Authors: Kirsten Rees
When I faced him again he was staring down at me with hooded eyes. “You know I really can’t work out why Chris called you a whore when you’re clearly a frigid tease.” he said.
When he spoke
his name
it was like a knife going into my chest and the names he called me only served to twist it into me further. Pushing against him with all my strength I ran to the bathroom and locked the door. I sank to the floor where I stayed until my taxi was outside. When the driver called my phone, I opened the bathroom door and looked out but apart from a couple who were too distracted by each other, the hallway was empty. I grabbed my bag and slipped out of the party and ran all the way down the three flights of stairs and on to the street.
I believed I deserved all of what I got and nothing of what I wanted. If my three encounters up until that point were what I was to expect from a relationship then I wanted out of the running.
I felt stripped down and torn up. I hope you will not judge me badly for that, I know it's wrong to feel so much self-pity. And yet looking back now it’s almost as if she is a younger sister I feel sorry for her rather than my seventeen year old self.
I believe in love, I’ve seen it and not just in films. Every now and then I’ll see the way a couple look at each other, the quiet smile they give one another, the way it seems as if they are alone even when they are surrounded by others. I envy them that feeling. I didn’t just want to have what they had; I wanted to be them in another life.
‘Other half’ implies that you are only one half of a perfect whole, it offers the hopeful idea that somewhere out there is one person, a perfect match, an equal, one that will prove to everyone you are worthy of love. But if I’m only half a person, then are there parts of me missing as I am? If I fall in love and am loved in return, will I all of a sudden become a better person, smarter, funnier, more beautiful, and interesting?
What if I'm not worthy of love, I thought over and over. I've proved that time and time again. My own Father couldn’t even stick around. Maybe I’ve just been getting it wrong. If I had chosen a different path, how might my life have turned out? Right now, monotony seems kind of nice.
I woke to find I’d fallen asleep at the end of that last sentence. My pen was on the floor and my diary still open beside me. I’d expected to have nightmares with drudging up all these memories but it had been the best night’s sleep I’d had in a long time. It was comforting having this little diary near to me, as if I could write down all the bad things and it would keep them from my thoughts and dreams.
This wasn't actually a relationship - more like an unrequited obsession. On my part, although that probably goes without saying (or writing!).
‘Finally.’ thought Alex, he didn't think he could bear anymore of the physical or emotional abuse and frankly the less sex the better. This diary was beginning to feel like he was doing an autopsy on her heart and finding all the scars she had been given but blamed herself for. It looked as if he was around a third of the way into the diary, and despite being aware of the late hour on his clock sat on his bedside cabin, he couldn't stop now.
Summer had long gone and the very last of the seasonal warmth wouldn't be long in disappearing too. My brothers had been kind enough to help me move my few personal belongings and clothes into my tiny room in the student residences. It was like a small four bedroomed flat with two little bathrooms to share, but it allowed me more privacy than I ever had at home. The girls moving in with me didn’t know my every waking expression, and would hopefully have enough respect not to barge into my room the way my brothers often would, or tap on my door asking if I was alright like my Mother had taken to doing of late. I wonder if there is a limit to the number of times you can lie to someone you love, or if the lie eventually begins to feel like the truth? Maybe if I lied enough to them, it would start to feel real enough that even I would believe I was okay.
I felt somehow safer in a new environment, no one knew me here and no one from before knew where I was. There were three other girls in the same shared living space with me, but they thankfully seemed to have their own lives and not the type to want to bond over midnight coffee. As much as I was looking forward to a fresh start, the idea of becoming friends with people in such close living quarters was unnerving – I was hoping to avoid awkward conversations in the kitchen or have my flatmates inviting themselves into my room to exchange life stories.
My college acceptance letter lay on the newly made up, single, bed along with my bag, notebooks and various bits of stationary. I was going to try to turn things around and stop this cycle of bad decisions and screw ups.
On the morning of my first day, I took a deep breath and pushed open the door, walking into the large, bright room and quickly found an empty seat. There was a small group of noisy people all chatting over each other enthusiastically. These were to be my classmates for the next year - people who might have been friends, study-mates, drinking buddies - and I couldn't make eye contact with a single person. I pulled a seat back quietly and sank into it as inconspicuously as I could.
I sat in the front row since that didn’t allow for any accidental catching of eyes with the people sat behind me, and denied anyone the opportunity to strike up a quiet conversation since the lecturer was stood only a foot in front of me. As much as I wanted to be invisible, I couldn't help overhearing some of the conversations behind me. They were soon hushed in to silence as the lecturer stepped to the front centre of the room.
She stood in front of the class with perfect posture and had an air of complete self-confidence. "Okay class, welcome to ‘Registration Day’. My name is Professor Fulham and I will take your first class every Monday and Thursday morning. I'm glad to see nearly everyone has made it out of bed for the first day” Her eyes fell to a clipboard on the desk by her side. “only three missing it would appear. Statistically five percent will transfer out of my class by the end of the week, thirty percent of you will drop out by mid-term and another ten percent will fail the year end exams. As for the ones who make it into second year with me well then the hard work really begins." she said.
A few people sucked in their breath audibly and I quietly wondered which of us would survive until the end of the year. My motivation was not having to move back home with my overly intrusive brother Matthew and avoiding disappointing my mother. Joshua is always a delight to be around but afterwards I can't help but feel worse than before, since his positive outlook contrasts so heavily with my negativity.
Over the next month I did what I could to maintain a good impression on my new lecturers without becoming a teacher’s pet. I spent a reasonable amount of time in the library, didn't hand my essays in too early and was careful to find a balance between being too quiet and too involved in class debates.
Thankfully I was right about my flat mates - one was a third year medical student who barely came out of her room, one spent more time at her boyfriend’s than she did at ours and the third dropped out after a six weeks and was never replaced, so little effort was required on my part to be sociable. Since my cooking skills turned out to be the most advanced I offered to make our dinners most nights which gained a little appreciation. We sat for our meal, made polite conversation for almost an hour and then went our separate ways.
Most of my time was spent either studying in my room or sat by the window indulging in one of the many fictional books I borrowed from the library. Even as a child I loved to read stories, but the older I got, the more I enjoyed hiding from reality and letting the characters take my imagination into their world. Sometimes, I wished I could fall down a rabbit hole or skip along the yellow brick road and discover I had great strength and bravery after all.
My first assignment received an ‘89%’ and I found an unfamiliar feeling of pleasure seep into my day. When the papers were returned to us in class, it caused an instant fission of conversation behind me as people began to compare scores. Suddenly I was conscious of someone looking over my shoulder.
", well done on your mark, I only just scraped a sixty-eight percent." said a girl beside me that I thought was called Melissa.
When I turned she was smiling at me, probably expecting some kind of response. What was a normal response; ‘Well, that isn’t so bad’ sounded a bit condescending. In the end I smiled briefly at her, said ‘thanks’ and tried to look really interested in what was written at the bottom of my assignment.
The Sunday after, I visited ‘home’ as I still referred to it. On showing my mother my assignment I expected her to be pleased but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. She joined me at the table and took a deep breathe which usually meant a speech. I physically recoiled inside but still tried to keep a smile on my face like the Phantom’s mask shielding the horror from the world.
“Nina, good marks are wonderful, but there is a big world out there and getting high marks won’t guarantee you happiness and it certainly doesn’t stop you falling down figuratively speaking - or even literally in your case! I haven’t heard you speak a word of your college friends or any social occasions. You should make the most of your time at college and learn how to live in the real world as well as pass your exams. I love you so much but I worry about you so much more than I ever have your brothers.” she said.
So it wasn’t just my Grandmother who had noticed or perhaps they had been talking. It was disconcerting to think they may have discussed me. In my heart I didn’t really want to change - it made sense to avoid any kind of relationships since those had caused so much pain already.
"Mother I know it's your job to worry about me and I do appreciate it - most of the time - but I'm okay really. I get on well with my flatmates, I've made a few study buddies and I really like my classes. I want to do well and get a good job - what would you rather I was skipping classes and spending all my time in a bar?" I queried.
"Well, not all of your time but a little might be good for you. You never talk about anything other than school work or asking about your brothers." She said.
"Well I don't feel the need to boast about everything like Matthew, and I guess I’m just not the drama queen that Joshua is." I replied with a laugh that didn’t quite sound as casual as I as aiming for.
She laughed and chastised me for being cheeky but I knew she secretly agreed. We spent the rest of the day curled up on the settee, watching rom coms and eating too much popcorn. It felt like being a kid again, except when I was a kid my brothers and my Dad would have been there too. We would have spent half an hour arguing over what to watch, someone would spill the popcorn and Joshua would fall asleep before the end. Sometimes change is the right thing, but it doesn't always feel good.
Despite reassuring my Mother that I wanted to focus on studying rather than a social life, it was becoming harder than I thought to keep out of the conversations and not at least get involved in the class discussions. Even if I didn't want to get close to anyone, I still wanted to do well in my classes. It was enough to be lonely but I couldn't afford to fail.
One day in class I found myself caught up in a heated debate with a guy I knew was called Liam. He wouldn't relent and neither would I, and eventually the lecturer called it to a halt. She looked from Liam to me and raised her eyebrows with a smile. I wasn't sure what she could have been thinking but I had a feeling it had something to do with the fact that I rarely got so involved. I hurried out of class as soon as it finished, only for Liam to casually stroll up next to me as I waited on the damn elevator.
"Hey, that was an interesting class. I didn't think you were going to back down" he said.
"I didn't back down." I retorted before I could stop myself. He smiled and I swallowed hard. "A few of us are going for a drink across the road, if you'd like to join us. Might be nice to get to know a few people." he said without making it a question.
I'd managed to keep myself to myself these past few months and it obviously hadn't gone unnoticed. I wanted to go. I craved company, conversation, laughing with people and I missed the girl I used to be. But the sudden rush of fear swallowed me and I shook my head, about to make some excuse. Just then the doors opened and the rest of our class came out. I found myself shuffled into a crammed lift with my side pressed against Liam. The heat from his arm against mine scorched through the fabric of my top but there was no room to move. The lift bumped to a halt on the ground floor and the doors opened with a 'ding'. The group alighted from the lift and headed out the front door with me in the middle. We walked out the front doors where I only had to cross the road to the residence building and yet I was caught between two girls asking me about the next assignment.
"So what's your secret, you always get good marks. And please don't say it’s just good old hard work and dedication, because I give as much as I possibly can at 10pm on the night before an assignment's due in." She laughed, then the other girl laughed too and I found myself joining in since no words seemed to be filtering down from my brain to reply. Before I knew it I found myself walking through the doors of an unfamiliar bar and being greeted by several people I recognised from class. I registered the surprise on their faces at my being there but the shock turned to smiles all round and I returned each of them but with only a fraction of the wattage.