White Lies

“No. Well, not really…I was just…unpacking. Tyler was going to show me around.”

“Oh, you’ve met Tyler! Isn’t he beautiful?”

The image of Beth pulling a thumbs-up and grinning flew into my head, and I smiled. “Yeah, he is sort of pretty.”

“Rae and Scar can’t be back yet; this place is way too tidy,” she said, stuffing clothes into drawers then kicking off her shoes and curling her feet under her on the bed. “Me and Rae are Year Ten. Scar’s Year Eleven though. You two are the only boarders in your year. You’ll love her. She’s great. The easiest person to talk to in the world, ever.”

Scar…Scarlett… Tyler popped into my head. ‘About Scarlett. She’s…’

“It seems weird, doesn’t it?” Lilly went on, like a sort of small, determined terrier. “Mixed year groups sharing a dorm. But there’s not many of us left now. Did you hear the rumours? Everyone thinks this place is totally haunted. It freaks some people out. They mostly go over to the boarding school in Oxford instead now. St Jo’s. Did you look round it? It’s all sort of sleek and shiny, and new. Not the kind of place you’d find ghosts. They wouldn’t dare. It costs a fortune though.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t – I haven’t…” I got mixed up with her questions, she talked so fast. “I mean, it does look like a pretty old building, so I suppose…you know…it’d kind of be par for the course? The haunted thing?”

“Yeah, but this is supposed to be a really evil ghost. Totally out for revenge. One who seriously hates kids. You’re the first new boarder we’ve had here in for ever.”

Oh, good – that was encouraging! Maybe that explained why it was so easy for Mum and Dad to get me a place on short notice – it didn’t sound like there’d be much of a waiting list…

Lilly smiled across at me, her eyes clear and earnest, before they slowly flickered over to mortification.

“Sorry! Totally not what you want to hear on your first day. My mouth kind of runs away with me sometimes. Take no notice!”

“It’s fine,” I murmured, not entirely sure if it was or not.

“I’m not trying to freak you out or anything. That’d be really lame. I just thought you’d know about it. I thought everyone knew about it. Anyway, we’re all still here, and we’re fine. Except Lacey. She’s in Year Nine. She’s lovely, but sort of a bit mental. Last term she swore blind she’d seen this girl at the end of her bed, just standing there, in a sort of old-fashioned nightie, staring at her. So we all camped out in her dorm one night – Scar organised this whole sort of, vigil thing. But none of us saw anything. Only she kept on seeing her, and she ended up with the school nurse for a bit, then she got sent home to see her own GP, and now she’s up in some referral unit in Oxford. She’s kind of all confused, in the head. No one’s been able to talk to her over the holidays.” She picked up her phone from the end of her bed, and flicked her fingers over it. “She’s never online any more. I suppose they don’t let you, in there.” She shuddered. “Can you imagine? Have you ever seen a ghost?”

“Err, no…” I replied, still trying to catch up with everything she’d said and work out how I felt about it.

“Me neither.” She pouted. “Wouldn’t it be amazing though? I mean, apart from the going mental thing.”

I couldn’t really think of a way to answer that politely, so I just tried for a smile. My head was starting to pound.

“How come you’re here so early anyway?” she asked. “I thought I’d be the first one back. I was going to make up your bed for you and everything, you know, to make it nice.”

“Oh, that’s kind, but it’s fine. Mum had to get back—”

“Is it dead scary? It must be, your first day in a new school. When there’s no other new people, I mean. I’d hate it. I mean, not that it’s bad or anything, but, you know…” She let the sentence hang.

I tried to remember if I’d packed any paracetamol. Lilly seemed kind, and sweet, and brilliantly friendly, but I had the feeling that sharing a room with her was going to be a headachy kind of experience. I had to fight to remember what the question was.

“Um, no, it’s fine.” I gave a little shrug, like it really didn’t bother me. Like I hadn’t been worrying about this for weeks. Beth always said never to show your fear around dogs or teenage girls.

“At least you’ll have Scar – some year groups only have one boarder, which is harsh. I’ve got Rae so I’m lucky too. Mrs S put you guys in together so you’d have someone with you all the time while you settle in. Pretty cool, right?”

“Yeah, that’s nice,” I murmured, with Tyler’s weird almost-comment still bouncing around in my head. It wasn’t what he’d said that worried me, it was what he hadn’t.

Lilly had claimed the bed with the ancient Alsatian standing guard, and I looked over at the other two photos again with the sudden certainty that I knew who the beautiful redhead was going to be. I was just about to ask when the door flew open again and a taller, equally skinny dark-haired girl with enormous brown eyes, and a phone glued to her ear burst in.

“I didn’t… I did not… Why do you always… What…? I said NO! GOD!”

The phone flew across the room in an elegant arc before landing on the non-redhead-picture bed, then bouncing high into the air and coming down to the floor, sending the back and the battery flying. “OH FOR F—”

“Hi, Rae!” Lilly leapt in, heroically. “Abby, this is Rae; Rae, this is Abby.”

Rae looked up and gave me a murderous glare, before kicking all three bits of her phone across the room and flinging herself down onto the bed, face first.

“Oh-kay,” Lilly sing-songed. “So it seems Rae’s not having the best of days. Don’t take it personally. She’s like this with everyone when she gets in one of her moods.”

“I Am Not In A Mood.” The words were muffled through the pillow, but the capitals were clearly audible. Lilly rolled her eyes as she bent down, gathering and trying to reassemble the phone for her friend.

“You totally get to know each other inside out here. I’m going to say that was her older sister on the phone, wanting to know why half her wardrobe has somehow disappeared. And downstairs there’ll be this bulging suitcase that Rae hasn’t managed to con anyone into lugging up here for her yet. Am I right?”

Rae rolled over and sat up on the bed, huffing with each movement. “It’s not like she PAID for any of the clothes. I don’t know what her problem is. She’ll get a whole new set next week; she’s going on a shoot for Burberry.”

“Right. So, Rae’s sister is, like, the next big thing in supermodels,” Lilly explained. “And Rae really needs to hurry up and get her case up here so we can check out the goods.” She rubbed her hands together eagerly. “I need something gorgeous – something that would make even Tyler sit up and take notice. Hey, we’ll find something for you too, Abby!” She beamed at me, and it was sweet but I wondered what in the world she was thinking. I was least two Raes wide. Probably closer to three. I felt my cheeks burn. “Are you into fashion?”

“Er, no, not really,” I confessed, as all three of us looked down at my Matalan polo shirt and jeans at the same time. “I’m more sort of, all about the comfort.”

“Smart move,” Rae said. “Saves a lot of arguments, I’d imagine.” She nodded her head towards Lilly. “She’s always like this, by the way. Scarlett’s the same. Can talk for England. Doesn’t it just make you want to kill her? Have you got any food, Lils? I’m dying here.”

Lilly shook her head. “God no, I’m still on that diet. It’s evil.”

I must’ve looked suitably confused, because she went on to explain. “I’m like, the last CCC girl left on the shelf. Scar says she’s going to help get me hooked up with someone this year. But first I definitely need to lose some weight.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Rae muttered. “You want to lose some chatter first.”

That made me chuckle, and I looked over at Lilly, guiltily, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“Hold on a sec,” I said, hopping down from the bed and rummaging around in the bottom of my case. “I know I’ve got one…in here…somewhere. Aha!” I whipped out a bar of Galaxy and Rae’s face lit up.

“We’re going to get on, me and you,” she said, as I broke off a row and handed it over. “Cheers!”

“First days usually call for emergency chocolate,” I replied with a grin. And I couldn’t resist holding a still-wrapped chunk out to Lilly, and waggling my eyebrows. She was about the skinniest little thing I’d ever seen. No way was a bit of chocolate going to hurt her.

Lilly looked over at Rae, who threw her a shrug in return, cramming the chocolate into her mouth. Lilly darted a nervous look towards the door, and then tore into it, giggling guiltily as the three of us indulged. Contented chomping filled the room. I looked up, and I suddenly wanted to text Beth, right there and then: I think I just made friends.

We made light work of the small bar between us, and I was lying back on my bed feeling the rush when Rae piped up with, “First days, you said. Plural. Do you have a lot of them, or something?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of an occupational hazard,” I admitted. “This is my fifth new school since I started secondary.”

“Fifth!” Lilly squeaked. “Why? Did you get expelled or something? I don’t know anyone who’s ever been expelled. Awesome. What did you do?”

“Of course she didn’t get expelled, you doughnut.” Rae chucked a hot pink pillow at her, scoring a direct hit. “You think she’s been expelled four times and then sent here? Like we’re some kind of inner-city school for the deranged and the disturbed? Honestly. Expelled. What did happen though?” she asked, looking at me intently with those impossibly large eyes. “Shit, you didn’t get expelled, did you? I was only joking, about the deranged thing.”

I laughed. “No, it’s fine, it wasn’t like that.” And I spent the next hour or so explaining what it was like when both your parents were in the army.

I’d never actually thought it’d be like this. Never this soon, anyway. It was nice, really nice, the three of us curled up comfortably like we were old friends – not like I was sat at school with a couple of people I’d only just met..

“We move around, a lot,” I told them. “You never know where the deployments will be or when there’ll be training courses all over the place, and it just gets kind of crazy. They move us from base to base. We never really get to stay anywhere for long.”

They asked about a thousand questions each. Lilly’s were sort of as I’d already come to expect, but Rae’s were considered, and intent, and took me by surprise.

“Don’t you worry about them getting…hurt?”

“Yeah, of course. But you just have to try not to think about it. Otherwise you just kind of go mad.”

“But isn’t it hard to keep up with your work when you have to keep changing schools all the time?”

“Yeah, sort of, but luckily I’m dead smart, so, you know, no worries really.” They both laughed at that one. Even without knowing how hideous my grades had traditionally been.

“Who cares about the work,” Lilly threw in. “It must be way harder keeping friends if you move all the time. How do you manage it?”

“I don’t, really. I’ve never sort of been one for friends.”

Lilly inhaled sharply and her hands flew up to her mouth in a gesture that was so overly dramatic it set me off laughing again.

“It’s OK,” I told her when I got my breath back. “I have my sister. She’s my best friend. We pretty much never stick around anywhere long enough to make good friends, but we’ve always got each other.”

“So how come you never switched to a boarding school sooner then?” Rae asked.

I shrugged. “We never really needed to. It’s only now that…” I trailed off for a second, surprised by the catch in my voice. “I mean, it’s just, Beth’s at uni now, and with Mum and Dad both being deployed at the same time…”

“Sorry,” Rae murmured. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s fine,” I said, getting a grip. “Really. It’s cool.”

“So, do you meet, like, loads of really hot soldiers?” Lilly’s eager question swept away the tension, and Rae threw another pillow at her.

“Do you have easy access to a gun?” Rae asked me, darting a murderous look Lilly’s way. The two of them were like a well-practised comedy duo; it was brilliant.

“In both cases, the answers are MoD classified, I’m afraid.” This time it was Lilly who threw a pillow at me, but she was a lousy shot, and all she ended up doing was knocking the books off my bedside table. My photo flew out, and fluttered to the floor, drawing all eyes in the room. I swore under my breath as I reached out for it, but Lilly was like lightning.

“Whoa! Stop Press! Who is he?”

“Lilly…” There was a clear warning in Rae’s tone, but Lilly was too far gone.

“Whatever – shut up. We need to talk. Who is he, Abby?”

Rae snatched the photo from her, and handed it back to me. She looked down at her feet, pretending she hadn’t seen the way my eyes were filling up. “Seriously, Lilly. We really need to get you trained.”

“What?” Lilly looked up. “Oh, hell, what did I—”

“You didn’t. It’s fine.” I blinked away the tears, feeling pathetic. I’d thought I was on top of it.

“Did you break up?” Rae asked quietly, and it took me a minute to understand. I looked down at the photo clutched in my hand. Beth sat on the sofa in our old quarters, doubled over with laughter, as Jase pulled a bodybuilder pose in the foreground with his top off and his combat trousers tucked into his heavy boots. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored shades, and he looked hot. Top-Gun hot. The sunlight pouring through the window had been kind. You couldn’t see the acne, or the scars. He just looked…hot.

My head started to swim again. I couldn’t do this. Not here, not yet. The silence stretched out, and then suddenly there was an easy way out just sitting there…waiting for me. And I took it.

“Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat and rubbing my eyes with my sleeve. “Something like that.”

“Sorry,” both girls murmured in unison.

“Yeah, thanks. It’s OK though. It happens.” I smiled, and they smiled back. And it was OK. It was way, way more OK this way. So much easier. Thank goodness for Rae.

“Can I have another look though?” Lilly asked, and this time Rae actually jumped on her and started hitting her with her own pillow, and my heart lifted. I went to put the photo back inside my book, then hesitated.

“Do you want some Blu-Tack?” Rae asked, taking a break from her attack.

“I’ve got some.” Lilly was quick to jump in, crawling out from under her friend and opening one of her drawers.

“No, that’s OK thanks,” I replied. “Not just yet. But, you know, maybe in a bit.”

I was about to slide it back inside the pages, when I caught Lilly’s pleading expression, and handed it over to her with a smile.

“Thanks!” She beamed back at me. “I’ve never had a boyfriend. This is like, inspiration for me! What’s his name?”

“Jason. Jase.”

Rae looked at the photo over her shoulder. “He is seriously fit, Abby. Well played. How long were you guys together?”

“We weren’t really together together. I mean, he’s…nineteen…and a friend.”

“Nineteen! Your parents must’ve freaked!” Lilly squealed.

“Yeah, well, no, cos it wasn’t like that. I mean, I’m only fifteen.”

Lilly’s face went almost as pink as the décor. I scrambled to explain before mine followed suit.

“I mean, his dad’s in the same squadron as mine, and them knowing each other, well, it kind of made things a bit…I don’t know how to explain it, really. We were friends for ages. But we did sort of…after a while, I mean, there was this one night when we took things a bit further. Actually, quite a lot further.” Lilly’s jaw dropped, but I cut her off before she could get started. “Not that much further. Just when we were starting to get really close, Jase got sent off on deployment. Because the army exists purely to ruin my life.” I tried to make a joke of it, but I started to feel that darkness again, brushing lightly at the corners of my mind, always there: the sadness that touches on everything if you let it. “I haven’t seen Jase in months.”

I’d stuck mostly to the truth – only embroidering just a little around the edges. And it was what they wanted to hear. So where was the harm?

“But you will see him again, right? When he gets back from wherever? I mean, you guys keep in touch?” Rae asked.

“Yeah. Well, kind of. To be honest, getting into a relationship with someone in the forces is a recipe for disaster. Unless you’re in it too, like my parents – although then it gets disastrous for a whole new set of reasons. But yeah, we’re still friends, I suppose. Maybe when he gets back, who knows?”

“Oh my God that’s so sad,” Lilly blurted. “He’s so…I mean, not that you’re not…but he clearly could totally have taken his pick and…um…”

“Lilly!” Rae rolled her eyes, and I jumped in before Rae began another pillow bashing.

“He’s smoking hot and I’m not – it’s OK, you can say it.” She flushed a deep red, clashing horribly with the bedding, and started stammering again, but I held up my hands. “No, honestly, you’re right. He is. And I’m not. Like I said, we were friends for ages to start with. It’s not like he would ever have gone for me on looks alone.” I smiled to let her know it really was OK, and she nervously did the same while Rae guffawed.

“So smooth, Lils,” she said. “God!”

“It’s fine. Hey, c’mon, she’s got a point.” I was actually starting to enjoy the fact that I could be open about it. It wasn’t always that easy. “We got to know each other from the inside out. That’s the only reason it worked.”

“Oh, that’s beautiful,” Lilly crooned, and this time we both chucked pillows at her.

It was good to laugh about it. To acknowledge it, and move past it. And it gave me a fresh boost of confidence, however false the basis for it might have been. It was like saying: Yeah, so I’m not thin, or pretty; but you know what, you should still maybe give me a chance, because if I can hook up with someone like Jase then I must be kind of OK on the inside. I must have something going for me. Right?

And I started to feel genuinely relaxed, verging on comfortable, approaching content, for the first time in weeks. And that was when the door burst open for the third time and the tall, flame-haired porcelain-skinned girl from the photo strode into the room.

Chapter Six

The dorm fell completely silent. The girl crossed straight over to the fourth bed and slipped the photo of herself and the impossibly gorgeous boy out of its frame, before slowly ripping it in two. The rest of us winced in unison.

Scarlett, I presumed, then calmly slotted the half of the photo featuring herself back into its frame and propped it up again, before crumpling the other half in her hand and flicking it across the room, where it landed perfectly in the bin with a gentle rustle.

“There, that’s better,” she said with an Irish lilt to die for. She looked around the room and seemed to notice us for the first time. “Hey, guys,” she sang, softly. “So this must be Abigail.” She flashed me a bright smile. “Welcome to the madhouse.”

Lilly was quick to jump in and tell Scarlett all about me, which was great as it let me off the hook from having to go over everything again. Until she got to the part about Jase – when Scarlett’s face dropped. This time Rae didn’t have to warn her; Lilly backed down, but the damage had already been done.

“Can we not talk about boyfriends just now?” Scarlett asked, with a sigh. “In fact, can we not talk about boys in general?”

“Rough summer?” Rae asked, casting a glance over at the bin.

“You could say that.” Scarlett’s eyes seemed to glaze over for a second.

About Scarlett. She’s… There was Tyler again, about to tell me something, before backing away at the last minute. She’s what?

“It’s good to be back,” Scarlett said. “I’ve missed you lot. But why are you hiding up here still? Strickland’s ordered in a truckload of Domino’s, and since I don’t have to worry about Riley any more, I’m going to head down and comfort-eat myself witless.”

Lilly was up like a shot. A fresh wave of anxiety twisted my stomach. The dorm had slowly cocooned itself around me, already starting to feel familiar, safe. Now I had to leave it and not only meet everyone, but also, apparently, eat in front of them. A double whammy. I sat on the bed while the others got up to go, my fingers finding the bracelet. Rae caught my eye and threw me a curious look, before telling the other two that we’d follow them in a sec. Did she get it? I wondered. Did she know what it felt like?

“You don’t need to stay,” I told her, when the door had closed behind them and the silence had settled. “I’m fine. Just a bit…you know.” I shrugged.

“He always goes mad with the order; there’ll be enough pizza down there to last the week.” She perched down on the bed beside me. “Look, Lilly can be a lot to take in at first, I know, but she’s got a heart of gold and she means well.”

“Yeah, it’s OK, really. I know she didn’t mean it. It just kind of…”

“Threw you a bit?”

I nodded. “Yep. Daft, isn’t it?”

“Not really. Meeting us lot for the first time, I’d probably be thrown too. Scar’s a pretty big personality. She’s been here since Year Seven and she’s a prefect, a mentor and a student counsellor. She knows everyone, I mean, really knows them, you know? Especially the boarders. She’s kind of been there through all our various meltdowns and catastrophes. I don’t think there’s any of us she hasn’t picked up and put back together at some point. The secrets that girl keeps! Seriously. She’s amazing.”

“So I’m not the only one who falls apart then?” I asked with a sad smile.

“God no, we’re all at it. Scarlett’s like our very own Jeremy Kyle, but totally nice about it. She’s like a full-on celebrity around the school. The younger girls all look up to her, and the teachers love her because she’s some kind of genius. She single-handedly ups the school’s results average by roughly three million per cent I think. Plus the boys are all bewitched, obviously. You’ll really like her – everyone does.”

I smiled. “Everyone’s been so nice. It’s not normally like this. Not for me.”

She looked surprised. “Because of the military thing?”

“Kind of. Military, migratory, it all sort of…I don’t know…messes things up in its own special way.”

“Want to talk about it? Or does that just make it worse?”

I smiled. People didn’t usually ask me about it. They usually just sort of formed their own opinions and kept their distance. Rae was different. This whole place, it seemed, was different.

“When your parents are in the army, you get really used to being the new girl. It’s not just that you’re always on the move, that bit people understand, but there’s sort of more to it that they don’t always see. It’s like – you’re always just that little bit different – kind of not quite the right fit.”

“Ha,” she chuckled. “Newsflash – none of us are the right fit. Not really. It’s just that some people are better at pretending. Am I right?”

I nodded. She got it.

“I think it’s because my mind doesn’t stick on all the things it’s supposed to. Boys, and clothes, and all that stuff,” I explained. “My focus tends to be a bit different. And, you know, different’s kind of never good. Social suicide, and all that.”

“Yeah, there’s that. But then,” Rae reasoned, “if people know… I mean, if you give them a chance to see why…”

“See, but that’s the thing though. If I explain that the reason I’m sort of not really the life and soul of the party is because there’s always this thought in the back of my head that maybe one of my parents – both, now, in fact – are getting shot at, it’s sort of an automatic downer. Which tends to just make it worse.”