Whispers of a hidden heart chapters 8 & 9

YOU'RE FROM SCHOOL? DON'T READ THIS!!!!!!!!!!

Chapter eight.

“You can tell him if you want. I don’t really care,” I say to my whole friend group. But I would like to make a correction: I do care. I care what they do, because last year they ruined me. This year they will ruin me. I say I like someone to get them to stop annoying me about it. They tell the person, and everything becomes a mess of tangled wire. Except, this time will really ruin me.

“Hey, Charlie!” Leila was up and had already crossed to the other side of the concrete eating area. Shoot. I free my legs from under the dirty metal bench and leap after her. Suddenly, I grab her arm and drag her down to ground. My knees scrape across the rough concrete. The boys lounging on the other seat in front of us start jeering and nudging Charlie.

I scramble up, but it’s too late; one of my friends on my table had already yelled, “Scarlett likes you!”. The boys are doing that weird “oOoOooOoOhhh!” Everything feels hazy, like I’m watching through glass in an aquarium. Everything is distorted, the colours are blended. I feel like I have a pair of noise-cancelling headphones on. But then everything rushes back, and I’m back at school in the noise and lights, standing alone and staring at the boys.

I grab my lunchbox and book off the table and bolt up the stairs, throwing my food onto the ground where the lunch tubs should be. Why did they do this? Why did the people that I trusted enough to tell one of my secrets spill it to the table I wanted least to know. And sure, I had already told Charlie I liked him but now all his friends know. I wheel to left with my book still in my hand and sink down onto the blue seat built into the wall. My robot hands flip to a random page, but I’m not reading.

I think. I think about me, who I am. I am just atoms upon atoms upon atoms, not arranged in the right shapes. All the pieces of me are gathered, but I keep them aside until I know which piece goes where. Until I can assemble me in the perfect formation, just like everyone else. I am on a quest, a quest to become right. But I will never be right. I am always wrong.

Because Charlie doesn’t like me. After I gave him the note, he didn’t say anything different. He didn’t act differently; he doesn’t like me. And all those lollies he put in my tray were just saying that he’s here, that he gets me. But how could anyone get the feeling I have right now, the sinking feeling like my heart is torn up and burnt and blended all over again? Nobody knows the hollowness inside. It’s like if you called out your echo would bind through the chambers in my body return back to you, empty and cold.

Lola comes. She tells me to come back down, that everyone is waiting for me. I stand up because I’m not in the mood for fighting, I left my defence down at the eating area. She leads me to the stairs, and I walk down a few steps, but I can’t do it. I can’t do the boys seeing me and cheering, I can’t do the wide grins on everyone’s faces. I turn back and run to the seat, like a toddler throwing a tantrum. “Oh, come on!” Lola huffs, with the smile she doesn’t have to try to make. But when I don’t respond, she turns away. Like a mother giving in.

How could I be so careless, letting them into me? How could I not see this end? Why would they ever accept my privacy, like my parents looking through my history? I am dead. But can you be dead if you were never living? I am merely alive. Alive, I feel pain. Oh, Scarlett, what have you done?

And later when Leila comes to wash the scrape on her arm in the girls' toilets, I pretend to not notice her. I pretend to be absorbed into my book, into the story of Isaac running away from home. Finding Sophie and living happily ever after. Like all books, a perfect ending. But here’s the thing: life isn’t happy. I learnt that a long time ago, life doesn’t end perfectly. There are no true love kisses, nobody likes me. You live, you die, you are forgotten. It’s a simple concept, really.

I can’t do pretending anymore. I’m going to get up and talk to Leila, even if it will rip me apart. Even if it will stretch me and pull me and take away my heart and throw it into a pit of fire. I will talk to Leila. I slam my book closed and stand up. She’s still trying to bend her elbow, so it fits under the tap, when I walk over. I watch her for a while, washing the blood off and drying it under the hand dryer. When she’s done, she looks up to see me at her side, standing like a puppet without a hand.

“Hi.” That the best I can do. I can’t say anything else; I don’t apologise. I can’t apologise.

“Can you come back? I mean, I can’t make you, but we’re waiting for you.” She says it as if she means it. I can see how she was voted school captain. Leila is the most reliable person I know, but you can’t keep anything a secret around her. She’s like a rock; I lean on her, but rocks can crush you if they fall. And now it seems as if she has forgiven my non-existent apology, I have to make to it up to her. I have to follow her; I have to be her puppy.

“Fine.” I follow her downstairs, trying to block out the noise coming from the boys’ table. I look up to glare at Ha Jun, but he just grins back. I have this feeling again, the feeling where all these voices are screaming at me inside my head, but I can’t hear what they’re saying, and all I can do is mumble back. It’s like having the heaviest rock and roll music turned up to full volume, but only I can hear it.

We sit down on the table. Leila talks first, “I just found a new way to seal a cut. You put it under the tap and then hold it under the blow dryer.”

Yep. Leila. I’m back to being on the edges of the city, pushed away to the furthest corner. Sometimes I like being away, observing from a distance. I see the heartbreak; I see the happiness. I look on through the window. They feel together; I feel alone. Maybe I was born to watch others, to experience alone. I break their conversation, wishing to be part of the circle. “Wait, does Charlie know? Who on Earth told them?!”

They all look at each other and shrug. I grab my book and stand up, fading into the crowds of people walking up the stairs. “I hate you!” I scream and go back up the steps. I throw my book at my lunchbox, but by the time it hits the floor I’m already slamming the door on the bathroom cubicle closed. My back slides down the wall. I tuck my feet underneath me on the dirt floor. My chest is heaving in continuous sobs, and angry tears streak down my face. I push them away and stand up. Just breath.

I have to go back to class; the bell is about to go. I have to face Charlie and all the people that heard what happened at morning tea. Rumours travel fast. Maybe the boys told all their friends? I open the door and step out into the light. Rounding the corner, I see my book sitting neatly on top of my lunchbox. But it didn’t land anywhere near my lunchbox. Someone moved it. Someone knew it was mine. I think back to who was behind me when I was on the stairs. Then I know.

Charlie.

I pick it up and inspect the damage. It has a small dent in the cover, but that’s all. I wander through the crowds and down the hallway to my classroom. I bend down to put it into my bag, nestled among the other backpacks sitting on the bag-racks. Straightening up, I look down at the lines forming on the ground in front of me. People are joining them, sitting down, standing up, waiting for the door to open. Ha Jun is staring at me with that mocking grin, but I push past him to the door. Thank goodness in have my strings lesson now. Mrs Harle, you saved me.

I start the trek across the bottom oval, still damp with morning dew. My violin is in my hand, and I can feel my fingers entwined around the handle. I grip it so tight, that when I look down, I see my knuckles turning white. Walking to the classroom seems longer than usual, like the grass is made of mud and I’m dragging the world. When I finally reach the classroom on the far side, I climb the stairs and push the door open. It’s dimly lit and is a clutter of trumpets and rosin and folders full of music. Ignacia is already sitting down, her cello leaning against her shoulder.

The others arrive, Anna and Enoch. We play through a new piece, the notes unearthed from the silent pages. I play automatically, my mind wandering into thoughts of morning tea and Charlie and everything, packed into me. Suddenly, I looked at the clock. Fourteen minutes before I have to go back to class. Thirteen. Twelve, eleven. Time stretches and contracts as my fingers move up and down my violin. I keep playing, getting lost in the music, in the staccato and forte and organised mess. Music can represent so much. But then Ha Jun walks in.

I look up towards the clock. My gaze is pulled down when I hear an unmistakable fake cough from the door, closest to me. Ha Jun is continuously saying “Charlie,” underneath his breath, so silent that only I can hear. I want to escape, through the roof and into the sky. Into a thousand shades of blue, or the fifty-two on the Cyanometer. I would rather be in class than here, standing next to Ha Jun and his impossibly annoying tactics. Mrs Harle seemed to read my mind, because she told us to pack up and go back to our classrooms.

I’m out of there in seconds, running across the oval with my violin case trailing behind me. I’m already climbing the stairs to the eating area, the place where my secrets were spilled less than an hour ago. I slow down my steps, each one heavy as I realise I have to face my classmates. I have to face the boys who heard my everything. I have to face Charlie.

But I can’t stay in between forever. As I round the corner, I see my classrooms’ orange door pinned open against the wall. It’s an invitation inside, to taunts and smirks and embarrassment. I carry my violin in and immediately get a glance from Lucas. He was one of the boys at that table, at morning tea when everything was a mess of colours and loud lights and bright sounds. I put my violin on the back shelf and make my way through the maze of desks, all the way to the front. I steal a glance at Charlie and see his head down, avoiding eye contact. Mrs Trowbridge is still talking, explaining a topic so much simpler than my being.

I look up at the clock. An hour and a half until lunchtime. I will survive.

Chapter nine.

Lunch passes in a blur, Charlie nowhere to be seen. I read my book the whole time, seeing the words but not feeling them. My posse leave me alone, walking around me like I’m some monumental vase stuck in a museum. They play a game of tag on the oval and come back up when the bell rings. I pack up my lunch and trudge up the stairs, grateful that there’s only one more hour of school. I push my stuff into my school bag on the racks and sit down, eyes traversing along the pages of my book. Oh, Scarlett, what have you done?

I have done a lot. I have had my secret spilled open to the world. I have pretended not to exist. I have ruined my own life. I hate the person who told them, who walked into my heart and trashed it, throwing pain onto the walls and smashing the windows. I feel like I’m a city, a city that has been bombed by the enemy. My enemy is my own community. I am a shattered mirror, each piece of me reflects the pain of the past.

Who were the boys there at morning tea? I strain to remember, the memories a swirling mass after a cyclone. There was Mahan, wasn’t there? And Lucas. Charlie was there, but that was everyone from my class. Martin was there, but I don’t see him often. He isn’t my priority; Ha Jun is. Ha the Da who said La blah blah. Aaishi and I made that rhyme up. He was being annoying, so we annoyed him. It won’t shut him up now, though.

Mrs Trowbridge opens the door, and the class rushes in. I keep my head down, but instead of walking straight to my desk I collect a pencil and stack of sticky notes form my tray. Then I walk around the classroom, to my desk sitting in the front. It’s nestled next to Amelia, and in front of Charlie. Perfect or passing notes. I sit down in the straight-backed plastic chair and start writing. It’s not much, but it’s something. In big grey letters at the top of the yellow note, Sorry.

The class is distracted, listening to our teacher call the roll, that they don’t notice when I turn around to give him the note. There’s another sitting at the head of his desk, and he nods at it. I swap them around, and turn back towards the front, the sticky-note curled inside my fingers. Here is my turn down. The moment where I read the apology sentence or two, where he says that he doesn’t like me back. The rest of my primary school hangs off this moment like a golden thread.

I open the folded note carefully, reading the open privately message written on the front. My fingers wobble slightly, as if they too know what’s coming. I have an empty feeling inside, something I just can’t shake. Maybe if it says open privately on the front it means that there’s something good inside? I don’t know. I finally pull it apart, and what I see makes me feel like I am a bird that flew straight into a glass window.

The note is almost completely empty,

Except for just a few words,

Written in the bottom,

Right-hand,

Corner.

I like you. Please keep secret.

Guess what, Scarlett? Charlie likes you. Charlie likes you.

Are you happy, Scarlett? Are you happy that someone understands you? You have found your group. But, somehow, something nudges at me. A thought lost somewhere in my head; I am going to Highschool next year. Charlie isn’t going to the same Highschool as me. I have exactly twenty-five weeks until the last day of year six. Twenty-five weeks before I see him for the last time.

I push it away. I will think about that when I need to.