Chapter Twenty-Seven

Bryony

Most Likely to Become Famous

It s probably for the best that it s pitch dark and that it s Hayden who s calling me out, because something about all that makes this a little bit easier - the surrealness of it all makes it feel like a fever dream rather than anything actually real - but that doesn t make it easy.

I just keep thinking - he knows, he figured it out, he knows and everybody else will know soon, too . If I m the narcissistic bully he says I was, why wouldn t he go and blab to everybody? I would.

I don t know how to get out of this. I can t call him a liar; even a little drunk, Hayden s smarter than that. Maybe if he was still the shy, quiet kid I remember, I d be able to scare him into silence, but he s not. This guy loitering in the doorway is someone who s come into his own. He s also apparently got more spine than I gave him credit for, because he didn t bow out and leave me alone after I yelled at him and went for the jugular, calling him a sad failure or whatever. I can t hide behind a clever photo and carefully worded caption, or dazzle my way out with a mostly true, only somewhat-exaggerated-for-dramatic-retelling-purposes, story.

And part of me kind of doesn t want to, I think?

Part of me - and it is a bloody big part, I have to say - is exhausted .

I lean on the filing cabinet in the staffroom, letting the cold metal anchor me, and the creepy, weird noises of the old building that spooked me earlier feel homely and comforting now. This school is still standing, even after all the crap it s seen. I can come out the other side too, right?

Okay. Okay, now I m officially losing it, comparing myself to the school .

If it were anybody else who put two and two together and found out I m a teacher, I d stand a chance at making sure nobody believed them.

If it were anybody else confronting me just now I probably wouldn t have believed them, for calling me mean and self-centred. The girl Hayden described sounded like a grade-A bitch, and I m horrified at how easy it is to see that now.

Unless I ve always known it and just refused to see it? Like, I know it was wrong to be flirting with Josh when he was dating Thea; I knew it at the time, too, but it was fun and thrilling and - Hayden s right, I never considered anybody else s feelings in that. Josh took the fall for it all when Thea found out he d cheated, and we all rallied behind her like men are trash, you deserve better, he played us both , but I knew what I was doing. I just didn t care.

How many people did I hurt, because I only ever worried about myself?

Am I still doing that? I don t think so, but

But, I guess it doesn t matter what I think, because the reality is that I did hurt at least one person tonight, and I should take some responsibility for that. So I take a deep breath and I tell Hayden, I m sorry. I shouldn t have said those things to you.

It s okay.

No, really. I m I am sorry. You re right, I was out of line. And - I m sorry for being such a bitch when we were at school, too. I- A bitter little laugh cuts out of me. I must ve been so self-centred, like you said, that I never realised I came off as such a mean girl. So, I m sorry for you know, everything I did when we were kids that affected you badly. I didn t set out to bully you, or anything

I know. His mouth curves in an almost-smile. It s okay.

I think he means it, too. He was never the type to hold a grudge or get angry though, I suppose; I must ve just pushed him to breaking point for him to go off like that. He was always a nice kid. I feel bad that we never gave him more credit for that, back in the day.

You don t have to lurk over there in the doorway, you know.

Hayden shuffles, but doesn t come inside, and I snort. I think I mutter, Square, out loud, but I only half mean it.

And since he s apparently so willing to hear me out, and he hasn t gone anywhere even after calling me on my bullshit, I find myself being as upfront with him as he just was with me.

I shouldn t have said you were projecting your shit onto me. You might think I m as delulu as they come, but believe me when I say I m self-aware enough to know I only said it because that s exactly what I was doing to you . It s just Everything was supposed to work out, you know? I had plans. Dreams. I was making them happen. Going to drama school, auditions I was doing it . And none of it was working. My teachers kept pushing me to work harder, do better, which - now I m on the other side, that s, like, their whole job , but at the time it was just tearing me down. Then none of my auditions were working out - I couldn t even get a bit-part on a chorus line or whatever - and that sapped all my confidence. I just cried. All the time. It was horrible, so - I came home.

Walking into my childhood bedroom like it was some kind of shrine, remnants of who I used to be and who I thought I was supposed to be scattered everywhere in signed playbills and an old flute and a case of stage makeup. It was the Act Three conflict in the movie of my life, I told myself at the time, watching the whole thing as if it was some out-of-body experience. I d bounce back. I had to. This was the dark before the dawn - all great heroes had to pass through this moment and so would I.

I just never thought the moment would last. Forever.

I carry on monologuing at Hayden, who provides a patient and attentive audience.

I didn t quit , though, I just - had to change tack. I tried again. Kept going to auditions. Started getting work as an extra. I thought that was my foot in the door, but that never really paid off. Like the director would pick me out of the crowd in a random nightclub scene for some BBC drama and say, You! You re our leading lady! or something. I got a few minor roles, and that was all. Half of them I had to turn down because I got this job, because - what else was I going to do? I was living at home, sponging off my parents, and they never said anything, but I could tell. You know? They felt sorry for me and I hated that. It I m not someone people feel sorry for. I m someone they look up to. And - nobody was, anymore.

So I was like, Great, okay, I ll fix this - I ll get a job, be a productive member of society, stand on my own two feet until it happens! And, spoiler alert, it still hasn t happened . I do a few local theatre bits. Some work as an extra in the summer. I send in audition tapes and hear back about maybe one in two hundred. I m still doing everything right, and I m still failing, and it s like - at what point do I have to admit that? And when I do Once that door closes That s it. I m not an aspiring actress anymore. I m a failed one.

I already am, really. But as long as I keep submitting audition tapes, or showing up to rehearsals for some shoddy local production I only half care about Then it s still around the corner. My big break, just waiting for me.

I m not ready to let that go.

I don t know how much longer I can keep holding out for it; it s already taken so much from me, I have nothing left to give.

Hayden is quiet, so I shut the filing-cabinet drawer and head over to him. We don t talk on the way back downstairs - and once we are on the ground floor, my teacher-Spidey senses start tingling. Something is off , trouble is afoot , and I must put a stop to it.

I swing my phone torch around and see the music room door down the other end of the hall is ajar. Someone steps out, a shadow shaped like a man holding a shadow shaped like a blob. His torchlight is aimed behind him and there are voices in the other shadows that move, and I decide that whatever he s holding isn t hatchet-shaped enough for him to be the School Reunion Slasher of my imagination.

Oi! I shout in his direction. What re you up to? I said , no wandering!

Sorry, miss - uh, Bryony. It s Hassan, Shaun s friend. A couple of other people join behind him and in the added torchlight as their phones join the fray, I see them all holding instrument cases. Hassan s got a guitar. He holds it up, looking guilty. Thought we d get the old band back together.

What?

The band. You know, the school orchestra.

Thea appears over his shoulder, saying, Yeah, we found some instruments and there s a bunch of sheet music out, so we thought we d give it a go until you get the power back up. I think I can still remember Never Gonna Give You Up on the clarinet.

That is the dorkiest shit I have ever heard in my life.

I love it .

Kind of wish I could abandon my responsibilities and go join in. I bet I could still kill that flute solo in our old Swan Lake arrangement.

You break it, you pay for it, I warn them, and the gaggle of half-lit people nod and promise me they ll be careful before scurrying off to the school hall again. As they disappear down the other end of the corridor, Hayden gives a snort of laughter.

What?

Nothing. Just He scratches his eyebrow, trying hard not to grin and failing miserably. (Happily?) You play the part of teacher a bit too well, that s all. I m surprised you ve flown under the radar this long.

Yeah, yeah, I get it. The irony of my greatest performance yet being my boring, rubbish job.

If you don t like being a teacher, why-

I love being a teacher, I interrupt, rounding on him, catching myself before I get too shouty. Not because I m worried about my voice travelling, although, yeah, that too, but because Hayden probably doesn t deserve me yelling at him again when he s just being nice. I love my job. I mean, yes, it s draining, and some of the kids can be right little shits, and the pay could be a lot better for the hours I put in but I love what I m doing here. It s what lifts me back up after I get rejected from a role, or if we have a lacklustre night in whatever local bit of theatre we re putting on. And seeing the way those kids shine when we do the end-of-term play, or a concert? It s like a drug. It s such a high, it s addictive.

Hayden s head tilts sideways and his glasses skew slightly. He looks like a puppy dog - the cute-as-a-button kind that makes me wonder how this man has any sex appeal at all, never mind enough of it to have two children. But you seem very down on yourself about being a teacher. I assumed you must not like it.

It s not that, it s not what I was supposed to be doing, that s all. Not to mention, it sounds extra pathetic for being at my own school. Literally like I never moved on at all. Like my whole life stalled when I was eighteen. But you- I bite my tongue, but ask it anyway, just mildly rephrased, to try to sound a bit less rude or blunt. Do you ever feel like that? You know, with

Not before tonight, I don t think. Hayden starts walking and we fall into step beside each other. I just accepted it for what it was. I m - I thought I was happy with how my life turned out. Tonight, though, with the way everybody else reacted Between us, B, it s got me wondering if I settled and gave up too much of myself when I became a dad. I always threw myself wholeheartedly into things and maybe I did that a bit when Margot was born. They ve got me thinking I should ve done something different, somewhere along the way. For myself, I mean. With my career.

But - you re happy? Genuinely, really happy?

He shrugs. His face is impassive. It makes me annoyed I didn t pay more attention to him in school to read him better now; he always kept a lot to himself, and his only real tell was that look when he was thinking too hard, too much in his head about something. He doesn t have that look on his face now.

We come to a stop back outside the caretaker s office. Discordant strains of instruments tuning up belt from the hall.

And you? he asks me. You re not?

I m

Of course not. I hate my sucky, sucky life, that s why I gloss over everything and present it so spectacularly online, show off the existence I m not truly living. I hate that I m stuck here, hate that my name isn t up in lights, hate that it feels like my whole life is held together by duct tape and blind hope, and even that s fading fast.

But I do love my job. Mostly. Most of the time. Overall. I love it more than enough that I wouldn t want to give it up, or try something else. I like that it s one of the few parts of my life where I feel so wholly myself, as if it s exactly where I m meant to be.

The things I hate so desperately about my life are the same things I hold to so fast, and refuse to let go.

Who knew I had such a penchant for suffering?

I can t quite form any of that into an answer, though, so I just say to Hayden, Hold my phone, will you? I ll need to check the labels to see which is the right key.