Read By Any Other Name for Free Online Page B

timetable four times already since yesterday, like a nervous tic, but I couldn’t just sit and stare at nothing.
    The room hummed with conversation. I could have listened in, but I couldn’t be bothered. I didn’t want to be here at all. Speaking to those people would make it feel more real than I
could stand. My mind was with my heart – back home, wanting to pick up the pieces of my life.
Holly
could go to hell.
    A teacher came in and walked to the front desk. She did a double take when she saw me sitting there. She was youngish with OK-looking clothes, which seemed to be a rarity among teachers in this
place.
    ‘Hi! You must be the new starter. I didn’t know you were going to be in my form. Sorry, I’ve forgotten your name. They did say but . . .’
    ‘Holly.’
    She smiled, and pathetically I felt a puff of tension release at the sight of a friendly face. ‘Hi then, Holly. Do you know anyone?’
    ‘I don’t think so. The girls who showed me around yesterday – Nicole and Ella – I don’t think they’re in this form?’
    She frowned for a second. ‘Oh, I know who you mean! No, they’re not. I’ll introduce you once I’ve done the register.’
    She took the register quickly and then beckoned a couple of girls over and asked them to take me to assembly. They smiled and nodded politely, eyeing me with faint curiosity. The bell rang
quickly, one blast, and I got up and followed them to the hall, feeling like a spare part. It appeared we had to sit on the floor, because there were no chairs out. I hadn’t sat on a hall
floor since primary school.
    Another form trooped in and sat behind us and younger kids arrived to sit on the other side of the hall. I recognised the Head standing on the stage from the day I came to look around.
    People were talking noisily, but the teachers didn’t try to stop them, nor did the Head. Nicole and Ella came in with a bunch of other girls I vaguely recognised from lunchtime yesterday.
They smiled over at me and I was surprised by how grateful my return smile was. The Emo was obviously in their form because he came in after them. A girl was talking to him, but he didn’t
seem to be listening to her. Ignorant pig. He sat down a couple of rows in front of me and a flash of a skinny but very toned bum caught my eye. I blinked, and remembered the girl from yesterday
copping a good look. OK, she had a point, but his personality definitely didn’t match the quality of the rear view.
    The last few people shuffled in and the Head started the assembly. It was much less formal than I’m used to, with no standing for a hymn or a prayer. Just a long and patronising reading
about racism, which she gave in a monotone that could cause an insomniac to fall asleep in seconds.
    It’s during this lecture that I understand I’m angry. It takes a while for me to recognise the burning feeling inside, which gets stronger and stronger as we sit in silence and I
think about what I saw on Facebook last night.
    Dan and I were never a forever thing. I’m not ready for one of those. There’s exams and uni and a career to build before I think seriously about all that. But Dan was hot and good
fun to be with. It wasn’t love with a capital L, but that doesn’t mean I want to think of him being with another girl. It gives me a pain like bad tummy ache to think of Callie –
who I never liked much – stroking the back of his neck while they kissed, the way I used to. I don’t even have Tasha to bitch to about it like I would if we’d had a normal
break-up.
    Tasha. And the others. They’ll be out this weekend, in our old haunts. And I’ll be here in Dump Central, thinking of them, wishing I was there, wondering what they’re doing.
They’ll be having fun and not giving me a second thought. Or if they do, it’ll be something like, ‘I wonder what happened to her. Wasn’t it weird how she disappeared like
that?’ And then they’ll shrug and forget me again.
    I wish, wish, wish