I turn towards Dylan and Sammy and smile. “Thank you so, so much.”
Sammy blushes. Looking away from me, she brushes my words aside and mumbles, “It’s nothing.”
The bell rings, and I head with Sammy towards our class while Conner and Dylan go the opposite way. Andy comes down the stairs of Block B as we move up. He glances at me and then away. Sammy makes a face at him when he walks down the stairs. I grip her arm further, hissing at her to stop. She brushes my words off lightly and giggles.
I can’t concentrate on English. My mind reels to the weekend and how uncharacteristic it was of a weekend. Mum and I have trained to prepare everything perfectly and hide in our rooms,waiting for the hurricane to hit. I’d get Dad his favourite beer, and Mum would prepare Dad’s favourite meal. We’d clean the house and put the TV on the right channel to lure Dad into his seat. If it worked, he wouldn’t hurt us.
But this weekend, he creeped me out more. I wasn’t sure what to do in that situation. I stood, baffled, as Dad and Mum spoke to each other civilly for the first time in years. At first, I thought Dad knocked me out so hard that I warped into this parallel universe to keep my mental state happy. When I realised that wasn’t the case, I became on edge.
This isn’t normal, and there must be areasonbehind their acting as if nothing happened. Dad never beat me, ripped my fingernails off, or kicked me until I felt like my organs were about to spill.
Dad never raped my mum almost every night when he was drunk. He never beat her until she was black and blue. He never slashed her leg open until crimson splashed across the tiles. I never sat there for hours, scrubbing the floors and walls of all kinds of substances. My belongings were never trashed or searched. I’ve never starved, barely eating because Dad spent all our money on beer.
In this world that they are forcing onto me, none of it happened. It’s making me feel like I am crazy. It was as if I had maladaptive daydreamed about everything terrible in my life.
“Noya”—I flinch when Sammy touches my arm—“class is over.”
I blink back to reality and realise my classmates are packing up their belongings and moving to their next subject. I then stare at the blank page in front of me and grimace because I didn’t do any work in English.
This is what I didn’t want to happen. I didn’t want my home life to get so bad that I couldn’t focus on schoolwork. I need topush these thoughts aside in class and at least wait until recess and lunch to reevaluate what I witnessed this weekend.
The next class drags on. Perhaps it’s because my thoughts keep pushing what happened this weekend into my mind. I did my work, but my mind was elsewhere and growing intolerable. My inner thoughts haven’t been this bad in years. I can usually separate them or realise my mind is drifting, directing me to focus on schoolwork.
I’m not in the right headspace today, that’s for sure.
When Sammy and I arrive, Conner is already in the drama room. I sit beside him and thank him when he hands me a packaged cheese, chicken, and mayo sandwich. From his set look and fierce, firm hazel eyes, I know he has something to ask me. I try not to hold his gaze for long and eat in silence.
“Am I taking you to work this afternoon?” Conner asks.
I stop chewing. The food turns to mush in my mouth. After I swallow, I answer, “No. Dad said he’s taking me to school and work for the rest of the week.”
“Huh…” Conner grunts. “Interesting.”
Dylan burst into the room, his eyes wild and face pale. Sammy stands with a concerned look on her face when he approaches her. “Your dad drives a white Volkswagen with a grey hood?”
“Uh… yes,” I agree. “Why?”
“I went around to see if Andy and Wylan were behind the buildings where we hang out. I wanted to give them a heads-up that the rest of us won’t be hanging around here for a while. And while I was explaining it to Wylan, I sawthatcar drive past. I thought I imagined it, but when I was leaving, it drove around again!”
“What?” I breathe.
“Your dad is stalking you,” Conner murmurs.
“Does he know of our plan?” Sammy asks.
“N-no… at least, I don’t think so,” I whisper.
“At lunch, Dylan and I will try something,” Conner declares. “I don’t think he knows anything about our plan because we thought of it last night. My guess is he knows Noya is turning eighteen at the end of the week, so he’s seeing if she will make a run for it at school.”
“What are we trying?” Dylan asks.
“You’re going to hang out with Wylan and Andy around the back while I head near the front of the school buildings. I want to see if he’s doing an actual lap of the school or only surveying the back, lower fences.”
“Fuck, this is so cool,” Dylan says with a smirk. “I feel like I am in some kind of action spy movie.”
Sammy giggles, admitting she feels the same as well.
However, it doesn’t feel like that for me. I don’t feel like this is a detective movie. This immense pressure is weighing me down, and the way my dad acts scares me more than ever. Something is going on, and I am frightened by the outcome.