Chapter 14

 

The clock had a life of its own – every time Mel glanced up at its hands they seemed to be moving swiftly, ticking their way loudly around the numbers.   There was only 20 minutes left now.

 

Mel glanced down at her sheet of paper, it lay crisp and untouched on the desk, the whiteness so glaring she had to squint her eyes when looking at it. 

 

Surely it was physically impossible to write an A-level essay in 45 minutes, it was going to take her this long just to make sense of the question, so far she had picked up her pencil, underlined a word in the question, chewed on it for a bit and then put it back down again.

 

She glanced around at the students sitting in the classroom around her, all of them were engrossed in the question, frantically scribbling, brows furrowed in concentration.

 

Returning to her paper Mel scrunched her forehead up, trying to seep all the brains to the front of her head hoping it would reach her hand so that she would start writing.  She knew that this essay was important, they were always being told that timed essays in class were essential preparation for coping with the exams.

 

Ahhh exams! How on earth was she going to cope with those, she had already failed them once, how was she going to be able to handle seeing the disappointed looks on her parents faces for the second time. 

 

“OK Mel positive thinking” she muttered to herself, as she let out a deep breath and returned her attention once again back to the question.

 

Deciding against writing notes or annotating the text Mel picked up her bull point, with only 15 minutes left to go it would be best if she just wrote as her thoughts came to her – there was still time, she could still rescue this essay if she just cleared her head and started thinking with a logical mind.

 

Looking down at the page she was surprised to see that words had begun to form across it, her hand was busily scribbling away, darting from one area of the page to the next. 

 

To her horror she noticed that the page was covered in little hearts, each of them filled in with the initials “CI”.  She couldn’t even remember doing it, yet the side of her hand was smudged with blue ink and no one else was near her desk, she was the only possible culprit.

 

Throwing down her pen she pulled away from the desk, her hands held up at her shoulders.  She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t sit here and write about things that she didn’t understand, surrounded by people that didn’t give a damn about her in a building that she hated – she had to get out.

 

A single drop of water fell on the page in front of her, smudging one of the little hearts and turning it into a deformed blur.  She hastily reached her hand up to her face, letting the next tear roll onto her finger before flicking it away, but they were coming too fast now, and she couldn’t catch them in time, they were flowing freely and pouring all over her paper.  Her body began to give out small little shudders, effecting her breathing and causing a slight grizzle to escape from her mouth.

 

“Melissa?”

 

A hand was placed gently on her shoulder, she looked up and made out the blurry image of her lecturer.

 

“You OK Mel?” she repeated.

 

Standing up Mel wiped her face with her sleeve and scanned the classroom, everyone was staring at her.

 

“I’m sorry,” she stuttered, throwing her books in her bag and making her way towards the door, “I’m sorry, I just can’t do this anymore.”

 

She launched herself at the door and ran down the corridor, to the stair case, she carried on running until she reached the little landing in-between the two flights of stairs.  It was there that someone caught up with her.

 

“Mel?”

 

It was Emma, the girl who sat next to her in class.

 

“Mel are you OK?”

 

“Why are you out here?” Mel asked her; slightly annoyed that someone had followed her out of the classroom.

 

“I wanted to check you were OK,” the girl replied gently, “we are all worried about you.”

 

“You sure?” Mel asked, failing to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I hate this place,” Mel announced suddenly, “I hate everything about this place, I can’t be here anymore I can’t handle it.”

 

Leaving Emma open mouthed at her odd outburst, Mel continued down to the bottom of the stairs.  Glancing back she saw that Emma’s head was hanging over the banister, watching her go.

 

“Leave me alone,” Mel sobbed up to her, pulling open the door and finally hitting fresh air.

 

She had managed to leave class just as her bus was due and so 20 minutes later Mel found herself sat up in her bedroom, sitting cross legged on the floor in front of Christian, a steaming mug of tea in-between her legs.

 

“What have I done?” she whispered to his perfect face, “why do these things happen to me?”

 

The poster grinned back at her, and she couldn’t help but smile back at him, no matter what her problems he was always there to talk to, calming her down with his deep stare and dimpled smile.

 

She leaned in closer to the poster so that her nose was practically touching his.

 

“Why can’t we be together?” she whispered to him, “we are perfect for each other, we would make each other so happy.”

 

Taking a sip of tea her eyes fell on the pencil case on the floor in front of her, it was laying half open, various pens had spilled out over the carpet, and there lying on the top was a compass. 

 

She picked it up, and absent mindidly ran its sharp point across her arm, leaving a little white mark.  Rubbing her other hand over it, it immediately vanished.  Placing the point back on her skin, she pressed a little harder, the metal scraping across and making an angry red mark.  It didn’t hurt, just felt a little sore so she carried on, carving little lines into her skin until two letters were formed on her arm. 

 

The phone rang, making her jump slightly.

 

“Hello?” she answered.

 

“Mel, it’s Steph.”

 

“Heya!” she replied happily.

 

“You OK?”

 

“Yeah, glad its Friday,” Mel grinned down the phone.

 

“Yeah Friday’s are great,” Steph agreed.

 

“Even more so when the a1 tour starts on Monday,” Mel squealed, her stomach jumping in excitement.

 

“Karen and I were talking about going into the city tomorrow to get some tour supplies, you interested?”

 

“Sure thing,” Mel replied, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

She hung up, smiling to herself, her fingers gently tracing the “C” and “I” that were tattooed in sore red on her skin.