You don’t like the dark. Your bedroom door is closed and the blinds, shut. Your bottle green uniform and grey, pleated skirt are uncomfortable, they’re too tight. You run your thumb across the gold, embroidered logo on the chest and feel each ripple of thread, carefully. The covers are pulled over your head.
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The television is blaring, downstairs. You know it’s an action film; you can hear the screams and feel the sound’s vibrations. You hate the loud noises, you can’t block them out, you can’t sleep. The rain gently taps at your window, lightly pitter-pattering against the sheet of cold glass. You shiver and reach for your white, patterned school socks and pull them as high as you can, over your knees. You hold your knees under your chest and scrunch your toes, concentrating on the darkness.
You suddenly remember about the lollypop that you’d started earlier. It’s still in your skirt pocket, you could feel it. You fumble about and find it wrapped in pink tissue. You start pulling the tissue off, slowly at first. But some tissue still sticks to the lollypop. You can feel it. Your fingers are a little sticky. You stuff the tissue back into your skirt pocket and pop the lolly in your mouth. You can’t taste the flavour. Your face scrunches, you feel sick, you can only taste the tissue paper. You lick your hand to try and take the taste away. It doesn’t work. You try the lolly again and suck hard. The rain is heavier now and knocking at your window. The tissue feels soggy on your tongue; you force yourself to swallow it and hum a song that you learned earlier that day to keep your mind elsewhere. The lollypop feels smooth and the flavour fills your mouth. It’s orange. You hate orange. The vibrations and the screams stop. You stop humming, you need to be quiet. You pull the covers down to your shoulders so you can hear a little better. You hear the sound of cans being crushed and footsteps staggering around the living room. They fade as they leave the room as if they are going towards the kitchen. There is silence; you can’t taste the orange any more. Then, the sound of the back door handle being pulled upwards and a click of the key as the door locks for the night. The footsteps crescendo downstairs, you hear the living room light click off. The downstairs door opens. You drop your lolly on the floor, under your bed and pull the covers back over your head and listen.
You hear the door close, the rain driving harder against the glass, your heart beating. The bottom stair creaks. The footsteps climb like the slow, ticking of a clock. You know there are thirteen steps. You squeeze your eyes tight and count. two, you bite your lip, hard. four, you cross your fingers. five, you hold your breath. ten, your heart pounds faster. twelve, you put your hands over your ears and hum the tune as loud as you can in your head.
Your bedroom door opens. The footsteps stop. You know he’s standing there, staring. You wait, still holding your breath. He peels open the duvet at the corner. You’re cold. He smiles and creeps in beside you.