Heart of Glass Page 5

  “You think Ben is your boyfriend? You are such a loser. He’s only interested in you because you’re a virgin? He wants to see how far he can get. Dan told me.”

  “That’s not true. He wouldn’t talk about me to his mates. Why would he say I was beautiful if he only wanted sex?”

  “He’s doing it so you’ll trust him and one night he’ll put the pressure on you and you won’t be able to say no. He’s waiting till he has you trapped, you idiot.”

  “Well, you’d know, you’ve been with more boys than the whole school put together.” I was openly weeping now, the tears streaming down my face. Inside my heart felt as if it had been ripped in two. It couldn’t be possible that Ben was only using me. It couldn’t.

  “Are you saying I’m a slut?” Lucy asked.

  “If the cap fits….”

  “Fair enough,” Lucy spat, as she picked up her books and stood to leave.

  “I still think you’re lying. You don’t know Ben, he’s not like that.”

  “That’s what you think. I’ve met boys like him before and believe me, they’re all the same.”

  “Ben’s not. He’s different.”

  “You watch, he’ll dump you for someone who puts out before too long. Then you’ll be sorry.”

  I watched her retreating figure, her entourage of fawning ninnies already sympathising as they scuttled down the hall behind her like little cockroaches. It didn’t matter what I said now. The damage was done. I had dug the grave and thrown the shovel in for good measure.

  Chapter 6

  LONELY PEOPLE

  This is for all the lonely people

  Thinkin’ that life has passed them by…

  America

  I hated living so far away from Ben and never having him near but our phone calls became a regular occurrence that was the highlight of my week. They were what sustained me when I was all alone. I looked forward to them, I looked forward to the sound of his voice and the cute way he flattered me. It made me all warm and fuzzy inside. It made our parents extremely cross. The phone bills skyrocketed into the stratosphere.

  The phone calls happened at precisely 9.01pm every Thursday, after Ben got home from training. The long distance rates were less then, but even when I offered to pay my share of the bill, my mother’s reprisals never ceased.

  I could always tell how Ben was feeling by the way he spoke. Even on the phone. He was hopeless at hiding his feelings or I was good at reading them and as soon as I answered the phone that night, I knew they something was wrong. Ben’s voice sounded different, somehow distant.

  “Hi,” I said cheerily, “what have you been up to?”

  “Oh, you know, school, footy, that sort of stuff.”

  “I missed you on the weekend. Didn’t you come down for State training?” Ben and Paul had been in town every weekend for the past month. Being selected as part of the State Under 20 football squad had meant many extra hours of training. It’d been odd that he hadn’t called on the weekend. We had been spending every spare minute together when he was in town.

  “I was sick. I didn’t go.”

  My lip curled. It wasn’t like him to be so short with me. “Is everything okay.”

  He was silent for a moment and then, out of the blue, a floodgate opened. “Oh Bella, it’s so hard.”

  “What is?”

  “Being without you, I’m hopeless without you. I miss you so much. I’ve even dream about you.”

  My mouth curved against the mouthpiece. “You do?”

  “Mmm. Last night I dreamt we were making love on a beach. Why can’t we be together? I want you so much. You make it so hard when you knock me back all the time.” I felt the warmth flooding through me as he spoke, it was comforting to hear his voice and he sounded genuine when said that he had missed me but something still wasn’t right.

  “You know I’m not ready. I thought you understood.”

  Ben sighed. “I don’t think you’ll ever be ready.”

  “When are you coming to town again?”

  “Not for a couple of weeks. The National Titles start next week - that’s in Darwin - and when I get back, the athletics season begins. I’m the Captain of St Michael’s this year so I really want to win. Plus, I’ve got a shitload of school work to catch up on before that.”

  I suppose he was busy but it sounded as if he was trying to get rid of me.

  “I miss you, Ben.”

  “Me too.”

  “I wish you were holding me now.”

  Ben was quiet for a moment. “Don’t talk about it, Bella. It’s too painful to think that I might be without you for even a day. I wish we didn’t have all this shit keeping us apart. I just wish we could be together without everyone else getting in the way.”

  “I feel the same way.”

  “Put your fingers on the mouthpiece and close your eyes.” His voice was like a whisper in the night and even though it was a weird request, I did as he asked. “Can you feel it?”

  “What?”

  “My fingers. They’re touching yours.”

  The tears fell softly down my cheek. I could feel him there, with me, touching me. “Oh Ben. Please come soon.”

  Little did I know, but I was going to need him in the next few months. He would be all I had.

  ***

  The ‘big freeze’ began after the fight between Lucy and I, coinciding with a cold snap in the weather that saw the already freezing temperatures plummet even further. I could see the girls gathered in our spot in the common room as I ran in, dreadfully late, my cheeks rosy from the hike across the quadrangle in the subzero cold. They were huddling close, their hands covered in grey gloves and their necks wrapped in woolly scarves, as they tried to keep warm.

  “Sorry,” I said, pushing into my usual place, “Mr Wilson kept us in, he’s such an ogre.” I took a sip of my chocolate.

  Prue hoisted her ample bottom closer to the bank heater. “The heating in this school is abysmal. You’d think with the fees our parents pay, the nuns could provide us with at least basic heating. It’s appalling.”

  “What’s more appalling is the fact that you’re hogging all the heat, move your butt over!” said Lucy, squeezing her slim form in between us and shoving me out of the way.

  Jen took off her gloves revealing red, swollen fingers. “Look at my hands, these chilblains is disgusting. How will Tim ever love me with hands that are so ugly?”

  “If he loves you, he won’t care what your hands look like.”

  Lucy rolled her eyes. “God, can’t you ask him out? Your obsessing is so irritating.”

  I agreed. “It’s a good idea. Tim might be too shy to ask you.”

  Silence.

  Jen continued to examine her sausage like fingers and Lucy turned her back, barking an order at one of her servants. I could feel the tension hanging in the air, as certainly as if I had rubbed my thumb on a cheese grater. I stood, watching and listening, waiting to see what they were up to now. The room was quieter than the hall at exam time.

  “Do you think I should call Ben?” I blurted, “I haven’t heard from him for a while and I know he’s back from Darwin.”

  Since our phone conversation, I’d heard no more. We hadn’t made any plans and the weeks had ticked by. It was odd after such a romantic phone call.

  Jen and Prue looked at their feet. Lucy started talking to the other girls, ignoring my presence. What was going on?

  “Should I ring him?”

  Prue looked at Jen, raising her eyebrows in a gesture of helplessness. It was so embarrassing. Why weren’t they talking to me?

  “I don’t think you should,” she answered, ignoring Lucy’s glare. “In some ways, I think I agree with what Lucy told you. Ben was only after one thing. I mean, you told him you wanted to slow down, and since then he’s never made a single plan to see you.”

  “But he told me he doesn’t mind, that he’ll wait till I’m ready.”

  “I…” Lucy kicked Prue’s shin with the accuracy
of the striker for Manchester United.

  “Ouch.”

  Prue was silent.

  I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea what was going on but Lucy seemed determined to make me suffer and everyone else was too scared to override her. Prue, out of all of them, would never stand up against Lucy and now she was the meat in the sandwich. She was the chicken between the sliced bread. The big fat roast chicken.

  ***

  As the days wore on and the winter ground burst into the glorious colours of the early spring, the ‘big freeze’ of St. Brigid’s College continued, no heed paid to the splendour of the bulbs sprouting in the courtyard or the blossoms budding on the trees outside the chapel door. I was in a quandary. My boyfriend had done a Houdini vanishing act and my friends were acting as if I had leprosy. I wished someone would let me in on what was going on. It was very confusing.

  At lunch times, I was relegated to the group of Wannabe’s outside the circle. It was where I belonged, anyway. I didn’t know what ever made me think I was part of the ‘in’ crowd. Day after day, I sat forlornly on the bench seat and tried to engage in conversation with a bunch of girls I hardly knew. They were nice girls but it wasn’t the same. We had no history at all. Still, it made me see that perhaps our behaviour, as the cool group, had not always been as accepting as it could have been. There was no reason why we couldn’t get along.

  Jen and Prue were cemented to the orange lounge, casting sorry glances in my direction but doing nothing to appease the situation. I wanted to make clucking noises to show them how chicken they were but contented myself with pretending they didn’t exist instead. They were led by peer pressure, unable to make a decision for themselves. It wasn’t their fault they were weak, or was it? It was possible, however, that they had a great deal more sense than I did. I had stuck up for myself and look what had happened. My new ‘friends’ tried hard to lift my flagging spirits by confessing further facts that had come to light from other girls in our class. They thought Lucy Roberts was a snotty stuckup cow and on that point alone, I could have been their best friend for life. Nobody had ever made a stand against her before.

  “You’re so brave to stick up for yourself,” Rachel said, one day, as we sat under the huge oak tree that stood sentinel on the edge of the oval reading “To Kill a Mockingbird”. I turned my book over on the grass and smiled at her, glad to have some company.

  “You think so? I was under the impression I was some sort of idiot savant. They hate my guts.”

  She put her hand on mine. “Well, they do, but it’ll pass. Those bitches’ll forget about it soon and find someone else to have a go at. Believe me, I know. Lucy is spewing, though. She didn’t like being called a liar and a slut in front of everyone.”

  “Guess the truth hurts.”

  We sat crossed legged in silence for some minutes, our backs propped up against the stringy bark of the tree, until Rachel spoke again.

  “She’s been telling everyone that you’re self-absorbed and stuck up because you have an older boyfriend. She said the girls were tired of your bragging about Ben James.”

  “But that’s not true; I haven’t bragged about anything!”

  “I know, but Lucy told Liz, who told me, that she wanted Ben for herself. She asked him out, to get back at you. Some of the St Peter’s Year 12’s saw them together at a party. He was really drunk and she was all over him and rumour is they had sex in the back of his car. Anyway, when she rang him again, Ben fobbed her off for some bizarre reason, so maybe he does like you. She didn’t want us to know about it but he told one of his friends and now everybody knows.”

  “How could she be such a bitch?”

  Now I knew the reason for the odd phone call from Ben a few weeks ago, and the ensuing silence. He was feeling guilty. Lucy had proven her point. Ben did only want girls who put out and I was a silly little twit.

  ***

  Into its epic fourth week, the feud showed no signs of abating so I decided to get on with my life without my friends. The pain they had caused ran deep within, welling up like a volcano waiting to spew out its dangerous contents but I kept the hurt in check, not letting them see what they were doing to me. I had plenty I wanted to say and one day the time would be right. I was strong; I would fight back.

  Unfortunately, for me, Lucy wanted to fight too. She had whipped off the gloves and was at the ready, bare fisted. It was amazing how vindictive one girl could be. She wanted to annihilate me, to pulverise what little dignity I had left and because she held the power at school other girls listened to her stories and spiteful remarks. Then they formed their own conclusions. I was branded a slut; any girl who gave head on the first date was bad news. (Lucy had heard it straight from the horse’s mouth, so it must be true). Now nobody wanted to know me.

  With each day, my misery grew. I sat alone, reading a book. Even the Wannabe’s left me for dead, not wanting to be tarred with my dirty brush. I was as popular as the pageboy haircut Mum had made me get in Year 7 when everyone else had the Farrah Fawcett Flickback. But worst of all it seemed that Ben had deserted me too. There had been no phone call for over a month. I may as well have been dead. The best I could do was to forget about Ben as he had forgotten about me. After all, he was the cause of all this trouble.

  Chapter 7

  IS THIS LOVE?

  I wanna love ya, love and treat ya right

  I wanna love ya every day and every night

  Bob Marley

  Ben and Paul were standing at the door of the darkened hall, their eyes squinting against the throb of the strobe light as they attempted to locate their own group of friends. School discos were a nightmare. It was impossible to find the people you were looking for and if you did, you never let them out of your sight, or they would be forever lost in the abyss that was known as the dance floor. But saw them a long time before they noticed me. I saw them and my fickle heart began to pound.

  The fog machine was doing its intended job of hiding teenagers from the view of the adults in charge well. Sweaty bodies moved in the darkness and lights pulsed over the heads of the throng, changing the colours of their hair from blue to red and back again. It was no wonder these dances were highly recommended amongst the ‘cool’ crowd of fifteen to eighteen year olds, as being the place to be on a Friday or Saturday night. There was nowhere else so dark and adolescent that you were likely to score.

  From my spot on the edge of the dance floor, I watched the boys as they circled the room, joining a group standing to one side. They spent a few minutes talking and looking out into the crowd. Then Paul saw Prue and made a beeline towards her. I smiled seeing them disappear into the mass of dancers. Their friendship had been developing since the night at my house and they enjoyed each other’s company. Prue deserved to be happy even if she was a gutless wonder.

  Lucy was on the dance floor too, with Dan from the football team. She had her hair in a ponytail and, as usual, her white jeans looked as if they were painted onto her body. Her pink boob tube was filled with an expanse of breast that was jiggling towards exposure. She didn’t seem to care that Dan was getting an eyeful and neither did he. He had an absorbed stare; worrying that if he moved his eyes for a second he would miss the glorious moment when those breasts would be revealed. She looked my way and snubbed me. I made a silent wish that her boob tube would slide down to her knees showing her nakedness to the world, or that Dan’s coke would drop from his hand and spill all over her jeans.

  Then I saw that Ben was looking in my direction, so I ducked and headed onto the dance floor. He would never see me there, hiding in the mist from the fog machine, but I could feel his eyes on me, reeling me in, begging me to yell, “Here I am, I’m over here.” Quelling the urge, I began to dance and for the next three minutes, Ben James was driven from my mind as Jo and I, my cousin from the Corpus Christi School, jumped around like lunatics.

  “That was awesome,” Jo puffed, as she adjusted her overalls when the song finished.

  “Yeah. Aga
in?”

  Jo nodded and as we waited for the next song, we scanned the crowd to see who had paired off with whom. It was dark and Ben was nowhere in sight. My heart sank a little but I don’t know if it was from sadness or relief.

  “Hey, did you see Lucy Robert’s top? If that thing creeps any lower she could wear it as a mini skirt.”

  Swinging back to Jo, I gave a smile.

  “It’s really only big enough for a headband,” I added.

  “Or a hanky.”

  I laughed. It felt good. I hadn’t done a great deal of it lately.

  It was then that I saw Ben shouldering his way through the crowd. What was he doing? Surely, he wasn’t coming to ask me to dance. Not after what he’d done. Now I was cross.

  Ben’s indigo eyes shone as he stopped in front of me. His smile was friendly. I could feel my heart flutter, in complete contradiction to every thought I had had about him recently. It wasn’t fair.

  “Hi Bella, um… you wanna have a dance?”

  Well, of course I would you moron, I thought. But it didn’t mean I was going to. I wasn’t that tragic. Not yet. I squared my shoulders at him.

  “Why? Can’t you find Lucy? She’s just over there.” I pointed through the crowd.

  “I don’t want to dance with her.”

  “Oh. So, it’s dance with me…. sleep with her. At least you have all your bases covered.”

  I folded my arms and stood my ground. Maybe he’d get on his knees and beg.

  “Please?”

  As if directed by some inner force my head nodded. I was so annoyed with myself. Why had I given in?

  “Catch you later, Jo.” I said, but she didn’t reply, she was too busy checking Ben out.

  I waved my palm in front of her face.

  “Oh yeah, right, see you later,” she said, wandering off into the crowd. I could understand it. He had that effect on me too.

  The music started. We began to dance. Ben kept the beat well and his arms weren’t flapping all over the place like some boys. He was quite a good dancer. The mass of people on the dance floor made it difficult so he moved closer, brushing his hands against mine. I ignored him. There would have to be some major sucking up if he thought I would forgive and forget.