Tethered Tats

Chapter 2

I close my locker shut and make my way to art, it's the next morning since Casey announced my work to the class and the anxiety attack that came along with it.

As the art lesson begins, I get my sketchbook out and start drawing a few references and artist copies, adding charcoal, watercolour and inks to it. I hold the picture of the landscape up to myself and place it back down momentarily, not wanting anyone to see it.

"Beautiful!" Mr Webb applauds to me and smiles, making his way around the other students to comment one word answers to them. It's hard to impress him, most of the time he tells us to add more of this or start again because it doesn't show true feelings and passion within the work.

I wipe my glasses on the end of my top, trying to get the watercolour splats off of them and then place them back on my nose and push them up.

The fire bell can be sounded and my heart begins to pound, the sound of any alarms makes me want the floor to swallow me up; my parents got caught in a fire that occurred because some douche didn't put out his cigarette properly, it missed the bin, burnt the carpet near his alcohol and burnt the whole building up in flames. He was both a drug and alcohol addict. Prick. From then on, I lived with my Aunt Susan, my uncle died a few years back which was devastating- the last thing that I could consider as a second dad gone.

We all stand up and pile out the room to the field where we are considered to go if a fire bell sounds. I look at the building. No smoke seen, I sniff the air, the only smell is the canteen food cooking and the cut grass surrounding us. It was a drill.

I decide that I should go to the library at lunch instead of the canteen. I make my way there and sit on the comfy chairs near the back where the fictional books are. I grab a random book and start to read the name Sally Girl sprawls out on the front cover. A horror, one of my favourite past time reads.

"Oakley," A voice sounds, I look up and see Mrs Taylor there.

"Hi Mrs T." I wave and smile.

"Your auntie was on the phone, she's worried about you."

I sigh, "She doesn't need to be. I'm fine."

"Well you've had more panic attacks recently, is Casey doing this to you?"

I think hard, "Partially. I don't know what it is, just the dreams and everything coming back and it's really affecting me."

"Wait what dreams?" She asks, sitting down in the chair next to me and folding her hands together on the small table in front of us.

"I used to have nightmares of the whole fire. It's on a loop, the part where I wake up to burning thick smoke and running out my door, my parents telling me to run through their door. They couldn't get out in time and everything was in slow motion. I turned back round as I left the building, looked up and- and." I close my eyes and a tear trickles out of one of them, the image of the building bursting into more flames and practically blows the whole thing up fills my vision and causes a big shiver to go through my bones.

"Sweety, I am so, so sorry!" Mrs T reassures as she hugs me. "You need to visit someone for this. A counsellor or a doctor."

"No, no I'm fine, I'll get through it one way or another," I say, looking at her through teary eyes.

Mrs T swiftly leaves as she needed to go to the meeting, meaning I was alone in the library, just me and the book. I put my earphones in and listen to my music to pass more time.

I look at the time and notice it's time for P.E. I hate P.E. I quickly push past people in the corridors and get changed in the girls' changing room, I stay away from the popular bitches and keep to myself near the back where the showers are. We all pile into the sports hall where the boys are on the other side, divided by a line on the floor. We get into teams of five; Me, Lydia, Simon, Tom and Charlotte on one team, Casey, Flynn, Amy, Josh and Carl on the other.

"Right guys and girls, today is dodgeball! Keep the game as safe as possible and have fun!" Mr Humphreys shouts, blowing his whistle then throwing the dodgeball into the middle of the line.

People charge for the balls, Casey picks one up and I do too, we go back from the line and throw. I go to hit Amy but miss, Lydia on the other hand gets hit in the leg and throws the ball in her hand to me as she goes to sit outside of the game. I look at Flynn and smirk, I throw it at him and it hits him right in the balls. He buckles over, Tom bursts out laughing and a giggle escapes from my mouth.

"I'm so sorry Flynn!" I laugh, wincing a little as he waddles out the game. He shakes his head jokingly and smiles at me.

"Hey El, good aim," Tom wheezes with laughter of his own, I shrug and we carry on with the game.

At the end there is only me, Tom and Casey left in the game. I only stayed in the game because I caught one of the balls and dodged the other two thrown at me. Casey goes for Tom, he dodges, he throws it back at her and it missed her by a mile. She looks at me. Her devil smile is planted on her face.

"Hey pebbles, think fast," She pretends to throw it and makes me go off guard. "Sticks and Stones don't break my bones... but this dodgeball will." With that, she throws it and it hits me right in the left eye.

My hand automatically goes up to my clenched eye and Casey snorts with laughter.

"Time out Humphreys," Tom yells and he jogs over to me. "Yo, you okay Noelle?" He asks. I bring my hand off of my eye. "Shit," He whispers.

"Is it really that bad?" I ask.

"Maybe you should get some ice on that." He clicks his fingers and Flynn comes over, grabbing my arm gently as I cover my eye with my hand again. "I'll finish this game for us." Tom winks and goes back to the game.

As Flynn and I reach the medical room, he carefully removes my hand from my eye and looks at it. He touches it softly and I hiss.

"Sorry," He winces, "I thought I had a bad injury, guess you win with that one."

"I'm sorry about that, I was aiming higher," I say.

"Good shot though wasn't it?" At that, we both laugh.

"I guess so."

"Noelle?" we both look up to the school nurse, her black bob perfectly combed and her grey eyes stare at me. "What's up?"

"Dodgeball day," Flynn announces and removes my hand for me.

"Oh my, okay come this way. Sorry honey, you'll have to go back to lessons." She turns to Flynn and smiles.

"Meet you after school!" Flynn shouts as he runs down the corridor.

The ice pack is freezing as it slaps onto my eye and I gasp, the breath taken away from me. The school nurse advises me to keep it on my eye for a few minutes then I can leave.

By the time a few minutes is up, the end of the school bell sounds and I get up and go to the changing room. My clothes, bag and phone have all disappeared. Panic settles in. Rushing out the door, I go to the front gates, there, I see Flynn and Tom waving at me. Flynn holds up my belongings and I sigh in relief.

"How did you-?" He cuts me off.

"When all the girls left the changing room I quickly rushed in, took your stuff and came here." He hands me my things and I give him a hug.

"Thank you," I whisper into his ear.

"Wanna come back to our place?" Tom asks.

I shake my head, "I can't, my aunt needs me back home, she rang the school saying she's worried about me, bluh, bluh. I'll see you tomorrow okay?" I say and they nod, smiling. I give them both a hug and run to the school bus.