Worse Than Boys(28)

‘Aye, it takes a while for her to get a message, doesn’t it?’ This was Wizzie. She popped the chewing gum she had stuck behind her ear back in her mouth. ‘No longer welcome. Even I can read that one.’

Heather helped Geraldine to her feet. ‘Good going, Gerry,’ she said. ‘We would have won if that git hadn’t interfered.’

In your dreams, I wanted to say. Why couldn’t I?

They all moved off, until only Wizzie was left, standing across from me, chewing her gum, sneering at me.

‘All alone, eh, Driscoll? Och, don’t cry. You won’t be alone for long … cos one dark night me and the lassies’ll get you and show you just what being alone means …’

And she swaggered off and left me. Alone. And for the first time, scared.





Chapter Twenty-Five


Why couldn’t I stop crying? Why was I so miserable? Every afternoon I’d go home from school and try to eat my dinner, though every morsel stuck in my throat. Half the time I threw it all up later. I’d go into my room and try to concentrate on my homework. But it would bring back memories of how homework was always interrupted by phone calls and texts between us all. The phone never rang now. No one called me. I tried to pretend it didn’t matter. I’d go to bed and pull the covers over my head and hope when I woke up everything would have changed back.

I had turned into a different person. Where was the old Hannah, the one I could rely on? I waited to hear her voice deep within me, whispering to me, Who needs them? You can manage without them. But she had deserted me along with my friends. Friends! I didn’t have any friends any more.

Feeling sorry for me?

Don’t bother. I was feeling sorry enough for myself. Every night I’d end up crying. No matter what I did to try and stop myself. Putting on my favourite comedy video only seemed to make things worse. I remembered how Heather had bought it for my birthday. Reading a funny book, I couldn’t even see the words through my tears. Finally, I’d give up, get into bed and just cry myself to sleep.

Perhaps it would have helped if I’d had brothers or sisters. This would never have happened to Erin with her protective family brood surrounding her. Big brother teasing her, her sisters spending time with her to take her mind off it.

But I had no one. Not even a favourite aunt to confide in. My mother and her sister didn’t talk any more. They’d been ‘estranged’ for years. ‘Estranged’ was one of my mother’s favourite words. She used it so often. She was ‘estranged’ from most people. And that made me wonder if it ran in the family, this knack of losing friends, becoming ‘estranged’. Was I my mother’s daughter? I hoped not. I didn’t want to be like my mother.

My mind was in a constant turmoil, thinking all the time. It was because I had no one to talk to. No one except my mother, and I didn’t want to talk to her. In a weak moment I told her about the fight outside school, about Wizzie’s threat. She almost hit the roof, and I shut her up by telling her that Wizzie had started another fight with someone else and had forgotten about me.

Yet I knew she was worried about me. She never stopped asking me about what was happening at school, watching for my answer, knowing I was lying when I’d tell her everything was fine.

One night, she came into my room. She looked as if she’d been crying too. ‘This just can’t go on, Hannah,’ she said. ‘Every night you’re stuck in this room. You sleep half the time. You don’t go out any more. I don’t know how to help you if you don’t talk to me.’

How could I talk to her? The last time I’d confided in her she’d gone on the phone to Erin’s mother. I couldn’t risk that again.

‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘I just need time.’

She sat on the bed. Did I look like her? I wondered. I’d never thought so, but now as I caught a glimpse of us together in my mirrored wardrobe, our hair messy, our faces streaked with tears, I saw a distinct resemblance.

Like mother, like daughter.

I didn’t want to be like my mother.

‘I’ve been thinking a lot about this, Hannah.’ She pushed back her hair the way she always did when she was nervous. ‘What do you think about changing schools?’

Changing schools. I hadn’t considered that at all. Starting afresh, making a new set of friends. For the first time in ages I felt my heart lift. I could change schools, pretend none of this had ever happened. And then my mother said something that made me realise I could never do it.

‘That’s what I would do in your position. Just move away, leave it all behind you.’