Chapter 17

I buckled backwards onto my bed, feeling the contours that my body had originally made on there sink into my body. It felt so comfortable and so right compared to the hotel bed, which was actually surprisingly comfortable too. The air conditioning had already been turned on, slowly warming the house to a suitable degree. Rain was pounding outside, splattering all over my window. We left with the rain and we came back with the rain. I didn’t mind though, I preferred it. Especially in the mood that I was in…

The flight was fine. I watched old episodes of the Simpsons with Spanish subtitles because I had nothing else to do. Nobody was talking to me, not even Zack + mum had taken my iPhone so I couldn’t very well listen to music could I?

My uncle picked us up from the airport and drove us home. As soon as we opened the door to the house, Zack and V rushed up to their rooms and just mum and I were left downstairs. We looked at our feet awkwardly and mum decided to march off to the kitchen dramatically so I just decided to follow my siblings upstairs.

The trip gave me time to cool off, although not completely. That letter had stirred me up like some sort of stew and I felt like I needed to forgive him but I still felt quite upset about the matter. I supposed that it was time for me to move on, to forget about it. I had left Harry behind in Spain and that’s where it would end. It was just a summer romance that would never branch to anything else so why bother.

I had spent the last week and a half, frolicking around with a secret celebrity, how had I not picked up on it before? The screaming girls, the bodyguard, the fancy cars and that crazy party. It was all so obvious yet I was so stupid.

The rain hardened, banging on the roof ecstatically. Groaning, I rolled over to my bedside table where clock sat. It was 7pm. I swore it had been 5:30 when I came into my room. Since it wasn’t day light savings, the sun had already dropped and it was almost dark out. Time had flown so quickly, and I wasn’t having fun.

Mum had made it clear to all of us that she expected us to go to school the next day, much to Zack and V’s disapproval. I stayed silent, knowing that my opinions weren’t welcome at the moment and it was no use trying to fight the dominant power. I wasn’t really sure whether I was ready or not to go back to school but I supposed I had no choice. It was time to get back into the swing of things again.

My stomach grumbled in agony. I had not eaten anything since the really bad bread and butter that they gave me back at the hospital. I had refused to eat anything on the plane since it looked feral, although I did suck on the little complementary toffee’s that were stuffed into the magazine pouches in front of me. I got up and walked over to my door, reaching out to turn the nob before stopping right in my tracks. I heard a muffling sound, it was coming from downstairs. The tone was harsh and aggressive, obviously an argument.

I knelt down on one knee and pressed my ear against the door, cupping a hand over my other ear to block out the sound of the rain. The carpet rubbed against my jeans making the position uncomfortable. I had to wait a few seconds before the voices cleared into faint echoes’ and then I was able to hear the conversation.

It was Zack against Mum. From the sounds of things, they were sitting in the kitchen where they thought they could not be heard by eavesdroppers.

“... got us into this mess. I just got the bill for the hospital.” Mum whispered to Zack who must’ve been standing a few metres away because it was a pretty loud whisper.

Zack huffed. “At least she’s okay! Things could have been worse!”

“Worse?! Zack, she went to a party in a foreign country without my permission with a supposed ‘boyfriend’ which I had known nothing about AND THEN, she happened to get herself drugged and admitted into hospital.” Her footsteps vibrated in the floorboards as she paced around. “Do you know how expensive private health care is? I pay a lot of money for you kids to be treated like ROYALTY. She had so many luxuries in that hospital. That bill was in Euros! Euros!!”

“So what you’re saying is, you don’t really give a s**t that Mati got drugged and worst case scenario could have died and all you care about is the money.” I was shocked that Zack actually had the guts to use that language in front of mum, I had never heard him swear before.

“How dare you use that language towards your own mother and how dare you accuse me of not caring for my own child. You are so disrespectful. You don’t even know what was going on in my head and is still running through my mind.” Mum’s voice was getting nasally, that’s what usually happens when she’s about to go absolutely mental.

“I can do what I like. And it wasn’t Mati’s fault, the situation she was in happens to so many people and she didn’t run into intentionally, screaming ‘YOLO GONNA GET DRUGGED B*****S’. She’s usually a responsible person and it was just this once, just this one time that she happened to let her guard down.” I couldn’t believe that he was sticking up for me. But what about all the looks he had given me throughout the flight…

Something smashed against the wooden dining table, the sound ricocheting throughout the whole house. “That’s the whole point though, isn’t it? Why on earth would this supposed ‘responsible’ person agree to go with a total stranger to a crazy house, warehouse, whatever party when she’s seen the scenarios before. All the stuff they teach at the schools…”

“She trusted him.” Harry.

“She trusted him, He took advantage of a 15 year old girl. Who did he honestly think he was? Just because he was a celebrity he could go around, seducing every girl in sight.” I felt my teeth clench against each other, grinding one another. My blood was beginning to boil.

“You have no idea who he really is. He didn’t take her there because he knew there would be trouble, he just wanted to show her a good time. Harry would never let that happen to Mati on purpose. He loves her.” Zack’s voice rose, loud enough for me to hear it properly. Somewhere inside of me, I had this urge to smash through the door and tackle Zack with a hug.

Mum managed a laugh. “Oh and you know that? You know him? Please Zack, wake up. He was a phony, a cheater, a liar.”

My heart sunk. All the breath had been sucked out of my lungs and I could not move. I thought that maybe things would start spinning like the descriptions I had read in books but no, I just knelt there. For a few moments I felt so still, unable to move until Zack’s voice brought me back.

“You are disgusting. All you have ever cared about is yourself. Ever since dad left you have been so selfish. Why don’t you just pack up and leave, go on! Go back to Spain with your 27 year old boyfriend.” He quickly stormed up the stairs and I fell backwards out of shock, landing with a thud onto my carpet.  Scrambling backwards, the carpet burned the palms of my hands as I struggled to seem innocent.

Zack had stopped at the top of the stairs, right in front of my door. “Oh and in case you haven’t realised, I hate you.” His voice boomed all the way down the stairs and the last sentence was still echoing as he raced down the hallway. I waited a few seconds before I finally heard the door slam shut.

Chills crept over my skin. Before we had left, Zack hadn’t been like that. He would never have spoken back to mum or even sworn under his breath. I felt honoured that he defended me but was it wrong that I felt even more frightened of Zack than I was of mum.

I dragged my body to the edge of my bed, resting my head against the mattress. You always look at people in those situations and think, ‘wow that will never ever happen to me.’ But when it does, it’s a real slap in the face.  All this drama and commotion, it was all just way too much. Way too much for a 15 year old girl. I knew that heaps of people had it worse, but honestly, I didn’t know if I was going to make it through the next few minutes let alone the rest of my life.

***

Thank God it was still raining when I woke up; it was the only thing that was going to get me through the day. I barely managed to get out of bed, but that’s always the case, especially on a cold rainy morning when I could be snuggling up in my doona.

It felt so surreal to be putting on my uniform again. It was like I had been away for years and I was coming back, totally new yet so old. I did my buttons up first and then slipped the navy tunic over the top, struggling to get through the raincoat like material that was layered underneath.  The blazer slipped on perfectly as if it was tailored just for me. Finally, I took my scarf which was lying on the top of my desk chair and swiftly walked out of my bedroom door and tiptoed down the stairs.

My main aim was to slip past my family unnoticed; I didn’t want to cause any further dramas to add the icing on the cake for last night. I would buy breakfast somewhere before I got to school, there was probably nothing in our house anyway that was either stale or even worth eating. As my foot found itself on the bottom step, it created a loud creaking sound which echoed across the hallways. I cringed and instinctively ducked down, which was stupid because I was in plain sight. I waited for a few moments, listening out for any following noises before I stood up and kept going.

“Matilda?” Mum walked around the side of the walls which surrounded the kitchen. She had a bowl and a tea towel in separate hands, whipping the bowl dry.

I paused and then slowly turned to her, putting on a slight smile to lighten the mood. “Hi mum…”

She gazed at me with a look of slight confusion before examining me up and down. “Where are you going? It’s 7:15, a bit early to go to school…”

Thinking of a quick excuse, I looked around and spotted my school shoes lying up against the wall in the front hallway. “I was just going to shine my shoes. You know, Ms McMahon likes us to be picture perfect!” I beamed a cute smile before beginning to turning back to my original path.

“Shouldn’t you have breakfast first? I bought some Special K this morning when I went for my walk.” She added as I turned away.

I kept walking. “Don’t worry ill just grab breakfast on the way to school.” I opened the hallway cupboard and reached up to the tin full of shoe polish on the top shelf. “Besides, I hate Special K.” Adding before I sat down to ‘polish’ my school shoes.

She didn’t seem convinced and made a slight grunting noise. “Hmm well alright. But remember that you’re getting a lift to school at 7:30, listen out for the car horn because I’ll be in the backyard.”

I looked up. “What. By who?”

She was already back in the kitchen before she had a chance to hear that last part. Before I even began to polish my shoes, I shut the tin and put it back on the top shelf, my school shoes looked fine anyway. Realising that I had forgotten my school bag upstairs, I raced up to get it. It was lying in the corner of my room, still packed from the morning that I was supposed to go to school. I swapped the books around, adjusting to my timetable and before I knew it, it was already 7:30.

I heard a car honk its horn before someone stomped down that bedroom hallway, banging on all the doors. “Come on guys. Time to go!!” V said in her most annoying, nasally voice.

Heaving my backpack over one of my shoulders, I walked down stairs and put on my shoes. Zack lazily walked down the stairs after me, half dressed with his shirt buttons undone and his hair in a mess. “Do I have to go to school?” He asked me as if he had a choice.

I sighed and did up my shoe laces. “Come on Zack. It’s Wednesday, only 2 more days before the weekend and then you can sleep in.”

He huffed and then put on his shoes as well. V had already walked out the door, determined to get to school early. I could tell that she was still extremely peeved about the whole Harry thing, she hadn’t even said anything to me until this morning.

As I walked down the hall, I stopped in front of the mirror to look at my reflection. I looked terrible, absolutely exhausted. Messy hair which refused to stay neat in my high pony tail, un ironed shirt and bags under my eyes to accompany it. Zack walked over next to me, looking at me through the mirror as well. He stunk of deodorant and body odour mushed together.

“Come on, you don’t look so bad. In fact, you look pretty good for a girl who got up half an hour ago.” He looked up at me with genuine eyes.

I smiled. “Can’t say the same about you.”

We laughed and I ruffled his hair, leaving it more displaced than before. He punched my arm as he walked past me, opening the front door and looking outside.

“We should get going; Mrs Costa is waiting for us.” He took an umbrella from the stand beside the door and walked outside before opening it up, waiting for me to walk underneath.

“Mrs… C-costa?” I stuttered before I peered out the door.

Sure enough, a silver Toyota Kluger was parked in our driveway, the headlights beaming onto the garage and the rain pounding on the sky roof. Jake’s mum waved at us from the front seat of the car, encouraging us to come in with a bright smile. I walked underneath the umbrella, closing the front door behind me.

Zack began walking and I closely followed behind, whispering under my breath but loud enough for him to hear. “What is Jake’s mum doing here? Why did mum call her of all people?”

He kept his eyes on the car as we made our way around to the open boot. “Because her and mum are still good friends. She’s apparently carpooling us for the rest of the year.” He slung his backpack into the boot, along with the others that were already in there.

I peered over the back seat to see if Jake was there and my heart stopped pounding rapidly when I realised that he wasn’t. V and Jakes sister Alice (who is also V’s best friend), were already gossiping to each other in the backseat, glancing at me for a brief moment. “Hurry up, I’ve got a test firs t period Matilda.” V snickered at me and the turned away.

I kept my bag with me and Zack shut the boot. “Like she actually cares about a test…” I said to Zack and he just rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

Zack got to the back door before me, voluntarily sitting next to V to spare me agony. Reluctantly, I opened the passenger door, climbing up to the seat of the 4 wheel drive. Mrs Costa greeted me with a massive smile and leaned over the gear box to give me a huge hug. The door was still open and the rain was making a pool on the arm rest. I cleared my throat and she apologised before letting me close the door.

She revved up the engine, and then backed out of the driveway, leaving the house behind.  Still holding onto the wheel, she looked at us all briefly. “So, how was it?”

“How was what?” Zack asked sarcastically.

Mrs Costa looked a bit taken aback by the tone of his voice. “You know, how was Spain?”

“It was fine. Thank you for asking.” He crossed his arm over his chest, signalling that he didn’t really appreciate her asking. One earphone was already stuck in his ear, the other dangling on his chest.

“Well… okay.” She paused for a moment, watching the road. The coast was clear, and then she drove the car forward. “So girls, did you meet anybody you fancied?” She looked up at the rear-view mirror, looking at V.

She frowned. “I don’t know, did we Mati?” That b***h.

Mrs Costa turned to me. “Mati?”

I looked at the road ahead, unsure of what to say next. I didn’t really want to discuss my love life with my old best friends mum, especially not the mum of the best friend that I liked for a time, but that time was a long time ago. Talking about Harry was out of the question. “Um… No not really.”

V huffed in the back seat, leaning over to whisper to Alice. Mrs Costa smiled at me. “Oh don’t be cheeky you! We’re all friends here, you can tell us!”

Alice spoke out finally. “Yeah Mati, tell us.” Her arms were also folded, leaning forward off her chair, strangely interested in what I had to say. Back when I started high school, her and V would always tease me about boys and crushes that they thought I had.

Everyone was suddenly leaning towards me, waiting for me to say something. There was no way I was going to tell them to truth so I thought up of a lie which hopefully Alice and her mum would think was reasonable. “Well they’re all pretty nice looking, Spanish guys I mean. But the answer to your question is no, I didn’t meet anybody I ‘fancied’.”

They were silent for a moment, an icy sweat rolled down my back, unsure whether they would accept my response and I hated the confrontation immensely. Finally, Mrs Costa sat up straight, focusing on the road again, she smiled to herself. “Well you’re right about that, Spanish men are quite delicious.”

“Mum!” Alice leant forward and lightly slapped her mum on the shoulder.  Mrs Costa laughed and apologised, turning the corner of a main road. The bitumen was slippery, making the car skid slightly.

I leaned to the side of the door, thankful that the conversation was over.  I noticed people wearing my school uniform, walking to school in the rain, the school umbrella splashing off most of the rain. There was a couple who were strolling and cuddling underneath an umbrella, the guy cradling his girlfriend beneath his blazer. A tinge of jealousy filled me, I loved to walk out in the rain. For a moment I closed my eyes, imagining me being that girl, a boy cradling me underneath his school blazer. I looked up to him; Harry looked down on me with a delightful smile, putting his arm around my waist. My eyes flicked open and I shook the thought out of my head. Harry was the past, practically ancient history or at least it fel like it. Why had I imagined him, of all people?

As we stopped at the zebra crossing, the couple under the umbrella walked past the car towards the shops. They both turned their heads towards the car and waved at Mrs Costa. She looked at me before awkwardly waving back with a half-hearted smile. I didn’t manage to catch their faces because the window wiper was wiping too fast and the rain was falling too hard. The couple finished crossing the road and Mrs Costa kept driving.

“Hey wasn’t that...” Alice began before Mrs Costa cut her off. “I don’t know sorry. They must’ve thought I was someone else…”

She darted towards me from the corner of her eyes for a second and then turned back. We turned off the main road into the suburban streets. They were so packed up with cars and rubbish from construction of houses that I wondered how our school buses even fitted through them, not even the car could!

It was around 8:20 and people were arriving to school for the 8:50 start. As the school came into view, a couple of stupid year 7’s ran in front of the car, causing Mrs Costa to screech to a stop and honk her horn in anger, shaking her fist at them and swore under her breath. She pulled up in front of the school gates, right behind the 624 charter bus that had just arrived, letting students off in a hurry, most of them scrambling to get under some shelter.

V and Alice took their time getting out, carefully embracing their backpacks to protect their stuff from the rain due to not bringing umbrellas. Mrs Costa got out with us and walked over to open the boot to get our bags out. Zack was first in line, taking his backpack, thanking Mrs Da Costa and running swiftly into the school without a word to anyone. I jumped into the boot, rummaging through the jackets and random sports balls to retrieve my school bag which had made its way to the back during the trip.

I jumped out of the boot and Mrs Costa closed it behind me. The carpet inside had made my knees turn all red and shrivelled, a great way to start the day. I regained my composure, fixing the crinkles on my tunic and then looked up at Mrs Costa. She was just standing there, holding my umbrella above me and I didn’t know what to do. Should I thank her or…

We stood there for an awkward moment, the rain dropping around us, kids scrambling inside from all places. People walked past us, staring for a while before realising that it was still pissing down and they had no umbrella. It felt like we were standing there forever, awkwardness growing by the second. I realised that I had to make the first move, thanking her on behalf of my family since everyone had already ran inside.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was walking backwards onto the footpath. Fear had taken me by the hand and I was walking away from Mrs Costa.  “Thank you!” I managed to creek back at her before turning around without a second glance and hurrying through the smaller school gates. I ducked underneath the gates which were too small for me, obviously made for the nuns who lived in the school a hundred years before.

I was greeted by a whack in the face by a branch which was right behind the gate. All the raindrops which sat on the branch sprayed onto my face, giving me a taste of ‘herbal rain’. I cursed under my breath at the school gardener, who obviously ‘forgot’ to take down the branch which was a menace to taller people.

Quickly, I made my way on the path which lead me past the blocks where the Year 7’s usually had their roll call classrooms. I peered inside a window and saw a couple of 7’s throwing paper from the recycling bin at each other, one of them pulled out an apple and they all started laughing. The classrooms looked as if they radiated heat so I picked up my pace.

I tried not to look around too much, the raindrops were hanging off my eyelashes and making my vision blurry so I pulled my scarf over my head and ran for cover. As soon as I stepped into the Junior Block, a wave of heat hit me like a bullet train. I think that maybe my hair stuck up in all these different directions because I felt as if I had been blown away. They must’ve had all the heaters cranked up to the highest temperature.

The reason it was called the ‘Junior Block’ was because that was the part of the school where the junior students had most of their classes. Then there was the ‘Senior Block’ and vice versa. In Year 7, I used to believe that juniors were not even allowed to step foot in the senior block so Chynn and Juls would use to dare each other to go in when no one was looking.

The hallway was already full of puddles from all the water brought in by the school shoes; I had to jump over some of them to get past. Not many people were actually hanging out in the hallways, and those who were were huddled up with their chai lattes from the canteen, exchanging gossip and maths homework.

I paused at the door of J7 which was my roll call room. I breathed in and out, remembering what I had planned to say if anyone asked where I had been before I walked in through the entrance, real slowly. Never had I seen that many people in one classroom at a time, it was like they were all having some sort of meeting. There was not a teacher in sight. A group of girls had combined tables together to sit in a circle on top of them, seeming like they were about to perform a ritual sacrifice with their hoodies flipped up under their blazers. One time I had tried to wear a hoodie underneath my blazer but my art teacher busted me as soon as she saw one of the strings dangling into a jar paint.

A few guys were scattered around the classroom, wrestling with each other or talking loudly about parties they had been to on the weekend. There weren’t that many guys compared to the ratio of girls, which made many of the girls in my year distressed due to the lack of boys for them to faun over. St Benedict’s had just recently turned co-ed, my year was the first year that they were introduced so you would rarely see a guy wearing a senior uniform.

Nobody even noticed when I walked in which made me feel relieved, it seemed as if no one was interested in where I had been so hopefully I didn’t have to answer any tricky questions. I walked up to my locker, coughing a few times before the guy leaning on it would get off. The friend that he was talking to gave me a cold look but he just gave me a friendly smile before kindly obliging to my request before opening up his own locker, which was positioned next to mine.

“Hey Mat.” He spoke as we both took out our books for the first period. ‘Mat’ was what everyone at school called me ever since we started at school. It wasn’t very original or suave but Troy Hamilton had given it to me in Year 7 and it just stuck.

“Hello George.” I lifted up my backpack to put all my books inside, nodding at my surprising tidiness of my locker. It was unusual for me to have such order; usually my locker was like a bomb.

We closed our lockers at the same time and I turned to go and take a chair from the back of the room where they were all piled up from the previous day. I had to squeeze through the clustered tables, lifting my chair over all the people who were in my way who could not have been bothered to move for me.

Harriet Umine was leaning against my table, spreading her bag across so that I had no room at all. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a high ponytail and her face was so caked full of makeup that if you took a knife and scraped it across her face, it wouldn’t pick up half the foundation she put on.

I placed my chair behind the table and slid into it, throwing my bag underneath because I had no where else to put it. Harriet looked at me up and down for a moment before she grunted and turned back to her friends, who glanced at me with cold looks before going back to their conversation.

“Did you hear about what happened?” Maya Giovanni spurted out in her high pitched voice, unable to contain her annoyance.

Harriet flipped her hair back. “I know. What a s**t! I cannot believe he would go out with HER of all people!”

“I know right?” Maya snickered before looking down at me.

I leaned back, pretending that I wasn’t listening to anything they were saying. I knew that I had been caught but I might as well pretend that I hadn’t heard anything. She gave me one last judgmental look before turning back to Harriet, whispering in her ear the rest of the conversation. It was always interesting to listen in on the school gossip, but I tried to keep out of it as much as I could.

“So where have you been Mat?” A voice whispered in my ear from behind.

George was leaning across his table which was behind me, his hands clasped together in a questionable position. He ran his fingers through his blonde hair which was combed back. It was unusual for a boy to talk to me for that long, or even look at me for that long.

I had to think for a moment of what my plan was, meanwhile George was still smiling at me over the table. “Umm… I went down to Melbourne with my mum for a conference she was holding for work.”

His eyebrows raised. “That was a pretty long conference. Two weeks?”

“Yep.” S**t. Did I just finish off the conversation with ‘Yep’?

“Alrighty then Mat. I hope you had a good time down there, I heard the weather was pretty good.” He smiled down at me. “But ive got to warn you, Mr Bryan gave us the science test notification and its next week.”

“WHAT.” I tensed up. Science test already?! I had just got back and I already had a test to prepare for which I was probably going to fail due to the fact that I never payed attention in science.

I looked at George in a pleading look, hoping he was just egging me on. He put his finger over his mouth and smiled before leaning back into his chair and pointing towards the front of the room.

Ms McMahon trotted into the room, her clipboard in one hand and her basket full of papers in the other. Everyone scrambled off their tables and into their respective chairs, other people sprinting out of the room at the arrival of our roll call teacher. She might have been small, but she definitely was feisty.

Katy Papas jumped up towards Ms McMahon, begging her to give her the morning notices. Katy had this thing about reading the notices, I think she only did it to raise her chances of getting the Pastoral care (Homeroom) award at speech night.

As Katy began to read the morning prayer, there was a slight knocking on the door. Everyone leaned over to see who was at the door but it was closed shut. Katy went over to unlock the door, opening it for the person on the other side. Her face blushed as she realised who it was she had opened the door for.

Ms McMahon turned around on her chair which was at the front of the class, diverting her attention from Shannon and Finlay who were chatting at the back of the room to the door. “Ah-ha! Mr Jacob Costa, you’re late once again.”

Author's Note

longest chapter ever sorry hahaa