Page 13 of The Book Swap
“Do you know me?” one of the bullies sang, voice high-pitched. Nothing like my dad’s singing voice. Then came the next line: “I’m your Domino’s delivery driver.” They had photos and videos of my dad now. They ordered pizzas to the school at lunch just to watch him turn up, and in the evenings, they spent their parents’ money on food and then filmed Dad from a window as he tried to deliver it. All the videos would get shared so by the next morning I was the laughingstock all over again.
On that day I tried to pick up speed. One of them hooked their foot around mine and sent me flying toward the ground, the contents of my tray landing with a crash against the wooden floor. It felt like the whole room burst out laughing. I was so overcome by the humiliation that I didn’t realize how badly my chin was bleeding until I heard the voices of Erin and Bonnie.
“I saw what you did, you little prick,” Bonnie said, reaching out and shoving the ringleader, Marky, backward, in the way I so often dreamed of doing. He was already walking away.
A group of girls passed me and looked down without stopping. Helena, I remember, was among them.
“You need to go to the nurse,” Erin said, holding her hand out to pull me up, as Bonnie crouched down and collected the mess around me, placing it back on my tray.
I stood up and took the tissue Erin held out for me, pressing it against my chin. I let them lead me to the nurse.
One of my biggest regrets in life is fucking that up by hurting Erin the way I did. Bonnie remained fiercely loyal to her, even when Erin was no longer at school with us.
“Yeah. I saw Erin,” I say now. “Wearing some velvet outfit Mum stayed up all night making.”
“I need a pic of that immediately.” Joel holds out his hand and beckons my phone toward him. I bring one up of me and Helena and hand it over. He presses the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger while he attempts to recover.
“That is something else. Still hooking up with Helena, I see?”
“Yeah.”
Joel’s never approved of me and Helena. It makes sense that he wouldn’t, given who she hung out with during our school years, but he doesn’t know how desperate my need is to escape my family home sometimes. How bad Mum can get. There’s only so many times I can hear her telling me she wants to die, before the guilt consumes me and I need to get out of there. She thinks it’s fine to tell me, because it was my birth that made her this way. She was well until she had me, and then everything changed.
“Just needed some air sometimes,” I reply to Joel instead, pushing the memories away.
“But why Helena, of all people? She was one of them.”
“She wasn’t quite. And anyway, she’s changed since school.”
“I should bloody hope so. They made your life hell.” Joel’s always there to remind me of the things I’d rather forget.
“It wasn’t her specifically.”
“What do people say these days? If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Silence is violence.” He raises an eyebrow and I swallow, pushing the shame down with it.
“Hey, did you see old Mr. Marsden has published a book?” Joel changes the subject and a stabbing feeling hits me in the chest. Mr. Marsden was the head teacher. How the hell did he have time for that? “Something about flying worms taking over the world. Wrote it for years, every morning before work, apparently. Mum sent me the article from the Somerset News. Made me think of you and that idea you had in school.”
I frown. “What idea?”
“What idea? Are you joking? The book you were going to write. You had all these little sheets of paper you’d shove into your backpack, with lines and stuff on them. It was fucking good. I always thought it would hit the bestsellers list and you’d get invited back to school one day, to talk about it.”
“The ultimate sign of success. Returning to the school stage after you’ve left.”
“Exactly.”
His phone vibrates and he looks down at it, eyes widening. “Shit. I have to go. The shares I just invested in are plummeting.” The color’s draining from Joel’s face and he’s already on his feet, grabbing the last of his pint and downing it. “Congrats again on the job,” he says, racing toward the door, before turning back, phone to his ear.
“It was something about all that shit with Erin. Your book idea,” he shouts, and then he’s gone.
It takes me over an hour to get back to my flat, and throughout the journey I can’t believe I haven’t considered moving before now. It required Nathan asking me to move out for me to do something about it. Now I can’t wait to be out of here. To be somewhere new, closer to town.
I go to the desk in my room and pull open the drawers, rifling through them, trying to find the notes Joel spoke about. How could I have forgotten about the idea? It was what kept me going through my last year of school. Throughout all the bad times, when I missed Erin and Bonnie horribly and hated myself for what I’d done, I’d write notes to myself about the book that would change everything for me. I even met up with the universally popular English teacher, Mr. Carter, in a café after school sometimes, to discuss the idea with him. He’d left the school by then, but we kept in touch. I wouldn’t let go of the dream the way my dad did; I’d keep going. I’d write a bestseller. A coming-of-age story about a boy who falls for the girl who saves him from the bullies at school, only to break both their hearts.
Finding something hard, I pull it out. It’s my copy of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Just seeing the cover, a show-reel of memories race through my mind. It was our book. Mine and Erin’s, and then later Bonnie’s too. I flick through it, sentences jumping out at me on every page. Every single moment in this book made sense to me. To us. It felt like someone had written about our friendship. Resting it on my lap, I pull out the box that was hidden behind it. Inside is one of the scribbled notes.
His worst day becomes his best day when he looks up to see her standing over him, holding out her hand.
Somewhere along the way my dream had stopped being about writing a book, and became only about making money. I decided I would never humiliate my future son by ending up in a Domino’s uniform. I managed it. I started off working in the gift shop at the science museum while I tried to find a job I actually wanted to do. From there I ended up creating and running training programs within the museum. The only part of it I enjoyed was the storytelling element. I got to write the history of the big bang, but in a way children would understand and enjoy. I put my all into those stories. I’d stay late after work with the presenters, making sure they emphasized the right bits. That they knew where to add the comedy, to make all the children howl with laughter. Dorothy, the CEO of Big Impressions, approached me with her granddaughter directly after one of the big bang shows and offered me a lot of money to leave my job and join her.