Sorry about the length
The amount of calories that would be burned in getting up, getting showered, getting dressed and walking to the lecture failed to entice her to open the curtains. Petra had only been at Haulcross University seven weeks and for the previous three, she had decided that she didn’t have the energy or the inclination to attend lectures. On this particular day she had been woken by a text message that caused her mobile to bleep at a somewhat unreasonable decibel. It was her best female friend, Gemma, more fondly known as Gem Gem.
Pet, ring me when u get this message. Need tell ya something xxx
Peering at the screen with very bleary eyes, Petra determined whatever it was that Gemma wanted to talk to her about couldn’t have been that urgent. The fact that she included three kisses lightened the tone of the whole message. If they hadn’t have been there, she probably would have called her straight away. She virtually crawled to the bathroom to get herself some tissue and blew out the remnants of white powder still up there from last nights “mad un”, and rolled over to face the wall and went back to sleep.
Petra’s university room was horrible. The walls were merely breeze blocks painted white. One lick of emulsion was stopping it being on a par with an actual prison cell. How anybody could be truly happy in a room like this was beyond her reckoning. The carpet was lovely, rich, dark red colour, great for hiding the stains of spilt vodka or cider, but felt like tiny needles, pushing themselves into the soles of Petra’s feet. Very rarely did she dare to venture out of her bed without her feet protected from the harsh reality the carpet bought to her; especially in fragile states such as now.
The sheets were sodden with sweat, as were the clothes she had worn the day before at her room mates gig. They still clung to her clammy body as she couldn’t remember arriving home let alone being in a fit enough state to remove her jeans, black camisole and grey linen jacket. It was mid November, and the wind howled through the vent that gaped open on her window. No amount of sticky tape was keeping that bugger shut, evidently.
Every so often, a waft of the smell of burnt toast burst through the vent, causing her to heave slightly and bury her face in to the pillow more ferociously than she had been doing beforehand. Students, she hated them. Even though she was one herself. Petra knew she was doing it for the right reasons; for her love of the English language and her passion for creative writing. She knew she didn’t need a degree to be a successful novelist, but had succumbed to the fact she would be taken more seriously with one. Not that she minded. Structured academia had always been something in which she had excelled. In fact, if she was honest, it was something she struggled without.
***
Yesterday, before going out and becoming less than sober, Petra had begun to write her piece for the end of the year. It was worth over fifty per cent of her marks. Technically, she wasn’t even supposed to know about it yet but Gemma was in the middle of a dalliance with her lecturer, and spied the criteria. She just kept turning up at the flat after her early morning pre-lecture session of love making.
“Would this be of any use to you?” Gemma grinned as she slammed down a file on to the communal kitchen table.
Petra dived on it to cover the writing on the pale yellow cardboard; it read, “First year assessment marking criteria, authorised personnel only”. Samuel Jackson, one of the people in her flat, was in there making the typical student breakfast of waffle sandwiches. Petra didn’t think he would have said anything if he knew what Gemma had just provided her with, but she didn’t fancy taking the chance.
There were supposed to be six people in her flat including herself. The university gave Sam three of these rooms to lure him into coming to the university in the first place. They’re reckoning meant for an extra £20 a month, I could have the other three rooms, so obviously I jumped at the chance. Sam was the most stunning man Petra had ever witnessed. Arms strong and muscular from guitar playing, brown hair with a slight endearing curl and his eyes…Well, everything about him was perfect, down to his smile that made any girl within a five mile radius crumple thoroughly. Including a perfect music career and perfect girlfriend.
The press were regularly outside the student halls waiting for a glimpse of him on his way to a lecture, or sucking the face off his “perfect” blonde bombshell girlfriend Isabella on the way home from the student union bar. Perfect Isabella was only after Sam’s perfect bank balance and perfect convertible. It was so stereotypical it was actually painful. Petra was dreading the evening that awaited her; a night with Isabella. Sam and Gemma would be there too, but she wasn’t sure whether this would make the evening anymore bearable.
“It’s his own fault. Has he never heard of a computer system and passwords? Really!” Gemma scoffed, putting her feet on the kitchen table so Petra had to bat them off.
Silencing Gemma with a scowl, Sam playfully nudged Petra as he went past and sat in the chair next to her. A drop of coffee spilled on to her jeans so Petra felt it warranted a slap of Sam’s thigh. As she made contact with the blue denim stretched over his thigh he caught her hand and stared directly into her eyes.
“Don’t think so Mrs!” he smirked, and his blue eyes pierced hers.
Petra pulled her hand away, picked up the folder, her cup of coffee in her Eeyore mug, and looked over her shoulder at Sam.
“When you least expect it Samuel Jackson, you are going to be so shocked. Just you wait!” Petra threatened flirtatiously.
Gemma stood up to follow Petra into the cellblock of a room. Great, Petra thought. She was going to have to explain that little episode with Sam to Gemma now. In fact, no she wasn’t. Gemma didn’t even go to this university! She had no right to be here and witness her terrible attempts at flirting with a man that she shouldn’t even be thinking about in that way. He had a girlfriend! Petra decided then and there, Gemma was going home in the next half an hour. After all, she had work to do on this piece. She had started a semi-autobiographical piece in her spare time that she thought she would finish off and submit.
“Gem Gem,” Petra sang, obviously wanting something, “ I know you haven’t been here long but I have loads of work to do. Do you mind if I just call you later?” She winced at her own words, knowing that Gemma would be mortally offended as she could always tell when Petra was lying.
“K, don’t worry about it because I’m only here while Patrick’s wife drops his lunch off!” Patrick was of course, my creative writing lecturer.
“Gemma Louise Bowman!”, Now she was in trouble. “You cannot possibly tell me you are OK with this? You’ve never been happy with the amount of attention you’ve received from a bloke when you’ve been the only one in his life! Patrick has a wife, you, and I’m pretty sure he’s seeing that red haired woman from the photocopying department…”
“Petra, Petra, Petra. I have decided, as of yesterday, I am now low maintenance.”
Unable to contain her laughter as she unlocked the door to her room in the most awkward fashion she almost fell through it. The Eeyore mug crashed to the ground, splashing coffee up the dark red door and soaking the carpet.
“Bollocks!” Gemma giggled and scuttled a couple of steps back while I mocked hitting her. “You mourn the loss of Eeyore while I go and have fantastic sex. There’s a sentence you never thought you’d hear! I‘ll see you in the Cottage about half past eight-ish.”
“Yeah yeah, at least you give me a couple of hours of mourning time! Bugger off you!“ Petra managed a grin.
With that Gemma turned on her heels and almost skipped down the corridor. Petra liked to see her happy, she’d had a hard life and it was unusual she was so content. This time though, Petra knew that it would end in tears.
The door slammed behind Gemma, and Petra bent down to pick up the chunks of pottery sprawled across the floor. She would never admit it, but that Eeyore mug was so close to he heart. Her Dad had bought it as her first purchase on Ebay and she held it in so much regard as it was the only present he had bought her that she hadn’t specifically asked for, and it was perfect, or used to be.
Just as her eyes began to well up, Petra felt someone press against her raised bottom and all at once she was shoved forward. Stumbling around trying to get her balance, her head thumped into the door. Sam was in her eye line as she spun round and he caught her with his firm hand on her forearm.
“Did that hurt?” he asked sympathetically, evidently shocked by his own strength. He had pushed his hips into her in an attempt to make her laugh and mimic a certain sexual act.
He covered her hand with his on the back of her head and applied some pressure. Petra shooed his other hand away as he went to wipe a tear that was making tracks down her porcelain face. Guilt was flooding Sam’s face; he really hadn’t meant to hurt her, just to make her smile. Petra slid her hand out from underneath his, pushed the tear away, and jokingly wiped it on Sam’s t-shirt. Before she realised what she was doing her hand was resting on his chest for five seconds or more.
“Pet? Petra! Petra, come on please?!” Petra snapped out of her panic at the sound of Sam voicing his concern.
“Sorry, knocked myself a bit dizzy I think Sam.” Petra lied, pleased that she had a valid cover up for behaving like a complete idiot and zoning out like that.
Sam put his right arm round her shoulders, his left supporting her left elbow and steered her through the doorway and newly caused debris towards her bed. He lay her down slowly, planting a slow and firm kiss in between her eyes. Petra didn’t know herself if she was crying in pain, the thought of the loss of her gift from her father or that the kiss from Sam had not been on her lips and filled with intense passion and longing. All she knew was that something hurt.
Kneeling down next to the bed, Sam lay his head on the edge of Petra’s pillow and stroked her hair. She was obviously tired but he didn’t want her to go sleep in case she was concussed.
“Stop mothering me Samuel. It didn’t hurt that much!” she snapped, eager to get him out of the room so she could freak out about what had just happened with the “hand-on-the-chest incident”.
“Just checking you’ll be alright for my gig later. I’m only doing it because it’s your favourite pub. It kinda defeats the object if you’re not there!” Sam soothingly whispered to her. Petra turned to face the wall, away from Sam’s gaze and drifted into a deep tear induced sleep.
The striking blonde waited for Petra’s breathing to even out and become heavier before he left his vigil. Her laptop lay open on her desk and he nosily nudged the mouse to see what she had been up to. A picture of himself, Petra, Gemma and Isabella flashed up on her screen.
A document entitled “Number 25” was minimised. Sam clicked on it.
It all started at the far too tender age of fifteen years old. My parents, Adam and Laura, had just had the longest break up in history, and my mum, my younger brother, Christian, and I had just moved into a three bedroom semi-detached house about a ten minute drive away from the grammar school me and my brother were attending.
At school I was known for slightly exaggerating the truth. If I’m being honest, I was a terrible liar. Everyone else seemed to have much more interesting lives and I just wanted to catch up and be on par. Looking back, however, the fact that they were slimmer and had more male attention, has just led to the majority of them being single and pregnant with their second child at this very moment in time! We aren’t even out of their teens! I tried to keep up by inventing boyfriends, saying I’d been to see certain bands when I hadn’t, etc, etc. Now, I refer to the friends I had in year ten of high school as “The Hair and Beauty Brigade” because that’s what the majority of them went on to do. The Hair and Beauty Brigade was made up of six girls including me. Hayley, Natalie, Rachel, the two Laura’s and moi.
The Hair and Beauty Brigade had desperately straight hair, all of the time; in fact, never had a hair out of place. I only had to think about moisture and mine frizzed out of all control and I ended up looking like a scarecrow.
The Hair and Beauty Brigade had size eight waists and wore skirts so short that everyone knew what colour their underwear was as soon as they were forced to bend down to pick up their school bags. I was at least three stone heavier than them and wore a skirt down to my knees. If I could have gotten away with wearing trousers, or failing that a floor length skirt, I would have done. A paper bag over the frizz would also have been a welcome addition to the school uniform.
I can’t say that I hated them, because if I truly hated them, I wouldn’t have been so-called “best friends” with them since I was eleven years of age. We weren’t the popular group, but we weren’t hated either; just nicely slotted midway into the hierarchy of peer groups. There were people that preyed on us, but there were also people for us to prey on. Laughing at other peoples expense is a cruel necessity at the age of fifteen. Unless you were in group numero uno it had to be inevitable that you dreaded school even the tiniest iota on a daily basis. With me, it was a little more than just the tiniest iota. Constantly remembering which lie you told to which person was really stressful and when I did get caught out and there was a possibility of me being confronted, I feigned illness and was absent from school until I’d thought of a ploy to throw them off the scent. Devious? Maybe. Necessary for survival? Definitely!
So anyway, you’ve been kind of introduced to The Hair and Beauty Brigade, the friendship group of the moment, so lets return to the whole “just moved into a new house” malarkey. Just remember, that those five girls pushed me into doing what I did, in their own manipulative ways. I was blameless, as always. I wish!
