Torn by Cat Clarke

table at dinner. Not quite sure why. Cass raised her eyebrows at me inquisitively as I walked right past my usual spot. I shrugged. I went and sat next to Saira, who was sort of the new girl. I say ‘sort of’ – she’d been at Bransford Academy for over a year. And that meant she was still a bit of an outsider. It took a
long
time to be accepted at Bransford. And some of us never would be – not really.
    Chatting to Saira made me feel more like me again, after the afternoon’s weirdness. I’d had enoughof speculating about who was trying to get into whose pants. Or who had already
been
in whose pants. Saira and I talked about books we’d read, and which TV programmes we were missing – nice, normal things.
    Dinner was also a blessed escape from The Pointless Plan to Get Back at Tara. It was all Cass wanted to talk about. She’d been on and on about it all day, filling me in on the details whenever we had a moment alone. And when she hadn’t been pestering me about it, I’d seen her bugging Rae. Polly obviously already knew the ins and outs. We were going to do it tomorrow night – Wednesday. Anxiety bubbled up inside me every time I thought about it. So I tried really hard not to.

13
     
    There was a film to watch after dinner – some crap horror movie where everyone ran around in the woods, screaming for no reason. Well, there was a mad psycho killer on the rampage, but the screaming wasn’t doing anyone any good.
    I had no idea why people would actively choose to watch something like that. Real life is scary enough, surely. Bad things happen all the time. Cass was loving it: she whooped like a crazy person every time another hapless girl got killed. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying it too, but I had a headache. I told Cass I was off to get some painkillers. She nodded distractedly, already salivating over the next gruesome murder that was about to happen on-screen.
How is it possible for one person to love cheesy old Hugh Grant films AND gorefests like this? Surely the two should be mutually exclusive?
    I ran to the cabin. The woods looked different,threatening. Anyone could be out there watching you, and you’d never know. Not until it was too late.
See? Horror films mess with your head. Yesterday you’d have thought the woods were darkly romantic or something. But today …
    I slammed the door shut behind me and flicked on the light switch.
Made it, safe and sound.
I laughed at myself for being such a loser. And then a voice behind me scared me half to death.
    ‘Leave me alone.’ There was a person-shaped lump under the covers on Tara’s bed.
    ‘Tara? Is that you?’
    ‘Who the fuck did you think it was, the Gruffalo?’ Her voice was muffled by the blankets.
    ‘I thought you were watching the film with the others.’
    She said nothing, and I went over to my bed and started rummaging for ibuprofen. I swallowed the pills dry, wincing. I had my hand on the door handle, ready to head back to murder and mayhem, when I said, ‘Tara … are you OK?’
Who cares?
    ‘I’m fine.’ And then there was a too-long pause. ‘Thanks.’
    ‘Are you sure? Do you want me to get Danni or someone?’
    ‘No. I just want to be left alone.’
    ‘Is it something to do with Duncan?’ I have no idea why I said that.
    ‘Look, Alice, could you just piss off and leave me alone … please?’
    She didn’t emerge from under the covers. So I did as she asked. It was only later that it struck me that the person-shaped lump under the covers might have in fact been a two-person-shaped lump. But I couldn’t be sure.

     
    Another sleepless night. My head was full of Tara and Duncan and The Plan. I tried to think about mundane things like whether Dad’s big presentation at work had gone OK, and if he’d take me to our favourite Indian restaurant when I got back, and was Bruno missing me as much as I was missing him?
    I managed to trick my mind for approximately thirty seconds at a time before the worries came crashing