Ugh.
My headphones helped to drown out the tipsy giggling floating up through the floorboards, but they couldn’t stop my brain flashing up very unwelcome images. Oh God, I was NEVER letting them within sniffing distance of a cork again.
(The very, very end of) Daisy Green’s To-do List
• Item 2,301: Lick inside of wheelie bin.
• Item 2,302: Nail foot to bedroom floor.
• Item 2,303: Visualise circumstances of own conception.
How come when I needed to remember important stuff (such as maths), my mind went blank. But when I was desperate to forget something (parental confessions; Matt breaking up with me), I had the memory of an elephant with a PhD in Photographic Recall.
Like now. Lying in bed with that awful moment playing like a Vine.
I’m sorry, Daisy, but I’m going to Spain. Loop. I’m sorry, Daisy, but I’m going to Spain. Loop. I’m sorry, Daisy, but I’m going to Spain. Loop.
That six-second conversation had been a constant background hum since the day we broke up. Every now and then, something would happen to turn the volume up. Maybe a song; or a whiff of aftershave; or a YouTube clip he’d almost wet his pants over; or River asking for the bazillionth time when Matt was coming home. And that’s when it hit me like the first time. My legs always shook, throat burned, stomach went all peculiar and I couldn’t quite trust my ears. You’re leaving me? You’re going to live in Spain ? To help your mum and stepdad open a bar ?
I’d have to sit down, take a few deep breaths. Maybe cry, maybe not, depending who was around. Wait until it faded into the background again. I’m sorry, Daisy, but I’m going to Spain endlessly looping.
OK. College had to be the answer. A new start. I could get up and put my happy mask on. Try to act as if my heart didn’t dissolve out of my tear ducts every night.
Queen of Pretend. Fake as a reality TV star. Tomorrow my post-Matt reboot would begin, my big chance to move on.
Rule #8: Think positive. I’d never needed it more.
Okaaaay. So I’d been there, done that, and by 4 o’clock I just needed the Hang on, this isn’t what the brochure promised T-shirt to make the college induction day complete.
Where were the many ‘exciting new friends’ I was supposed to be making? Once I’d had my ID photos taken and my timetable printed, I headed straight for the canteen. Fair enough, there were plenty of ‘exciting’ people milling around. Unfortunately, none of them seemed interested in meeting me.
Most people had been to the same feeder schools and I didn’t have the balls to gatecrash those cosy cliques. Without the girls or Matt as backup, I was apparently a bit of a social doof. A crash course in gatecrashing, that’s what I needed.
And the campus! Just leaving the foyer made my ears pop and there was no chance I was ever finding my way round this mad maze of staircases, Hogwartsy nooks and crannies and never-ending corridors.
Confused, lost, overwhelmed, ignored . . . these emotions were definitely NOT mentioned in the brochure.
I clung to Rule #8 and tried thinking positive until break, when I wussed out and rang Ayesha.
‘You’ve only been there for a couple of hours,’ she said, when I’d unloaded my nearly-teary emotional splat. ‘Stop skulking about like the ghost of no-mates past. Just walk up to someone and say hiya. Come on, what’s the worst that could happen?’
‘Well, the worst that could happen is they laugh in my face and the sound echoes through the whole building, attracting everyone’s attention, and when they’re all staring at me, my clothes mysteriously disappear meaning two thousand people see me naked and –’
‘Enough!’ she said.
‘But what if you were right and I did rush into it? What if I should have stayed on at school?’
As the whine crept into my voice I swear I could hear her eyes rolling. ‘Daisy, you have done NOTHING but slag St Mary’s off all summer. The uniform. The teachers. The toilets. The dinners . . .’
‘You hypocrite! Who started the petition to DNA-test “Mystery Meat” pie?’
‘Yes, but we’re not talking about me, are we? Oh. And the carpet tiles. You said they gave you static shocks.’
‘They did!’
‘Fine, but my point is you can’t suddenly get nostalgic for school after a couple of hours at college. You need to give it more of a chance.’
Of course she was right. And anyway, school wouldn’t be the same with Matt being in Spain. Us not getting the bus together. Not seeing him at break. Not sitting with him at dinner. Freaky-deaky. And that on top of everyone knowing he’d dumped me.
College hadn’t ticked many boxes so far, but it certainly beat having my crappy-ever-after picked over by the gossip vultures.
‘The bell’s just rung,’ Ayesha said. ‘Look, me and Beth’d love you back here, but you need to give college a proper go before you think about jacking it in.’
I gave myself a mental arse-kicking there and then. Think positive, Daisy:
1. Induction day is a trailer, not the main event
2. There’s no such thing as insta-mates
3. College will be what I make of it.
Now grow a pair and stop whingeing.
I’d been told to go to tutorial at eleven in room 71(b) so I walked back into the foyer to get my bearings just as the clock over the main entrance clicked to 10.56.
I had no idea where room 71(b) was. Four thousand (approx.) doors in the place, each numbered by a sadist with a black belt in sudoku. Where is 71(b)? Upstairs? Uruguay? Uranus? Despite Ayesha’s best efforts to tame the panic demons, I couldn’t help desperately missing my St Mary’s-shaped comfort zone as I blundered up and down corridors that didn’t lead to where I was supposed to be.
I was insanely flustered by the time I finally found the room. It was rammed to the ceiling tiles, meaning I had to squeeze through a tiny gap to get to an empty seat. And this was made infinitely worse because only ONE person (a Scarily Handsome Guy) stood up to let me pass.
I was rocking (Ayesha’s carefully curated idea of) student style: Mum-made tea dress; vintage floral blazer (swirly shades of purple), plum tights and my trusty pink patent Doc Martens. Kooky cool. And, under the gaze of what felt like a million snidey eyeballs, I was nearly at my seat when this girl with an American twang went, ‘Hey, why’d no one tell me it was fancy dress?’
Eh? Then the fake-baked twiglet cackled and my face flushed
