Everlong: (Book One of the Everlong Trilogy) (5 page)

'Okay, okay, settle down,' said Mrs Jones, fanning her hands in the air. 'Mike, sit by Suzy, Taylor by Sarah, Sam by Grace, Dexter, you can go over to Evelyn-'

What?! I looked up, my heart stilled for a moment. I couldn't breathe.

‘Evelyn?' asked Dexter, his voice sulky and defiant.

‘That’s what I said Mr Sullivan,' said Mrs Jones, one hand firmly on her hip, the other pointing at the seat next to me. I felt the warmth of humiliation as it crawled up my neck and onto my face. I stared at her finger still pointing at the chair next to me.

I tuned out, deafened by the blood rushing to my head, a strange mixture of horror and delight pulsing through me as Dexter flopped into the chair and tossed his bag noisily onto the table.

My heart rolled over in my chest. My mouth had dried up like a pool of water in the Sahara. I realised I was kneading my sweaty hands together under the table. How the hell was I supposed to work with him? I Couldn't even speak to him properly. I fixed my eyes on the table in front of me, too afraid to look up in case I looked at him, or, even worse, Amber.

Without even searching her out, I knew she was looking, I felt her blazing fury scorching my skin.

Dexter snatched the book up from the table and opened it to the first page, his body leaning as far away from me as possible.

Was I really that bad?

I cast a furtive glance out of the corner of my eye; his hate for me was written all over his face like the words in a text book. Not that I couldn't blame him. I hated myself more.

But why had he saved me then? Why wasn't I rotting at the bottom of the river?

I took my book off the table, opened it and began to read the first sentence.

And then I read it again.

And again.

But the words didn't make any sense. My head was pounding, my heart quivering in my chest as it struggled to beat.

An image of the Old Bridge flashed before my eyes, I couldn't get it out of my head, it was so clean and crisp, the dank smell of the water so real that I could've been there. And then the feeling of freedom as I plunged into the dark forgiving water.

He should have left me there. He should have let me die.

What a beautiful lie I had believed in.

I stood up, the chair scraping across the wooden floor as I pushed it back. ‘I don’t feel very well,’ I said, my eyes struggling to focus, my heart banging in my chest. Panic was taking flight inside me and I didn't know if I had the strength to fight it. I didn't want to have a crazy, stupid meltdown there.

‘What’s a matter?’ asked Mrs Jones, looking out from under a pile of paperwork.

‘I think I’m going to be-‘But I didn’t finish. I grabbed my book, stuffed it into my bag and ran out of class.

I fled down the stairs and out of the school before anyone had the chance to stop me. All I could picture was the edge of the bridge. The demonic beast wanted to drag me back down into the water. I had to lock the beast down, like Chronos in Tartarus, I had to chain it up, not let it escape until I got home.

In case I did something stupid again.

I didn't stop running until I was safely in the Town Centre, just one girl in a sea of people that no one would take any notice of. Like an automaton, I boarded the number three bus, trying to hold onto the desperation welling up inside of me.

The driver glared at me as I showed him my pass. ‘It’s the wrong way up love!’ he growled.

‘The pass,’ he barked again, shaking his head and pointing.

I ignored him and headed down the bus, the other passengers clucking and shaking their heads, their faces glaring up at me, twisted and grotesque like demons. But they were staring at me like I was the one with horns sticking out of my head or something. They whispered and laughed.
Why didn't you do it properly? Why are you still here? Waste of space!

I grabbed on to one of the poles at the side of the aisle to steady myself, and then slowly pulled myself along the bus until I found a spare seat at the back, on my own.

I unzipped my hoodie and tugged at my tee-shirt, trying to allow air in, but I still couldn't breathe. I reached up and opened the window as waves of nausea swept over me. The panic was rising up again, like a cobra, threatening to strike and paralyse me.

‘Will you shut that window!’ barked a short blonde woman, reaching over me to slam the window shut.

I vaguely heard a male voice say ‘These youngsters,’ to a chorus of approval, before everything went quiet, and my mind floated off into the distance like I was in a dream, except I knew I wasn't in a dream because I didn't dream.

You had to sleep to dream.

If I could dream, then I would be normal, I could return to life.

Instead, I went back to playing dead.

I let my face fall against the cold wet glass. Outside, the world raced by, distorted by the condensation. I pulled my sleeve over my hand and rubbed the glass, making a small window of clarity.

Tears began to fall.

And there was no stopping them.

Everything was a mess.

Pain shot through my chest, a great physical ache of sadness, like a dagger plunging into me. But instead of killing me, it brought me back to life. I was feeling again and it ached so bad. I wrapped my arms around my chest, trying to hold on to the pain. To stop it spilling out of me with my guts.

No one came to me. No one put their arms around me. They didn't
see
me.

Evie

I sat on the floor of the shower cubicle, my arms wrapped tightly around my legs, as the scalding water pounded around me. I wore pain like a coat, a second layer of skin. I let the water blast it away, watched it spiral down the plug hole with the water and soap until I could see it no more, until the water had anaesthetised my soul.

I didn't want to feel anymore.

I wanted it all to go away.

Eventually I stumbled out of the cubicle, pulled on my pyjamas and went downstairs. I pulled the convector heater into the conservatory and settled down to draw, curled up on the sofa under a woollen blanket. Outside, night was falling fast, bringing with it an elegant flurry of snowflakes that coated everything in a thin blanket of pure white. As the snow gathered on the roof of the conservatory it felt like I was snuggled in a cocoon of silk, like a caterpillar waiting to transform into a butterfly.

The pencil lines flowed over the paper, giving me something else to think about as I defined some lines whilst taking the clarity away from others, my hand working almost constantly. I worked late into the evening, the snow still falling from the blanketed sky, until the heater could no longer mask the biting cold and my hands could work no more.

I had my finished sketch for art; a kick-ass warrior girl called Sabre.

My stomach groaned with hunger. I hadn't eaten all day; it just hadn't occurred to me to eat. My Gran, if she'd still been around, would've been appalled. Evelyn, she'd have said, you need to put the calories in to get the energy out. If you don't, you'll get ill.

My Gran. Gone.

How I longed for her to put her arms around me again.

I headed for the kitchen, found a frozen pizza, heated in the microwave then slumped in front of the telly to watch Neighbours and then Home and Away, a whole hour of sunshine television, the kind that you didn’t really have to concentrate on, the perfect antidote to cold January days and pizza that tasted of cardboard.

I'd just finished when the doorbell rang. I hoped it wasn't Celia. But it had to be, no one else ever came around, and she only came out of respect for Cassie. Celia hated me, but at least she was honest about it. I respected her for that at least. I fastened my dressing gown and then went and opened the front door.

‘Sam? What are you doing here?’

‘Hiya!’ said Sam, his blues eyes sparkling even in the dark, just like him, 'Just thought I'd come and see if you were alright.'

Sam was always too happy, always too nice, and I didn't deserve him, or his pity. ‘Oh, yeah, feeling much better thanks. Must have been something dodgy I ate last night,’ I said, rubbing my hand over my stomach, over-emphasising the point.

‘Good,' he said, his face tilted slightly. I watched his eyes narrow into slits. I knew he was trying to determine whether I was telling the truth or not, and I wasn't going to help him out on that.

There was an awkward pause before he continued, 'It was probably a good job you didn’t go to art today, Miss Powell was in a right foul mood,' he said, blowing a snowflake off his nose, 'one of the year nines had super-glued the acrylic pots to the worktops. She couldn't get them off, had to get the Caretaker to do it.’

'Oh,' I said, searching around for something to say, finally settling on, 'Anyone we know?'

‘Graham Higgins,’ said Sam, stamping his feet in the thickening snow, his breath escaping in wisps from his mouth.

‘Oh,’ I repeated.

Sam's gaze dropped to the floor. ‘I was wondering whether you wanted help with your art coursework, you know, as you'd forgotten it. Thought you might not have done it? You didn't really say earlier...’ He left the question dangling in the air.

Paranoia kicked me in the guts. Why was he asking me this now? Did he know about my run-in with the river? No, he didn't know, did he? Whatever, I had no intention of answering his question. ‘Look Sam, now's really not a good time, I’d invite you in, but mom’s just about to put tea out.' I said, gesturing behind me with a quick flick of my head.

‘Oh.' he said, with a weak smile that would usually have me crippled with guilt, 'oh okay then, just thought…you know. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow?’

‘Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Ok. Bye,’ said Sam, raising his hand to wave goodbye and then thinking better of it.

I closed the door on him before he'd even left the driveway.

My home was my sanctuary and I didn't want anyone coming in and spoiling that. Not even my best friend. Especially not my best friend. I couldn't let him in, couldn't let anyone see how far I'd fallen. I didn't want to be his burden. I didn't want his pity, or his love, I didn't deserve it. I wanted to be alone in the only place I that I could truly be myself.

And yet, when I went back into the living room, the quiet crashed over me, dead and silent like a graveyard and I hated it. I hated the feeling of nothingness, the complete emptiness that opened up like a vast ocean in front of me. I was floating in the middle of it, keeping my head barely above the surface, miles and miles of black sea stretching out from me in every direction.

I didn't want to be with people. I didn't want to be alone. My conundrum. A complete contradiction that made me feel that I didn't belong anywhere, especially in this world.

That's why I'd tried to end it. I just wanted it all to stop. There was no other way out.

I went to bed to avoid the silence, the emptiness of the house. Maybe today I would be able to fall to sleep and then, for a few blissful hours, I wouldn't be able to feel or think.

I climbed in to bed and wrapped myself up in my plump patchwork quilt that smelt of summer and bright flowers and happiness, but inside me the ball of dread was beginning to roll in my stomach. How long would it be before I finally fell to sleep? Sometimes it could be hours, and on a few occasions I'd fallen to sleep just as my morning alarm shrieked. I would lie, still and silent like I was dead, watching the shadows dance across the room, hours and hours swallowed whole by the long expanse of silence and darkness.

I shut my eyes and grotesque images danced across the back of my eyelids, laughing at me from the corners of my mind. I opened my eyes, tried to avoid them by staring at the ceiling, but the shadows began to laugh at me too as they started to creep across, dripping down the sides of the walls like big black spider webs. The monsters of my mind began to take form in the shadows, encouraged by the demonic beast; the Raven of the Edgar Allan Poe poem, who came gently rapping, rapping…Deep into that darkness peering…dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.

I had become so fearful of my own mind, of my deepest darkest thoughts. Sometimes, in the past, in the depths of the night, after finally falling to sleep, I'd wake up, not knowing what was real or what was a dream, the two worlds had somehow started to collide and merge into one.

The dreams where I'd slashed my wrists were the worst; I'd wake up drenched in sweat, not able to tell if I was alive or dead.

And then even the dreams stopped visiting.

The lines of the poem ran through my mind until the Sandman eventually took me into his arms.

Evie

When I woke early the next day, I bounded out of bed and flung open the curtains; outside was blanketed in a thick carpet of snow. There was no way on this earth that Mr Taylor would open the school - he lived too far away- and for one more day at least, I wouldn't have to deal with anyone - no Sam, no Amber, no teachers and definitely no Dexter. I couldn't deal with that. I didn't want the beast getting any help in plunging and twisting the knife into my gut.