Friend Request(32)
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I shifted back a little from the edge, drawing my knees up, suddenly feeling the precariousness of my position. ‘You sit next to me, can’t you do it?’
‘I’d have to lean right over though. She’s directly in front of you, it’ll be less noticeable.’
‘I guess so, but – I mean, we don’t know for sure that she did do that, with the tampon, do we?’ I stubbed out my half-smoked cigarette, grinding it into the chalk beside me.
‘Matt Lewis’s cousin knows someone who goes to her old school. I swear to God she did it.’
‘But even if she did, it just seems like…’ What I wanted to say was that it seemed like a pretty horrible thing to do regardless. Maria hadn’t spoken to me since the night of the party, nor I to her, but I had been hoping we could let our nascent friendship simply slide away, unnoticed. Now Sophie was asking me to raze it to the ground.
She took a deep drag of her cigarette and breathed out a plume of smoke into the salty air.
‘Well, if you don’t want to then of course it’s your choice. I’m just worried about you – if you don’t join in with it you might end up feeling a bit left out. People might wonder if you really are one of the group, you know? I’m not saying I would, but that’s what the others might think.’
We sat there in silence for a couple of minutes. Sophie lit another cigarette from the stub of her first without offering me one.
‘Right, we’d better get back to school then,’ she said eventually, standing up and tugging her skirt down where it had ridden up slightly. She was slipping away from me, I knew it, and I couldn’t help imagining the conversation where she told Claire and maybe even Sam that I had chickened out. I followed her along the path, and as we passed from the open cliff into the shadow of the woodland, I made my decision.
‘OK, I’ll do it.’
She grasped my hand.
‘Yay! I knew you would. It’s going to be so funny, honestly.’
I was overcome by breathless, shaky laughter and we walked back to school arm in arm, giggling all the way.
As soon as the bell went for lunch we went up to the art room. I kept guard while Sophie went into the room, coming out a few minutes later, smirking.
‘That was quick. Where is it?’
‘In my bag, of course. In a plastic bag as well. I’m not going to walk around dripping blood in the school corridors, am I?’
‘What d’you mean, blood? I thought it was paint.’ A horrible thought flitted across my mind.
‘Yes, that’s what I mean – paint.’
‘Why haven’t you got paint on your fingers?’
‘I’m not totally stupid, Louise. If Maria tells, the first thing they’ll look for is someone covered in red paint. I took some gloves from Mum’s work the other day.’ Sophie’s mum is a dental nurse.
‘The other day? When did you decide to play this joke then?’ The blood in my veins dropped a few degrees. It all felt too premeditated, less of a prank than an attack.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Louise, does it matter?’ She pulled me into a nearby toilet block. Inside a cubicle, she handed over a small see-through plastic bag, the kind you’d put your sandwiches in. I didn’t look too closely.
‘Right, so when we go back to class after lunch, that’ll probably be your best chance, before we go to maths. Just tip it out into her bag. It’s open at the top, isn’t it, no zip or anything? Or get up and pretend to get something if that’s easier, and slip it in as you walk past. Once you’ve done that, put the plastic bag into the bin in our classroom on your way out. Then there’s no way to link it back to us if she tells.’
Back in the classroom, I sat at my desk, trembling from head to toe. Claire and Joanne chatted artificially to each other in their seats across the aisle from me, jittery and skittish with anticipation. Maria walked into the room with Esther, both of them laughing as they passed down the aisle. Maria was studiously avoiding my eye but there was a telltale flush on her chest as she hung her bag on the back of her chair and sat down in front of me. Her hair was neatly tied in a ponytail.
I put my hand into my bag and felt the sandwich bag, smooth and slippery, the tampon a squelchy lump between my finger and thumb. Was I really going to do this? I could feel Sophie brimming with supressed laughter to my right, and I anticipated the warmth I would feel as I basked in her approval later. I would be the one whose arm she sought as we walked into town after school, not Claire. Maybe she’d ask me to sleep over so we could relive what we had done, giggling together under the covers, partners in crime. I closed my hand a little tighter on the bag and its gruesome contents.
I tried not to look at Maria as I began to pull the bag out; tried to force myself to visualise what would happen if I didn’t do it, how scornful Sophie would be. I pictured myself walking home alone, studiously avoiding the sight of Sophie clinging ostentatiously to Claire as they swanned off into town together. I closed my eyes for a second, and when I opened them, the first thing I saw was the nape of Maria’s neck, white and vulnerable, the clasp of her gold heart necklace just slightly off-centre.
Instantly I felt as though I’d sunk into a warm bath. Relief suffused me as I realised that I wasn’t going through with it. I pushed the plastic bag back into my school bag with a shaking hand. Despite what I had already done to Maria, the way I had callously thrown aside our friendship, I couldn’t do this to her. It felt so calculated, so gross, so spiteful. And although part of the relief I felt was for Maria, and how thankful I was that this wasn’t going to happen to her, it was also for me. I was relieved that I wasn’t the sort of person who would do something like this. I had thought for a horrible moment that I was.