His Dark Words

05 | The Bridge to Nowhere

Mont Michel is the kind of high school that values gossip more than grades. I'm pretty much the only one without a secret cell-phone and it's probably for the best because I miss out on all the messages sent round the school about the psycho juniors who tried to convert Trap Stevens in the fourth-floor storage closet. Vanessa does have a phone, but with a just-about-convincing-enough forged note and a pair of dark glasses, she manages to slip out of school early and obsess over the texts in private.

I have no such luck and, as I'm way too embarrassed to even look at Alex, I have to just keep my head down and snatch little glances up at the clock in every classroom, willing them to go faster. This, of course, only seems to make time slow down, but the day has to end at some point and as soon as it does, I take off running. I skip the bus. It had felt so claustrophobic in class all day, it's a relief to finally be out in the fresh air. The weight of the backpack on my back annoys me. With every step the running shoes sort of kick me in the ribs and it does absolutely nothing for my bad mood. 

Everyone probably knew Trap was gay, I'm surprised Vanessa didn't known. She's a rich kid after all. They all belong to this unspoken club where they know everything about each other and go to all the best parties. To be fair, via Vanessa I do usually get invited to parties, but I have this thing about them that's sort of hard to shake. It's stupid really... It all began with this party in 7th Grade. I'd just gotten my scholarship and changed schools and it was my first ever Mont Michel party. I'd gone to so much effort to wear this cute thrift store dress that looked practically brand new, my mom even altered it so it looked custom made. I was SO excited, that kind of can't-sit-still excited. I bounced through the front door of the McMansion on a total high, only to find all the other girls were in jeans and designer t-shirts, looking at me like I'd been teleported there from Mars. 

Vanessa would've probably pulled it off. She would've made them all jealous that they weren't rocking purple lace too. That was the party where we became friends. Vanessa's hair was barely shoulder length back then from all the chemical straightening, but she could make anything look cool. She left her little knot of popular friends, marched right up to me and said; "your name's Harlow, that's the coolest name I've ever heard. My name's Vanessa, after Vanessa Williams, don't ask me to sing though, you'll regret it!"

I laughed so hard I choked on my Coke and we've been best friends ever since. I make a face at the memory of it. Vanessa meant well, she always means well. She just doesn't think things through all the way. 

I shake my head, "I'm not going to let you off that easy!" I say out loud in a fierce whisper.

I walk right past the campus and through to a dirt track that leads into the woods. No one knows about this place. You're in this thick, dense forest then all of a sudden, the trees stop and there's a steep slope all the way down to a river below. At the end of the track a bridge juts out over the deep water flowing beneath. It was, at one time, a covered bridge, but since no one ever comes this way it's slowly disintegrating into the river. There are gaps in the wooden boards and parts of the lattice siding is rotting. This has left big, gaping holes like unintentional windows, where you can look right down into the water. Alex found this place ages ago and called it The Bridge to Nowhere. The path on the other side is so overgrown it really does look like it just stops abruptly, with only the wild beyond.

My footsteps creak over the wooden boards, it sounds like they're complaining about being stepped on, so I try to move as lightly as possible. I stop at one of the holes half way down the bridge, looking out over the water and the woods running right up to the edge on both sides. It's so peaceful here, like it's just me and the birds. I sit down on the splintering wood and take out the journal, absent-mindedly flicking through to a passage I haven't read before.