“You didn’t,” I said; despite holding the incriminating evidence in my hand, I couldn’t quite believe what he had done.
Adam shrugged in that cool, casual way he always did. “Only the juicy, mean stuff,” he said, zipping up his bag and hooking it over his back.
“Turns out you’re not the only one she has shit to say about,” said Tess, as her eyes trailed over another sheet about Mrs Patterson’s face moles.
“Holy crap,” I said, my mouth ajar in disbelief.
“Yeah, well, geez, Ellie, it’s not always about you, you know,” Adam joked.
And just as he was about to push past me, the crackle of the PA system came to life.
Sarah Norman, can you please come to the main office, Sarah Norman.
In one comical moment, Tess and my heads snapped around to lock eyes on Adam, thinking he might be concerned or surprised; instead, he simply smiled.
“You didn’t,” I accused.
I didn’t wait for his response; my eyes trailed over Adam’s shoulder to where Sarah stood, red-faced and rather dismayed in the entrance to the locker room. I kind of felt sorry for her, that perhaps Adam had gone too far.
And then Sarah’s teary eyes locked on me, burning with a palpable rage.
“You fucking whore!” she screamed.
Yep, okay, so I really didn’t feel sorry for her.
Before I could even blink, Adam was exiting the locker room, stopping up short beside Sarah, breathing out a laugh with a headshake.
“I think you’re going to need some new material, sweetheart.”
Sarah’s murderous gaze lifted to Adam—if looks could kill, Adam would be a dead man—but he stared her down, until she broke from his amused eyes and pushed past him, tearing her way toward the main office as the PA sung out her name once more.
I stood, stunned into silence, blinking at the piles of paper littered around my feet, except this time they weren’t shredded by my hands.
“A-Adam, I …” I lifted my eyes to where Adam stood, drifting into confusion as I suddenly realised: he was gone.
My knight in shining armour had left the building. I shook my head, breaking out into a brilliant smile.
“What’s so funny?” asked Tess, who seemed to still be in a form of shell shock.
I sighed. “Adam Henderson, always picking up the pieces of my life … LITERALLY.”
“Well, at least you know he has your back,” Tess added.
I caught a glimpse of Adam in the distance, walking across the schoolyard toward the gate, his hands in his pockets, striding with an air of innocence. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yeah, that’s what he said.”
One
I thought leaving Onslow would be the answer to all my prayers. That leaving behind all the small-town nostalgia would suddenly transform me into this extremely mature grown-up. New job, new flat, new town would all equal a new life, right? Then why was I sitting in the middle of my lounge room floor on a Friday night in tracky dacks, baggy T, and my long blonde hair swept up in a high ponytail in the messy look that wasn’t wholly intended? Crying into a glass of wine and procrastinating over a pile of unopened boxes in the hall. Yeah, a month into my move and I still hadn’t finished the unpacking phase. No rush, I thought, I’m going nowhere fast.
“Ha! Ain’t that the truth?” I said, squinting into the empty wine glass.
Four weeks, FOUR bloody weeks I had been in Maitland and I still hadn’t ventured out of my own shadow. Aside from not trying anything new in my life, there was something I was trying out, something that I promised myself not to do.
Go back to Onslow for the weekends.
Something that most did when they started out at uni or landed a job in the big, bad city. Maitland was only a two-hour commute to Onslow, so as big and tough as all my fellow school chums thought they were, they still commuted back home for Mummy to do their washing and for Daddy to fuel up their car. Well, not me; if I was going to seek independence, then I was going to do it right, even if I was desperately lonely and missed home. Ha! Actually missing Onslow: the girl who by all accounts was the last fledgling to leave the nest; well, aside from my ex, Stan, but he had his parents’ business to tend to, so that gave him some form of street cred. Never did anyone look at Stan and think tragic.
