The Silentless

Chapter 24

It had been five months since her arrival, since her parents' murder and she had begun to get used to her life. Christmas had passed, which seemed to her a strange celebration, something she had somehow forgotten about. School wasn't amazing but she didn't detest it as much as she had expected. It gave her stability and a routine that was good to distract her from everything. She didn't know what she would do without it. At weekends she had nothing to do and would end up just siting around wallowing in her unpopularity and lack of friends. The only people who actually seemed to like her at school was Alex and Melodie-Jane but Jamie had problems with both of these people.

Alex had started out as nice; taking her to her lessons, keeping her company during breaks and watching her run during lunch, sometimes he even did a couple of laps with her. But then he became overprotective and all over her. Then came the incident in the quad. Where she had always felt kind of insecure. The imposing walls, closed off on all sides, scared her. The two exits (both that could be easily closed) could stop her escape in an instant. It reminded her of being in The Silentless. Trapped. Scared. Helpless.

It was November when it happened and, due to the cold, she had been sent in by a worried teacher whilst attempting to run. They had made their way back to the form room and were about to enter the separate standing building- converted from a private gym into an art room when the school had begun - when he had pushed her roughly against the wall and lent in to kiss her. Just as his lips touched her's she punched him, hard.

"What the hell are you doing?" Alex was holding his hand to his face which was bleeding. He would be coming in the next day with a black eye.

Jamies' extreme haphephobia had diminished a lot with the constant human contact but it was like she was back in September when it made her retch to touch anyone when she was held against the building.

"Kissing you." He growled, grabbing her hair and pulling it back.

"Yeah? Well don't." Angrily he grabbed her hands and pinned them above her head and leaned in again and started to kiss her. It just felt so wrong and disgusting, his tongue was forced into her mouth which made her gag. So she kneed him in the groin. He groaned and backed away. "Stay away from me. If you try and touch me again, I will kill you." Her voice cracked as she spoke and tears were threatening to fall. This was her best friend, who she had just allowed herself to trust. She turned and ran into the building.

Jamie assumed no one had seen her and Alex's fight but she was wrong. Two people had been out there, hiding from a teacher looking for them and had watched silently. Anita and Melodie-Jane. One of them - Anita - shot a disgusted look at the door Jamie had run into and walked up to Alex to help clean him up. The other, Melodie-Jane, was torn between going with her friends or running after Jamie. Eventually she had sighed and walked in the direction of the medical room, rather guiltily, but she still didn't go to help the girl.

That had been the end of Alex and her's friendship. Could you even call it that? He was just there to get into her pants, for a dare probably. Parasite. That's all he was and would ever be. Or maybe Jamie just told herself that to make her feel better. Whatever.

She had honestly been a little relieved to see him go; when she was with him she felt like she had to pretend to be a different person for him to accept her. And, when they were not together, he would laugh at her with his friends. Afterwards he would always claim it was to keep his friends from ditching him but it seemed to Jamie that, if his friends wanted him to make fun of her, maybe he shouldn't be friends with them at all.

It was something she didn't expect from the people close to her - to side with the people who tried, and often did, to make her life hell. Who bullied her about her hair (she had explained that she was bald and the extreme variety of her hairdos were wigs to counter the problem of her 'fluxing hair' as Alice called it) and her lack of parents - they thought she was from a care home, probably assumed she had done something to get kicked out of her last one, and was adopted by a family who dealt with the 'difficult cases' - for living in the home of the cursed weirdos who murdered their family, at least that was the current theory, and for being the bottom of every class she attended, apart from PE, and could barely do basic maths and didn't understand science. 

The problem with Melodie-Jane was her ridiculous perfection and the fluttery sensation that she caused in Jamie's gut. It was a completely new kind of hatred she felt. But when she had brought this up with her cousin, Alice had only laughed and told her she had to figure it out for herself. Months later, she was no closer to solving this mystery.

Of the five core lessons she had, Melodie-Jane shared three of them with Jamie and of her option choices, all of them. This made it harder to ignore how she made her feel.

Her timetable was hell and ridiculously hard to survive but the constant demand for her attention was probably a good thing in the long term as it helped her to stop thinking.

Her week usually went a little like this:

Monday - PE, Economics, English, Art.
Tuesday - English, RS, Economics, Chemistry.
Wednesday- Maths, Biology, Art, PSD.
Thursday- Physics, Biology, RS, Chemistry.
Friday - Art, Economics, Physics, RS.

In most of them she sat at the back, silently struggling to keep up with the notes that she didn't understand and probably never would. It would draw attention to her if she asked for help and so she kept quiet and despaired about how badly she would do in her GCSEs - a fairly new prospect of a month of exams looming at the end of the academic year.

It was hard for her to stay quiet about her struggles with school work at home, but she knew that stress levels were high and she didn't want to increase them. Alice now worked in a cafe/bookshop after school, putting half of her income to university fees and half for the family, that and Yann's job as a consultant in the local hospital were the only things that kept the family from ruins. But, despite it all, the children stayed happy and well - fed and Jamie didn't want to ruin it with her selfish needs.

The way Jamie saw it, she owed this family her life; they could have turned her in as soon as she arrived but they took her in and Yann looked after her. They paid for her school uniform and food, gave her their spare room and let her stay for several months. Although she had missed out on valuable aspects of growing up, they didn't treat her like she was stupid as they did at school when she didn't understand.

The only exception for this constant struggle was art which she enjoyed because of her proximity to a certain someone and the fact she had no requirement to put effort into her work as Melodie-Jane did it for her - she had an agreement with her neighbour; if Hagler did both of their work - as long as it got done she didn't care about the quality - Jamie would allow her to use both of their spaces combined to do her art. It was amazing to look at her face - worry free and immersed in her work - she looked so carefree and happy it was always hard for her to look away, even when she was caught staring. They rarely talked but, when they did, Hagler's accent made her head spin, especially when she was annoyed and her voice became rough. This was mostly provoked by Jamie referring to her as 'Hagler', something Jamie only did to get the kick out of her. Some show of life in a dead society.

That face was too hard to keep out of her head. Why couldn't she stop thinking about this girl?