Maybe I wanted to sleep for ever.
I stared at her box of tablets and felt my face come out in a cold sweat.
Bet they’d all be sorry then.
I pictured my mum coming home and finding me in bed. She wouldn’t worry, not then. I was always in bed early now. It would be morning before the panic would set in. She would come into my room and not be able to wake me up.
And they would all get the blame.
I could see the headlines.
THEY DROVE HER TO SUICIDE
And it would all come out, everything they had done to me. There would be an inquiry. An outcry. My story would be discussed on television. It would never happen again, some politician would promise.
And then, there would be my funeral.
I saw my coffin in the church, draped in white, a gold crucifix placed on top of it. And Erin, and Heather, and Rose, and all the rest would cower in the back, sobbing tears of shame. No one would talk to them. They’d be isolated. Alone.
Let them cry, I thought. A sea of tears wouldn’t make up for what they’d done to me.
It would be too late.
Too late for me.
Too late for them.
All I had to do was open that bottle and swallow those tablets.
That was all.
So simple.
I would have my revenge.
Chapter Thirty
How long did I stand there in the bathroom just staring at those pills? It was as if time stood still. All I could think about was how I could make them all sorry for the way they had treated me.
But I wouldn’t be around to enjoy my revenge. I’d be dead and gone. I wouldn’t be able to see my funeral, witness their tears of misery, see the trouble they would be in. It would only be fun if I could leap out of my coffin at the right moment and yell at them, ‘Gotya!’
Erin really would pee her pants then.
And that was what brought a smile to my lips. A smile. When was the last time I had smiled? Here I was in the depths of despair, and I was smiling. It was as if the old me was fighting to get through. The old Hannah who smiled all the time, who never let anything get her down.
I tried to think straight. What was it that was lifting my spirits from somewhere deep inside me? As if a trapped animal was struggling to get out.
The old me. A faint voice was calling to me. Don’t do it. I want to live.
I stared at myself in the mirror. What a mess I had become. Hardly bothering to fix my hair, dark circles under my eyes, my face drawn and streaked with tears.
And why?
Because my friends had deserted me. They had turned on me. I had sworn to them that I wasn’t the one who had told everyone Erin’s secret, and they hadn’t believed me. I had done everything to get them back. I had humiliated myself in front of the whole school, and it still wasn’t enough. They wouldn’t have me.
The voice inside me was getting louder, and I listened.
I had come to this because there was nowhere else for me to go. No other road for me to take. I was frightened and alone.
Yet something inside wanted them to know what they’d done to me. And pay for it.
What do you do if you’re chased up a one-way street and find yourself trapped? When there’s nowhere else for you to go and they’re all after you?
Do you cower in a corner and plead for mercy?
No.
You turn and fight.
The voice inside me grew louder still.
It was the thought of revenge that had made me smile. But I had to be here to see that revenge, not dead and buried under the ground, food for worms.
Getting my own back on every last one of them. How great would that be?
Making them pay for what they had done to me.
I was trembling. But it wasn’t fear or despair any more. It was determination. They had got me to this point. The point where I was ready to take those pills and end it all.
I suddenly realised that I would have no revenge that way. They would simply say I was weak, like my mother. I pictured those headlines again. Only this time they read.
HANNAH DRISCOLL, A VICTIM OF SUICIDE
And that would be how I would be remembered – a victim.
Not good enough, not for Hannah Driscoll.
I had let a bunch of so-called friends drag me down so low that I had no pride.
The real me had been buried under all that shame. Now she was clawing her way back. She was telling me I couldn’t let them win. Her voice was bellowing in my ear now.
I could either go back to school tomorrow, cowering like a wimp, or I could stride in, with my head held high.
What was it I had always had, and they loved me for it?
Attitude.
And suddenly, it was like that magical moment when a dolphin breaks the surface of the ocean and leaps into the air. I felt my attitude leap to the surface, just like that.
I felt it fill my body like blood pumping through my veins. Bringing with it new life. That’s exactly how I felt. I was beginning a new life. It was the most wonderful moment I could remember.