‘Hmmm.’ I’m not in the mood for flirting today.
I stand facing down the long hall, all the tables seeming to be full of gaping mouths and pointed fingers and whispers behind cupped hands. Ali, Maggie and Jamie are the only ones not looking at me.
‘Hey.’ I sit at the nearest table, throwing my bag at my feet and cleaning my apple on the folds of my skirt. ‘God, I am so dead in that Irish exam. I can’t believe I forgot about it—’
‘You can’t sit here,’ Chloe Hegarty says, her moon-shaped face screwed up as if she’s smelled something rotten.
‘What?’
Chloe Hegarty phones me at least three times a week, and believes me when I tell her that I must have ‘just missed’ her because I was in the shower. Chloe Hegarty gave me a present for my eighteenth birthday even though I didn’t even invite her to my party. Chloe Hegarty bakes a batch of mini apple pies for me every Christmas because she knows I hate mince pies. Chloe Hegarty told me once that she considers me to be her best friend.
‘Sorry,’ she says, ‘but you can’t sit here.’
I don’t know how I do it, but I get to my feet and I walk away.
I am Emma O’Donovan, I tell myself over and over and over again, as I sit on the toilet seat in a bathroom cubicle, trying to eat my apple, waiting for the bell to ring.
The day crawls on. During class I can focus on the teacher, and everyone is quiet, people can’t whisper slut, liar, skank, bitch, whore, when they’re here.
But then the teachers leave.
The moments when we’re waiting for the next teacher to fill their place, or we have to travel in the halls to another room, shoulder after shoulder banging up against mine, my books knocked off my desk . . . Whispers. All I can hear are whispers.
Slut, liar, skank, bitch, whore . . .
We’re waiting for the geography teacher to arrive. It’s the last class of the day. I can go home after this. I can curl up in bed, cover my head with my pillow to block out the world outside. I can fall asleep and forget this day ever happened. Everything will have gone back to normal tomorrow. Sean and Dylan will admit that they were lying, and Eli will tell Maggie, and she’ll phone me to apologize and she’ll make Ali and Jamie apologize too, and everyone will be sorry. I pretend to look over the essay on climate change that we had to write for today’s class. Where is Miss Coughlan? Would she ever just get here? If she was here they would all be quiet and stop whispering and I wouldn’t have to ignore the waves of voices around me, rising and falling, the peals of laughter, all melting away into one split second of silence in which I hear my name. Emma O’Donovan? A gasp, breaths held, heads turning in my direction to see my reaction, then fits of nervous giggles.
Laughing at me.
They are all laughing at me.
And I’m getting to my feet and I run, run, run; run away from them all, from the chatter and laughter and noise, I run down the corridor, Emma O’Donovan? Emma O’Donovan? Emma O’Donovan? beating in my bones. I sit on the toilet, heels of my palms digging into my eyes, trying to remember how to breathe.
Trying to remember. (I can’t remember, I can’t remember.)
Emma O’Donovan? Emma O’Donovan? Emma O’Donovan?
She’s waiting for me when I swing the door of the toilet cubicle open, her brassy red hair scraped back off her face in an unflattering ponytail.
‘Julie—’
‘Save it.’ She comes closer to me, nudging me backwards into the cubicle, giving me one hard push so I land heavily on the toilet seat. She bends over, her face inches away from mine. ‘Dylan told me what happened.’
‘But I’m telling you, I didn’t—’
‘You’re fucking finished, do you hear me? Finished.’ She places both her hands on my shoulders and squeezes hard, digging her fingernails into me. I try and get up, but she shoves me back down, spitting, ‘Did I fucking say that we were finished talking?’
‘You . . . you . . . you can’t speak to me like that.’ I’m breathless with the shock of it, but she laughs in my face.
‘Or what? What are you going to do about it?’
If this had happened last week, the girls would be here with me, they would have pulled Julie off me and told her to cop on. If this had happened last week, I wouldn’t be alone.
‘Julie, I don’t know what Dylan told you, but it’s not—’
‘Oh, shut the fuck up.’ She loses her cool. ‘Don’t fucking lie to me. I saw the Snapchat—’
‘Is there a problem here?’ Miss Coughlan pops her head around the door, her lips pursed at us.
‘No, miss,’ Julie says. ‘Emma ran out of class because she was feeling sick. I thought I should make sure she was all right.’
‘And that required screaming at her, did it?’ Miss Coughlan gives Julie a dubious look. ‘Is everything OK, Emma?’
‘Yes, Miss Coughlan.’ I try to smile at her. ‘I’m fine.’
After school, I stand on the footpath watching as Maggie’s Fiesta veers out of the car park, black smoke farting from the exhaust pipe. I practise in my head what I would say to anyone if they asked why Maggie didn’t give me a lift. I just felt like the walk, I’d say. I needed fresh air.
But no one asks me.
I walk towards the exit, weaving my way through the throngs of younger girls, their hands clutching on to the straps of brightly coloured backpacks, threatening to fall backwards with the weight of their books. I wait for them to say hello, to ask advice on their hair, or how I get my skin so clear, or to tell me that I should be a model, you’re so beautiful. But there is none of that today, only miles of dead space around me.
I hear my name called from a passing car. I see it as it comes towards me, like a missile, and yet I do not step out of the way. I wait for it, the heaviness of it slamming against me like a broken promise. The unopened can of Coke falls to the ground. Julie Clancy leans out of Sarah’s dark green Yaris, her middle finger held up as the car screeches away.
‘And what time do you call this? You should have been home an hour ago. I’ve been phoning you and phoning you. Why haven’t you been answering your mobile?’ Mam says when I trudge through the front door. She’s sitting on the bottom step of the stairs waiting for me.
‘I forgot my phone.’
‘I don’t care. I specifically told you to come straight home after school.’ I’m staring at the mat, and the new patch of yellow discoloration on the cream shagpile. She gasps as I straighten up. ‘What happened to your face?’
‘I walked into an open locker. It was an accident.’
‘And why are your clothes damp?’
‘It’s raining.’ I open the door to show her, the haze of drizzle making everything past our porch blurry. ‘See?’
A car pulls up the driveway next to us, Conor’s mam waving as she rushes into the house, a newspaper over her head.
‘The good weather finally broke, Dymphna,’ Mam calls out, smiling at her until she closes the door behind her. ‘And how exactly did you get so wet going from Maggie’s car to the porch? I’m not a fool, Emma. You obviously went to Connolly Gardens after school when I told you that you were to come straight home.’ She waits for me to say something, then grabs hold of my arm. ‘Well?’
Her fingers tear into my sunburnt skin and I shake her off. ‘I walked.’
‘All the way from school?’ Her eyebrows nearly disappear into her hairline. ‘But why would you walk all that way in this weather? Emma, I just don’t understand what has gotten into you; this is so unlike you. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in your . . .’
I climb the stairs slowly as she yells after me to come back here this instant, young lady, I’m still talking to you.
I peel off the sodden uniform squelching against my skin and dump it into the Hello Kitty laundry basket Ali brought me as a joke present from her trip to Japan. It lands on top of the dress I wore on Saturday night. I take it out. It’s destroyed, vomit all over it. I throw it in the bin beside my bed. I never want to wear it again.
I close the door to my en-suite behind me, and I stand naked in front of the full-length mirror on the wall beside the shower. The front of my body is so burnt it’s almost purple, bubbles of blisters forming around my hairline and my hands. I peer closer at the mirror. Beneath the sunburn, there’s shadowing, bruises blossoming around my neck and hips. I sit on the toilet, wincing as I pee. It still stings, maybe even worse today than it did yesterday. When I’m finished, I angle my lower body closer to the mirror, ducking down to stare at the reflection. It’s chafed, red raw, the same pattern of bruising dotted on my inner thighs.
Paul must have liked it rough.
The water beats down on my tight skin. I shampoo my hair, trying to massage out the pressure building around my skull. I breathe in the coconut smell, blinking water out of my eyes.
I had sex with Paul.
I open my mouth, rivulets running down my tongue.
Why can’t I remember? Just fucking remember, Emma.
Strands of ice across my eyeballs. Fizzing through me. Hands pushing my bones into the centre of my body, as if they’re trying to make me smaller. Lads, I don’t know if this is a good idea. Laughter, something wet splaying across my skin.
My phone rings as I get out of the shower.
‘Hello?’ I say, touching the screen of my iPhone and putting it on loudspeaker as I sit on the bed and towel-dry my hair.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Emma?’
‘Bryan?’ I dry my hands on the towel, turn off the speakerphone, and press it to my ear. ‘Is that you?’
‘Yeah, of course it’s me. I presume my number came up.’
‘Hey.’ My eyes feel scratchy, and I blink hard. ‘What is your problem? I told Mam and Dad that you didn’t have anything to do with me going to the party, that I said I was going for a sleepover at Ali’s.’
‘I don’t give a fuck about that. Have you checked your Facebook?’
‘No. I left my—’
‘Go on it. Now.’ I think he’s hung up but then he says, ‘I’ve never been so ashamed in my life.’
The phone goes dead, and I let it fall from my trembling fingers, watching as it slips off the quilt and lands on the floor with a thud. I get to my feet, the towel dropping away. I sit at my desk, and open my laptop.
630 notifications. I can hear my breath coming in and out, and in and out, until the whole room shrinks and dissolves into my breathing, in, out, in, out, in, out, in, out, and that’s all there is. In. Out. In. Out.
It’s a page that I’ve never seen before, but it has a photo of me as the profile picture. It was taken at the GAA gala last year and was used for the cover of the Ballinatoom Opinion, a huge billboard of it at the entrance to the town for an entire week in January. I look beautiful. (I prefer your hair down though, Emma, Mam had frowned. Your ears stick out a little.)
The page has hundreds of likes, and five little stars lined up under the name. ‘Easy Emma.’ I’m tagged in all of the photos.
My ribcage feels as if it’s caving in to my stomach. Another like, and another, and another appears on one of the photos. 234 likes on just one picture. I’ve never gotten so many likes before, not even that time I uploaded a photo of myself in my bikini in Côte d’Azur. Maggie had shared it on her page, saying, ‘Can we all just take a moment to appreciate The Body that is Emma O’Donovan?’ Eli had liked that comment. (And I couldn’t help wondering what that meant.)
345 likes.
I click on the photo.
Pale limbs, long hair, head lolling back on to the pillow. The photos start at the head, work down the body, lingering on the naked flesh spread across the rose-covered sheets.
It’s not me.
Dylan on top of that girl (me, me, that can’t be me, that’s not me) his hands over the (my – no, her) face, as if to cover her up. She has no face. She is just a body, a life-size doll to play with.
She is an It. She is a thing. (me, me, me, me, me)
I don’t remember. I . . .
Now Dylan has two thumbs up to the camera. In the next photos his fingers are inside the body, the girl (me, me, oh God I’m going to be sick) but she doesn’t move. Her head and shoulders have fallen off the edge of the bed. He spreads her legs, gesturing for the camera to come closer, the next few photos of pink flesh, and I think of the hundreds of likes, of all the people who have seen this, who have seen her like this.
Me.
My breath is coming faster and faster.
Who’s taking the photos?
Fitzy, I thought you were . . . Standing at the edge of the room, his face queasy (why has he got a can in his hand, he was driving?). Paul lifts the girl’s legs, holding them up in the air, while Dylan puts his head in between them. In the next photo he is staring at the camera, grimacing like the girl, like I, it’s me (it can’t be me), smells bad, and as I read the comments under that photo, I feel shame ripping through me, breaking me apart.
Then it’s Sean. (Here, I made you a Valentine’s Day card, he told me shyly, his front two teeth missing, his hair standing up in a cowlick. We are only eight but he has told me he wants to marry me when he’s bigger, and Conor is fighting with him because he wants to marry me too. And my mother hugs me, and tells me that I am going to be a heartbreaker and that all the boys will be after me. She tells me that she loves me.) Sean falls, one photo of him tripping, the next of him lying on the ground, the next photo again of him getting to his feet, clutching the rose-print bedspread, a bleary-eyed smile on his face. And then he climbs on the bed and he . . .
No. No. Turn it off, Emma. Turn it off.
I feel like someone has taken a blade to my insides, scraping away at them.
A photo of Sean, his face twisting in a grimace, then another, puke gushing out of his mouth on to my face, and it’s in my hair, and they are all laughing. In the next photo he has rolled off me, and is on all fours beside the bed, still vomiting. Fitzy walks towards the camera, the next photo of him with his hand reaching out, the one after that is a close-up of his sweater. Then there’s another photo of Sean passed out, face down, Paul and Dylan bent over with laughter beside him.
Matt Reynolds has commented under the photo: ‘Looks like Nirvana’s Rape Me is the song of the night.’ Twenty people have liked it. I scroll through the names. And I know all of them. Screenshots of Snapchats, one after the other.
A photo of them leaving, the Caseys’ farmhouse in the background, the air a pale blue as dawn begins to break.
The girl is on the ground in the next photo. She lies there. Another photo. Dylan is standing above her, his dick in his hand, a thin yellow stream flowing from him on to her head.
Someone has commented under the photo: ‘Some people deserve to get pissed on.’ Five people have liked it. Six. No, ten, twelve, fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five.
‘Emmie?’ A woman’s voice, calling me from outside my bedroom, jolts me out of this cataleptic state and I slam the laptop shut as she turns the doorknob. ‘Why is your door locked?’
‘I’m getting dressed after my shower.’ My voice sounds so normal. I sound like nothing has changed.
‘Well, come downstairs quickly. Dinner is ready.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
Mam sighs, but she doesn’t argue. ‘Fine.’
I wait until I hear her light footsteps on the stairs, then her heels clicking against the wooden floor of the hall.
I curl up into a ball and try to think of ways to make it stop.
Tuesday
‘Ugh, I look like shit today.’
‘You don’t, hun, honestly, if—’
‘Oh my God, you don’t have to lie to me, I know I look like—’
‘If anyone looks like shit, it’s me. If these spots don’t clear—’
‘I swear I could see Lucy looking at me earlier and I was like, OK, Lucy, I know I look wrecked today, I couldn’t sleep last night, and she was all like, What are you talking about, I wasn’t even looking at you, but it was so obvious she was. I would
n’t mind, but it’s not like she can talk or anything. Did you see the fucking state of—’
‘Hey.’ A third voice. The sound of footsteps, the cubicle door next to mine opening, the low hiss of pee hitting water. Velcro ripping as she opens her bag, rustling as she looks through it, a muttered curse. ‘Does anyone have a tampon? My period came early.’
‘Better early than late.’
‘Don’t even joke about that. I’d be on the first boat to England, like.’
One of the girls from the sinks approaches, hesitating outside my cubicle. I can see her short grey socks and Dubarry shoes. I curl my legs up, pressing my feet against the chipboard door, covering over a cartoon penis in pink marker, my lunch box cradled in my lap. ‘Which toilet are you in?’
‘Here.’ A thud. ‘I’m sticking my foot out.’
‘Cool. There you go.’
The toilet flushes a couple of minutes later, the cubicle door opens, the water tap running again.
‘What’s the craic?’
‘Not much,’ the first voice says, raising her voice to be heard over the roar of the hand dryer. ‘Just talking about Lucy Dineen’s new haircut.’ Laughter. ‘Stunning, isn’t it?’
‘As if anyone is going to be looking at her hair, with those tits. They’re like the size of her head.’
‘If I had boobs like that, I’d wear a burka or something. Did you see that top she was wearing on Saturday night?’
‘I know.’ A snort. ‘I was like, OK, Lucy, we’re not fifteen and going to the Attic Disco any more.’
‘None of the guys could keep their eyes off her though.’
‘Whatever. What a slut.’
‘Speaking of sluts,’ the first voice says, ‘you’re friends with that Emma O’Donovan in fifth year, aren’t you?’ My heartbeat slows to a heavy thud. Should I flush the toilet? Should I walk out and wash my hands, pretend I didn’t hear them mention my name? But then they’ll know that I was eating my lunch in the toilet by myself. No one else will sit with me.
(You can’t sit with us.)
‘I wouldn’t say we’re friends,’ the new voice says. ‘Our mams are best friends.’ And I know why she sounded familiar. It’s Caroline Heffernan, Sheila’s daughter. We used to play together when our mothers were having coffee and bitching about Bernadette Quirke. I’d abandon Conor as soon as she arrived, thrilled to have another girl to play Barbies with. Then she went into first year and started hanging out with her new friends at the bank corner in town, and I was still in sixth class, and it wasn’t cool for her to be seen with a kid in primary school.