Chapter 3 – My Girlfriend – Holly Hayfield

The next morning I was hesitant to enter school. For a while I just stood solemnly, staring at it from outside the main gate. The image of the school was imposing and larger-than-life. It would’ve looked more at home in a horror film than just outside a big city. Its Victorian inspired architecture was clearly unappreciated by whoever’s job it was to keep the exterior maintained. There were places where storms had inflicted damage, creating unsightly wounds into the school exterior.

From what I could tell there had been no attempts at repairing these wounds. This was almost like a metaphor for the school itself. The girls who came here to be ‘repaired’ showed no signs of progress from what I could tell. The hope was that eventually the students here would be rehabilitated, healed, and returned to normal society. In reality, people were forced into extremes here they would never normally consider, like Amber.

The school property was bordered by a black iron fence with decorative spike-like structures at their top. The iron fencing rested atop a brick foundation about 2 feet tall. The only entryway was the main gate, and a lesser known side-access gate. Both gates were guarded by a security officer when school was in session. This wasn’t to keep intruders out as much as it was to keep students in.

Unsurprisingly, this school had a massive truancy problem. The school’s ability to deal with it had yet to be called into question. It was their lack of willingness to deal with it that was the problem. In fact, oversight of the administrators was as much a problem as oversight of the troubled girls that attended the school. The administrators didn’t care about the students’ well-being beyond their physical being. Even that, sometimes, was dubious.

Once upon a time things weren’t so bleak. Once upon a time this school had some serious competition. When there were two schools for troubled girls in the area it was unclear who would get the bulk of the funding. For a while, Meredith’s School for Troubled Girls was overlooked in favor of a coed school for troubled students. It didn’t take long for the all-girl school to get the upper hand.

No matter how bad things got at Meredith’s School for Troubled Girls, it could never be the center of media discussion for a sudden boom in teen pregnancies. The coed school tried for years to hide their dilemma, going as far as paying hush money to parents to keep quiet. However, one year, the media received an anonymous tip about the entire conspiracy and ran with it. The situation blew up, resulting in lawsuits galore and the closing of the coed school. Since then, Meredith’s School for Troubled Girls has always had its funding as planned. It was ‘lucky’ for them that someone sent that ‘anonymous’ tip.

Where that funding was going however was a separate controversy altogether. Given the dire state of the building exterior, no investments had been made there. The interior wasn’t any better. In fact, the interior was objectively worse. While the exterior was a gaudily-made Victorian rip-off, the inside was as brutalist as something out of the Soviet era communist states. It was a school joke that the interior design was overseen by a committee personally appointed by Kim Il-Sung.

The walls were grey, unpainted, uncovered, blank-slate concrete. The flooring was concrete coated in the cheapest chemical protectant they could legally use without gassing the place with chemical fumes. The poor quality was demonstrated by the fact that the flooring was cracking in places and deteriorating completely in others. The entire building was in a state of slow decay. It wouldn’t be a stretch to believe the place hadn’t been worked on since the day construction was finished.

Whoever designed the building exterior was a dreamer that couldn’t quite make their dream come true. Whoever designed the interior did so as if dreaming was a thoughtcrime. The halls were unbearably narrow. Perhaps this non-dreaming designer never imagined there would be so many ‘troubled girls’ to attend such a school, in which case he was a dreamer after all. It was impossible to navigate the halls in the morning time without being pushed at least once. In my case this pushing was sometimes out of malice, although most of the time it was just a consequence of the design.

The location of my locker in the main hallway was another misfortune bestowed upon me. It was at the center of a major T junction between hallways. That meant I’d be squeezing into traffic to get to my locker. Meaning any attempt to use my locker would have to wait for traffic to die down. Meaning I was likely to be late to my first class unless I ran. Running between classes after visiting my locker was hardly something for me to complain about though. Running was one of the few things I did proficiently.

This school had no track and field team so I had to find my exercise where I could. I kept telling myself I’d pick things back up once I left this hellhole and made it into college. Realistically that possibility was up in the air. Would colleges even consider a girl with a history like mine? It would be difficult enough just trying to get into college after being expelled from the regular school system. One of my goals upon entering this school was to maintain my mind and body in the hopes that things would be better in college. Sometimes that looked so depressingly far away that it was unthinkable. The school year had only just begun and I was off to a bad start.

Speaking of bad starts, I managed to finally get into my locker only after the junction had cleared out. There were only a couple of minutes left until class started, but I could make it if I was quick enough. I opened up my locker only to have someone beside me SLAM it shut. I looked over. This average looking girl had bright red hair, faint freckles, and emerald green eyes.

Her main identifying feature, however, was a personal item she wore on her face. It was a black surgical mask with a 2-bit ghost character painted over it. I realized immediately that I was going to be late for class. This girl herself wasn’t dangerous, but she was a fledgling representative of someone who was. The danger wasn’t the Candace or Val level danger, but troublesome enough that I was already dreading it.

“My girlfriend wants to talk to you.” She said.

“I’m sorry Brittney. I don’t have time. I have to get to class.” I said.

I unlocked my locker again and began opening it back up. Brittney slammed my locker shut again.

“Casper,” She corrected me, “People call me Casper.”

Originally her nickname was planted on her as an insult. Brittney, Black Brittney, didn’t like the fact that she shared the same name as someone in our homeroom. Black Brittney initially got her nickname because of the fact. Later on she insisted on the name ‘Black Brittney’ because it referred to her black heart rather than her skin. In Black Brittney’s malicious fashion she decided to turn the coincidence into an opportunity. She gave ‘White Brittney’ the name Casper for her pale skin, not that her skin was that much lighter than mine.

The name ‘Casper’ spread as they used it as a way to make fun of her. Black Brittney’s main rival gang heard about this and took Casper in. Brittney grew into the name and made it part of her identity, hence the ghost character on her mask. Just like Black Brittney, she flipped the nickname on its head. I didn’t like to call her that because I vividly remembered her injured look the first time Black Brittney called her Casper.

“Brittney…”

“Casper!”

“Casper… Look… I really don’t want to be late.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll be late together. Just come talk to my girlfriend. It won’t take long, I promise.” She said.

She didn’t give me time to answer before she began pulling me away from my locker. I sighed and went along with her. She let go of me when she saw that I was being obedient. I already knew where we were going so I didn’t need to stick close to her. She still looked back often to make sure I hadn’t tried to make a break for it. The chances were that she or someone else from her group would find me anyways. I expected this meeting to happen sometime sooner or later. It was better to get it out of the way now.

Their hideout was in a part of the school that was unused. The building was so large and old that it had areas that were considered off-limits due to the poor structural integrity within those areas. One of those areas was called the Old Science Wing. This was a small hall on a far end of the school that held four classrooms and a small storage area. Several years ago these rooms went out of use due to unrepaired storm damage. The only things these rooms were used for now was storage of extra desks, tables, etc. It was so far out of the way that no one went to it, no one but Naomi and her gang.

Naomi was the ringleader of a small-time punk gang. Unlike Black Brittney’s gang who only picked on the weak, Naomi was more openly dangerous. Being in her gang was like being in a corrupt fraternity or whacko sorority with all its weird rituals and expectations. The foremost was that they were all in this freaky open relationship where they referred to each other as ‘Girlfriend’. Unlike how I referred to my former high school friends as girlfriends, Naomi’s group actually meant it. They could often be seen hugging, touching, flirting, and even kissing in the halls. They were shameless in a number of ways, but I always found their touchiness off-putting.

The second thing was that being in Naomi’s gang was more than a school affiliation, but a lifestyle. They all had punk haircuts, wore black surgical masks, and were tomboyish to the extreme. A lot of them didn’t even sport the school’s uniform. The ones that did wear the school uniform usually wore a jacket or hoodie over it at all times. Typically the clothing they wore was dark and joyless. Beneath that, some of them sported small tattoos here and there that they liked to show off whenever possible. A member of Naomi’s gang could be easily spotted just by how they looked.

The third and final thing was what separated Naomi’s gang from Black Brittney’s gang more so than anything else. Naomi and her group didn’t just look the role, they acted it as well. Initiation for Black Brittney’s gang was performing whatever cruelty Black Brittney could come up with, like how she had Amber hit me. Naomi’s gang was far more hardcore. Initiation into their group meant committing some minor act of vandalism or petty theft.

They maintained their structure even during after school hours and were expected to answer Naomi’s meeting requests whenever called upon. They roamed the streets so often that even my mom took notice to them. They were hard to miss. They committed these crimes as a group to maximize their chance of success. The whole ‘girlfriend’ thing was meant to reflect their culture of looking out for each other in those situations.

I learned so much about Naomi’s group from none other than Naomi herself. Except Naomi’s version of the explanation sounded more like bragging. That’s where Casper was taking me to now. She opened the door to their hideout and led me inside. The lights inside the classroom were off, but the window shutters were open enough only to let enough light in so that one could see without bumping into things.

Too much light and some teacher might notice and report this to the principal. Thus their hideout was poorly lit. It wasn’t bright enough to make out names and faces, but bright enough for me to see Naomi’s dark silhouette waiting for me. She was on the other side of the room, sitting atop a desk. Her white teeth were gleaming in my direction as I walked in. Casper gave me a push on the back to get me moving.

My walking pace slowed to a crawl. Naomi took the initiative and got down from the desk she was sitting on. She walked up to me and gave me a big hug.

“Holly, I’ve been waiting for you. Come, sit, and enjoy our company.” Naomi said.

She took me by the hand and brought me over to a chair just beside the desk she was on before.

“I should really be getting to class.” I said.

“No. We need to talk. Sit.” She commanded me.

She forced me down into the chair before I could do anything. She sat down on top of the desk in front of me, her legs hanging off the side. She waved at one of her girls to bring something over. The girl jumped to Naomi’s signal so readily that I wondered if this had been rehearsed. Naomi stared at me as she waited for the girl she called over. Naomi was the most exotic looking of her entire group.

She had purple streaks in her long black hair that she kept tied up in the back. She wore an expensive looking jacket over her school uniform. She had ear piercings, a tongue piercing, and tattoos on her arms that she kept in plain sight. Except for ear piercings, these were technically against the school rules. The fact that she kept her sleeves rolled up and her tongue piercing in was bold. That or the school didn’t actually care enough to enforce the rules.

The girl she waved at brought over a cupcake and glass of clear liquid. She didn’t give these things to me. She gave them to Naomi. Naomi put the cupcake up to my mouth to feed me.

“Sorry, I’m not hungry. I…”

It didn’t matter. She just rammed it into my face as if somehow that constituted the act of eating. Next, she brought the glass to my face. The moment I got a whiff of it I started to pull away.

“I don’t drink alcohol. I…”

Again, it didn’t matter. The girl behind me turned my head back towards Naomi. Naomi put the glass to my mouth and tilted it. Some of it got all over me, but what of it made it into my mouth I ended up coughing up anyways. Fortunately one of the girls was ready with a towel to clean me up. Once that was done with, Naomi handed the food and drink away and then wiped her hands. Naomi reached one of her hands to my face and caressed me.

“Now that you’ve officially been given my hospitality I want to let you know that I know about what Black Brittney and her gang did to you yesterday.”

“You heard about that?”

“I did. I’m sorry you had to go through that sweetie. Listen darling, my offer for you to join us is still on the table. My group has had a truce with Black Brittney’s group for over a year now. If you join us they won’t be able to lay a finger on you anymore. They won’t so much as approach you. Just ask your own classmate, my girlfriend Casper.”

“It’s true,” Casper said, “They haven’t given me any problems ever since my girlfriend invited me to join up.”

“There you go. What do you think? Want to become my girlfriend?” Naomi asked.

The main unsettling thing about this proposition was that Naomi caressed me continuously while talking. I mostly kept my eyes on her. However, a quick look around the room revealed the nature of their organization. There were girls sitting on top of desks, leaning into each other and whispering as they looked my way. Two girls not far from me were sitting in a chair together with one in the other’s lap, both of them staring me down.

There were two other girls in the corner that were making out brazenly, completely in a world of their own. They carried on as if no one else were in the room. The one on the ‘offense’ went as far as to remove her companion’s top, revealing her decorated white bra to the rest of the room. Naomi caught me looking at them and brought her fingertips down to my lips. This was making me somewhat uneasy after everything that happened with Val the day before.

“Do you want me to spoil you like that? I’ll give you anything you desire. All you have to do is join us.”

I gently pushed her hand away.

“No, thank you. I already had enough of that ‘treatment’ yesterday.”

“What? Did one of my girlfriends kiss you without my permission?”

“No. It was Val.”

“What?” Naomi shouted.

She stood up upon hearing this. She was even more outraged than I was about Val kissing me. Naomi’s expression went from flirtatious to murderous in an instant.

“If she thinks she can claim you as her own like this then she’s got another thing coming. You’re going to be mine. If you join us now it’ll make things easier. I’ll help get Val off your back. What do you say? Be my girlfriend?”