Existing (6 page)

“Hello
,” I say hesitantly.

His face breaks out into a wide smile. “
Hello, Rose.”

“Can I help you?”
I ask, wondering why he’s stopped me.

He smiles.
“Maybe. I’m Ashley and I am the other new person today.”

“Oh,” I reply
with a smile. “How’s it going?”

He nods and I can’t help but notice how attractive he is. He’s nothing like
Zak, now that I’ve had the chance to study his whole face. “I’m bored, so I thought I’d spice things up a bit and I chose you.”

I a
lmost laugh. “Wow, lucky me, huh?”

“Yep,” he says, spinning around
so he’s walking beside me. “How about we have a new person’s pact?”

This time I actually laugh out loud and it feels strange but good. As my laugh is subsiding
, I see Cabe Evans walking toward me, frowning at us. I quickly avert my eyes from his tanned face and turn my attention back to Ashley. “What did you have in mind?”

“I want three fast facts fr
om you. Something about you that no one else yet knows and something that you wouldn’t usually tell someone, and I promise to keep them a secret. But no questions are allowed to be asked on the back of those facts.”

I frown. “What’s the point?”

He shrugs. “It’s something different, isn’t it? Has anyone else ever asked you that?”

I shake my head quickly.

“Well then. Ladies first.”

I stop and th
ink for a moment. “Okay, here goes. I’ve never had a best friend. I’m scared shitless and feel like a fake.” I pause for another moment and think about my final one before breathing out and saying, “And my family hates me because I’m the reason they had to move here.”

“
Oooh,” he smiles. “That last one was a good one.”

I grin. “Now it’s your turn.”

The green door to chemistry is in sight so he stops for a moment. “I’ve never had a male best friend. I am a fake too, and my family hates me because I’m gay.”

The butterflies that were flutte
ring in my stomach suddenly die. I open my mouth but he holds his hand up in front of my face. “No questions, remember?”

I roll my eyes and nod.

“Give me your cell phone number.”

“Why?”
I ask, handing my phone over to him anyway.

“I’m new, remember? I need numbers to be cool.”

As I walk up the drive
way to my house, I find myself smiling. I can’t believe I’ve had such a perfect first day. It couldn’t have gone any better if I’d planned it. At first, the fact that one of the most popular girls decided to befriend me was a little unnerving, but as the day went on, I realized that I wasn’t that different from her. Well, apart from the ghost and the old Roisin, but I wasn’t about to tell anyone about that – not even Ashley.

I wriggle my key in the lock and hear
Ava squealing my name out in delight.

“Rose,” she says running full
speed toward me.

I have just enough time to let my bag drop to the floor so I can catch her. “Hello
, titch,” I say, hugging her tightly. “Did you miss me?”

“Yes,” she says
, running her fingers through my hair. “I missed you like crazy.”

I squeeze her again and
realize she’s still in her pajamas from this morning. “I’ve missed you too.”

She frowns at me. “Why do you always call me
titch?”

I grin at he
r. “I heard it on a TV show once. It’s another word for being little, I think.”

“But I’m not little
!” she complains. “I’m five.”

I laugh at her. “Exactly,” I say, “so you’ll be my little
titch for ages.”

Her forehead wrinkles up, but she doesn’t question it any further. She
continues to run her fingers through my hair, right from the roots to the end. “I like your hair.”

I smile and set her back down onto her feet. “Thank you
, Ava. I think I like it too.”

“You look like a pretty princess,”
she says, taking my hand. “Your hair is nearly as dark and nearly as long as Jasmine’s.”

I laugh and le
ad her through the house. I glance in the living room and the dining room, not quite believing the mess that I’m seeing. My Dad will go crazy if he comes home and finds the house like this. I pull her up the stairs. When we get into the bathroom, I turn on the taps and fill the tub.

“Why am I going in the
bath?” asks Ava, pouring in far too much bubble bath.

I remove it
from her hands and pull her shirt over her head. “Because you’re filthy. What have you been doing all day?”

She shrugs
, wrapping her arms around her bare torso. “Playing outside, and playing with my dollies, and making my lunch.”

“You made yourself lunch?” I ask
disbelievingly.

“Yes,” she says
, smiling proudly.

“Where was your Mommy?” I stand and shut the taps off.

“She said she felt sick.”

“But where was she?” I persist.

Ava shrugs. “She told me she wanted to lie down. She said she had a headache.”

“Okay,” I say, removing her tights while trying to
direct her toward the toilet. “Did you wear your coat when you played outside?”

She sits on the toilet
seat and nods at me. “I got mud in the kitchen, Rose. I didn’t mean to.”

I smile and lift her into the bath. “Don’t worry
about it. I’ll go clean it while you’re in the bath and then we’ll cook some dinner. How does that sound?”

She lifts her head up to me and laughs at the look on my face when I
notice the beard of bubbles that are hanging down from her chin. “Yes, please.”

I giggle and leave the door open
while I move quickly around the house, picking toys up and putting chairs back where they’re supposed to go. I can still hear Ava playing happily in the bath as I clear the last of the toys from off the floor. I head into the kitchen and feel my jaw drop at the state of it. There is food all over the counter, crumbs on the floor, three dirty plates in the sink, the fridge door is hanging wide open, and there are about twenty muddy footprints all over the shiny cream tiles. I move what I can from off the counter and back into the fridge, hoping the door hasn’t been open all day, and fill a bowl of soapy water. I pull on a pair of pink rubber gloves but stop when I hear footsteps behind me.

“When did you get back?”

I freeze and turn slowly around. Hallie is standing half-naked in the doorway. Her usual straight, perfect hair is piled up roughly on the top of her head and her face is completely free of make-up. She has dried slobber running down her chin and the smell coming from her makes me want to heave.

“About ten minutes ago
,” I tell her. “What time is my Dad due back home?”

She laughs and swaggers toward the
refrigerator. She opens it and drinks the orange juice straight from the carton. I make a mental note to throw it in the trash when she leaves the room.

“Your precious Daddy is working late – again.”

She lets the carton drop to the floor and walks toward me, leaving the fridge door wide open. She glances around the room and waves her hand in the air. “Clean this mess up. Your Father will go ballistic if he comes home and finds his house looking like this.”

I hold my rubber gloved hands up and point to the bowl on the floor. “What does it look like I’m doing
, Hallie?”

Her face
immediately contorts in anger. Before I realize what her hand is doing, she pulls it back and smashes her knuckles into my face. I hear myself gasp as my feet stagger back over the floor until my spine hits the counter behind me and then all I can see are tiny black flashes. I furiously blink to try and clear them, but they don’t move.

The pain finally registers in my brain
. I fight for breath but it’s too much. My knees buckle. My eye waters uncontrollably, sending big, wet tears down my scorching hot cheek. My teeth feel all tingly and sensitive as I slide down the cabinets and onto the floor with the flat side of my palm held tight against my face. I shut my eyes when Hallie comes to stand in front of me.

“Do not take that tone of voice with me
, Roisin. You’re a stupid little shit and nothing more than a pain in my cute little ass. Just you remember that I’m married to your Father.”

How
could I forget, I think, as I watch her walk out of the room. I hear her bedroom door slam shut and lower my head to the floor until my hot face is lying flat against the cool tiles. I can feel the skin around my eye already swelling, forcing the window of vision out of my left eye to be narrowed. As I hold my shaking hands out in front of me, I realize I must be in shock. She’s done things to me in the past like grabbing my wrists and arms too hard and shoving me against walls, but that’s the first time she’s ever hit me in the face. It hurts. It really hurts.

“Roisin?”

I push myself to a sitting position and lower my head in between my knees as the dizziness overtakes me.

“Roisin?”
Ava calls again.

I slowly lift my head up
. “Yeah?” I wince when I hear the wobble in my voice.

“Have you finished cleaning yet?”

I sniff. “Nearly, titch.”

“Okay,” she says slowly.
“My fingers have gone wrinkly.”

I stagger onto all fours and dunk my cloth into the bowl of water. I quickly wipe the
floor until the footprints are gone and empty the dirty water into the sink. I pull off my gloves and shut the refrigerator as I walk past it. I can’t believe what’s just happened. How could she do that to me? I know she’s a bitch and we both know we hate each other, but hitting me in the face? Really?

“What did you do to your face?”
Ava asks, leaning up onto her knees in the bath while watching me splash water over my face. I pull a towel from off the shelf and soak it with cold water.

“I slipped on the wet floor and banged my face
,” I lie, sitting down on the top of the toilet lid while holding the cloth against my face.

She blinks at me. “Did it hurt?”

I nod and wipe away a tear that slithers down my cheek.

“Wh
at was my Mommy shouting at you for?”

I look up at her and her innocent face and
realize I’m trapped. I can’t tell my Father about what Hallie has done to me because Hallie is Ava’s Mom and Ava loves her. If my Dad left Hallie because I had told him what she did to me, then he’d want to take Ava too and that would break her heart. I wasn’t about to be responsible for that.

“Oh, nothing really.
I don’t think she’s cleaned her ears properly. She wasn’t shouting, she was just talking loudly,” I tell her.

Ava
accepts my answer with a nod and stands up in the bath. “Can I get out now?”

I smile and grab a towel from the heated rail. “Sure. What do you want for dinner?”

Ava stands and holds her arms up for me. “I would like some chicken, I think.”

I lift her from the bath and turn, catching both of our reflections in the mirror. The s
kin around my eye is bright red and very swollen. I can already make out the beginning of a big bruise around the edges of my eye and on my cheek. Ava turns and gently touches her fingers to it, making me wince and suck in a quick breath of air.

“Sorry,” she says. “Do you want some of my princess
Band-Aids for it?”

I smile and place her back down onto the
floor. “That’s very kind of you, Ava, but Band-Aids are only used to stop a cut from bleeding.”

“Oh,” she says
, running out of the bathroom and leaving a cloud of bubbles behind her. “Well, what can you do to make it better then?”

I follow her into her new bedroom and walk to her princess drawers. I tu
rn and place a set of pink pajamas onto her bed. “Just a cold compress.”

“What’s a compress?”

I lift her onto the bed and rub her quickly with the towel. “It’s like a cold, wet cloth that you hold against something that’s bruised and sore.”

She wiggles and laughs on the bed as I dry her armpits. “Why do you call it a compress?”

I look up and think for a second before realizing I can’t answer her. “I don’t actually know, Ava. Should we look it up on the computer after dinner?”

She smiles and dresses herself as I sit on her Cinderella bed. “Can we also look up the dinosaurs?”

I glance up and fold the fluffy white towel as a headache starts to form at my temple. “What do you want to know?”

She shrugs. “I’m not sure. Just where they came from and where they went.”