Don't Judge Me (Being Edited)

29_ Fire

As I supposed you’ve already guessed, book, the next day at school was… well it was absolute shit. But bearable shit. Why was it bearable I hear you ask? Simply because, it had to be.

I had to endure it.

The stares.

The whispers.

The heckling.

The sympathetic teachers.

The gossipers.

I had to endure it all. And in the end I hadn't pulled my hair out in chunks.

So I’ll describe school as bearable.

One thing that I've observed from my days of being the ‘in’ thing to talk about is that gossip is like a fire. Any type of fire. A candle, a match, a building...

It can’t burn on forever. It needs fuel to keep going.

And what fuel could be better than a sobbing Amber Milton?

I watched her from afar before coming into the canteen at lunch. Her sitting on her table surrounded by her people who all sympathised with her, who all understood her, who all wanted her attention, her company, her affection.

I didn’t get how she dealt with it.

How could she cope with masses of people wanting and wanting and wanting? Constantly, it boggled me.

And right there, I envied the girl once more.

“Are you ok, Toni?”

I recoiled at the sound of Hayley’s voice. I’d forgotten she went to the same school as me.

I stared at her, not sure what to say. I decided it didn’t make a difference whether I spoke or not. Hayley could tell.

“Can you please talk to Callum.” It wasn’t a question.

But I didn’t want to answer, I didn’t want to acknowledge. So I began to walk away.

“He’s broken up with Amber.” She called out.

Even though I knew, I knew from the weird state of mourning that our school seemed to be in that the ‘power’ couple were over. Yet that stupid sentence still made me stop in my tracks, it still made my heart begin to flutter in my chest again. It hurt, it felt as though it had been dead for so long, and there it was with a lease of life once again.

“Amber should have dumped him.” I mumbled, turning around to Hayley.

She scoffed, trying her best to be normal, even though I knew I had the temperament of death warmed up. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But she didn’t. After you ran off after Luke Callum just kind of stood there staring at you, and then Amber went up to him and hugged him. Seriously, she hugged him.”

I looked at her, not believing it. “H-he, broke up with her?”

I stared at the sobbing girl. Why would she do that? I would have pummelled Callum until he was purified. He would be dead, castrated, at least wounded in some physical way. There was no way, no way on God’s green Earth that I would have hugged the boy.

Hayley nodded, “Then he said, ‘Amber, this isn't going to work anymore’ and she was like, ‘why not?’ As though the reason wasn’t clear enough. Then he said, which I think is the weakest thing I've ever heard anyone say-”

“It’s not you, it’s me?” I guessed.

Hayley nodded, watching me in awe, “How did you know?”