File recovered from bin
Dear Miss Smith,
We are pleased to inform you of your acceptance into Felsmahr High School. Please send across required student information urgently, as we have been unable to contact your previous centre. We look forward to welcoming you.
Yours-
The Headmaster
 
YAP and YAP and YOU’RE SUCH A- and IT’S YOUR FAULT- and YOU SHOULD’VE NEVER-…SLAP.
The room smelt like burnt copper.
My nose twitched. Food? No. It was too late for teatime. Liquid poured from her face; his hand. Lick? But she stood on my paw again- stagger slip fall. Always the same. Laugh and SMASH. Totter and BANG. Slur and CRASH. Equally, painfully, endlessly matched.
She watched. Through the staircase, slipping her hand onto my quaking back. Soothing, contented circles as the tears streamed down her face. Lick?
But her door had already locked.
 
In every class the new girl would ask to go to the bathroom.
“Sir, I’m gonna wee.” Grumble. “You just let her go!” Grumble.
Fine, Lil.
I leapt out of my seat.
The door was swinging on its hinges, the tacked on ‘girl’ symbol fluttering in the draught. Quietly, I entered.
And was slammed into a wall by the new girls’ hurried departure. Ow. Huffing, I plodded over to the sinks, turning the dripping tap. It screw-screw-screwed right off. To reveal a compartment- one filled with hastily stashed pills.
I washed one down.
 
Tick tick tock, tick tock tick. My hand struck one: a solitary constant in a realm of chaos. She drifted slowly across the carpet, eyes closed, hands outstretched, mouth moving yet silent. Fear etched into the pores of her youthful face- a scream echoing on her little pink mouth. Sweat mutter shiver with a pant, pant, pant. Tiny wisps of grey circling her shimmering head- and was that a cackle?
The terrors were back.
 I recalled the deafening thud of speakers, the unstable wobble of heels, the sticky mass of plastic cups. Her face: red, hurt, rage. His face: pale, unsteady, remorse.
Please, he said.
No.
I didn’t mean to, he said.
No.
It won’t happen again, he said.
No, no, no.
I love you, he said.
No, no…okay.
 
Stupid kids. Mess everywhere; never a moments peace. They’d left my classroom in a hurry, and clearly the new girl saw no need to clean up. Torn paper left on my floor. I knelt down to tidy up, head swimming with the effort.
A mangled list.
Scrap- matches
Scrap- vodka
Scrap- knife
Scrap- where were my glasses?
Hurry to the desk: lightheaded. Shove them on. Collect the pieces.
Blank, blank, blank.
Dizzy, dizzy, dizzy.
Bin, bin, bin.
Littering. Detention, new girl.
 
Mic 1 cancelled.
I tell you, man, she weren’t right.
You didn’t see the scars. They were all over her.
Yes, I realise I need to be sure. You don’t think I recognise the police station?
She seemed well enough. Don’t really know her, honest. Never even heard her talk.
I didn’t see anyone else. Just her.
I just told you. I didn’t see anyone come out.
If you can’t find her, you don’t have anything to hold me for.
Mic 2 terminated.
 
What a shame, you say. Sincere condolences, you press. Such a tragedy, you exclaim. You sit and ponder for a minute, maybe a few. You pass rumours in murmured voices at church. You sigh and pity and tut. You let it drift away on a string of half-truths and fading reporters. You…let it go.
You will sip lukewarm coffee, and fall, slowly, into the easy sleep- she never had.
 
I am just paper. I am not fact. I am not conscious. I am an unravelling of mismatched events. I do not think or speak or touch. I cannot change what has happened anymore than I can predict what will happen. I am a flimsy record of a fraying quilt. I am not hers. I am yours and theirs and its. She did not know me. I did not know her. And yet I tell her story in a patchwork of minds.
I tell. They tell. It tells.
Does she tell?
 
Alcohol stings my hands and nose as I pour pour pour and grab the little box and strike strike strike flame and its hot and I’m burning and fumble for the phone and the phlegm in my throat splutters and coughs but bang the door is open and please no no no don’t be here you can’t be here I can’t do this and the knife is cold in my hand as I raise it up up up and you’re too close I can smell your smoky breath as your fingers grasp the blade as your voice rasps in my ear as you steady me but no I feel the icy metal coming down and I can’t feel your hands or mine as it comes near near near and-
Quiet?
 
“Lil. Hand the folders out. Stick a label over the old name.”
“Sir, there isn’t any left.”
“Here.” He grabbed the last one from his desk drawer. I looked at the label.
It was hers.
It was who’s?
You knew her.
Never heard of her.
Think harder.
Suppose she left.
Did she?