives you the right to treat me like this?”



“I can’t act the way you have been acting your entire life?” Zach asked. “I can’t do the things to you that you have been doing to other people for years?”



Zach stood slowly, positioning himself to mirror her pose, but he towered over her even in her massive heels. “You think you can tell people what to think, what to wear, what is cool and what’s not, where to sit, where to eat.” He paused for effect. “You don’t hate me because I’m mean to you. You hate me because I’m treating you the way you treat others. Face it... you hate yourself.”



Alissa did not know what to say. She heard the scraping of chairs as some of the other kids in the silent cafeteria stood. Then clapping.



‘No, they are starting a slow clap, this cannot be happening. This isn’t the movies for fuck sake!’



The quiet clapping sounded like rain, a sound Alissa had always loved. It slowly became a roaring, smothering thunderstorm and her only choice was to retreat. She was out of the school gates and half the way home before the revenge plan popped into hear mind, seemingly out of nowhere. She encircled her wrist with her fingers and pressed as hard as she could for as long she could bear before doing the same with the other.