Chapter 6 - Jump Into the Fog

     RING! RING!

It was April's first day at McKinley High, and she was completely lost.

She was in the right classroom and knew her way around enough " it wasn't that. She was lost emotionally. She was lost into a completely new world, a new environment with new teenagers. And somehow, she'd gotten lost in the middle of it all.

She'd never been to a new school before. She would never do anything to draw attention to herself or become noticed. She was most comfortable when being hidden away, like what she was used to. No needless interactions. No pointless conversations. No friendships.

But it was hard to avoid being noticed now. She was the new girl. A twist in the structure to the average day. There was a new girl in school. Everyone involved had to make a decision as to whether or not they would allow this to affect them or not.

April had already made hers.

She felt herself shying away under her fringe as the teacher whose name she'd forgotten already introduced her to the rest of the class. She was stood uncomfortably at the front with a firm hand (supposedly to comfort her) resting joyfully upon her cutting shoulder-blade. The hand, already seeming to be friendlier than her classmates, patted her assuringly then sent her off to her new assigned seat.

She was sat at the back, on her own. The hand's owner assured her that this would only be a temporary arrangement. She, however, hoped for the opposite.

April had been moved to McKinley as a result of her misbehaviour. She had learnt her lesson. Never again would she break a rule. A sacred rule. Her mother had moved her away to start a new life as a punishment for letting her mind wander not only up the road and back, but hop on a plane and zoom all the way to a whole new world. A world full of suspicion and doubt, but most of all love.

Love can be a very dangerous thing, she'd learnt.

It was now a few months after 'the incident'. That's what she'd been referring to it as to no one in particular " that night when her mother had gone mad and ripped out her own hair because April had broken lots of the rules because she was a stupid, stupid little girl who didn't have a clue about anything. Her mother's words.

In all honesty, April agreed. She was stupid for thinking those things. She shouldn't have disobeyed. But, above all, she didn't have a clue. No one told her things, she never asked about things. So she never gained any knowledge on matters above science and history and maths and French and all the other subjects she was forced to participate in thanks to the manager of all things education.

She'd been surprised at how quickly the process had been, having previously thought it took months to move schools. It had barely been the one.

She peered around the classroom as she weaved through the desks and people sat behind them. The walls presented a typical school; covered in helpful words and phrases in colourful bubble letters surrounded by hand-drawn posters. This particular classroom " her form room " appeared to be a maths room. A board was decorated with promotions of a maths website available to students for revision. The hands belonging to the comical clock hanging proudly upon the bleak walls surrounding her ticked steadily onwards like one step after another on an endless walk, clicking tediously every second " the kind that you only hear if you focus your attention on it.

April decided not to do so, and instead focused her attention outside in the welcoming windows that bullied their way into inhabiting nearly an entire wall of the room. She watched cars roar past the window on the motorway in the distance, their engines grumbling and moaning about the unfairness of having to whir on so powerfully at so near the beginning of the week. She watched trees sway peacefully, holding their leafy arms up as a truce to anyone causing trouble.

And then she saw the big metal gate outlining the borders of the school guarding the boundaries with the feared risk of being introduced to one of those disagreeable spikes at the top of the fence. Oh " there's a surprise. I'm trapped even at school, too.

As McKinley finished approximately an hour later than her previous school due to the later start and longer breaks, April no longer got to walk home and instead would have to wait outside those big metal gates for her parents to pick her up on their way home from work this evening.

Her last school had consisted of 5-days-a-week that were comparable to a long walk in tight shoes.

She had an odd feeling that this school wouldn't be any better than the last.

In fact, if possible, it looked as though from the scowls following her to her seat at the back, it could be even worse.

Mia felt bad. She hadn't meant to drive the poor girl away to another school! She had simply meant to send her a 'hands-off' message. She just liked Jake so much and didn't want anyone to ruin it. That's not selfish, is it? She'd hate anyone to think her as haughty. There couldn't have been a worse outcome to her little impetuous stunt. She hated thinking that Jake might consider her as the type of person to consider others to be inconsequential.

Anyway, maybe it was best the freak had left. She'd never fitted in at Greendale anyway. It was probably in her best interest to start again. You know, maybe make some friends and that.

Mia herself felt like doing the opposite. Franki was still being childish about everything, and now she was in a mature relationship, she simply didn't have time for pretending to laugh at jokes that would never be funny and pretending to care about matters that she would never really care about.

Is unfriending someone something people did often?

She could always feel her eyes involuntarily rolling obviously to the back of her head whenever Franki opened her gob. Whereas Franki, oblivious to the whole situation, would continue to see Mia's relationship as a 'gossip-opportunity' and say the worst thing anyone could possibly think to say to conclude Mia's every sentence.

Anyway, pushing all irritating, nagging, annoying thoughts to the back of her mind, Mia tried to make herself look good.

She was singing an old pop song to herself ask she worked on every aspect of her appearance, her slight accent humming around, bouncing off the walls of the room and echoing through the shiny painted door which had been locked for over an hour.

On her side of the door, there was an immaculate shower with a matching sink. Both had silver taps which hadn't been tooth-paste spat all over which most taps usually have. The toilet had an amazing seat which fell neatly back down unless you held it up, which Mia liked very much. That way, no male family member could forget to put it down.

On the floor lay a pleasant rug which appeared to be brand new. She had felt obliged to tread on it multiple times on her first entrance, just to make sure it had some wear. She was very much enjoying seeing all the new things her mum had ordered for the redecoration process of their house. It was nice to walk into her bathroom and rest her eyes upon a brand new rug that had appeared as if from nowhere.

There was a full length mirror attached firmly on to the tiled wall, as if it was clinging on for dear life. And, in front of that mirror, sucking in her stomach and pouting her lips, was Mia.

Getting ready takes a very long time, but she thought she was finally there. She was dressed in the unflattering school uniform in preparation for the day ahead of her. The grey pleated skirt shifted awkwardly around her thin waist, and the shirt flailed inelegantly on top of it. With one last shove, it eventually got the message and agreed to being tugged into place. At last.

This new arrangement gave her figure a slender silhouette, and as she rotated and analysed her reflection in detail, a sly smile of satisfaction crept over her face.

Her hair was also impressive. It was tied back in to a high bun, which made her face seem a little less plump and her cheekbones a little higher. A combination of these somehow resulted in her smile being brighter. Not a hair out of place; each strand curved round her skull and gave her an out-line. The sharpness of her lipstick was a prick from a needle; sophisticated berry red, shade 16. It complimented her olive skin, which was coated in bucket-loads of sticky promising-to-give-you-clear-skin-in-just-three-days-for-just-fifty-pounds creams and thick foundation to hide her few blemishes, imperfections and freckles.

It would surely last a while.

Studying her final appearance in the mirror for one last time before emerging from the bathroom, Mia slipped on her blazer over the top of her shirt and turned her back on reflection-her.

Finally, she grasped the golden handle, which was gripping firmly to the door like it already had a fist around it. She slowly twisted her wrist around noticed how good her nails looked from a distance; manicured and covered in a clear overcoat for strength. Up close, however, you could easily notice the dry skin around the edge, and her cuticles creeping closer to the tips each day.

She was going to town straight after school with Jake and a few of their mates, so she simultaneously checked she had packed the correct school books for the day and grabbed a few extra items that she would never need for afterwards for the purposes of Just In Case.

Lipstick- for topping up, mobile phone- for pretending to be engaged in a text conversation if there was ever a point she ended up on her own for a few minutes, hand sanitiser- in case she touched something unsanitary, a rubber- in case she made an unjustified error, ohhh, some mints- in case she ate garlic, a nail file- in case one of her nails broke off, some scissors- in case she needed to open something, an old blob of blue tack- you never know, some bobbles- in case it got windy, a tiny pocket light- in case it got dark and she got lost...

If she didn't leave now she would be late for her first lesson at school. Stuffing a few more unnecessary items into her bag but unknowingly leaving the most important " purse " behind, she trotted down the stairs avoiding touching the walls which according to the post-it note reading 'WET PAINT, DON'T TOUCH. ESPECIALLY YOU, MIA!' were off-limits for accidentally imprinting DNA.

She couldn't wait until it was her bedroom's turn to be redecorated. It seemed as though every other square inch of her house had been changed.

Still absent-mindedly humming that old pop song as she wandered to school, she planned out what she would have done to it as she walked.

April stood in front of the class. Her voice shook as each word dripped consciously from her dry lips. Her throat screamed inside her. Her mind was a vacuum; refusing to provide her with a corresponding sentence. She'd never been most comfortable in the role of orator.

She'd never wanted anything more but to develop evanescence at this exact moment in time.

Her bland eyes jolted nervously around the room, darting from one wall to the next. She could feel a million other pairs of eyes on her from her classmates, stabbing through her. She didn't even understand the words she was saying. She wasn't listening to herself. She was just reading mindlessly from her sacred piece of paper.

“He hated mirrors. He couldn't look in one without letting his imagination run wild. What if his reflection was the only thing stopping him from walking through the mirror? What if his reflection was protecting him from something awful on the other side? If that were the case, he had somehow landed himself on the wrong side of the mirror. What if he was the reflection?” she read. She could feel her legs - like straws about to snap - shaking uncontrollably. In the space of a second, when the teacher had called her name out in a sickening attempt to play 'welcome-the-new-girl', and the whole class had turned to face her, English had become her least favourite subject.

It was her first English lesson in her new school, and she supposed her teacher had gone for the theory that it was better to get all the embarrassment out the way in one go. Curious about what this 'new girl' could do, she'd challenged the class to write a descriptive paragraph about looking in a mirror, you know, to be original. April had been 'randomly' selected to read hers out to the rest of the class which she'd been dreading.

Within the first few words she'd nervously pronounced a word wrong and hastily muttered a hesitant apology. The class had laughed; but not with her. Almost immediately, she'd felt as if she were boring people. She'd felt like they were laughing at her even if they weren't, and kept self-consciously glancing up from her paper and then quickly back again if she met the gaze of any classmates accidentally.

Her monotonous voice frighteningly echoed around the room, jumping from every available surface as it drawled on through the piece, lowering in amplitude towards the end of every sentence: cowering away.

She'd hoped that at least on her first day her teachers would be considerate enough to not choose her, so she would be able to contently watch someone else struggle to annunciate at the front.

Ha.

She should be so lucky.

Had she been too personal? Could a taunting nickname arise from this drama? Was it uncool to compare a character's emotions with her own?

Dying a million deaths to herself as she thankfully reached the end " after wishing hard she hadn't written so much " and scurrying to her seat like a rat in the street, she awaited the comments and feedback that would no doubt follow.

“Very impressive,” her teacher replied, nodding her head respectfully as if April had passed some sort of compulsory test of acceptance into her set and in order to have a peaceful advance through the school year.

Really?

Thank God, April thought, finally exhaling after what she realised must have been several minutes.

The rest of the class nodded in agreement.

Well done, April. You survived your first lesson.

Then.

Right then was when she saw her.

Right then as she'd been grumpily stuffing her unnecessarily large English book into her satchel was when she spotted herself in the corner of her eye.

Or someone who looked exactly like herself. This girl had black hair and a fringe just like hers. This girl had the same skin tone, the same bone structure, and even " as the girl tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear " the same tattoo as April.

Something wasn't right.

Dumbfounded, April blinked repeatedly and shook her head rapidly in attempt to return to reality. This girl had been her, but better. This girl's eyes were still green, and their wideness less startled and more attractive.

In a moment, the girl was gone. She had dissipated within the sea of students before April had been able to swing her shoulder strap over her blazer.

Had April imagined her? Or had she just not noticed her during the lesson as she'd been preoccupied being humiliated? Was this girl just an unbelievable lookalike? Or was there something going on?

Could this girl finally answer any of April's questions?

* * *

Mia was unknowingly the last one to arrive at the station, not two minutes before the expected arrival time of the train itself. Her and her friends had agreed to meet there as oppose to walking there together as it was usual for them to all have Monday afternoons off thanks to 2 consecutive study periods, but some had been required to attend various revision sessions or school clubs so it had been agreed that everyone would meet at the station after school, giving those who'd gone home an unfair opportunity to change clothes.

Mia hadn't minded this, but it would have been nice to walk to the station with Jake. Things were going really well, in all honesty. Maybe today he'd been a little diverged, but everyone has weird days. She hadn't taken it personally. Apart from that, he was being really considerate: noticing her haircuts; complimenting her when appropriate; holding her hand; spending time with her.

And she was loving every minute.

He was supposed to be coming today. Mia was already considering whether or not she would step onto the train without him with her friends or wait to get the next one in half an hour with him at the station by herself should he not arrive on time.

But what if he never showed?

Could she trust him to be there, like he said he would? Could she trust him to turn up just as the train rumbled into park; a typical Jake manoeuvre? Could she trust him to not leave her waiting?

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a hooded figure. He was on the other side of the station, supposedly awaiting the train heading in the opposite direction. He had his head down and was shuffling from foot to foot. He looked nervous. Then, with a startled expression painted upon her face, she noticed something else. He was familiar. Who was this hooded figure? If she could only see his face...

As the train turned up as promised, she absent-mindedly hopped on it, having momentarily forgotten about Jake. There would be plenty of time for her to feel bad about that later.

The hooded figure had been relieved when the train had arrived. Not his train " the one for the other side. It meant he could stop hiding.

His face wriggled free from his hood to reveal a pair of deep brown eyes, the bruises on them as good as faded by now.

Jake sighed with relief that he'd got away with it. He'd never intended to label himself the bad guy in the story, but sometimes it's just unavoidable. This had to be done.

The thing was: rumour had it April had moved to McKinley. She hadn't been in PSHE with the new teacher who had actually toughened up a bit after the disastrous first lesson. It all fitted. So " call him stupid, only having spoken to the girl once " he felt something telling him to go after her.

He was definitely the bad guy. He'd stood up his kind, beautiful girlfriend who he actually really liked now, and all of her mates, and some of his new mates too. He'd stood them all up to hop on a train heading in the opposite direction on some crazy mission to find a girl he'd had a singular conversation with about a month ago and who, until now, he'd never given any indication that he liked.

But she'd always been there. It was different now she was gone. She'd always been there, safe, so he could watch her from a distance. Her young eyes just pleaded to be looked after, and he wanted to look after her. Now she was gone, he felt like she'd taken a meaty chunk of his heart with her, and he wanted it back.

So his mission was to go and retrieve it.

Although he would probably end up just freaking the poor girl out, he just felt as if he needed to tell her that for some reason, he cared about her. He was an honest person, and didn't feel right keeping such knowledge to himself. Maybe she could explain it to him. Maybe she would confess to doing voodoo magic on him making him unwillingly fall in love with her, despite himself. He just didn't know.

Either way, he was going to see her. According to the local kids, McKinley finished around an hour after Greendale, so if he ran from the station, he could be there, at the big metal gates, so as not to miss her. Yes, he may have let down a lot of people he'd started to really get on well with, but they would get over that. They would still be there tomorrow.

For all he knew, April may not be.

“Tickets please,” a mature male voice demanded impatiently as he snaked his way up each train carriage catching out sneaky idiots hoping to abuse public transport without paying up.

This group of teens had been the obvious way to go.

One of the girls spoke first.

“Can I have a return to the central please?” she politely enquired after. He begrudgingly tapped her order into his little machine.

“That'll be one-sixty please,” he said, in a well rehearsed drone of boredom.

“Sure,” she said, whilst fumbling in her bag. Not long after, the instructor raised an unimpressed eyebrow. This went up an extra few inches as they approached the next stop and he watched some college kids roll off the train without paying.

Too late for them.

He watched in amusement as she panicked, emptying out the contents of her bag with a frown inhabiting her face. She turned to her friends.

“S**t, guys. I've forgotten my purse. It had all my money in. Can anyone help me out, and I'll pay you tomorrow?” she eventually pleaded.

A couple of the others rummaged in various pockets in order to offer her a few pound coins.

As the girl watched her friends do so, she thought there would be no harm in her following suite.

It was then that a crumbled bit of paper wriggled into her palms. She pulled it out, shocked, to reveal its value. It was a tenner. Where had that come from? She knew this must be more than fortuitous. The last time she'd worn this jacket must have been about a month ago. It must have been...her first date with Jake! At the cinema, all those weeks ago. She remembered with a smile on her face as he'd held it out to her, offering to pay for them both. And then he'd slyly slipped his arm around her, the tenner still in his hand. He must have given it to her after all.

He really was the best.

She handed it over and in return, received a pile of change and two small tickets: one for the way home.

How had Jake managed to save her without even being there? How had he managed to be perfect even then? He was so aesthetic: his benevolence never ceased to amaze her. She had lost faith that people like him still existed.

It was a good word " perfect. She liked to think that together, they matched that description.

Perfect.

Jake arrived at the metal McKinley gates and was greeted by an unhealthy silence. This, however, was a positive stimulus for him, as it meant they were still inside and he hadn't missed her.

A few students proudly modelling the traffic-stopping McKinley green-with-yellow-stripes school tie filtered from the building. They turned their noses up at him: the hooded teen who had been watching them walk away.

Understandable.

They appeared to have been let out early, as Jake had hovered on the pavement outside the school for more than 10 minutes before more kids began to emerge from those bold blue doors. Some hung around waiting for friends. Others walked straight home, as if they couldn't leave fast enough.

Not long after, the place was dotted with students all over. Lanky ones, popular ones, laughing ones, geeky ones. Jake took a step back, scanning the scene for distinct black hair.

His eyes screened round every corner; searching, searching, searching...

At last! He noticed quite a small girl. She had a school bag he didn't recognise " a red and black checked backpack with unidentified charms hanging daringly from the curved metal zip enclosing the bag. Despite this, he had no doubt it was her. Even from a distance he could spot her pale complexion and her thin figure.

She didn't look as unhappy here. He watched her every step, and noticed how each one was less hesitant than it used to be. Her foot didn't cower back like usual; unsure of itself and considering whether it would be safe to go ahead and stand on the floor beneath it. Her eyes were brighter than he remembered too. Less frightened. She must have had a really good first day, to have made that good an impression already.

And there's me, he thought, glumly. There's me trying to drag her away from it all.

No. He had to do this. Call him selfish, but he wanted to speak to her so much he felt as if he would burst if he didn't do so right away.

He approached her.

He put a hand on her shoulder, and watched her eyes revert back to their frightened ways. He guided her firmly round a corner, ignoring her pitiful protests as she struggled in his grasp. At last, he turned her round to face her, and lifted his hood down.

“Sorry I scared you...” he began, with less to say than he'd thought. He suddenly forgot everything he'd planned to say to her. What was he doing?

He watched her eyes dart in a panicked fashion back up the road. “It's me " Jake,” he assured her. Her expression didn't change. He stared at her confused, and then suddenly angry.

“Don't you even remember me?” he shouted. “You talked to me. You were the only person who did for a long time. You saved me on my first day. You showed me where to go. You helped me. Don't tell me you don't remember me.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“I'm sorry...” she started. “I don't...I...”

Jake looked down, hurt. Had he gone mad? What did he think would have happened? He came all the way here to tell a girl he'd spoken to once that he...that he what? He didn't even know. He gave up trying to get through to her. But, if she didn't remember their first encounter, he'd have to create another. She had to feel what he felt. If it meant recreating that moment, showing her what he's like, then fine.

“Okay, I'm sorry. Sorry for scaring you. You don't know me: I get it. But I know you. God " that sounds creepy, but hear me out, okay? On my first day, you helped me out, and since then I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. I thought you liked me too but I guess I got the wrong idea. I've not been stalking you or anything, I just... I don't know. I can't stop thinking of when you spoke to me that day, and I don't want to either. So give me a chance. Come for a coffee with me today, and if you don't remember me by then, I promise I'll leave you alone forever and go back to Greendale. Deal?

“I'm sorry, but I have to go-”

“No, no you don't. I know I don't seem like it now, but I'm a good guy, and I promise I can make you remember me. Meet me tonight,” he offered.

She stayed silent for another few moments. Another few unbearable moments. But he noticed she'd stopped struggling. She was thinking now. She was trying to remember. That was a start. Eventually, she spoke.

“Okay, but if you turn out to be a serial killer I'll leave before you've spooned the foam out from your coffee mug, got it?” she challenged.

He broke into a smile.

“Got it,” he laughed. She pulled a pen from her backpack and, in bold handwriting in think, block letters that he didn't recognise, she scribbled a phone number onto the back of his hand.

He watched her walk away, wondering what had changed to make her so different in such little time. Maybe she'd been like that the whole time, and he just thought she seemed different because he didn't really know her.

Maybe.

April stopped her left foot from landing itself on the pavement, and retreated. She'd always been like that: hesitant and unsure of whether she should carry out her next step or simply stay in her comfort zone, named as such for a reason.

Had she just seen what she thought she just saw?

Had she really just seen Jake?

This was too much. First she had seen herself in English. Now, she had seen herself talking to Jake. Her Jake.

What was going on?

The same her she'd seen in English " the happier her with the relaxed green eyes and the calming walk with the checked backpack as oppose to her leather satchel " had been with Jake, down the same side road she'd been instructed to wait down for her parents so they could avoid the bustling traffic of the main road outside the school.

She'd hoped the new her could answer some questions, and instead she'd had been handed a million more without answers.

What was Jake doing here? How did he know the new her? What were they talking about? Did Jake think he was talking to her?

April's mum swooped their Peugeot smoothly around the curb. April got inside the car, her eyes still fixed on the new her who was walking away from Jake now.

Had Jake come after her?