I nodded. I could – maybe not quite in the way she thought – but I really could.
We headed down the main corridor towards reception, then veered off towards a set of double doors. Rae pulled one open and nodded for me to go through, as laughter spilled warmly out towards us.
“The dinner ladies aren’t back until tomorrow,” she explained, making her way towards the front. “That’s why we always get pizza on the first night back.”
The smell was so familiar, so safe, that it wrapped itself around me like a blanket. My stomach growled, and my brain purred. Rae grabbed a plate and dived in, and I was right behind her. I went straight for the Pepperoni Passion, with a sprinkling of chicken strippers and a garnish of potato wedges. Actually it was more of a mountain of each, and I was just pouring myself a Diet Coke so as to appear slightly less unhealthy, when a familiar voice rang out behind me.
“Thought we had a date, New Girl.”
Tyler. Rae looked around at me, eyes wide.
“Oh, yeah, the grand tour. I forgot. Sorry,” I said, trying to hide my heaped plate behind my back.
“No worries.” He tore off a slice of BBQ chicken pizza, my second favourite, and took a bite. “We’ve still got time.”
“We can show her around, Ty. At ease,” Rae said. I couldn’t quite make out her tone. “Come on, Abby, let’s go find Lilly.” She started off towards the tables, and I made to follow, offering Tyler an apologetic shrug; but his words stopped me in my tracks.
“How is she?”
I turned back to him. “You mean Scarlett?”
“Yeah.”
“I…don’t know. A bit upset, I think?”
Rae’s shout echoed across the room. “Abby! Lilly saved us seats. Come on!”
I gave her a wave, almost spilling potato wedges everywhere in the process, and when I turned back to look at Tyler, he was gone.
“OK,” I murmured under my breath. “Still weird.”
When I went to sit down, Lilly slipped right back into overexcited squeal mode: “Were you just talking to Tyler?”
I nodded, looking down at my plate as everyone’s eyes seemed to swivel my way.
“What is it with you and the hotties? Teach me!”
I could almost hear the ears pricking up all around us, and Lilly came into her own and handled the introductions like a pro. She also filled everyone in on my life history again, so I didn’t have to. I had the feeling she was going to be useful like that. The only downside was that she also told everyone about Jase, despite Rae throwing a chicken strip at her.
“First lesson of dorm life,” she said. “Never tell Lilly anything.”
I forgot everyone’s name pretty much straight away, and worried about whether or not there was mozzarella all over my face, but soon everyone settled back down and concentrated on swapping summer gossip. As interest slowly drifted away from me, I asked Rae about Tyler.
“Do you not like him?”
She scrunched up her nose and shrugged. “He’s all right. Tends to follow Scar around like a bit of a lost puppy though. It gets kind of old.”
“Ah.” So that was why he’d been keen to talk to me. I just happened to be in close proximity to someone he was interested in. ‘How is she?’ presumably was meant as in ‘She’s single now, right? Please confirm.’
“Did they have a thing, or something?”
“He’d like a thing with Scar, obviously. They all would.” She indicated all the boys in the room with a wide sweep of her pizza slice. “But Scar doesn’t date boys from here. And she was pretty serious with Riley for the longest time. I think they were even on about engagement at one point.”
“Wow, that’s pretty…intense…”
“Yeah. Whatever’s happened, she’ll be ripped up inside. She won’t show it though. She’s sort of the school ‘Top Girl’, you know? Kind of has to be all…superhuman and that.”
I didn’t know, not really. If so many people liked you so much, then why wouldn’t you just be honest with them? But I nodded all the same. I didn’t have ‘social skills’ on my CV. What did I know?
“Why’d you ask, anyway?”
“Oh, nothing really, just something he said.”
“Their parents know each other,” Rae went on, around a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie. How had I missed them? “Scar and Tyler were really good friends when they were kids. Went to the same primary, I think. They used to be pretty close, but you know what it’s like when you get older. Everything gets…complicated.”
I nodded. She had that right.
I scanned the room, wondering where the girl herself had got to, and spotted her flaming hair shining over on the far table with a small group of older girls. I watched her out of the corner of my eye for a while; she wasn’t eating, just picking at the food on her plate as she talked. She really was beautiful: porcelain skin, fiery hair, and deep green eyes. Some people had all the luck. She could’ve passed for twenty easily – someone who could’ve been advertising perfume, or designer clothes, or make-up, or any number of other smooth, sexy, desirable things. And there I was, with cheese down my top, someone who’d maybe be handy for advertising the ‘before’ images for diet pills or plastic surgery.
“—earth to Abigail?”
I swivelled my head around, and cringed as I realised I’d been openly staring in Scarlett’s direction. Lilly was trying to talk to me, and as I turned back to her I spotted the clock on the far wall, which reminded me that I needed to call Mum. The thought made me suddenly, achingly homesick, momentarily yanking me out of the strange new world I’d encountered and maybe even begun to enjoy.
I told Lilly that I needed to make a call, and left her to strip the last bones of gossip bare as I headed back through to the common room. It was hot inside, the air greasy with pizza fumes and the unmistakable scent of teenagers massing. I started to feel a bit queasy – and then a lot queasy as pepperoni began to roil on a sea of warm fizzy Coke inside me. I gagged, and bolted down through reception and out into the courtyard, in need of some fresh air and maybe a forgiving tree to throw up behind. I didn’t know the code for the door yet, to let myself back in, so I wedged it open with a handy brick that looked to have been left there for exactly that reason. I scurried over towards the gate, far away from the heat and the smells, and took a few deep breaths of the cool night air.
Once I was pretty sure I wasn’t about to let fly, I turned and rested my back against the gate, looking up at my home for the next fourteen weeks. It already looked more familiar, less imposing than it had a few hours ago. The junk food, Ty’s slightly stalkery weirdness and the chaos of break-ups and sibling rivalries had stripped away the Sunday-night drama veneer of the building to leave the essence of plain old ‘school’ sitting starkly in its place.
I picked out my dorm – looking up to find the window I’d looked through earlier – when the magpie had scared me half to death. The bright pink curtains billowed out of the open window in the breeze. As I watched them dance, I caught a glimpse of a dim figure moving in the shadows inside, before the window hurtled down and slammed shut. The movement and the noise made me flinch, sending ice cubes rattling down into my stomach. I looked nervously around the courtyard, half expecting to see the bird again as the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. The trees rustled quietly, and the courtyard was still.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, before my mind could veer off down any fresh, dark pathways, and