How I Got Here (10 page)

Shall we get back to the story though? Because I think you’ll want to know what happened, because the story with Jasper isn’t over yet. I wish so much that it was, that I just decided to cancel at the last minute, or stand him up or something, but I didn’t.

We had agreed that we would meet at the dance, and to say that I was a little nervous as I walked into the building alone, would have been a huge understatement, I was petrified of how people would act around me, would they ruin this for me, like they’d ruined school? Every little detail that could go wrong was causing me to panic, making me want to turn and run, get back home and just close the door and stay put in my bedroom, but there was something, I have no idea what, powering me on, so with every bit of strength I had left, I walked into then prettily decorated room, to face whatever came next.

As I walked in I immediately spotted Jasper, he was standing at the refreshment table
, holding a drink and smiling casually at a friend of his, he looked like he was having a good time already. He hadn’t seen me so I took a deep breath and walked over to him, painfully aware that several of the students in the room were staring at me, yet somehow I didn’t realize until I looked back on that night, that everyone had fallen eerily silent when I walked in, no conversations could be heard above the hum of the music, they were all watching in anticipation, and the only sound was the strumming of the band of stage. By now Jasper had spotted me, he caught my eye as I was approaching, and instead of the lazy smile that had been there seconds before, I received a cruel smirk, a laughing sneering smirk.

‘Wow, I cannot believe you actually came!’ His first words to me were spoken with mock surprise, he’d widened his eyes and was looking round him, laughing, like there was some big joke that everyone was in on, everyone except me. He slowly looked back at me with a raised eyebrow and a crooked smile on his face. I felt uneasy right away, but I still hadn’t put it all together, I thought maybe my earlier resistance to attend had left him with doubts, that maybe he thought I would stand him up. So instead of turning and leaving, before things could explode, I kept walking and closed the distance between us, smiling nervously.

‘I said I’d come, so here I am.’ I struggled to make my voice sound normal, my nerves were fried, leaving me feeling at a loss at how to act normal, so I forced out the words, even though I was starting to feel like I was walking into a track. There’s something to be said for gut feelings, if I had listened to mine I would have left, I should remember that in future.

‘No,’ Again he laughs like I’m missing the point, ‘I meant I can’t believe you actually believed that I
wanted
to come with you, I mean I knew I was a good actor, I just didn’t know I was that convincing.’ He was full on laughing now, a sneering laugh that chilled me right away, even thinking about it now I feel that sick twist in my stomach. I instinctively drew back from him and his friends, who were watching the exchange with amusement. Tears were stinging my eyes, but I was clinging to the last strands of my pride, so I wouldn’t let them see me cry, I couldn’t let them see how weak I’d become.

‘W-what do you mean?’ I stumbled over my words, feeling a wave of disbelief crash over me, like a physical wave of water that was knocking me off balance; I was struggling to maintain my composure.

‘I mean when you really think about it, why would a guy like me, ever chose willingly to come to a dance, with a girl like you. You’re a freak River, I mean just look at you.’ He shakes his head and grins at his buddy, then moves forward and pulls the ends of my short spiked hair, ‘You’re a mess, I thought you’d realize this was a joke. Seriously I can’t believe you thought for a second I honestly wanted to come with you.’

My cheeks were burning with humiliation; it was coursing through my body, paralyzing me. Tears were stinging my eyes, and blurring my vision until the room swam, and to make matters worse, as I turned around to look at the room we were standing in, I was faced with a collection of laughing faces, and of course the inevitable digital capturing of my humiliation, which would undoubtedly surface of the internet within minutes. I was numb as I stood there tears threatening to fall, people calling out insults, laughing at me like I was some comedy act. It wasn’t over though, there was more to come.

You see trusting Jasper was my first mistake of the night, because in hindsight I should have realized it would end in disaster, I should have known that the boys school we were twinned with, would have heard about my mother changing my grades, and the fact that I had become a social outcast, I should have seen it coming, but I hadn’t and now I was paying the price. I had once again been publically ridiculed, and all I could do was watch as they laughed.

The second mistake of the night came in the form of a pretty blonde girl, and a petite red head; Emma and Rose. The two girls who had been my closest friends, and then turned cruelly against me, rushed up to me one on either side of me, taking an arm each and pulling me from the room, me stumbling slightly because my legs weren’
t quite working yet. They took me out into the locker lined hall, which was empty besides the three of us, but we could still hear the music from inside, as the party returned to normal.

‘Are you ok?’ Emma spoke first, the concern in her voice felt so comforting to me, but I was still on edge from what had just happened, so I pulled away from their loose grip, but I didn’t make a move to leave.

‘Do you really care?’ I snapped back with more strength than I knew I had, wanting them both to realize how much they’d hurt me.

‘Of course we care, River listen we’re so sorry, we never meant to hurt you but Kim tricked us, she told us all this stuff and then when your mom was changing your grades – we were just angry but we never should have taken it out on you, we should have stood up for you, you’re our friend.’ Rosie spoke this time, taking my arm again and this time I didn’t pull away. I think I needed to feel their
comfort; I’d needed their friendship so much recently, to deal with everything that was getting beyond me. I always thought that if they’d been by my side, I would have been able to cope with anything.

‘Why now?’ I was starting to cave and they knew it, but I wasn’t willing to give up so readily, I still had doubts.

‘What he just did to you in there, it was so uncalled for, we just want to be friends again River, we’ve been stupid and we’re sorry, can you forgive us?’ Emma begged her eyes wide and her voice filled with honest desperation, not one hint of insincerity. She should be an actress, they both should, because their performance in that empty hall was faultless, and I fell for it.

I let them lead me back into the dance, because they said I needed to make a stand, show everyone I wasn’t afraid of them. They sat with me all night, talking and catching up, apologizing over and over for acting how they did, and fighting off anyone who came up to me with nasty words, or cruel jokes, they’d stand around me and protect me, and they’d bring me drinks.
That should have tipped me off right away, I mean we’re all warned about it aren’t we, accepting drinks from people, we’re warned to be careful what we drink at parties. I didn’t realize that you had to watch out for your supposed friends, at a supervised school dance, but apparently you do, or at least I did. I know I keep saying this in these letters, but I should have realized what was going on, because with each glass of orange juice they handed me, I became a little fuzzier, things started to blur together in a mix of colors and sounds, I staggered as I tried to walk, words seemed to hold no meaning anymore, not my own or anyone else’s, and eventually I couldn’t even make sense of what was happening.

I woke up the next morning on a bench in central park, freezing cold because there was a thick layer of snow on the ground; it felt like winter was lasting especially long that year. All I had over me was someone else’s coat, it wasn’t one I recognized, and I could say definitively that it didn’t belong to anyone at the dance, because it was a large brown coat, which was obviously old and had been patched up a few times. I figured that at some point in the night, someo
ne had taken pity on me and put the coat across me, I was glad that they had or I would have been far worse off. I laid there staring at the white and gray blanketed sky, little flakes of snow drifting down onto me. I took several long deep breaths, trying to clear my head. I could hardly remember what had happened the night before, but as I lay there staring into the clouds; it started to come back to me.

Emma and Rosie had been bringing me drinks all night, which must have been spiked with alcohol, because although I had never had a
hangover before, I could imagine that this is what it would feel like. I remembered vaguely them pulling me into a car, which was being driven by Kim, who had driven away from the school at a high speed. They’d walked me through the park, I remember stumbling a few times, before they’d dropped me onto a bench, and then there was a black pen, I remembered a black pen. It took several more minutes for me to remember what significance this had, and then I remembered feeling the pen against my arm. At this point I sat upright quickly, a little too quickly and my head started to spin wildly, my mouth felt dry and fuzzy, and I could feel my stomach churning as if I might vomit at any second. I took a few breaths to steady myself, to try and ease the pounding in my head. Then as the symptoms start to dull themselves to manageable levels, I let my eyes flutter open again, and I looked down at my arm. Written all over them in black ink were words; ugly, stupid, weird, cheater, foolish, freak, fat; word after word depicting what they thought of me, written all over both of my arms, thick black lines on my pale white skin.

I didn’t even realize I was crying until the tears hit the palms of my hands.
I needed to get home; I needed to be safe and warm. I wanted to close myself in my room and try and forget the night before. I got up and started to run, a task harder than ever before because of the ball gown, the heels and the never ending thumping in my head. I had to stop once on the way home, leaning heavily against the rim of a trash can while I vomited into it. Then I pulled the strangers jacket tightly around myself and ran the rest of the way home. By the time I got there I was in agony, my head, my legs, my feet, they were all screaming in pain. I went inside and ran straight past my parents, making sure to keep the jacket sleeves pulled over my hands, so that they couldn’t see the ugly words scribbled across my skin.

‘Did you have a good time at Emma’s house?’ My mom asks looking up briefly from her magazine, not long enough to notice my tear stained face. I paused briefly at the bottom of the stairs in our apartment, keeping my eyes
on my bedroom door at the top of the staircase. Even though neither of them were watching me, I kept my head turned away from them, aware that my eyes were probably rimmed with read, and that I would have makeup streaked down my face, and of course I probably looked half frozen, because that’s exactly what I was. I was stunned that Emma had actually called my parents, creating the lie that I was staying at her house, while instead of a nice cozy slumber party, they’d left me passed out on a bench, in the snow in central park. I wanted to scream and shout, I wanted to yell and cry and tear the room apart, I wanted to tell them what had happened, to rip the jacket off and show them the words across my skin. Instead I choked out an answer which was indecipherable, then ran up the stairs into my room, then through to my bathroom, jumping into the shower and turning the heat up, not even bothering to take my dress off, just standing under the boiling stream of water, with the shower radio turned up as loud as it would go, blocking out the sound of the sobs that were racking my body, as I scrubbed the skin on my arms until it was bright red.

Then I sat down under the stream of boiling water, pulled my knees to my chest, dropped my head onto my knees and sat there crying, until I felt nothing at all.

Chapter Ten

Session 5

River was standing at the railings on the roof as he finished her letter, he felt the familiar hot flash of anger, that he felt so often when reading about what had happened to her, it ran through him quickly, he wanted to find these people and make them see what they had done, make them realize that anything could have happened to her, being left alone and passed out on a bench, in New York! She could have died that night, and he wonders if that thought had ever occurred to her. As he watches her carefully, he has an overwhelming need to protect her, the thought of her huddled under the stream of water, crying in the ball gown she’d loved so much, until she felt numb, left him wanting to hit something, he couldn’t stand it, the very thought of her being hurt like that was tearing him apart, stinging his eyes with angry tears.

He stands up and puts the pages inside his bag, then silently he walks to her and wraps his arms around her waist, she lets out a steady breath before she leans her head back against him, and it’s only when she does this that he notices she’d been crying.

‘Did you ever tell anyone what happened?’ His words come out choked with ranged emotions; anger, sadness, sympathy, and weakness, feeling like he can’t do enough to help her. He clears his throat and speaks again, ‘your parents or someone else you felt you could trust?’