In the words of Staind, it's been a while

I didn't mean to leave this blog inactive for so long, but I didn't get much writing done over the summer (too busy trying to get rowdy Italian teenagers to shut up and learn English), and then my inspiration dried up a bit. I've started a new creative writing module for my degree now, though, and my writing is (gradually) picking back up again. I have a couple of things to post. First, here's my latest creative writing assignment. It got a score of 75, which is a good pass, but room for improvement. Anyway, here it is, in all its written-under-the-influence-of-too-much-caffeine glory:


The Escape

I saw Olivia walking down the corridor towards me, and I stumbled. I gathered myself, and tried to walk on, but my legs became stone. All I could do was watch as she came towards me. I tasted coppery blood on my tongue, and realised I'd bitten through the inside of my cheek. I swallowed. The taste of my own blood made me want to be sick. I still couldn't move.
I'll always remember how she looked that day. I'd never really got a good look at her before. At school, I tried not to look at anyone. I wanted to make myself small, and hide away, like a field mouse crouching low to avoid being caught in the blades of a combine harvester. I wasn't as lucky as that field mouse. No matter what I did, they always found a way to reach me, to hurt me. The poisonous notes slipped into my locker at lunch time. The whispers, the rumours, the giggles – the giggles, those were the worst, laughter sharp enough to pierce my skin. Olivia was the leader. Everybody loved her, including the teachers, who were deluded enough to believe that the school had a successful anti-bullying policy. As she walked towards me that day, I could almost understand why everybody loved her so much. Her face was a mask of purity and goodness. Her blonde hair framed it in a perfect halo. As she came closer, my face began to grow hot, and I knew that even if I could force my legs to move now, it was too late.
'Gina. Can I have a word?'
The world became smaller. The walls of the corridor began to push into me, crushing my lungs.
'Please,' I said, looking Olivia in the eyes – her eyes were a startling ice blue. 'Just leave me alone.'
Olivia snorted. 'Are you going to run to your mummy?'
Her eyebrows were raised, and she had one hand on her hip. All I could do was shake my head, and look down at my shoes. I could hear the sound of birds outside the window, a thousand miles away. I longed for wings.
Olivia took a step closer to me. The cotton of her shirt sleeve brushed against mine, and I shuddered, and took a step backwards. I managed to drag my voice from where it was hiding in the back of my throat. 'What do you want from me?'
'Like I said, I want a word.'
She took another step towards me, and I took another step back. I could feel the hard stone of the wall pressing into my back through my thin cotton shirt. I gulped down a mouthful of cold saliva, and began to chew on the raised flesh on the inside of my cheek.
'People are concerned, Gina.' The tone of Olivia's voice made me shiver, and I looked her in the eyes again. The ice blue froze me. 'We're worried you're going off the rails,' she continued. 'Not that it matters what happens to you. I mean, if you want to slash yourself, that's very much your problem. But we're worried you might snap completely. Attack someone. We couldn't have that, could we?'
I turned cold all over. Tears formed in my eyes, and I tried to blink them away before Olivia could see. 'I wouldn't hurt anybody else,' I said, my voice coming out weak and crippled. 'Honestly, that's not how it works at all. I only hurt myself.' I became very aware of the feel of my sleeves against my skin, concealing the marks I had made. Olivia had no right to know something so personal.
She was smiling now. She was always most dangerous when she was smiling. 'We can't rely on your word, though, can we? You're mental. And the other thing is, you love girls.'
'Shut up.' I shocked myself with my defiance, which was born of fear.
'It's true, Gina. Don't bother denying it. I saw you with that girl in town last week.'
I chewed at my cheek until I could taste blood again. The pain couldn't block Olivia out, but it was the only distraction I had.
Olivia was so close now that I was almost trapped against the wall. The smell of her expensive perfume made me dizzy. 'Anyway,' she said, 'we're worried. What'll happen if you fall in love with one of us, and we don't feel the same? Will you lash out? Do you understand why some of the girls are uncomfortable around you?'
'You know you're just imagining all of this,' I said. 'You know it would never actually happen.' I looked up at Olivia through blurry eyes. There was no escaping the tears now.
'So what you're saying is, you didn't choose to come to an all-girls school so you could have gay sex?'
The triumph in Olivia's voice was what dragged me out of my terrified stupor. 'What the Hell? No! I came to this school when I was eleven years old, Olivia.' I pushed her away from me, and turned in the other direction.
Olivia grabbed my arm, and pushed me back against the wall. 'We think you should leave the school as soon as possible,' she said. Her face was right up against mine now. Her breath smelled of cigarettes and peppermints. This wasn't just a suggestion. It was a threat.
'I'm not leaving just because you say so.' I willed myself to be strong as I looked her in the eye for one last time. 'Now, let go of me.'
Olivia tightened her grip on my arm. I pushed her away again, harder this time. She stumbled, then looked up at me. All the triumph and mirth were gone from her face.
'You bruised my arm!' She said. 'Oh, you'll pay for that, you little bitch.'
'Make me.'
Something was rising up inside me. I saw things more brightly, more clearly, and in a way that made me want to break the whole world into pieces. I slapped Olivia hard across the face.
Olivia didn't move or speak for a couple of seconds. Nor did I. We just looked at each other until she broke the silence.
'Oh, you did not just do that to me.'
'I did,' I said. 'You had it coming.'
'Shut up, you psychotic lesbian freak.'
I took a deep breath to steady myself. 'I'm not ashamed of who I am, Olivia, but you should be.'
That was the point when my world changed forever. If I'd turned and walked away at that moment, my life might have carried on as it had before, but I waited just a second too long. Olivia shoved me back into the wall again. This time, I retaliated, shoving her as hard as my strength would allow me.
When she fell, I didn't register what had happened for a while. Olivia was out of sight. She'd been standing near the top of a stairwell, the one I used to go down every day on my way from the form room to lunch. I waited, expecting her to emerge from the stairwell within seconds. When she didn't, I felt myself turn cold, and began chewing on my cheek again.
'O-Olivia?'
No response.
I peered down into the stairwell. Olivia was lying near the bottom, her limbs in unnatural positions. Feeling cold saliva pour into my mouth, I placed my hand on the cold railing of the stairwell, and began to walk down, taking my time on each step, wanting to slow down the moment, knowing that after this everything would be different.
The pool of blood spreading out from the back of Olivia's skull reflected the strip lights in the ceiling, giving it an unreal quality, as if this were happening in a film. My mind swirled, and I vomited on the floor, then spat, to rid my mouth of the taste of bile. Another heave, then another. The dark red pool of Olivia's blood was expanding slowly. If the cuts on my arms had been tiny streams, her blood was becoming a lake.
The walls began to close in on me again.
They ruled Olivia's death an accident. I gave evidence at the inquest, because I was the one who found the body. I never told anybody the truth about what happened.

The room where I wake up every morning has a window that overlooks a large garden. I like to look out of it first thing in the morning. The view is very calming. A sweeping green lawn, surrounded by evergreen trees. I like to imagine that I can float up into the sky.
Some mornings are harder than others. Most nights I have the same dream, but sometimes it isn't very vivid. It was vivid last night. Her face was looming up at me from the pool of blood, that face with its angelic mask, lit up like a full moon. She was looking into my eyes. I woke up shaking, but I tried not to cry. If I cry, a nurse will come in, and I don't like to see them during the night. At night, everything feels like a dream, and the nurses are like ghosts.
It's easier during the day. The routine is always the same. I have breakfast, take my medication, and then go for a walk – supervised, of course, but I don't mind that. I like to walk beside the evergreen trees and inhale the spicy smell of the pine needles. After lunch, some days I have free time, and some days I see my therapist.
I saw him this afternoon. He smiled at me as I came into his office, and sat down on the faded salmon pink chair. I looked around at the familiar pictures on the walls, and felt the anxiety starting to flow away from me.
'Good afternoon, Gina,' Dr Stevens said. 'How are you feeling today?'
'Much the same.'
'Is that good or bad?'
I sat in the chair and said nothing for quite a long time. I looked out of the window at the far end of the office, looked at the pictures on the walls again, ran my tongue along the ridges on the inside of my mouth. The silence was comfortable.
'I think it's good,' I said at last.
More silence.
'I had the dream again,' I said.
'The one about Olivia?'
'Yes.' My heart quickened, but I looked at the pictures, looked out the window, and it started to slow again. 'But I didn't cry this time.' I almost felt as if I was back at primary school, asking for a gold star.
Yet again, we worked through my trauma, with the aim of helping me to find coping strategies. The professionals here at the hospital are insistent that I shouldn't feel any shame about what happened to Olivia. After all, it wasn't my fault that she died. I was just unfortunate enough to be the one who found her. None of them knows the truth, and nobody ever will. I keep it locked inside of me like a treasure, and I'll never part with it. If they found out the truth, they might send me away.
I don't want to leave this place. My day is controlled, my every movement is monitored, but that doesn't hurt me at all. It doesn't hurt like years of torment at the hands of my peers. It doesn't hurt like feeling trapped five days a week, shrinking and hiding away from a pack of girls who could be around any corner, down any corridor, ruining my life with notes and giggles and whispers. Here, I can be myself. I can wake up in the morning knowing that nobody will try to hurt me. It's true that I still see Olivia almost every night in my sleep, and sometimes during the day as well, but it isn't really her. The real Olivia is gone, and she can never hurt me again. Even when I wake up shaking and weeping in the middle of the night, I look over to my bedroom window, think of the evergreen tress, and know that I'm safe. This is where I'm supposed to be. No taunting, no threats, no walls closing in. It won't matter if I'm here for the rest of my life.
Sometimes I lie back on my bed with my eyes closed, listen to the birds outside, and think about how lucky I am. I'm happy here. I've escaped. I've found my wings.