Authors: Beckie Stevenson
I ignore Hallie and turn to my Father. “Can I have your car keys please so we can at least go and sit somewhere that’s out of the wind?”
He continues
staring off into the distance as if he hasn’t heard a word I’ve said.
“Hello?” I say
, waving my arm in front of his face.
He blinks and shakes his head. “Sorry
, Rose. I was miles away then.”
“Can we go
, please?” I ask again.
He looks from me, down to
Ava and then nods. Hallie huffs at the side of him. He turns his head toward her and frowns. “It is freezing, Hallie. Let’s get home and have some nice warm food for lunch.”
She stands up. “You kno
w I don’t cook, Lance,” she huffs before storming off toward the car.
Ava
and I watch her walk away and glance at each other. When we look back up to our Father, he has that faraway look on his face again.
It’s the first Monday after spring break and today my Father is taking me to school for the first time in six years. I can hear him rushing around the house
, looking for his favorite tie and cursing every time he opens the wrong door or forgets where he’s left his briefcase. I stand up and stare out of the huge bay window in the living room of our new house and watch the distant waves lapping against the shore.
We’ve been in Cannon Beach for ten days
, but today is my first day at my new school and I’m sick to my stomach with nerves. Not only am I starting a new school in the middle of the semester and am an outsider from another state, but I am Roisin, the girl with a strange name who doesn’t want to exist; the girl who does whatever she can to not be seen, the girl who is haunted by a headless ghost. Everyone knew who I was at my old school and left me to be who I wanted to be - a nobody.
I got the odd few snide remarks and people would try to trip me in the hallways but I could live with that. What I found I couldn’t live with after my summer with Zak was the loneliness. I want a friend. I want someone I can confide in. I want to laugh and gossip like normal girls. But most of all, I want to feel the excitement again that had whirled around in my belly when Zak had kissed me.
This is why I’ve decided I need to change. Nobody here knows
anything about me or what I was like at my old school, so this is my chance of having a normal life that includes friends, and this is why I feel like I’m actually going to be sick with nerves. I’m not going to hide anymore.
I skim
my hands over the granite fireplace that has freshly chopped wood stacked neatly in the wooden spaces at each side of the fire and pick up the photograph of Hallie and my Father in the hospital when Ava had just been born. Ava was such a cute baby; round faced with delicate little features and peachy soft skin. She was like a little doll and she’s still the only thing that I have ever been thankful to Hallie for.
I replace the picture and glance around the room again
, looking for the ghost. I haven’t seen her since the day my Father told us that we were moving. I feel on edge all of the time, wondering if I’m going to turn a corner and suddenly find her there. I’m hoping that she was connected to the old house and now that we’ve moved, she won’t haunt me anymore so that I can crawl out of the shadow that’s swallowed me up for the majority of my life. A movement on the right side of my vision makes me snap my head around.
“Ready?” my Father asks
, sticking his head around the door. He blinks, taking in my appearance and says, “You look nice.”
I pick my bag up from off the floor and
look down at myself. I’ve decided to wear a dress, one that’s not too tight but not too baggy either, tights, and my flat knee-high boots. I walk toward him, nodding. “I think so and thanks.”
He smiles gently and wiggles his tie further into place
. “You’ll be fine, Rose.”
He disappears as quickly as he arrived. I step out into the kitchen and wave goodbye to
Ava, who doesn’t start her new school until tomorrow, purposely ignore Hallie, who is seated at the breakfast bar with her head leaning down on the shiny new granite countertop. Ava plops two headache tablets into a glass of water, causing it to fizzle, and pushes it in front of her Mother. Ava shouldn’t even be able to touch tablets, never mind actually being the one who puts them into a glass and gives them to her hungover Mother.
Hallie was drunk again last night and is not in any fit state to look after her daughter today.
Ava will have to make do with playing on her own and watching DVDs. Ava looks up at me and smiles sadly. I give her a quick wave, feeling sorrier for her than I’ve ever felt for anyone else in my life.
I
walk into the open-plan foyer and watch my Dad walk down the stairs, patting every pocket in his suit jacket looking for his keys. I smile and pick his keys up from off the oak sideboard and wave them in the air.
“Are you looking for these?”
I ask.
“There th
ey are!” he says, exasperation clear in his voice. I’ve never seen my dad looking so flustered and rushed in all my life. “Right, I think I’m ready. Are you?”
I nod.
“Let’s go then,” he says, turning to blow a kiss at Ava. He glances at Hallie and I watch the hesitancy in his face as he tries to decide if he should say something to her or not. He decides to ignore her just as I did.
He pulls open our white front door and
walks toward his black Range Rover. I turn my face toward the sun and let the taste of salt skim across my lips in the sea breeze.
Our street contains seven large houses that are all similar in size but completely cont
rasting in style. Some are colored in beige or cream, some are bare bricked with stained-glass windows that remind me of churches, and some are converted into what I think are beach houses. Ours has seven bedrooms, three bathrooms, two livings rooms, a dining room, a game room, and an over-sized kitchen, all spread over three floors. Our windows are large but relatively plain compared to some of the others on the street. We have a large driveway that leads to the double garage and the front door and two small trees that sit proudly at either side of the house. It’s too big for us, but Hallie insisted that she wanted a big house. God knows why because we all know she couldn’t be bothered to keep our old one clean and that wasn’t anywhere near as big as this one.
My Father turns right out of our street and drives smoothly along the road that winds its way around the coast.
“Will you still be a partner?” I ask.
His eyes flick to me sitting at the side of him as he changes the car into a higher gear and leans his head back in his seat. “The offices here ar
e bigger and have more partners so my share in the business will be less, but my salary will be no different and I’ll still be dealing with the high-profile cases.”
“Oh, okay.” I don’t really have any idea what my Dad does. I mean, I know he’s a really good lawyer and has worked his way up through the company from a young age
, but one of Dad’s philosophies has always been to never let his work interfere with his home life. He doesn’t talk about any of the cases he’s working on, even when Hallie bombards him with questions. He checks his BlackBerry now and again and sometimes has to go into work on a Saturday morning if he needs to prepare for court on Monday morning, but other than that, I know nothing. I don’t even know what part of the law he specializes in.
He leans over and squeezes my knee. “Don’t be nervous
, Rose. It’s just school. You’re taking all the same classes that you were before.”
“I know,” I sigh.
“I’m sure you’ll make lots of friends here. There’s plenty more for you to do, you know.”
I blink over at him
and frown. “Like what?”
He laughs. “Like the beach. I would have love
d to have had a beach nearby when I was growing up.”
I don’t understand how having a beach will hel
p me make friends, but I refrain from arguing that point with him. “Yeah, maybe.”
I see him fro
wn but neither of us says anything again until we get to school. He pulls up in one of the dedicated parental parking spaces that faces the front of the school and turns the engine off.
“It’s a
nice-looking building,” he says, leaning forward to look at it again.
I look up and watch
other students file up the tree-lined concrete path that leads to a set of pale stone steps, and what I can only assume to be the main doors. There are several trees, all displaying thousands of tiny green buds, scattered around the grass and the land that surrounds the school. I read online that the building my Dad is referring to used to be a hospital during the war and is in the shape of a large ‘T,’ spread over two stories with red bricks and large white windows.
“It’s got
ten good grades.” He smiles, then quickly leans forward and pulls me into an awkward hug. “Have a good day, darling.”
I pull back, unclick my seatbelt and smile at him. “I’ll try.
You too.”
“See you later.”
“Yeah, bye.”
I climb out of the car and watch him reverse and wave bef
ore driving off to his new job. I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the car parked next to me. I’m already different, I think, and I haven’t even entered the building yet.
Because of the nerves
, I was awake three hours before I had to be at school this morning, and with nothing to do, I decided to pay a little more attention to my appearance. After showering and washing my hair, I actually decided to blow-dry it and straighten it, instead of just leaving it to dry naturally into frizzy waves. It feels like its three inches longer because I’ve straightened it, and I can’t get used to the feel of it as the wind blows it over the back of my arms.
Even when I had finished all
of the extra work on my hair, I still had an hour to spare so I even applied a little bit of make-up. The tinted moisturizer makes my face look healthier. I’ve dabbed a tiny amount of blush onto the apples of my cheeks and twirled the mascara wand over my already dark lashes, making my eyes instantly appear brighter and bigger. My lips are naturally very pink so I’ve just applied some clear lip balm on them to keep the wind from drying them out.
If I’d have ever turned up at my old school looking like this
, everyone would have noticed and felt the need to comment. At least here they don’t know any difference. I’m a blank canvas and today is my one and only chance of making a good first impression. I hug my folders to my chest and walk up the path wondering if I’m doing the right thing or not.
I know something has happened the second I step foot into the corridor. Pe
ople are whispering. Girls are laughing and the guys are slapping each other on the back. I stare straight ahead as I walk past them all and focus on the grinning face of Riley Morgan.
“What’s going on?” I ask, stashing the books that I won’t need until my afternoon classes into my locker.
Riley smirks. “There’s a new girl. And she’s hot.”
I roll my eyes. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a woman on this planet, except his own Mother, who he wouldn’t say no to. “Great,” I say with mock enthusiasm.
Riley slams his locker shut and walks beside me as we make our way to our first period. “Is it just because you’re English and everything you say sounds sarcastic, or were you actually being sarcastic then?”
“I was being sarcastic,” I clarify.
“Why? Every guy is interested in the new hot chick. Why not you?”
I shrug. I can’t tell him the real reason why I’m not interested in girls. I know the other guys have been asking him if I’m gay, but
I know he can take the banter so I don’t exactly do anything to discourage them. “I don’t really care if there’s a new girl, even if she is hot,” I tell him honestly.
“You will
when you see her,” he says, grinning.
“I doubt it.”
“She’s got to be Italian,” he says. “She has this mane of long, chocolate-coloured hair that must look like silk when it drops down her naked back, and those eyes,” he whistles. “Big, brown, come-to-bed eyes and tanned soft-looking skin that’s just begging for me to kiss it.”
“She sounds nice,” I say, not really meaning it at all.
“She literally eye-fucked me up the corridor, Cabe.”
I shake my head. “I bet she didn’t. I bet you walked in her way or something, forcing her to look at you. She probably j
ust glanced at you, but in your head she was eye-fucking you because it gives your ego a boost.”
“Ouch,” he says, placing a hand over his chest. “That hurt.”
“You’ll get over it.”
“Oh, come on,” he laughs. “You’re such a boring, British bastard. Where’s your sense of humour?”
“Obviously, it’s still in England.”