Hiding in the cupboard, I listen to them argue. Clothes reach out to comfort me and I lean against them gratefully. Hugging my shaky knees to my chest, only snippets of sentences make it up through the floorboards and into the cupboard doors to my listening ears. "She's mad!" Mummy said. "We can help her, she's not a bad kid!" Daddy said. Putting my hands over my ears, I try to drown out their noisy voices. I cuddle Bear in my safe space and let a stray tear fall down my cheek. I've made them angry. I've let them down. I've been a very naughty girl. I wish Freya was here to hold my hand until the shouting died down...
*
Ten years later, here I am. At a boarding school that I was dumped at as soon as I turned eleven. Oak Grove Boarding School for "youths ages eleven to eighteen", to be precise. I'm now fifteen and still don't consider this a home. But my house back in Northampton wasn't a home either- I think my parents are scared of me. No, I know they are. Or I wouldn't be here, I'd be back home with Freya living a normal life. But I guess only normal people get to live normal lives.
"Jess, you coming? It's dinner."
"Oh, yeah, just coming, hang on a sec." I jump down from my bunk and smile at Chloe who is waiting patiently by the door.
"What do you reckon?"
I sniff the air theatrically, "Definitely a curry, you can smell the sauce."
"You have a freakishly impressive nose!" Chloe laughs, opening our bedroom door.
"Why thank you, just the compliment I was hoping for when I got out of bed this morning!"
We enter the dining hall and yes, it is chicken curry for dinner. Chloe shakes her head at me, giggling, and joins the long queue. Her friends wave at us from a table and I smile shyly back as Chloe waves to them. We take our food over after having curry splattered onto our plastic trays and fruit chucked after it for dessert.
I sit at the end of the table, stirring the orange goop around my plate: I hate meal times. We're all in one massive hall together and I feel so claustrophobic. Voices drown each other out, people shouting to each other just to be able to hear a single sentence. I also feel like I'm being watched and judged. People from the popular table looking down their snobby noses at me and my sad life. Ducking my head down low and shaking the thoughts out of my head, I have a mouthful of my food.
Freya loved curry. It was her favourite meal. I wish I could go back and change things- nothing was meant to turn out this way and if I could go back in time, I would. I should have been the one who died, not her. That may sound harsh, but I've thought about this a lot and it would've been better that way.
Whenever I fell over and grazed my knee on the playground, Freya would dump her bag on the ground next to me and dig through it for her mini First Aid kit. She took immense pride in dishing out plasters, tissues, wet wipes, throat lozenges and anything that she could stuff in that little bag of hers. Her dream was to become a doctor so that she could "make the sad, sick people feel better!". She was so caring, that everyone couldn't help loving her and she just had this aura about her. Something I know I'll never have.
"Hey, Jess, you agree with me, right?" Chloe nudges me, bringing me painfully back to reality.
"Uhhh..."
"Oy, don't force her to be on your side! She's smart, so she knows you're wrong! Is it pronounced like su-pull-ments or su-pla-ments?" Brianna looks at me expectantly, her sharp blue eyes looking directly into mine.
"Um, supplements? The first one you said is what I say, but I might be wrong."
"Ha!" Brianna jeers, having a mini victory dance.
"Everyone else agrees with me! Come on, Jess... always side with your roomie, right?" She beams at me, her sunny personality shining through.
"I- yeah?" I quickly shove a mouthful of rice into my mouth so that they can't get me to elaborate my point further. It isn't actually that bad, the spice makes the rice less bland and the chicken has been cooked quite nicely. I try to focus my thoughts on that rather than Freya, it just hurts too much otherwise.
"That's manipulation of the opposing side to your own, which is politically wrong." Sophie interjects, starting off a whole new round of chatter.
They carry on discussing it for the rest of dinner, their loud voices drowning out the rest of the low hum of noise in the room. Who cares about the pronunciation of supplements? I wish I could be naive enough to have that as my most important thing to talk about at dinner. Everyone around me is so carefree and happy, I wish I could be all innocent and joyful like them. The most stress they've ever faced is forgetting to do their laundry and not having any clean clothes or having an important exam that they don't think they'll pass. But of course, they're the normal ones- I'm the one who's different, so I'm not right to judge. This is the least I should have to put up with after what poor Freya went through, she had it much worse than I do. I chew quietly to distract myself from the tears that are threatening to spill. Nobody can see, or there'll be questions. And they won't be ones that are easy to answer.