After The Storm
Content warning: abuse.
I am lying in bed, my new bed. This is the fifth boarding school I have gone to. Classes start tomorrow. I just moved in today. Papa helped me buy all the new things I needed. I told him I didn’t need his help because I am old enough now. I am thirteen, after all. He still came along with me. I had to make him go away for a while when I went to buy bras.
In my last school, there were only three girls who wore bras. I might have bought ones a little bigger, but I’ll grow into them. God, I really hope I do.
It’s raining outside. I can see the lighting through the orange and yellow curtains. I try counting the seconds till I hear the thunder. I remember learning in science class that that is how you can tell your distance from the storm. One. Two. Three. Four. I hope Papa gets home safe. He said he was going to drive all night because he had a meeting in the morning. I hope it goes well. He seemed a little worried.
The girl with curly hair on the bed next to me is snoring. I don’t mind it. In my last school, I slept next to a girl who would talk in her sleep. This one is not so bad. I think her name is Tasha. That’s what it said on the form outside, where I found out which bed I was assigned to. When I got here, she was sitting on her bed and reading. She didn’t even look up or say hi. Must have been a good book.
Some of the other girls came up to me and said hi. They seemed friendly enough. One of them asked me why my mother was not helping me unpack. I said that she was busy and couldn’t come drop me off.
I don’t know if I like this school yet. It took me so long to make friends in the last one, and it’s always tough to be the new girl. I can’t complain much though. This school seems a lot nicer. The matron was friendly, the girls seemed fun and I have a comfortable mattress. Maybe tomorrow I can talk to Tasha and ask if I can borrow that book. It had an interesting picture on the cover. It was a man standing next to a bee that was the same size as him.
I miss Papa already. We spent the holidays just us two and now he’ll be all alone in that house. I hope he eats properly. He’s always working too much and forgetting to eat or sleep. When I’m there, he makes sure I eat, so he eats as well.
Papa mentioned before he dropped me off that my mother had called. She said she wanted to wish me good luck at the new school. I had seen her just two weeks ago. She had met Papa and me for lunch in this really fancy restaurant. The food tasted funny and she just talked to Papa and ignored me. She said she was getting married again and asked if I could come to the wedding but Papa said I would be in school. Then he told me to go get more dessert from the buffet. I heard them shouting at each other when I was deciding whether to get a chocolate cake or ice cream. I think he told her what happened in school. When I came back to the table with both, my mother had already left. Papa was holding his head in his hands and he looked like he was crying. In the car, he told me that my mother loved me and that she had to leave because of an urgent call. His ears were red as he told me that. I knew he was lying.
It is okay, really. She’s always busy. That evening, Papa and I went to the planetarium and I saw all these really cool stars. After that, we got pizza and went home. By the end of the day, Papa seemed a lot happier. We didn’t talk about my mother after that.
I really hope the girls in this school like me. After what happened in the last school, I don’t ever want people to look at me like that. Papa said this was a fresh start. He’s right and I am going to do my best to not make the same mistakes again.
I hear the rain get louder. The lightning is brighter and for a second, it looks like it’s daytime outside. One. Two. Three. I’m scared.
It had happened on a night just like this.
I didn’t want to leave that last school. I was beginning to make friends and the girls were all nice to me. Even Radhika was starting to be nice to me. When she asked me to play with them that night, I was happy. She was the one who told me to go to the classroom and count to a hundred. I thought we were playing hide and seek. I counted and then went to look for them, but I couldn’t find anyone. I looked everywhere. And then he was there.
I do hope Papa feels better. He was very sad when I said goodbye to him. This school is a lot further away from home and I don’t know if he’ll be able to come to visit every month. I told him that was okay. I was old enough to take care of myself. He always worries though. Every time I see him, I feel like he gets more lines on his forehead.
We shouldn’t have been playing that late in the night. I told them that I didn’t want to get in trouble, but Radhika said I was a baby. I didn’t want to prove her right. So I went to the classroom in the dark and counted. I counted fast and skipped over a few numbers. It was raining and it was cold. I just wanted to find everyone and then it would be someone else’s turn. After I finished counting, I looked everywhere. I really did.
I didn’t know he would still be in his office. He was just sitting there, reading a book. I saw the light was on through the crack and went inside. I thought Radhika and the others were there. He looked up when I walked in and I got scared. I thought I was in trouble. He was nice to me though. He gave me this fancy chocolate and asked me to sit down. I didn’t know how to say no. He asked me to sit on the chair opposite him. His desk was big and there were so many books on it. He had some photo frames, but I couldn’t see the photos. He asked me so many questions. I was really scared. I didn’t want to get into trouble. He walked over to the other side of the desk and put his hand on my shoulder. I remember the lightning. He didn’t have any curtains on his office window, so I could see outside. For a second it was light outside and I counted. One. Two. Then the thunder.
My palms are sweaty, so I wipe them on my pillow. I pull my blanket closer and try to think about something else. I can feel his cold hand on my neck. I turn and look at Tasha who has now stopped snoring. Her eyes are open and she is looking at me.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say, but my voice is shaky.
She moves her head closer to my bed. She smiles.
“It’s okay to feel a little homesick, you know.”
“I’m not homesick,” I say. “I have been in boarding schools before.”
“Okay. Then what is it?”
“Nothing.” She sees me glance at the window. “It’s the thunder and lightning.”
“Yeah,” she says, pulling her blanket and sliding to the floor. The gap between the beds is small and she positions herself comfortably squeezed. “I can’t sleep with all the noise either.”
“Yes.”
I can see her face clearly, even though it’s dark. She’s got kind eyes.
“So, which boarding school did you go to before?”
“I was in St. Thomas. In Ooty.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve heard about that one. Why did you leave?”
Why did I leave? I knew why I had had to leave. No one believed me.
“ My father wanted me to come to this school.”
“Yeah. This is a good school. My parents also liked it.”
Why didn’t they believe me? They said that I was making things up and that I should not have been out of bed so late. They said that I was a bad girl for telling lies and that he was a good person. He was a good maths teacher and he had a family. They said that I should forget about it and not tell anyone else.
I told Papa. I wrote a letter and told him everything. About Radhika and the other girls. About how I skipped a few numbers and about how I was in the room with him.
“Hey. Are you sure you’re okay?” Tasha says.
“Yes. I…”
“Are you feeling sick?”
“No. No. I…”
“You look sick,” she says and moves her hand to my neck.
Her fingers are cold. I push her hand away roughly and sit up.
“Hey. Hey,” she says, holding up her hands. “I’m sorry.”
His hands were on me. They were all over me. I told him to stop. I told him I was scared and he said it was okay. He told me to stay quiet. He put his hand over my mouth.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I pull my blanket and slide down on the floor next to Tasha. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why are you saying sorry?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want some water?” she asks and pulls a water bottle from under her pillow.
I drink some water. The storm is closer. The lightning strikes. One. Two. There’s thunder.
I think about what Papa said. He said I should focus on the things around me. I should touch two things and listen to three things. I feel my blanket and the water bottle. I hear the rain. I hear the murmur of people sleeping on the other beds. I hear Tasha’s voice.
“It will get better.”
She is holding out her hand, waiting for me to take it. I put my hand on hers. They are sweaty, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She squeezes it and smiles. Her hand is now warm. Feeling a little calmer, I look at her and smile back.
“If you don’t want to tell me, it’s okay,” she says.
“There was a teacher in my school.” I take a deep breath. “He was not a nice man.”
“Oh,” Tasha says. She leaves my hand and pulls me in for a hug. “It’s not your fault.”
I said bye to everyone as I left. They all watched me pack from their beds. I knew what they were thinking. I was the girl who lied about their favourite maths teacher. I was the girl who was too scared to play hide and seek. No one hugged me goodbye. No one came to the car and waved as we drove away. Papa said it was okay though. He said I was going to a new place after the holidays and that it would be a fresh start.
A fresh start. He said that’s exactly what I needed.
Tasha lets go of the hug slowly and leans against her bed. I was surprised. No one else had believed me. Except for Papa.
“I know what you mean. I went through something similar but with my uncle,” she says.
“Your uncle?”
“He was also not a nice man.” She shakes her head and continues. “He did the same thing to my older sister and told her that she could not tell anyone. When he touched me, I knew something was wrong. I immediately told my sister and she got so angry. She punched him in the face.”
“Wow,” I say. She laughs.
“I know. After that, we told our mom and she made him go away. I haven’t seen him since.”
“When was this?”
“Three years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. I don’t know why.
“That’s what I said too. My mom always reminds my sister and me to never say sorry unless we have done something wrong.”
“I felt like I had done something wrong.” I hadn’t told Papa that.
I had known it was not my fault but when no one believed me, I had started to feel like maybe it was my fault. Maybe I had caused it.
“No,” Tasha says. “I will not let you feel like that anymore.”
Papa said that I could talk to him about it but I didn’t know how. He asked if maybe I could talk to someone else, but I was scared. That’s when he said we were going to have lunch with my mother. He said I could talk to her, but she didn’t even make eye contact with me. I didn’t know what to tell her.
“There are some very bad people in this world, but there are also good people,” Tasha says. “My uncle, your teacher and so many other people. They are all bad. But I have my mother and my sister and they are good. They’re the best.”
“My father,” I say. “He’s also the best.”
It has stopped raining. We can hear some other girl snoring. There’s a slight wind that makes the room colder. We sit there, in the gap between our beds for a while. There’s no more lightning or thunder. We both get back onto our beds and lie down. She whispers goodnight and turns. I lie on my back and look up at the ceiling. I hope Papa gets home safe. Maybe I’ll write a letter to him tomorrow. I can tell him about Tasha.
It’s okay. This is a fresh start.
