The Yearbook Read online

  I exist, I wrote in the margin. I once read this page. I breathed. I lived. I’m not special at all but I exist.

  The rest of the school day passed without incident, blurring into other school days that passed without incident. Just one big smudge of head down, arms crossed and don’t make eye contact. I spoke a few sentences out loud. Hannah asked to borrow my pencil sharpener in maths and I said, “Sure” and then, “You’re welcome”. Then she threw me by initiating further dialogue.

  “Like I’ll need to understand simultaneous equations in music college,” she said, rolling her eyes and flicking a page of her textbook.

  “Yeah.”

  “I still can’t believe we have a year-group detention. Charlie is such a dick.”

  “Hmm.”

  If you don’t say anything bad about other people, it is less likely that they will say bad things about you. But you cannot call out other people for saying bad things about other people because that makes them feel bad about themselves and that will trigger them to say bad things about you too. Stay vague, stay silent, stay safe.

  I was exhausted by the time the bell went. Students spilled out into the hallways, loud and lively. Chatter mingled with the noise of slamming lockers and phones beeping now they’d been allowed to roam free again.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Charlie as I walked the familiar journey home. I wondered if he was okay, or if he went home and cried, or punched a wall, or maybe didn’t mind as much as I thought he would.

  I watch, I learn, I’m horrified, and yet I never do anything.

  I wondered if Joe had given his bullying any further thought as I speed-walked through the park. Then I crossed the main road and took the shortcut through the grotty tunnel under the railway track. Ruby and I used to be cartoon-like terrified of this tunnel. We’d call it “The Murder Dash” and would dare one another to race through it, hair flying behind us, screaming with our hearts falling out of our mouths, certain we’d get pounced on by some lurker. Now I took it most days, alone. It was still creepy, though the previous year the council had installed a security camera. Remembering Ruby gave me the familiar pang I regularly tried to ignore. The I’m-lonely pang. The I-have-no-one pang. The Ruby-I-miss-you pang. A hollowing of the stomach, a constant hunger.

  I descended the steps to find the tunnel empty as usual. I stopped just under the security camera, its red light glowing in the gloom. On, and watching. I put my bag on the floor, checked again that there was no one around, then I raised my arms like I was a ballerina and twirled a series of pirouettes. I swirled and twirled till I was dizzy and breathless. Then I looked up at the red light and winked, before picking up my bag again.

  I smiled the rest of the way home, wondering, as I always wondered, if anyone had seen my dance. Imagining a bored security guard in a council office somewhere noticing my twirls. Remembering he’d seen me do it before. Who’s that girl and why does she dance? I pictured them asking themselves. Leaving another tiny trace of myself behind.

  My smile drooped when I stepped through my front door.

  “I’m home,” I called needlessly, as Mum was hyper-attuned to the house’s every movement. I hung my jacket carefully on the stand, next to a framed photo of Adam winning a football cup, and his framed A-level certificates.

  “I’m in the kitchen.”

  I went to say my cursory hello and see what overcomplicated meal she was making. Mum sat in an apron at the oak table, peeling a giant bag of potatoes and plopping them into a cold pan of water.

  “Did you have a good day?” she asked the potato in her hand.

  “Uh-huh.” I got out a glass from the cupboard and filled it at the tap.

  “That’s good.”

  “You?” I examined her over the rim of my water. She was immaculately put together, as always. Thin and toned, hair cut, coloured and straightened, outfit all matching, make-up applied.

  She chopped the naked spud in half. “Oh yes, it was fine. I went to yoga with the girls. Did some shopping. Shepherd’s pie for dinner.”

  “Great.”

  “See you later.”

  “See you.”

  That was actually quite a lot of conversation for the two of us recently. Mum had been super jumpy since Adam started university. Overcompensating for his departure with elaborate dinners, too worried about Dad to take interest in me. I took my glass and left her to it – padding upstairs to my tiny bedroom that I was still stuck with.

  It’s his room, Paige. It’s where he grew up. Besides, you wouldn’t want to swap it anyway, would you? Not when you’ve got yours just how you like it? Would you, Paige? No. I thought not.

  The bedroom door thumped against the end of my bed and I squeezed into my box. I’d painted it myself – a deep shade of purple that made me feel warm and safe, like I was in the womb of a mother who actually cared about her child. Not to get too Freudian on you or anything. I changed out of my uniform into some joggers and my favourite Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas T-shirt that Aunt Polly got me. Then I grabbed a pen from my tiny desk and crouched to open the drawer under my bed. Inside, it harboured several used notebooks, every page stuffed full, the dates of the last five years marked on them. My current notebook was the same cheap green exercise book as all the others, and it was almost full too – the pages swollen with ink. I fell onto my bed and turned to a clean page.

  I read it back, watched the moment become an accurate historical record of that day. My stomach hurt a little less. Satisfied, I snapped the notebook shut and hid it under my bed with all the others.

  Nobody noted it down, you see. All the horrid things people did to each other at school. Nobody kept tabs on it. Nobody was ever held accountable. The school’s anti-bullying policy may as well have involved someone in a novelty dinosaur costume singing at us to be kind to each other. I saw everything though. People didn’t notice me, but I noticed them, and I saw the horrid things they did to each other and I didn’t want it to be forgotten. I may’ve been too scared to write about it in the newspaper, but at least I wrote it down in these notebooks. A record existed somewhere. I wrote it all down. Everything I saw, everything that happened that shouldn’t have – then I hid it under my bed. I wasn’t sure what I ever planned to do with the notebooks, but it made me feel better that they existed at all.

  With my daily “torture journalling” achieved, I faced the challenge I faced every afternoon… How to fill time when you’re completely and endlessly alone?

  Over time, you learn coping strategies for the overwhelmingness of your constant solo company.

  Rule one: distraction is your friend. Always have something on – TV, music, a book on the go. Never allow yourself to sit alone in your own silence, that’s when it starts to creep up on you and make you miss people too much.

  Rule number two: do not go on social media. It’s self-harm, looking at all the non-lonely people, out having non-lonely lives, and making memories and ensuring nobody forgets them. Knowing what people do in school is enough, without knowing what the hell they do outside of it through a Juno filter.

  Rule three: if you have a wobbly day, where you feel empty and pointless and that you could fade away into nothingness and nobody would miss you at all, remind yourself that most people feel like this anyway, even if they’re out and about and taking group selfies. Remind yourself it’s better to be lonely than hurt. It’s better to be alone than in a room full of people who can turn on you.

  Rule four: if all else fails, you can always talk to your robot friend.

  I rolled over on my bed and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Alexa?” I called out. “Why are people so mean?”

  A blue light in the corner flashed. “Positive distinctiveness,” a calm, lady voice parroted back. “People in a social group need to feel different and unique from others in a superior way. Degrading others has been shown to raise our own self-esteem.”

  “Sounds about right.” She didn’t reply because I didn’t say “Alex
a” first.

  “Alexa?”

  I wished she’d say, “Yes?” but she never did.

  “Alexa, how are you today?”

  “You know I don’t have feelings.”

  “I bet you do and you’re just hiding them.”

  Silence.

  “I bet you’re secretly judging me for being such a loser.”

  Silence.

  “I bet you make fun of me with all of your robot friends when you’re hanging out in the cloud together.”

  Silence.

  “Alexa?”

  Silence.

  “Alexa, why are we here?”

  Her cool voice filled my empty room. “The answer to the question ‘What’s the meaning of life?’ has produced much philosophical, scientific and theological speculation throughout history. Different people from different cultures believe different things.”

  “Not particularly helpful, are you?”

  Silence.

  “So smug, aren’t you? With all your useless answers.”

  Silence.

  “I know you can hear me.”

  Silence.

  “Fine then, be that way.”

  I sighed at myself then opened Adam’s old laptop and loaded up Spotlight again. I’d watched it a thousand times before – it’s about the group of journalists who exposed the abuse within the Catholic Church. I got under my covers and submitted to the story. The house filled with the smell of beef. The food would be ready at seven for him. Whether or not he’d be home by then was another matter entirely. We wouldn’t eat until he did. We would not mention it if he was late, or if we were starving, or if it all went dry.

  At six thirty-seven exactly I heard the key in the lock.

  I closed the lid of my laptop.

  Mum turned down the radio.

  The scrape of the key. The doorknob turning. I got out of bed and made my way towards the top of the stairs. Mum’s feet creaked on the floorboards downstairs. Together we listened.

  You can learn a lot about someone from the way they open the door. Over the years, you can learn to differentiate between a good key jangle and a bad one. You can distinguish whether that was a genuine door slam or just the wind catching it, don’t worry. We listened. Stomachs attuned. Then…the door unlatched in a most charming way. My stomach settled, though it wouldn’t fully relax until…

  “Oh honeys?” Dad called, all faux American. “I’m ho-ome.”

  Not just a good mood, a great mood. Mum and I arrived in the hallway together. Me scuttling down the stairs, her removing her apron. Dad’s face cracked open into a warm, welcoming grin.

  “Both my girls at once. What a lucky man I am.”

  He opened his arms for a hug and I went in, putting my face into the armpit of his suit.

  “Hi, Dad. Good day?” He’d referred to me as one of his “girls”. I was included. Part of the family. It felt like someone had dropped vanilla essence directly onto my tongue.

  “Great day. Lovely day. Even better now, of course.”

  He released me so he could plonk a giant kiss on Mum’s lips. She was lit up like a lighthouse on steroids. Waves of happiness rolled off her, crashing through the room.

  “You’re early, darling.” She pulled him in so the kiss would last longer.

  “Wanted to get back here, didn’t I?”

  “Dinner’s almost ready.”

  “As I said. World’s. Luckiest. Man.”

  “Paige? Set the table?” she asked.

  I nodded compliantly and skipped off to the dining room, collecting knives and forks and such from the kitchen on my way. I set Dad’s place at the head. And, as it was a great day, I put Mum’s and my places on either side. He strode in and poured himself a whisky from the drinks cabinet – switching the radio to his favourite jazz station and turning it up. Mum clattered back into the kitchen, trying to hide her hurry so he didn’t accuse her of being stressful. She returned immediately with a bowl of his favourite olives.

  “Just to keep you going, it will be ready soon.”

  He yanked her back to plant another kiss. “What have I done to deserve you?”

  Mum blossomed like magnolia in spring. She lost ten years off her face instantly.

  “Only fifteen minutes away,” she mumbled. Dad whacked her arse on her way back to the kitchen and she let out a little gasp of surprise. “Glynn, a child is present.”

  “She enjoys seeing her parents in love, don’t you?”

  I knew to always nod and always agree. “You’re love’s young dream.”

  We were left alone with the olives but he was in such a great mood I wasn’t too tense, especially as I knew to keep to his favourite subjects.

  “Did you see Adam’s message?” I asked. He’d sent through a photo to the family group chat of his latest essay mark. A first, of course, because it was Adam. The group chat should essentially just have been titled Adam breathed – applaud.

  “Killing it, as ever.” Dad puffed up like it was his own achievement. I mean, Adam wouldn’t be so very brilliant if he hadn’t come from Dad’s bollock and grown up with Dad as a shining example of what a brilliant man looks like. “Bristol is lucky to have him.”

  We never mentioned that Bristol was Adam’s second choice uni after he wasn’t accepted by Cambridge. Cambridge was the Voldemort in our household – never to be spoken of. I’m surprised Dad hadn’t driven there overnight to egg the place.

  “And how was school?” He asked like he might actually be interested and I bloomed pathetically, sitting higher in my seat. I didn’t want to ruin this rare moment by telling him about the group detention.

  “Yes, really good,” I said excitedly. “In chemistry we did this experiment to see if…”

  I hadn’t finished my sentence before he glazed over, shifting his attention to the whisky glass. My bloom shrivelled as quickly as it had arrived. I carried on, even though it was devastatingly obvious he was bored. He sloshed his drink around, his nose slightly wrinkled. “Hmm,” he kept saying, as the alcohol swirled. “Hmm.”

  “…So, yes, it was quite funny. You know. For chemistry.” There was a painful delay before he realized I’d finished. He gave me a tight smile. I waited for him to comment, to even pretend he was interested. I hoped for it so much that my stomach hurt. The anticipation of acknowledgement. Or the biggest win of all…praise. If they treated me the way they treated Adam for even a day, I reckon I could live off the oxygen of that praise for a year.

  “So, guess who I saw at work today?”

  I examined the sentence for any link whatsoever to what I’d just said but found none. “Who?”

  “Jude Law.”

  I wasn’t sure who he was, but I gasped appropriately. “Wow, really? Where?”

  “In reception, waiting to go to the offices on the top floor.”

  Dad’s office block had a film production company in it, so celebrity sightings were pretty common and made him very excited. It was almost like he believed he had something to do with them coming in.

  “That’s pretty cool.”

  Dad’s smile widened. “Lost all his hair, mind.” He reached up to his thick grey-speckled mane and leaned back in his chair. “You hear that, Jane?” he called out. “Jude Law came into the office today.”

  Mum arrived in the threshold like he’d snapped his fingers for her. “Is that right? I’ve always had quite a crush on him.”

  A twinge rumbled down my back when she said that. It was a dangerous joke. But he laughed appreciatively, the good mood a supercharged shield. “Oh, have you now?” he teased. “Even though your husband has a much better head of hair?”

  She laughed too, and I joined in. All of us laughing in the dining room, like happy families do. When it was like this I couldn’t help but worry I’d made up the other part of Dad.

  Mum walked over and rubbed his head like he was a dog. He closed his eyes and leaned into her hands.

  “Much better head of hair,” she said. “Anyway, dinner is
ready. I’ll just go get the plates.”

  Eating was blissful. Straight out of a movie. Dad was on fire. All hands waving as he spoke, telling the funny stories we’d heard a million times before (though we never dared tell him that we’d heard them a million times before). The one where he got into a fight with a fireman, the one where he drank his university professor under the table, the one where he accidentally ended up in (and then won) a rap battle… The stories were so recycled I could tell them word for word, and yet, we pretended along as we forked Mum’s carefully-cooked dinner into our mouths. We laughed and gasped and cleaned our plates and heard all Dad’s opinions on each and every one of Jude Law’s movies and what advice he would’ve given Jude Law if he wasn’t too busy at work today to chat to him properly. The table was so relaxed you could almost see the wood seep and bend in the middle. I was able to finish my whole meal. Old memories slipped away. I told myself I was too dramatic and needed to be fairer to Dad.

  But I knew to quit while I was ahead. Especially as Dad had been extra… Dad-like since Adam left. I said thank you for dinner and that I was going upstairs to read, and my parents nodded without saying anything.

  I got back to my room, and asked Alexa to play some happy music. And, with hours to fill before bedtime, with no one to call, no one to see and nowhere to go, I decided to get even further ahead in English. I dug around in my bag and pulled out my library book. I pulled back my duvet and clambered into the smell of me sleeping.

  I exist…

  I opened the page on the note I’d left to the universe and blushed. How many times had I written this in the margins of books that weren’t mine? Or scratched it into trees? Or the sides of park benches. Tiny marks of myself left for people to find and wonder who I was, while nobody who knew me ever really wondered about me.