A Strange Fire (Florence Vaine) (13 page)

 Diana calls around again to do
some of the house work on Sunday evening. It must be because of Gran’s bad
eyesight that she qualifies for a care assistant, because I’d always thought
that you had to be at least eighty or ninety before the government would fork
out for anything like that. I go to my bedroom shortly after she arrives. As I
mentioned before, Diana’s emotional grid is particularly toxic. Like most
people in this modern world, her emotions range from jealousy to greed to
insecurity. Sometimes a combination of all three at once.

 On this occasion she is decidedly
unbearable, there’s a kind of triumphant accumulation in her colours. The kind
women get when they’ve convinced their husband to buy them an expensive new
car, or a sparkly diamond ring. Diana must have recently received something she
has wanted for a long time.

 On Monday it’s unusually warm for
late September, so I dress in a pair of loose, navy three quarter length
bottoms, a tight grey t-shirt and some sandals. Gran appears happy to see me
dressed for the good weather. At breakfast she tells me she’s looking forward
to a nice day of gardening.

 When I get to school the car park
is crowded with students in summertime wear, denim cut offs, colourful tank
tops, Bermuda shorts and the like. Caroline’s wearing a pretty flower print sun
dress and her hair has a slight curl to it. Perhaps she wants to make an effort
to show Alex what he’s missing. Good on her, I say.

 “You look nice,” I tell her with
a smile as we walk to CSPE first class.

 She grins meekly, red heads are
always ostracised at school. However, I’m sure when she gets older it will be
what sets her apart from the banality of a crowd of browns and blonds. Our
teacher Miss O’Brien hasn’t arrived yet, but most of the students are here
already. Josh has his usual group of boys sitting on either side of him, and
not far off is Ingrid and the two girls who seem to be constantly by her side.
I have no clue of their names.

 Josh notices me come in and his
dark blue eyes cut into mine, like a silent challenge. He’s obviously pleased
with the hurt he caused yesterday by revealing to me what Frank had said about
me behind my back. He clearly doesn’t realise that I lost my faith in humanity
a long, long time ago. I have witnessed the depths to which human behaviour can
sink.

 Of course, when you regularly see
your drug dealing dad kick the crap out of a pathetically addicted, grovelling
for mercy customer for not paying up, well, that’s when you know that there is
very little human beings aren’t capable of. Therefore, I have no expectations
of integrity in the new people I meet. I
had
hoped that Frank was one of
the good guys, unfortunately that has turned out not to be the case.

 Speak of the devil and watch him
appear, Frank walks into the classroom with Alex at this very moment. Caroline
and I have sat in the two seats we’d occupied last week. I can feel Caroline
tense up at the appearance of Alex, she must be still agitated over what
happened in the barn in Remington on Friday night. Frank and Alex don’t sit
across from us on the opposite side of the circle like before. Instead my heart
sinks as I watch them walk straight towards the two empty seats beside me.

 Frank pulls out the seat to my
right and sits down, while Alex takes the one beside him. I should be thankful
for small mercies I suppose. At least Alex has sat the furthest away from
Caroline as he possibly can. I’m sure Caroline is glad of that too. I really,
really
don’t want to talk to Frank right now, especially not since Josh is sitting
close by, looking distinctly pleased with himself, expectation of a fracas
gleaming in his spiteful eyes.

 He probably thinks I’m going to
slap Frank across the face or something. Little does he know I’ve already
encountered Frank since his vindictive whispering in my ear, and I have no
intention of confronting him about what he had apparently said. If Frank really
is a prick, then there’s nothing my confronting him is going to do to change
that. Plus, I’m the worst person at standing up for myself. I tend to avoid
conflict like the plague.

 Some people enjoy a good fight.
But those are people who get to go home to a nice loving family at the end of
the day. With Dad, my entire life was one long stream of defending myself
against his aggression. Even though I have Gran’s peaceful house to return to
now, I don’t think I’ll ever escape my aversion to animosity.

 Frank surprises me when he
touches my hand with his, I look up at him, because silly as I am to feel this
way, his touch draws me to him like a moth to a flame. In this case, the flames
of his aura. His eyes sparkle with such seemingly genuine sincerity that I have
to consciously remind myself that he is not all that he seems.

 “Morning,” he says in a low
voice, he’s wearing a plain white t-shirt and pale jeans and his brown hair is
messy, hanging slightly over one eye. His beauty catches me off guard and I
almost forget that I should not be admiring this person who told lies about me.

 “Hi.” I answer in a clipped
voice, and allow my long hair to fall to the side, shielding me from his
presence. I move my hand away from his and go about preparing my books for
class.

 I hear Frank laugh quietly.
“Don’t want to talk to me today, huh?”

 I can’t think of a good enough
reply so I simply shake my head and say nothing. I feel something gently touch
my hair, and I turn to find Frank has twisted a strand of it around one of his
fingers, thus creating a gap for him to peek at me through my useless shield.

 “S-stop that.” I tell him, and go
to disentangle my hair from around his finger. Our skin inevitably touches and
I feel the customary spark. Frank allows my dark hair to fall from his fingers
and then he strokes my wrist tenderly, as he has done before. I am shocked to
see a warm, distinctive red colouring him.

 Red can often indicate romantic
or sexual thoughts. Oh God. His eyes wander to the portion of bare skin at my
chest. I blush. I’m incapable of stopping the red from colouring my cheeks,
then Miss O’Brien enters the classroom and begins her lesson. Throughout the
class Frank allows his bare arm to touch off mine, and each time he does I draw
my arm away. I look at him only once to see what he’s playing at and the
amusement is clear in his face. Okay, great, I’m such a prude, he’s made his
point. He doesn’t quit teasing all through the class though.

 When the bell rings I walk a bit
of the way to my next class with Caroline. She asks me if I’d like to come with
her and Lia to volunteer at the Chesterport Psychiatric Hospital on Saturday.
She tells me they do it every couple of months because the place has been
underfunded and under staffed for a while now. It doesn’t sound too promising
an activity, but I agree to go with them nonetheless, although I
am
slightly wary of volunteering in a psychiatric hospital. I’ve never been to one
before.

 Later that day, as I walk to the
canteen with Caroline she tells me emphatically that she can’t sit at Frank’s
and Alex’s table for lunch.

 “That’s okay Car,” I tell her.
“I’m not too keen on sitting with them either.”

 Her expression is puzzled when
she replies, “Why not? I thought you and Frank were getting on well.”

 “Appearances can be deceptive.” I
answer, while simultaneously picking up a tray and joining the queue.

 Caroline shuffles up beside me.
“Okay, you can’t just say something like that and not explain yourself. Spill
the beans.”

 I cough and peer behind me,
making sure nobody I know is listening in to our conversation. “Josh said
something to me about Frank. It wasn’t very nice.”

 Caroline sighs. “It’s not the
rumour that he killed his dad one night for beating up his mum, is it? Because
that was a massive lie made up by some students when Frank first started at
this school.”

 I raise an eyebrow. That’s an
extreme rumour. Perhaps that was why Josh referred to him as an ex-criminal,
which is ridiculous because being only nineteen I can’t see how Frank could
have served time for killing his father and now be a free man. Obviously
whoever made up the rumour wasn’t very bright.

 “No it wasn’t that, although,
what a shitty thing to make up.” I say, thinking of how parental issues would
be a particularly sore spot for someone like Frank, who must have been an
orphan at some stage to have ended up living in a foster home.

 “Then what was it?” Caroline
asks, grabbing a ready-made sandwich and placing it on her tray.

 “He said that he overheard Frank
telling his brothers that he’d – you know – had sex with me.”

 Caroline sucks air into her
mouth, making a kind of hissing sound, “Oh my God! What a bastard!” she
exclaims. A younger girl standing in front of us turns around and scowls at Caroline’s
use of a curse word.

 Caroline lowers her voice. “Wait
a minute, you didn’t, did you?”

 “Of course not,” I burst. “I
barely know him.”

 “Sorry, um, sorry,” says
Caroline. “I didn’t mean to be rude. Well, did you consider that maybe Josh was
lying? Because he’s hardly the most trustworthy of sources you know.”

 “I know, but I don’t care either
way, I just want to keep my head down and get on with my school work. I’m not
going to bother involving myself with boys anymore.”

 Caroline smiles. “Yeah me too,
there’ll plenty of time for boys in the summer anyhow.”

 “Too right.” I reply as we go to
sit with Christian, Marley and Steven who are already halfway through their
food. Lia joins us after a minute, flustered at being late and telling us all
about how her Music teacher made her stay back after class until she got a
difficult chord right on the piano.

 I allow myself a quick glance at
Frank’s table, where Ross and Layla have just sat down with the rest of them.
Frank catches my eye, and waves me over. I have no intention of joining him. I
simply shake my head and make sure not to look at him again for the rest of
lunch. I do catch his look of rejection as I shake my head though, but I’m
determined not to spend any more time in his company, except for when I have to
in class. Other than the fact that he might have lied about me, Frank has
clearly had a colourful past, and that’s something I think I should steer clear
of. If he decides to tell people about my secret, well, I’ll just deny it.

 I find myself requiring a little
extra bravery and calm before going to my final class of the day, Business
Studies with Frank. So I slip away quickly to the toilets to take a Xanax. I
could have tried using my newly discovered ability to manipulate my aura to make
myself feel better, but I just don’t have the time for that. Nor do I have the
inclination to study my harsh colours right now. I swallow back the little
pills and hurry on to class.

 By the time I get to the
classroom, the melting feeling I always get when I take my pills has already
hit me. In this moment I feel nothing but an overwhelming sense of calm. Of
course, I’ll have to deal with the horrible withdrawal symptoms later on once
the drug fades. But all I care about right now is getting through the next
forty minutes. I really am more like my dad than I care to think about. Frank
is sitting by our table when I get there, immersed in some large textbook.

 But just as I pass by the
teacher, whose name I can’t remember right now, he asks in a strict voice,
“Florence Vaine is it?”

 “Y-yes.” I reply. Bloody stutter.
It’s very near impossible to escape at times. Back with a vengeance due to
being addressed by an authority figure, despite the pills I’ve just guzzled.

 “You’re excused from this class.
You have a meeting with the school Guidance Counsellor, room six down by the
secretary’s office,” he instructs me.

 I must have a confused expression
on my face because he continues, “All new students have to sit in for an
initial session. Now go on, hurry along.”

 I turn around, without glancing
at Frank again and head in the direction of room six. It’s a good couple
minutes’ walk away so I have time to think about what this Guidance Counsellor
session is going to entail. Then I suddenly recall exactly
who
the Guidance
Counsellor is. Sam Yardley. The substitute we had last week with the golden
locks and aura of light. No colours at all. It was undeniably freaky. My
emotions are a mixture of hesitation at having to speak to a stranger, and
intrigue at having a second opportunity to study his aura.

 Of course, these emotions are a
whole lot diluted by the all-consuming false sense of calm that can only be
given by my medication. I
have
to find a better way to battle my
anxiety. I don’t like to be reliant on a drug. Images of becoming my dad have
me shivering with trepidation.

 When I get to the office I hover
a moment at the door and dig in my school bag for the old compact mirror I keep
in case of emergency. I open it and study my eyes, and just as I’d thought, my
pupils are abnormally dilated. Almost all of the green is covered by my massive
black pupils. I will them to get smaller but it’s no use.

 I glance around me and search for
something to focus on, there’s a red box with a little handle in it on the wall
to my left. The ones you have to smash open when there’s a fire. I focus my
eyes on it for a minute and then look at my tiny mirror again. Yes! It worked,
they’ve shrunk to a less suspicious size. I mean, I know it’s hardly against
the law to take prescription medicine, but let’s just say I didn’t exactly take
the
prescribed
amount.

 I knock gently on the door, and a
male voice answers, “Come on in.”

 I enter cautiously, wondering
what kind of questions this guy is going to ask me. It’s a small room with
cream walls, and book shelves all along the right hand side. One window behind
the small pine desk looks out onto the grassy area that surrounds the school.