top of the hill, I look down at the watch on my wrist and adjust the alarm. I have thirty-five minutes. A deep breath escapes my lips. A flutter in my belly. Heat in my cheeks.
Boys sitting beside girls.
Girls meeting boys.
I bite my lip, feel the pressure between the teeth build.
And then I see him, waiting for me on the hill. He turns. He sees me. Finally someone sees me.
Then there comes that smile.
Journal Entry 1: 05.09.2018
I saw him again this afternoon outside the biology department. I’d been rushing back from having a quick smoke outside the chemistry labs and was on my way to the girls’ toilets to brush my teeth before class, when I turned the corner and saw him. I always seem to see him there in that hallway, so much so that I find myself hanging around and waiting there sometimes in case he passes by. I never used to go down that hallway. It branches off to the Literature & Languages classrooms and since I’m not taking English or French this year there’s no need for me to venture down that way. But I know he has German after lunch period so instead of using the toilets by the chemistry wing, I now intentionally walk an extra four minutes out of my way for a chance of bumping into him. Is that stalking? No…surely not? I’ll Google that later.
Anyway, today he was leaning against the wall, slapping his right palm against the stone to a particular rhythm like he was hearing a song that no one else could hear but him, while he waited for Mr Fischer to open the classroom door. And when the door did finally open, right before he turned his back on me – again – I could have sworn he looked up at me. Just briefly. Just long enough for me to notice and take a snapshot in my mind of his eyes, his body language, his expression.
He was kind of happy to see me, but also not wanting to show that he was. Why the games?
I like him.
He likes me.
This is a pretty easy problem to solve, isn’t it?? He’s the smart one, not me, so why isn’t he figuring this out? If he likes me as much as I like him then there’s no need for these mind games. We shouldn’t be avoiding each other or pretending that we’re not happy to see each other at school, in the hallway, outside at lunch, in the car park, when in fact we’re thrilled. He doesn’t have to not let on. He doesn’t have to pretend. Not with me.
We had an amazing summer together. We spent practically all of our free time hanging out. He acted like we were in a proper relationship, but now this? It’s as if the summer never happened. But it did. I know it did, and so does he. How much longer am I supposed to wait for him?
We don’t have all the time in the world to take this slowly if this is what is happening. We only have one more year together. He graduates in June and will go off to somewhere else new and exciting no doubt, Edinburgh or London or somewhere, and go to a fancy university that I can’t pronounce the name of let alone ever stand a chance of getting into myself. And even if I did stand a chance – in some crazy universe where I actually got good enough grades and had made Head Girl – I couldn’t afford to go.
Tuition rates are insane. I know there’s funding, but I likely wouldn’t be eligible for it because it’s probably ‘merit-based’, right? People with bad grades and even worse attendance don’t get funded to go to uni to get more bad grades and skip more classes. No, the government would prefer to spend its money on students who will actually pass the course and graduate to get a job to contribute to society. Me – I’m a risk. No contribution to society so far. Except to the food and drink industry. I do frequent the newsagent down the street quite a bit to get cheap vodka for the weekend. Does that count? No probably not.
And then there’s the books. A friend of mine in the year above went to Kelvin College this year to do her Access to Nursing and she’s already spent so much on the textbooks. And that’s just for her first semester! One book was apparently forty-five quid! She probably won’t even read it. You know anything that costs forty-five pounds will have tiny writing, graphs no doubt, and not the kinds of glossy colourful photos I like to see in a book!
And the housing options suck – I could stay at home with Mum and commute by bus to the nearest uni, which Rhys probably wouldn’t choose. Or I could get student accommodation and be subjected to one toilet between twenty people. I could live with my friend but she lives in a council flat and probably couldn’t fit me in anyway. She’s also got a ten-month-old that her mum looks after during the day sometimes…me and a crying baby under one roof?
No.
University is not for me. Besides, I wouldn’t even be able to work out how to complete the first page of the UCAS application.
University – or ‘Further Education’ as the guidance counsellor calls it – is for people who:
1. Read William Shakespeare (and understand what the hell he’s saying – is it even in English?)
2. Drink tea in the afternoons, especially if it comes with a scone and a porcelain jar of clotted cream, whatever that is. Is it just regular cream? What makes it clotted?
3. Write with a pen that has a fluffy thing on the top that sits on a spring and bounces side to side when you write with it
4. Post photos of themselves with their parents, usually on some expensive holiday abroad – and they actually look normal, and HAPPY!
5. Detail volunteer work experience at homes for the elderly and children’s hospitals on their profile and define this experience as ‘life changing’
6. Use the term ‘extra-curricular activities’ on their CVs. Actually, bigger point here – it’s for people who have CVs!
7. Have a five-year-plan that includes getting married and buying a fancy breed dog
8. Make daily ‘To Do’ lists and probably tick off each item as it’s accomplished with that annoying fluffy top bobbing to the side pen!
9. Colour-coordinate their school folders
10. Season-coordinate their wardrobe – although this one sounds tempting as I hate digging into the back of my drawers in the dead of winter and only finding summer shorts and sleeveless vests
I’ll tell you who it’s not for – and keep in mind, this list is where I fall in. It’s not for people who:
1. Don’t read Shakespeare, but who have just one book on their bookshelf that has the inside pages ripped out and a stash of cigarettes inside (Mum goes through random bouts of ‘Ciggies are so bad for you’ moments and searches my bags and drawers to ‘help me’)
2. Drink vodka and red bull – occasionally vodka and lemonade if I want to sleep that night for more than three minutes
3. Write with a black sharpie pen – and only on the bathroom doors of the boys’ toilets at school
4. List ‘partying’ and ‘sleeping’ on their activity list
5. Post photos of their mates falling down the stairs of O’Neill’s on a Saturday night
6. Have a mum that works at a home for the elderly
