The morning after Lottie and I chatted about her imp, everything felt brighter for the briefest of moments. Some of the omnipresent tension in my shoulders eased just a fraction, and I was grateful to her for being the one to make amends – even though it was almost entirely my fault there was friction to begin with. The last week had rattled me, my violent outbursts blazing without warning, and I didn’t want to let any more animosity stoke the fire.
I wanted to believe I could do it. That I could overcome the anger and make a friend. I just had to put myself out there. Because as much as I liked to pretend otherwise, I needed companionship. I needed company, and comfort, and affection. And I wasn’t living under my parents’ roof any more. Affection was no longer a guaranteed daily occurrence. I had to fill that void somehow.
‘Morning,’ I said to Lottie, if not cheerily then at least civilly. I tugged a tailored tweed waistcoat over a crisp white shirt with an oversized collar.
But Lottie, who was lying flat on her back, staring at the ceiling above her bunk, said nothing. She was inexplicably wearing the hideous green and purple zigzag fleece in bed. For a split second I wondered if she was breathing, but as I saw her chest rise and fall, I realised she wasn’t dead. She was just ignoring me.
The familiar stone of resentment dropped into my stomach. Lottie was probably having regrets. Regrets about apologising, about engaging me in conversation, about living with me at all.Whydid I start that conversation about violent impulses? I’d been an idiot to think someone like her could be friends with someone as spiky as me.
‘Fine,’ I muttered, disguising the sting from my voice as best I could. I grabbed my briefcase and a little trilby that matched my waistcoat and left the dorm before I could do or say anything I might regret. Still, I couldn’t resist a whispered ‘fuck you’ as the door closed behind me.
I’d always had a short fuse, and I’d always had violent flashes whenever I felt wronged. When Julie Marshall would snicker at me in the school hallway, I’d dream about slamming her badly permed head into the locker, imagine how satisfying that metallic thud would be as it reverberated up my arm. When the boss at my first retail job would scream at me in front of customers, I’d fantasise about stabbing him in the face with the end of a broken coat hanger. (My violent revenge fantasies were usually face-based.)
Now, after being shunned by Lottie, the violent urges waxed and waned all day. When the giggling cheerleader-type cut in front of me in the breakfast queue, looking me up and down as though I were a piece of shit she’d trodden through. When Professor Latheron ignored my raised hand for a whole seminar, instead favouring the boys in the class. When a girl in my political philosophy workshop gave me a scathing look when forced to partner with me on a presentation. I wanted tohurtthem. I wanted them to pay for making me feel small.
Anger was a constant current. It felt fundamental to me as a person; a force of nature I couldn’t live without, like gravity.
After classes were over, I went to the library to work on an anti-realism assignment. It wasn’t due for another month – I was shocked at how long we had to write essays compared to sixth form – but I was itching to sink my teeth into something intellectually starchy. Maybe that would distract me from the gnawing chagrin.
Entering the library, I nodded hello to Kate Feathering, the omnipresent librarian with sleek platinum-silver hair and black lipstick. She was in her late thirties, I thought, and wore the cliched librarian outfits with a sort of deliberate irony; soft oversized tunics, but with jewelled skull brooches at the lapel and knee-high platform boots. I often thought I’d like to be her friend, but she gave off intensely cool yet emotionally distant aunt vibes which even I found intimidating.
I found a writing desk in front of the grand arched window. It was a cold spot, but the view of the dramatic crags and sprawling woodland brought a kind of familiar peace. No matter how churned up with rage I felt, the Northumbrian landscape always made my troubles seem insignificant. I imagined it was like looking at Earth from outer space; the sheer scale of it a dizzying display of perspective and irrelevance.
As soon as I pulled out my favourite pen and started writing a plan for the essay, I fell into an easy rhythm, and for the first time in days, my heart rate slowed, becoming less erratic and more like the steady beat of a metronome. I always felt best when it was just me and my thoughts and an empty page.
After a few minutes or maybe hours, however, a hand tapped me by the shoulder, jolting me out of my sanguine state. I flinched, and the shock of it made me bite down so hard on my tongue that I tasted blood, hot and slick and tangy.
I swung around viciously, the shock replaced by that seething fury, to see a dark-haired guy staring at me in confusion. With his brown eyes and light stubble, he lookedexactlylike Chris, right down to the preppy polo shirt. My heart pounded fearfully.
‘I, uh, sorry, I just . . . I wondered if I could borrow an ink cartridge?’
It was such an innocuous request, and it should’ve placated me instantly. There was no threat; I could stand down from fight-or-flight mode. And yet I didn’t. The adrenaline scorched through me like acid, and it was all I could do not to jam the nib of my pen into the side of his neck. I stood from my chair, gripping the pen in my hand.
‘No,’ I seethed, my voice low and almost serpentine.
He took a confused step back. ‘Ohhhhh-kay. Forget it.’
My pulse thundered in my temples. His face melted from his own to Chris’s to the guy in the Refectory on the first night, and I thought of hunters and of prey; eagles and mice, and which one I’d rather be, and before I was even aware of what I was doing, I was shoving into his chest with the heels of my hands.
He staggered back, stunned. ‘What the . . .?’
Stop stop stop stop, urged a distant voice deep in the back of my mind.He’s not Chris.
I shoved him again, harder, but he was ready this time and planted his feet more firmly so that the impact juddered up my arms. Still his face wore a mask of surprise, not rage, but still I felt like a dog backed into a corner by some invisible danger nobody but me could perceive.
Then someone else touched my arm, and I spun to face its owner.
Kate Feathering, the white-haired, black-lipped librarian.
Her expression was impenetrable. There was steel in her eyes, but instead of a tongue-lashing, all she gave me was a terse shake of the head and a look that told me to walk it off.
I stuffed my belongings into my briefcase. The guy I’d shoved walked back to his own desk, still shaking his head in confusion and disbelief.
I took the long way back to Willowood, feeling like I was wrapped in barbed wire.
When I got back to the dorm, Lottie was out at hockey training, her stick bag gone from the window alcove.
Splayed on her unmade bed was the chunky purple volume she’d been reading when I first saw her in the library, nestled in that green velvet chair. Dumping my briefcase on my desk, I crossed to her bunk and read the gold-leafed spine:The Devil and the Divine: True Accounts of Possession and Exorcism in Religious Orders. Frowning, I wondered how this could possibly be on her reading list. Historical context for a piece of literature she was studying, perhaps?
Whatever its purpose, it reminded me of my own peculiar library discovery: T.A. Renner’s depiction of the soul purification ritual. Devised to rid desperate nuns of violent thoughts and impulses.
Searching my memory archives, I couldn’t remember reading about whether the ritual had actuallyworked.