Chapter Text
Monday, 1 September
The alarm on Tori’s mobile goes off far too early. She lays there under her duvet, willing the offensive device to turn itself off. Instead, someone starts banging on her bedroom door.
“Make that stop,” Charlie shouts over the incessant rhythmic bells. He stops his pounding, but Tori knows he’s likely to come back if she doesn’t get up. She pulls herself out of bed and turns off the alarm on her phone. It’s plugged in across the room because otherwise she really might never get up.
Today is Victoria Spring’s first day of Sixth Form at Truham Grammar School. She’s about to be one of the few girls who subject themselves to the smell of boys every day for two years. Great.
At least Mum ironed her new Truham skirts yesterday. They’re stiffer than her Higgs skirts. Itchier too. Fuck’s sake.
Dressed, and having run a brush through her freshly-cut hair, Tori walks down the hall to Charlie’s room. His door is cracked open, so she pokes her head in.
“Morning.”
Charlie is in the middle of putting on his school shirt. She catches sight of a few of his ribs prominently outlined under his skin. She realises she hasn’t seen Charlie without a shirt since the beginning of the summer when they went on holiday. He was skinny then, but it’s far worse now. A shiver runs down her spine.
“Get out, Sleeping Beauty,” he calls, quickly turning away so she can’t see his chest.
Tori backs out for a moment, but doesn’t walk away, frozen on the spot. A few seconds later, Charlie, fully dressed, opens the door the rest of the way.
“Your alarm is loud enough to wake the whole neighbourhood, you know,” he says. He still looks a little annoyed, but there’s a twitch at the corners of his lips.
She tries to summon some levity. “At least it wasn’t Oliver waking you up with his morning-person-energy.”
Charlie rolls his eyes.
“You want some breakfast?” Tori asks. She tries to keep her voice even and not let hope tinge her tone.
He shrugs, not meeting her gaze. “Piece of toast, I guess.”
“Got it,” Tori says, voice still deliberately flat, despite the small victory. “I’ll pop it in with mine.”
Downstairs, she finds her dad at the kitchen table behind a newspaper like it’s the 90s, apparently engrossed. Beside him, Olly is eating dry cereal with a spoon. A half-empty glass of milk sits beside his bowl.
“Tori!” he cries, only Olly has a little bit of an issue with the letter ‘R,’ so it sounds like ‘Towi.’
She puts two pieces of bread in the toaster and then takes a seat beside him.
“Hey, kid. Are you ready for Year Two?”
Through a mouthful of Coco Pops, Olly says, “YES! I’m so excited. Also nervous. But Mrs. Patel is very nice and she promised I’ll have a good year. We get to learn about DINOSAURS!”
Tori takes a moment to soak in Olly’s excited grin in the hopes that it will get her through the day. Her youngest brother is the embodiment of sunshine and looking at his smile is like recharging in the sunlight.
“That sounds like fun!” she says, mustering some enthusiasm, even though it’s only eight-oh-five. The toast pops up and she gets up to butter it. As she’s grabbing butter and a knife, Mum comes into the kitchen and starts adjusting Tori’s blazer.
“Did we get this taken in enough?” Mum mutters, pulling at the shoulder.
Tori shrugs out of her grasp and slathers some butter on their toast.
“My blazer is fine.”
Charlie rushes in to grab their lunches from the fridge. Tori has a feeling he’s trying to avoid contact with Mum—and for good reason. She zeroes in on his clothes next.
“Charlie, your shirt looks looser this year. What is—”
“We have to go, Mum,” Tori interrupts. She shoves a piece of toast in Charlie’s hand and takes her lunch from him.
“Have a good day,” Dad says, not looking away from his paper. Olly shouts an excited goodbye, luckily much too young to read the uncomfortable vibe of the kitchen.
They walk to the bus stop in silence, both eating their toast, Charlie more slowly than Tori. When they get to the corner, Charlie bumps her shoulder with his.
“You didn’t have to come to Truham, you know.”
Tori shrugs. “Like I told Mum and Dad, I wanted to take English Lit with Mr. Lange.”
Charlie sighs. “You can drop the act, Victoria, I know you changed to Truham to keep an eye on the bullying situation.”
Last year was horrible for Charlie after he got outed. When given the chance to move to Truham for Sixth Form, Tori didn’t think twice. She knows her little brother can handle himself, but it’s her duty to be there for him. Despite the fact that she dislikes almost every boy she’s ever met, she would do anything for Charlie, so to Truham she goes. The bus pulls up and they get on. Tori hates the bus and she used to let Charlie catch it alone while she walked, but last year, during the bullying, she started taking it with him.
Sitting down, she says, “If those bellends try anything this year—”
“Are you going to punch them?” Charlie asks, smirking.
Tori glares at him. “Gonna punch you,” she mutters.
Charlie smiles, finding her left hand with his right and squeezing.
Inside the school gates, Charlie reminds her which way to turn to get to her form room, then splits off toward his own.
Alone in front of Truham, Tori considers what she’s subjecting herself to. Despite trying to seem strong and brave for Charlie and their parents, Tori is quite nervous about starting at a new school. It’s not like she was particularly attached to Higgs, but the devil you know, and all that. She had friends there, though mostly they felt sort of like default friends through Becky.
Becky does not understand why Tori would want to come to Truham since she doesn’t even like boys very much. When she said that, Tori didn’t really know what to say. She didn’t bother trying to explain the real reason. It didn’t seem worth the trouble. This summer, Becky started dating some guy called Jack, so she doesn’t seem to have much time for Tori anymore.
So, here she is, mostly friendless, besides her brother, and about to enter the lion’s den.
When she finally walks in and finds her room, the name plate outside says, ‘Mr. Farouk.’ Tori takes a breath and enters.
A severe-looking man with a beard and dark hair gives Tori some version of a smile, though it could be a slight grimace.
“I’m Mr. Farouk. You are?”
“Uh, Victoria Spring—Tori, please.”
Mr. Farouk nods and looks down at a piece of paper on the desk before him.
“Very well, Tori. You’ll be in the back next to Nicholas Nelson.”
Tori stares at him blankly, not sure if that was her cue to sit down.
Apparently, it was, because Mr. Farouk says, “Have a seat. Nick’s on the rugby team. I’m sure he’ll be welcoming.” He gestures toward a bulky boy with dark blonde hair and freckles. Nicholas—Nick, apparently—is looking out the window toward the school gates where a group of boys are gathered.
She almost snorts. A rugby boy. Fucking perfect. Those twats were the worst of Charlie’s bullies. She doesn’t remember him mentioning a Nicholas Nelson, but she also knows Charlie didn’t tell her everything that happened last year after he got outed.
Tori stalks to the back of the class and sets her backpack down beside the table. Before she can even sit down, Rugby Boy speaks.
“Hi, I’m Nick.” He has this soft smile on his face and Tori hates it.
“Tori,” she says, giving him an icy glare. Then she sits down, angling her body away from Nick, and getting a notebook out of her backpack. Apparently, he doesn’t get the hint.
“Did you used to go to Higgs?”
Tori does not have the energy for this.
“Yes,” she says, then sighs. It’s rude, but Tori doesn’t care.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Nick tries, but luckily, that’s all he says. They sit for the rest of registration in silence. Thank God.
The rest of the morning is relatively uneventful, and no one tries to befriend her in Maths or in the common room during her free period—thank God. At lunch, she takes one look in the canteen and decides she’d rather die than set foot inside. Instead, she walks around the back of the school and finds an empty bench. She may be at Truham, but she’s not going to be an overbearing sister and sit with Charlie and his strange friends. He has orchestra rehearsal some days anyway, so she’s on her own, and that’s fine.
Across the courtyard, she notices Nick, also alone on a bench, staring off into space. She’s surprised to see he’s not fucking around on the rugby field with the other homophobes. Whatever.