This Still Happens

Chapter Twenty-Seven - Respect: Char

Ugh, Monday morning. Literally only exists to stop me wearing red lipstick or nail polish, which, quite honestly, is some massive bullshit, and I shall be making a complaint, just as soon as I've figured out where to send it. Can I just... chuck it at the sky? I don't know. That seems a bit too simple to be likely. Hmm. I'll have to ask Tim how you ask God to cancel Mondays, or, at the very least, to cancel them until they can get their act together.

School. School is always so much more annoying and inconvenient on a Monday, I find. Maybe it's just because Monday comes immediately after a weekend of being able to do whatever I want, once I've finished my shift at the Wainwrights' tea-rooms. From lunchtime on Saturday, I'm as free as an extraordinarily beautiful bird, which is, I've got to say, the absolute tits.

I can row, swim, paint, braid my hair, go on a walk with Lumi, get a little bit saucy with Stefan, do whatever I want--as I've said--until bedtime on Sunday.

And then it's back to slogging through mountains of school work, ugly pleated skirts and boring shoes, makeup subtle enough to disappear on inspection of my face, and, ugh, only banter and Art lessons to keep me from dying of boredom until the bell rings at twenty-past three. And believe me, I count the minutes. I count the seconds.

Quite honestly, if it weren't for my friends, I think I'd have snapped a long time ago, thrown my pants off the roof or something, just to make life at Wooler Water a tiny bit nearly interesting.

Well. I might have done, if June had passed like May. But it didn't, did it? June passed in a way none of us could have expected, and now July's here, and none of it's any fucking better, and, truth told, I'm fucking scared. Just as scared as Gordon is, just as scared as Lena is, and if it weren't for Stef, I would have made a very stupid decision a decent chunk of a while ago.

Leapt out of the closet, the day Lena was outed, taken some of the heat off her, if only just for a moment, but then I looked at Stef just before I did, and I knew I couldn't do that to him, couldn't scare him like that, coming out in that kind of situation. And the tears came, like they did for so many people that day.

I wish I could bring Lumi to class with me. She's a very smart pupper, and she's a good, heavy baby, who does the best cuddles. It would be nice to bring her into Maths, to help me with blody angle bisections or whatever the Hell Gordon gets and I don't, or to send her over to sit on Ffion's lap any time she looks sad.

Poor Lumi. She does get lonely when Mum and I are out of the house all day.

Resolutely, I stare into the mirror, resigning myself to another day at school without Lumi. I slick on a thin layer of watermelon lip-balm. It's already a bit pinker than I can be sure will fly. Asking Mr Mayes if I can bring a Staffy into class--"Sir, this is my emotional support massive dog. Everyone should have an emotional support massive dog,"--would definitely be pushing my luck.

Oh, well. I can dream.

As I head out of the loos by our form room, I collide with Ffion in the corridor, and we both stammer clumsy apologies for what was undoubtably my fault.

"Oh, my goodness, I'm so sorry!" I exclaim, "I wasn't looking where I was going! I rub Ffion's shoulder, the bony bit that I bashed into just now. "Are you OK?"

Ffion nods vigorously, and hold my shoulders at her arm's length, so that she can scrutinise me, presumably for dents and such. "I'm fine!" she rushes, "Are you? I'm sorry! I should've been looking out! I was looking at my shoes!"

Oh, Ffion... I've seen you walking around like that before... and, knowing what I know now, there's always a reason for it, isn't there? Head bowed, eyes pink, shoulders curled in...