Read The Panopticon for Free Online Page A

different-coloured eyes.
    ‘Alright.’
    ‘Alright.’
    ‘Ta, for my present!’
    She grins, gives me a kiss. I feel like a total idiot, I wish I wasnae so high already.
    ‘What’s he following you around for?’
    I nod behind her and Wankstain glowers at me. Hayley shrugs and kisses me again lightly. She strokes my arm – then there’s a flicker as her tongue touches mine, and her fingers brush quickly across my top, it’s so quick I sometimes wonder if I dream it. She smells like a good clean thing in a good clean world.
    I sometimes think if there is a God and he found out that I was going out with Hayley, he’d shoot a cherub. Some people urnay meant to know the true shitness of life, it isnae meant to be that way for them. Hayley’s one of thosepeople. I’d never have her near the kind of folk I know, I’d never let her meet Jay, no way. It’s not about other people, we are just for us. We kiss and we walk and we watch movies, and she treats me so sweet. She’s never made me feel embarrassed to be me. Not once.
    ‘Do you know much about surgery, like cos of your dad?’ I ask her.
    ‘A bit, not much really.’
    ‘I was thinking about women surgeons, like are there many? Like not even here, like maybe in Paris? Brain surgeons, tae be exact.’
    ‘Are you playing the birthday game, Anais?’
    ‘No!’
    ‘Did you give that up?’
    ‘Aye.’
    I forgot she knew. She’s the only person I ever told about that, she got me to tell her about it one time when I was pissed. I informed her that real birthdays are overrated. Mine are anyway. Well, I get my birthday money off the social worker, obviously, but I dinnae wait for cards, or cakes, or wee fucking sing-songs. I denounced real birthdays when I found Teresa – I dinnae tell anyone about them any more. I cannae believe it was nearly two years ago already that I found her dead. Mother Teresa – where art thou?
    Stabbed hen. Fucking pissed off about it as well, ay .
    Dinnae think about it. That’s the trick. I wonder if my biological mum thinks of me on my real birthday? Or maybe a scientist just looks fondly at a test-tube.
    Hayley takes my hand and we lean back against the stile and she kisses me again. Breathe her in. I want to forget. Everything but this.
    ‘Are you okay?’ she asks.
    ‘I’m fine.’
    ‘Are you thinking about Teresa?’
    ‘A bit.’
    She strokes my hand. That’s all. She did that for hours one night – we were camping in her back garden and it was warm out; we lay holding each other, her stroking my hand, our heads poking out the end of the tent so we could watch for shooting stars.
    ‘D’ye want one?’
    I offer Hayley a trip but she shakes her head. I wish Hayley wasnae so square, but she is, she’s far too square to be a circle. I am a circle. Circles are infinite. I umnay meant for Hayley and we both know it. She’s just a perfect kiss.
    Tracers begin to materialise across the sky, wee bright wriggly things everywhere.
    ‘Are you coming tae school, Anais?’
    ‘Nope. Dinnae tell anyone you’ve seen me.’
    ‘As if I would!’
    She gives me another kiss and then wanders away down the woods with Wankstain. I cannae stand that prick. He totally tried tae rape me after the school disco when I passed out in the bog. I woke up as he was trying tae yank my knickers down, so I battered him. Arsehole. He’ll no try that again.
    I wave at Hayley when she reaches the road and look up at the sky tae let God know – he can put the gun away.
    Kick up leaves, swish, swish. They swirl around my ankles, a river of them, all different colours. Ochre. Gold. Red. My tree stump’s empty and there’s nobody around, they’ll all be in school. I pull off my shoes and shirt, slip my skirtdown and shove it at the back of a bush. My plastic bag is still here – bonus. I keep all sorts of shit in this bush, it’s my only permanent chest of drawers.
    Undo the knot in the plastic bag, and inside there’s a pair of damp shorts, platform