✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

12. Friends and Enemies

"Saturday?"

Tess looked up; she hadn't even realised Kim was there. She seemed to have this uncanny ability to move silently any time your mind was on something else. She'd just got out of her history class, and wasn't thinking about anything but her upcoming history lesson, and wondering if she had actually remembered to bring her book today.

"Saturday," Chloe answered with a nod. It was all they needed to say. They'd known each other for long enough that almost every part of their plans could be taken for granted.

"Don't know," Tess eventually gave her answer. "I'll have to figure out the busses before I can go anywhere. Like, I'm all the way over in Palmerston now. And I haven't really sorted out money yet. Like, I don't know what allowance I'm getting or anything."

"Won't be the same without you. Your cousin could give you a ride, couldn't she?"

"I don't know, have to ask her. I don't know if she works weekends or what, we hardly talked about any of that stuff. I'll be there if I can, just don't know what the deal is yet. Like, I've not seen anyone outside school for nearly a week, so I need to get into some kind of routine."

"Worrying about Spike again?"

"Well, yeah, but..." Tess mumbled. Spike had come into school with a black eye today. He wouldn't tell anyone what had happened, and Tess couldn't stop thinking about whether she could have done anything to help him.

"You've been out of it all day. You need to relax. I mean, invite him too, right? You both need some space."

Tess just nodded. Her friends were right, she'd gone out of her way to make sure she could stay at the same school. By comparison, looking up bus times shouldn't be any problem. And hanging out with friends would be a breath of fresh air.

"Saturday, then."

By that point in the conversation, they had already reached the next class. Any further planning would have to wait an hour, but there wasn't much more to say.

It turned out that Tess had remembered to bring all her books, and all her homework was completed. However, history had never been her best subject, and she was less than enthusiastic about getting her grade for a recent project. This time it would be worse, because supportive friends didn't always have the positive effect they might have hoped for.

Tess glanced around and saw a girl she'd barely paid attention to for the last year sitting in the back corner of the room. Ashli Mortimer, who she now knew as Tami's girlfriend. When she'd mentioned that she struggled with this class, Tami had been more than happy to point out that Ashli used to have the same problems. She'd been at the bottom of the class, struggling to remember any of the details they were learning, but she'd decided that it was important to get a good grade and had suddenly improved. She guessed that her newest friend had meant it to be reassuring; a parable about how someone who shared her problems could work to improve. But to Tess, it felt more like she was being compared. Like the two of them had the same lack of natural talent, but one had somehow managed to replace it with hard work. That the one weak grade dragging Tess down was her own fault, and she couldn't just blame it on a lack of talent.

It didn't help that the history teacher, Mr Minchin, had a policy of continually grading students, ranking the people in his class after each assignment. It certainly didn't help when he pinned up a list of all the homework grades, and Tess found that she was now second from bottom in the class. Chloe was sympathetic, but she loved the subject and seemed to have the natural gift that meant she would remember any number of stupid names and dates without ever needing practice. She offered to help tutor Tess some time out of class, as she always did. But even with help from an expert, Tess knew that she would struggle to keep her grade steady; and the offer just reminded her that Chloe couldn't come round to her house at present. When they had only been separated by five minutes walking, she had been a great help. But Chloe's house was often packed with siblings yelling at cross purposes, and Tess would be ashamed to invite anyone round at present, which didn't leave many options.

Ashli got a special mention from the teacher, having finally pulled her grades up into the top half of the class. He said that they could all achieve the same feat, but to Tess that was no encouragement. And to further pile on the anxiety, the class ended with the news that they would have an exam on the most recent module at the end of next week. This would go towards their final grades; and Tess knew that she wouldn't get over the stress of moving home soon enough to properly study for the test.

She couldn't vent to anyone. Spike would have understood, but he wasn't there when she came out of the building. There wasn't time to hang around before she caught the bus, and all of her friends had their own homes to go to. Any one of them would have been willing to listen, and maybe they would have had some solutions, but Tess knew that if she asked someone to stay around, she would be pulling them away from their own plans. She couldn't even invite them to join her for chat and dinner, not until her room was properly decorated again. She'd thought that staying in the same town would have removed all the problems, but now it seemed that she had just as many problems, but without the sympathy that a new school would have given a transfer student.

Perhaps she could talk to Tami about how she was feeling now. About her stress, and the lack of opportunities to spend time with her friends. Just being able to talk to someone would make it easier, but she knew that she couldn't explain what was really going on without explaining why her room was so embarrassing. And in addition, as she got to the bus she saw Tami chatting with his girlfriend. Ashli shouted something that Tess barely caught; about doing her best, and seeing who would come out on top in this exam. And then they were gone, heading back to her house. So Tess was on the bus without her new friend, with nobody she could talk to again. She could play games on her phone, or stare out of the window for twenty-five minutes, but there was no way that would help to bolster her confidence.

She couldn't put her finger on the point where her life had suddenly started going downhill. It couldn't have been when her parents left, could it? She kept on telling herself that she was mature now, she was in control, and she knew how to look after herself. She didn't need them to be around now, but somehow everything seemed to be falling apart at the same time. And as hard as she tried, she couldn't convince herself that it was just a coincidence.