Get A Life | ONC2023 Shortlist

2 | Beware the soggy girl | Hunter

"Archer's been dead almost six months," I grind out. "Why are you making this shit up? What could you possibly hope to gain?"

"Nothing. I mean, I don't... I'm not trying to gain anything. And I'm not making it up. I really did talk to him."

We glare at each other. I should leave. Take my stuff and walk away. Out of the library. Out of this school. Just away. Away. AWAY. But I promised Mum I'd stick it out here. Get Year Twelve done.

I lift my hands to the back of my head and squeeze in frustration. I know she's lying. She has to be. Yet the part of me that thought I saw Archer this morning—that small, stubborn sliver of my heart refusing to let my big brother go—blooms and wriggles and thuds with stupid, pathetic hope. So, I stay, and she stays, and we stare at each other in wary silence.

The stand-off ends when three girls burst into the library on a cloud of obnoxious noise and coconut-scented confidence. I recognise one of them from my biology class.

"Can you believe Juno?" Biology Girl scoffs. "She's such a simp. As if Scotty is ever going to take her back."

"I know. It's pathetic."

"Totally pathetic. She had her chance, and she blew it. Now she needs to roll over and get out of the way."

Their conversation screeches to a halt as they realise they aren't alone. Soggy Girl scrambles to gather her bags, a look of resignation and mild panic shuttering her features.

"I'm so sorry, Hunter." Biology Girl approaches. "Is Darcy bothering you?"

That's it! Darcy. I knew it started with 'D'.

Darcy's almost out the library door when the quietest of the three interlopers—a petite redhead with lurid pink nails—grabs her hard by the arm and hisses something I don't hear. Darcy rolls her eyes, hunching her shoulders as she scurries away without so much as a glance in my direction.

"Please excuse my sister." Biology Girl says. "Darcy's tragically socially awkward. Looks like she has a darling little crush on you though..."

Something in the biting way she says it offends me on Darcy's behalf. Sure, Darcy's a little... intense. And claiming she saw my dead brother on a bus is pretty fucked up, but she seems weirdly sincere. Her sister talks as though Darcy inherently deserves ridicule. I don't like it. I don't like it at all.

"I'm Danica," Biology Girl purrs, laying a hand on my upper arm. "We have bio together. Call me Dani."

I'd be lying if I said I hadn't noticed Danica before today. She has Darcy's height, colouring and similarly delicate features. But whereas Darcy's cute is unassuming, Danica carries herself with a smooth, practised confidence that automatically turns heads in the hallways, in class, and on the quadrangle steps at lunch. Danica's beauty is hypnotic... but apparently only until she opens her mouth.

I'll take cute, intense, and awkward over beautiful and bullying any day of the week. Which is the only reason I say what I say next.

"Darcy's great," I tell Danica with a grin. "We clicked instantly. Meant to be, you know? What can I say-she's my girl."

I throw in the 'she's my girl' because it's frustratingly ambiguous and could mean anything from 'we've joined an outlaw bikie gang and sworn our fealty in blood' to 'she's the love of my life'.

It has the desired effect.

Danica gapes like a cartoon goldfish and her minions wear matching worried frowns. I don't know whether they're thrown by my enthusiastic endorsement of Darcy or by my apparent immunity to Danica's charms. Either way, their shock gives me a chance to exit, and I take it, striding off to homeroom like I can't wait to get there.