One

For all the
Ruth’s, Eve’s and Tom’s 
out there.

PART I
OPENING

Chapter one
I look around. Everyone is talking, apart from a tall boy who is staring at me.

‘Look everyone, it’s frigid!’ Yells the boy.

Everyone’s eyes fix on me and the laughter erupts. I chuck my English book into my locker before running out of the corridor and out of the school.
I stop and realize I run to the lake my father took me to when I was little and absent minded.
I sit down and take my shoes off and place them neatly next to me before dipping my feet into the lake. The water is cold, but warms up in matter of minutes.
Sometimes all it takes to shut the world out is quiet.
I sigh and close my eyes. I wish the name calling would stop, I wish the punching and kicking will end. I wish the bullying was over.

‘Ruth?’ I turn and see Tom.

I have known Tom ever since I was twelve. He wasn’t one of those people who I became friends with straight away. It took time and trust.
His dark hair and intense navy blue eyes are the same, but he looks like a different person. Maybe it’s the upcoming day that’s stressing him out, the way it’s doing the same to every other sixteen year old.

‘What are you doing?’ he asks. 

‘I had to escape.’ 

He smiles and takes his shoes off, exposing his feet. He sits down next to me, dipping them in the water. 

‘Was all that laughing in the hallway at you?’ he 
knows me so well.
I nod and look away from him.

‘Ruth, don’t let it get to you’ I turn to him. 

‘Don’t let it get it me? Tom, it already has. 

Everyone knows me as Frigid and every day after school I get kicked in. So, for your information; it’s got to me.’ He sighs. 
‘Ruth’ I glare at him.

I get out of the water and he follows. Tom grabs my shoulder and turns me round to face him.

‘The only opinion that matters is yours’ 

I snort. ‘Yeah and everyone else’s. We live in a society where we all have labels. And that’s mine; Frigid.’ 

He steps forward again; he is inches away from my face. I would step back again, but Tom’s grip is tight and unbinding, so I stay where I am. 

‘Want to hear my opinion on you?’ he whispers, his mouth close to my ear. 

‘And what is that?’ I snarl. 

‘I think you’re stronger then you think. But then again- my opinion doesn’t matter’ 
he touches my shoulders slightly and I flinch to the left. 
‘I’ll see you around, Ruth’ and with that he withdraws his hand from my shoulder and walks away. 

It’s not that fact that Tom was close to me that made me shudder, it was because there was nothing romantic between us. He was still the twelve year old boy that I met in section square, but he was different. Maybe it wasn’t the Freedom Ceremony that was making him that way. Perhaps the reason he looked like a stranger to me was because I was falling in love with him.