Scarred Roses

Chapter 10 part 2-a question of loyalty

Wednesday went by just as most Wednesday’s did. Slowly. Of all days of the school week, Wednesday was approached with caution for two reasons. First, it was the day that officially marked the middle of the week. Not the beginning, or the end, but smack-bang in the middle. Second, it gave us afternoon study-periods. A class that was often perceived to be an ‘easy-ditch’, but that was far from the truth. In reality, study-period was essentially, an entire hour of an off-duty teacher, glaring at you as you gradually worked through the mountains of unnecessary homework and/or revision of curricular literature that dragged on with irrelevant facts and, my personal favourite, the importance of structuring a twelve-page long, academic essay. Study period tended to feel like hours if you didn’t have something to do-luckily for me, I had a list of things I needed to do. To the relief of my sanity, not all of them were homework.

I had an idea of what I was going to do for English, in regard to our ‘pursuit of happiness’ assignment. A slideshow of pictures; recorded memories of how the little things bring happiness to a person, and why we ought to pursue them more often. I told the group about it over lunchtime, and they were all glad to participate. My aim of the whole thing was to do it without even having the project in mind. I know it sounded complicated, but it really wasn’t. I took photographs of my friends all the time! If I could just keep that habit, then remember I was gathering evidence for the project, then it was rather simple. Plus, I really did have to work on my public presentations. Most of the time, I could hardly read out a passage in front of the class without blushing.

Classes came and went with little learnt, and yet, more revision and homework. Our lunch hour ended too soon for our liking, with the impending doom of study-period looming over our heads like a rainy cloud. Study period was the only class that had all of us together; an ironic fact, considering it was the least fun class of the week. But if we had to suffer, at least we were suffering together. Bridget, however? Bridget had a different opinion entirely.

“She’s got to be the most uptight teacher I’ve ever had!” She grumbled, as we travelled down the crowded corridor. “The way she stares! Like she’s got nothing better to do than finding the silliest reasons to persecute us.”

“Mrs Germaine isn’t the worst teacher we could have.” Leo pointed out, “I’m pretty sure all that bitterness is down to her nervous breakdown last year.”

“Hardly a nervous breakdown,” Ingrid scoffed, “More like she was drawing inspiration from one of Hitler’s speeches.”

“Nonetheless, she was stressed out. Who could blame her, with that class?” The class Leo was referring to was a year ten English class, made up of the most infuriating, fourteen-year-olds I’d ever seen. It was never actually said just how far they went with their rebellion, but it was enough to harden her exterior to that of a disciplined General.

“Still, we haven’t done anything wrong!” Bridget complained, “We’re year twelves! The sensible, mature kinds. And who cares if we talk a little now and then; as long as we’re getting the work done, we’re not hurting anybody.”

“Well, should you wish to pencil us in for a new study-period monitor, go right ahead.” Ingrid said in agreement. “But for now, we’ve just got to frown and bear it. We’ll get a new study-period monitor next year, and whoever that may be is bound to be more relaxed than Mrs Germaine.”

“Ooh! I hope we get Mr. Yates!” Flora quipped, “He thinks that talking whilst working encourages improvement in creative schoolwork. Eases up the brain-flow.”

“I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a good point.” I added, “When Nick and I do homework- “

“Wait-you and Nick? What happened to Nicholas?” Ingrid raised an eyebrow. Apparently, they didn’t seem to know.

“I’ve told you we’ve come to a truce.” I reminded her, “We’ve agreed to call one another by our actual names, and it’s working for us.”

“But you never said anything about homework,” Marlon said, sounding a little sceptical.

“He’s asked me to tutor him in English,” I explained, “I said as long as you don’t expect me to do all the work for you, then I’ll help. He’s doing The Great Gatsby for his literature studies, so I figured the American Dream would be a tricky subject for anybody.”

“While I can’t argue with that notion, I am curious.” Leo said. Of course he was. “You hate him, and he hates you. And I understand that he helped you back at the pool, but this?”

“There’s nothing else to it! We’re just two high-schoolers, doing homework together. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Even the truth was laced with lies. I’d told them about forming a truce with Nick, doing homework with Nick, and just getting along for the sake of my parents. What I hadn’t told them yet that it wasn’t just a ruse; Nick and I were getting close, and there was no stopping it. Yesterday, he hugged me for the first time; it could’ve been called a friendly hug at first glance, but it certainly felt like more to me. A best buddy wouldn’t pull me to his bare chest, he wouldn’t bury his face in my neck so deep, it seemed as if he wouldn’t come out again. A best buddy wouldn’t hold me so tight, it felt like they didn’t want to let me go. I didn’t know what that hug meant yet, but it wasn’t platonic. It was just…something. It was something.

Marlon opened the door and one by one, we filed into our study class. An empty room, mostly used for History and Social-studies was used as our study room on Wednesday afternoons. The only thing missing? Mrs Germaine. She was never late for study-period! Perhaps she’d called in sick? I looked to the others, who mirrored my curiosity. Where was our uptight, owl-bespectacled supervisor?

“Mrs Germaine’s on vacation!” Jesse announced as we settled at our allotted desk. “Announcement was made this morning.”

“Then how come we haven’t heard about it?” Marlon asked him.

“It was a staff-room meeting.” Tahlia began to explain. “It turns out that Mrs Germaine hadn’t quite recovered from her stint with the year tens. She was having a tiff with Mrs Haze in her office, regarding house duties. According to Ella Pratt, who was waiting outside for a uniform pass, Mrs Haze wanted Mrs Germaine to take more responsibility regarding choir and an up-coming poetry slam, and Mrs Germaine told her she was under too much stress. ‘What kind of stress could you possibly have? All you do is sit in a classroom on your fat ass, watching kids rolling joints and talking about how many girls they’ve shagged’. She pretty much lost it after that. Called Mrs Haze all sorts of names, even ones I can’t understand, then when she got to the staff-room, she grabbed Mrs Haze’s ‘teacher of the year’ mug and threw it across the room! Smashed it into nothing, in front of half the teachers in the school!”

Mrs Germaine did that? I knew she had a temper, but that sounded like a little much, even for her.

“She can’t have! What if she’d hurt someone?” I questioned, turning to Ingrid to confirm her mutual disbelief.

“That’s the thing about fits of rage,” Jesse mused, “When you’re having one, you’re barely aware of your own actions. You do things you wouldn’t normally do.”

“Look at you, being all logical.” Flora smirked, “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“I’ve got a lot of things to offer a person, Miss Field.” He smirked right back. “And I know a lot of people are willing to find out what they are.”

“We’ll see,” And with that, she slunk into her chair. This was…interesting. I didn’t think Flora knew Jesse particularly well at all, let alone flirted with him. “So what’s going on then? Are we getting a substitute?”

“No-apparently, we’re being mixed with a senior, study-group.” Tahlia informed us. “Since Senior study-periods are mostly unsupervised, they thought it’d be a good idea to put seniors in our class for studying so that we wouldn’t have to be monitored all the time. There’s only about six or seven of them, so it pretty much just makes up our maximum.”

Shrugging it off, I did a rummage through my bag for the things I needed for this afternoon. My paisley-patterned binder for English, my History questionnaire on the War of the roses, and the assigned library book to go with it, and my notebook for general ideas and planning. I started out with the most difficult-History revision. It was a detailed questionnaire, and the only way to get every answer was to read the assigned chapter thoroughly and remember what was there. The writing was giving my hand a cramp, and I was only onto my third paragraph, but I was getting through quickly enough. Later on, we’d use all this material to form a proper essay; four pages, double-sided if I knew our History teacher.

“Why hello there, seedlings!” Anton? He was part of the class blend? “I was told we’d be blending with some year twelves, I’m glad to know it’s you guys. Nick, come on! We’ll grab a seat at the neighbouring table.”

Nick?! What was it with this school and pushing us into further into proximity?

“Hey Hazel,” He greeted me politely, “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Uh, we don’t mean to be rude, but we’ve got homework to do. So if you would leave us to it?” Bridget retorted frostily. She obviously wasn’t buying his nice-guy attitude.

“Say no more, guys. Learning feeds the brain, and homework is a big part of that. We’ve got a biology paper to work on ourselves, so knuckle down and reap in the new knowledge.”

Despite feeling the need to say something more, I turned back to my respective study-group and devoted my attention to the planning of my English assignment. It would be a fifteen slide-long video depicting different stages of natural happiness, with a very brief explanation of each picture, and some words at the beginning and end, presenting my hypothesis and bringing it back to the main point. Already, I was feeling excited about this. I could name about a two-dozen things in a week that occurred to make people feel just a small shred of happiness. Whether it be finding a lucky coin on the footpath, or a stranger picking up something you dropped, then giving it back to you. For as long as time itself, people have spent years, pursuing their vision of eternal happiness. What they didn’t realise was that happiness could be found in everything and anything! It wasn’t eternal happiness; but a fleeting bout was better than no happiness at all. Well, that was what I thought. And I said as much in my notes for the project, before I spent a few, short minutes sketching out a messy storyboard.

“Hazel?” Ingrid was waving her hand over my eyes, trying to draw me from my coma-like concentration. “Did you hear what we said?”

“Oh-sorry. I was just finishing up. What were you saying?”

“We’re all going to the square to decompress,” Flora said, “I could kill for a caramel-popcorn shake and a nice, big basket of curly-fries!”

“You’d share them though, wouldn’t you?” Ingrid elbowed her with a grin. “One person cannot eat all those curly-fries.”

“Care to wager on that?” Flora said in her sing-song voice. “I’m so hungry, I could eat two horses, and a pony to cleanse my pallet.”

“I sure hope you’re talking metaphorically!” I giggled, “I’m good for my allowance so I’ll text mum and let her know. Oh-but I want to pick up my camera from home first, so can you guys wait for me?”

“Sure,” Ingrid beamed, “Just don’t take too long.”

“Don’t take too long!” Someone whispered, sneering to themselves. A trail of snide giggles in suit. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted those girls, just three of them, sitting in a corner by themselves. Glaring at us mockingly like they thought we didn’t notice.

“Ignore them,” Bridget sighed, boredly. “Shantell Travers just wants you and Nicholas in the same room and her minions, Lana and Diane have nothing better to do.”

We tried. I tried to immerse myself in some designs for the Melody costume, Leo tried to get lost in his Classic’s homework: Odin and his family. Bridget and Flora were trying to focus on their collaboration skit for drama, and Marlon had sheet music to work on. But even then, they were trying to get to us. Ingrid’s hand was clenching and unclenching around her pen; a sure sign that her patience was thinning. She looked just about ready to slap one of them, square in their smug, unaffected faces, and if they went any further, I wouldn’t have stopped her. I just wished that clock on the wall could go faster. Just fifteen minutes, I told myself, and they were somebody else’s problem.

“Aww, they’re not talking to us,” Lana cooed, “Awfully snobby, aren’t they?”

“They’re probably just jealous because we had Trevor all to ourselves that weekend!” Diane cackled, throwing an evil glance towards me. “All you had to do was say something Hazel, and we would’ve backed off. He even wanted to buy you a drink that night!”

As I felt my rocks weighing down in the pit of my belly, Ingrid was just about ready to march up to them and put them in their place. They knew it all started with a drink; drinks he was giving to everybody that night and plying them on me. Did they have no filters? Did they never know when to leave it alone?!

“Look, she’s going red!” Shantell chortled, “Well, we know one thing for certain; whores can blush after all.”

There was a sound of rough scraping against the lineal-floor. A chair, I guessed, being pushed back, and the sound of heavy shoes, pounding across the ground. I thought it might’ve been Ingrid, or perhaps Bridget, but both of them remained seated. I swivelled in my chair to see what was going on, and who should it be, looming over Shantell but Nick? And he was furious.

“You do not talk to her like that, you pathetic, little brat!” He snarled, right to her face, just daring her to cross him. “Where do you get off, picking on people who’ve done nothing to you? Defending that scumbag?! You think you’ve got some sort of hold over her? Over her friends? All you’re doing is making yourself look more and more like the poisonous bitches you really are.”

“We’re poisonous? Take a look at yourself, dear Nicholas.” Shantell purred, the same, old purr she adopted whenever she had something devious in mind for one of her favourite victims. “You could’ve been one of us, and you still could. But just look at what you’ve done to yourself; throwing coward-punches, picking fights, and all for that little nothing. Why are you doing it? What makes her so special, so deserving of your defence? Of anybody else’s for that matter?”

“Because she’s so much better than you will ever be.” He hissed. I saw the look on her face; he’d gotten to her. He’d succeeded in piercing through her barrier and probing at some of her biggest insecurities. “Do you honestly think he will love you if you keep his reputation clean? You really are deluded. He is a heartless user and he always will be a heartless user.”

“You don’t talk about him like that! You…you- “Her words were lost. Trapped inside. Her secret was out, and not only had Nick heard it, he’d drawn it out of her like honey from a bee-hive.

“You, you what? Scumbag? Loser? Monster? It doesn’t matter. So you love him: poor you. He’s not going to love you back, you know, that right? All he see’s you as is somebody to do his bidding. Hurt his enemies, bully his victims, keep his friends happy. But there’s going to come a time where you’ll get tired of all that, and it’s only when you’ll want to leave that you’ll realise you’re so far in it, you’ll never get out again.”

The entire class was speechless. Jesse’s was gaping like a goldfish; Flora’s eyes were practically bulging (an acquired skill that both impressed and frightened me at times) and Marlon looked as if he were watching a cliff-hanger on a soap-opera. I couldn’t believe it. If I thought the stories of the first verbal-lashing were bad, then this was…this was much bigger. In a few minutes no-less, Nick Koster had just reduced one of the nastiest bullies in Derby High to a small, cowering mouse. He’d knocked her straight off of her pedestal she’d built for herself and exposed every one of her insecurities, and one of her most well-guarded secrets. She was in love with Trevor. She made up stories about me, that I had some sort of silly, high school crush on Trevor and when things didn’t work out for me, I made up some pathetic sob-story of assault. When in reality, she was the one who had some pathetic crush! She’d do anything to have him, even if it meant making a fourteen-year-old girl, a minor look like some attention-seeking liar. I didn’t feel sorry for her, I pitied her, I resented her. She knew the truth, and she didn’t care. All she ever wanted was his love, and she didn’t care who she had to hurt to get it.

“Hazel?” Ingrid touched my arm, drawing slowly from the mess that was a tearful Shantell who had no snide comments to protect herself. “We should go now.”

It wasn’t time to leave yet, but there was no way I could’ve stayed. So we made our excuses to Anton and he allowed us to leave without a second-guess. It was deadly-silent in the corridor; completely empty, with only the echo of our footsteps, snapping against the hard-lineal. The others were leading the way, but I was lagging behind. There was something I had to do first, but I wasn’t certain what that was yet.

“Hazel!” Nick was pursuing me down the hall. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

The others looked at me, waiting for an answer. I think I knew what I needed to do before I went off with them to laugh our troubles away.

“You guys go on ahead, I’ll catch up with you.”

“Are you sure?” Ingrid asked me. I just nodded, with an assuring look. Willing her to follow Leo and the others so they could go and have fun.

Eventually, they did disappear, around the corner and down the stairs. Leaving Nick to catch up with me. I looked at him and he looked at me; something had to be said, to compensate for this somehow, but when I tried to find the words, they got all jumbled and muddled up in the journey from my brain, down to my mouth.

“I didn’t mean to lose it,” He blurted out, “I just didn’t like the way she was talking about you. And then when she called you that-that name, I just wanted her to shut up. To stop all the bullshit for once and listen to what I had to say for a change. Was that so bad of me?”

“I…” I think he expected me to say something else. Certainly not what I was thinking, that’s for sure. “I think it was about time somebody said that.”

“Really?” He asked, a mixture of hope and confusion in his eyes and in his voice.

“I had a feeling that she carried a torch for Trevor, more than any of the others did, though I can’t imagine why. I just never said anything to her because I didn’t want to stoop to her level. She painted me as the school-girl with the silly crush that got out of control; if I did that to her, I’d be just as bad.”

“But there’s a difference between her and you.” He insisted, “You would’ve been telling the truth; you’ve always told the truth. It’s one of the things I like about you.”

He was pointedly ignoring that one time in my life where I never told the truth. The entire year I’d blatantly lied to everybody I loved, because I thought that I was protecting them. There might’ve been a big difference between Shantell Travers and myself, but in the end, lying was still lying.

“I just wanted to say…thank you.” I told him, unbelievably calm. “I’ve been trying to teach myself to fight my own battles, but it does feel good when somebody stands up for you. Believes in you. I don’t think you said anything wrong; in fact, everything was right.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I wouldn’t have said so if I didn’t.”

It wasn’t something we could’ve planned; it never was. He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I flung mine around his neck. My head upon his shoulder, his hidden in my neck. We were hugging, like long-lost friends, or relatives, in the middle of an empty corridor. It was random, strange and probably insane in the eyes of others. And I couldn’t really explain it, but it felt like we both just needed it. Like there was nobody else who could understand this but him for me, and I for him.

“Every time I spoke up for somebody, I was always told that I’ve done something wrong.” He murmured, “Either I spoke out of turn or disrespected my elders or acted without thinking. They could never accept that it was just who I was, and that I never meant anything bad by them. I mean, how could I? They were my family.”

“Maybe they didn’t want you to get in trouble,” I suggested, letting my hand brush against the soft, unruly waves of his hair. “With other people. People who wouldn’t understand you, who didn’t want to.”

“They never said as much,” he chuckled bitterly. “If I had it though, it would’ve been enough. Just the slightest indication that what I’d done wasn’t a complete disgrace to them.”

“I think they knew it,” I said, “I can’t know for certain how they felt-even less than you do. But I think deep down, they were proud and appreciated you. I think one day, when you were older and wiser, they planned to tell you this, and let you know that they were proud to have a son as loyal as you. You don’t open up easily to strangers, but to the people you love and care about, you’re as loyal as they come. You protect them, even if you take it too far, they’re never far from your conscience.”

He tightened the hold around my waist, sighing deeply into my neck. It was reassurance he was long due for, and I felt proud to be the one to give it to him.

“Where were you back in London?” He said, “When I was starting High School? When I started losing it more and more, and there was nobody who understood? If we’d been friends back then, I wouldn’t be feeling like this all the time. I wouldn’t be so angry at them, I wouldn’t have let them leave- “He was buried so deep, that nobody could see it. The tears, dampening his lashes, falling onto the collar of my blouse and wetting the fabric against my skin. Nobody knew about it, except for me. His pain; the pain he buried, deep down within him, smothering it in hate and anger and projecting that onto me. He used the hate and anger as a stopper; a blockage for grief. And now that the stopper had been lifted, there was nothing to keep from emerging. And for lack of family, or friends from back home, I was the best he had. The only shoulder he wanted to cry on at this point.

“I’m here now,” Was what I told him as I held him carefully. “And as long as you want me here, I’ll be there for you as long as you need it.”

“And what if I just want it?”

“Then I wouldn’t have the heart to tell you no.”

We stood there for what could’ve been quite a while. Just holding each other, neither of us really wanting to let go. It was the bell that brought us out of our daydream. And with that bell, came a swarm of students, eager to escape the stuffy confines of their afternoon classes. As they began to file through the hall, we sprang apart. Nick, brushing the lone tears from his cheeks as if he were merely scratching an itch. I understood; not even Leo allowed himself to cry in front of strangers over something they couldn’t have understood.

“You said you needed to stop at the house first?” He said, “We can walk together. There’s no point in me sticking around this place anyway.”

“You know, if you wanted you could join us.” I suggested, “I think you’ve earned a build-a-shake after today.”

“Thanks, but I think I’d better stay scarce,” He said, “Your friends still don’t approve of me, I think.”

“After what you’ve done, I think I can safely say they’ll be fine to see you there.”

“I just don’t think I’ll make you guys good company.” He told me in earnest. “You go and have fun. There’s some things I need to do at home anyway.”

“Alright…well, if you change your mind, you know where we are.”

“Yes,” He turned to me and smiled. The rare, vulnerable kind of smile he seldom shared with anyone. “I’ll know how to find you.”

Nick

She really didn’t know, did she? How sweet it was, getting to know her. In these past weeks, ever since the accident at the pool, things have been changing so much in such a short amount of time, it was all very hard to keep up. I was getting to know my former enemy, and every time we talked, I was learning something new. On the first occasion beside Lilac Lake, I’d learnt that she was funny. On the second at Lilac Lake, I learnt that she was smart, on the third walking to school, I’d learnt that she never compromised when it came to being herself. On the fourth, as we did our homework I’d learnt that she was loyal to her family. And today, I learnt that she really was a good friend. Not just to her own mates, but to me too. Me! After all I’ve done to her, everything she’s been through, she’d still chosen me to be her friend. She was that kind and open, she was willing to turn her greatest enemy into a close acquaintance. It was amazing. She was amazing.

Seeing her today, seeing her with her friends, nose, deep in her history book, doing the work she was supposed to do, instead of laughing and joking around with her mates, it was interesting. She had this habit of chewing on her lower-lip as she concentrated and tracing her fingertips over the sought-after sentences that was kind of cute. Sometimes, when she needed to memorize something, she’d whisper the answer to herself a few times before she could jot it down in her exercise book. It was such a nice sight to behold, I thought that nothing or any person had the right to disturb it. So when that girl, Shantell, they called her, started to sneer down at Hazel, my Hazel, I had to do something. The only reason Shantell could be this malicious was because of some pathetic crush on a would-be r****t. How could she want to hurt somebody so badly, over a guy who clearly wasn’t worth anyone’s time? How much was she willing to risk for that guy? I asked her as much, and she just smirked at me, and wandering if I was doing the exact, same thing. She had some nerve. As if she thought Hazel could ever be as bad as that scumbag!

But as much as Shantell angered me today, that wasn’t the thing I couldn’t get out of my mind. Once again, Hazel never failed to make an impression on me. When I put my arms around her, when I held her, I felt…safe. Like I could let my guard down with her, and she wouldn’t betray it. And it was with her that I’d begun to feel something I’d kept hidden from everybody else. How much I missed them. How I missed going for drives with my dad, hearing him talk about the good-old days with Uncle Walt and his mates. How I missed watching my mother in the kitchen; kneading challah dough in her dainty, flour-coated hands and twisting it into a perfect plait. How I missed being with Alice; helping her with her homework, taking her to the movies, reading her bedtime stories whenever she had nightmares. I felt like I could miss them with her. As long as she held onto me, I could feel things like grief and sadness and not have to feel ashamed of myself. I…I wondered if she could feel that way with me too. She said she trusted me, and that she wanted to be my friend. Could she ever trust me enough to open up as I had? Maybe even tell me about Trevor?

No, no, I wasn’t going to ask that of her. She had only just become my friend; probing into a part of her past she clearly wanted to forget about was too evasive. But…if she ever wanted to tell me, on her own accord, I wouldn’t object to listening, as she’d listened to me. I’d just have to be patient. She didn’t trust me as much as she trusted Ingrid, that Leo-guy and all the others, and I certainly had no right to call her my Hazel, but it was time that had gotten us this far. Maybe more of it would cement me into this family. This town. Her.