The Girl Who Cried Wolf(16)

His voice trailed off uncertainly as he saw the look on my face. Michael looked distinctly worried.

‘So you both think I’m lying?’ I gave a laugh that sounded very ugly. ‘Mother of the Year is telling everyone her daughter is exaggerating her illness. Did she tell you about the time I used her red lipstick to dot my face with chicken pox because I didn’t want to be in the nativity play? Or when I feigned feeling sick to avoid a family day out? This is priceless! Now she’s telling everyone I’m pretending to have a brain tumour. Look!’

I pulled off the headscarf I had so carefully placed earlier that day.

‘I’ve even shaved my hair off to go along with the charade! This is how it all started, you know –Me not wanting to go to sixth form, being sent to a real doctor. It was all an elaborate ploy!’

I was absorbed in my rage. How could she try and turn Michael against me? I hadn’t noticed him reach for me, and when I looked up his face is so close to mine I can see the grey flecks in his eyes.

‘No!’ He sounded distraught but I no longer cared. My dream was spoiled and sullied. ‘Anna, please, it was nothing like that. Of course she knows how dangerous it is, she believes you’re a fighter, that you’re stronger than she’s ever been. She has to believe you’ll be OK because she can’t face the alternative – Like I can’t.’

I could barely hear him as I shook with rage. I reached past him and pressed for the nurse. ‘I have a terrible headache,’ I said coldly and with a calmness I didn’t feel. ‘Please leave me alone. Despite what my mother has told you I am too ill to deal with all of this. So what if we like each other? I just want to get out of here tomorrow and forget about this place, that’s all I can think about right now.’

‘Do you want to forget about me?’

I met his eyes and my heart dissolved like ice in fire.

‘Yes, Michael. That is exactly what I want.’

***

When the nurse arrives, I grossly exaggerate the extent of my headache. I have done that a few times in here because the drugs are so good. A few excruciating minutes after swallowing the little capsules and I am drifting away on a euphoric cloud. The razor-sharp pain in my chest that told me I had blown it with Michael ebbs away as I fall deeper under the sedative spell. I am anaesthetized once more, not by wine or Father’s port, but by some pills I can’t pronounce the name of but have every intention of becoming very familiar with.

I wake up with a dry mouth and a cloudy head. Mother is packing my things and I can hear Izzy saying, ‘She’s waking up, I think. God, what did they give her?’

I open my eyes another painful crack and see her concerned face. She pulls me up to a sitting position and holds some juice with a straw to my lips. I ask her where my father is, the same question I have asked every day since he last visited.

‘He’s still in New Zealand.’ The voice of doom from Lillian, who must love to be the bearer of bad news. ‘He decided to stay out there and finish his appraisal when he found out you were being sent home. You’ll see him on Sunday.’

‘I knew he’d be back soon,’ I say smugly, and she makes a noise I cannot quite decipher. She is holding the palomino picture Michael gave me and I snatch it from her.

‘I was going to put it in your suitcase, Anna. We need to get going; you were discharged hours ago.’

I swing myself stiffly from the bed and try to walk with nonchalance to the bathroom. But my head is spinning and as I wobble Izzy looks away quickly. She knows when to offer help and when to let me get on with it.

I let them sort out my room and sit on the bathroom floor with the door closed. Silent tears flow as I remember the way I treated Michael. It was hardly his fault that my mother was evil and wanted everyone to hate me as much as she did. I was still holding the picture he had left me, what seemed like eons ago. Under his original note was a number that hadn’t been there before, and I realized he must have come back to my room while I was sleeping. I took a moment to cringe a little. I’ve never been the prettiest of sleepers, so Lord knows what I must’ve looked like last night – Red, puffy eyes from crying, possibly drooling, and comatose with knock-out painkillers. Still, he had given me his mobile number and written in very small letters under it, ‘Don’t just leave me.’

I smile sadly and think of what could have been. How my heart had soared when he asked me to meet him in the day room and called me ‘beautiful’. I could never imagine feeling like that again. There was no room in my new world for such happiness, it just didn’t fit in with everything I was about to face up to: Like painting a rainbow on a torture chamber’s wall.

I allow myself one last look before tearing the golden horse into tiny pieces.





Chapter Five:


Elm Tree


I spend the journey home dosing in and out of consciousness, and it’s not until I open my eyes that I see we are not headed for Northampton, but winding through the familiar country roads to Elm Tree House. I glance sideways at my mother and notice her knuckles go white as she grips the steering wheel. She knows what’s coming and I do not intend to disappoint her.

‘Please tell me we’re not going home. Please tell me you haven’t completely lost the plot and are taking me back to the museum.’

Silence.

I spin round to face Izzy, who looks like a mouse in front of an angry viper. ‘We had no choice, Anna. Gramps has flu and the doctor said absolutely not. You can’t be around sick people.’