Say Her Name by James Dawson Read Free Book Online Page A

prose.
    Where I once felt warm, spongy contentment inside, there was now only a hollow absence. An abyss of sorts. Yes, that was it – a void like a black hole in the coldest corner of space,
she wrote.
It was as if one night, as I slept, some unseen hand had pulled a plug within and all the joy seeped away, leaving me empty. Eternally drained.
    Bobbie chewed her pen. She always wrote by hand first, only typing up the sections she was happy with. She’d once uploaded a short story to an online writing colony and it’d had like six thousand views. As soon as she got out of Piper’s Hall and didn’t have so much needless school writing to do, she’d start working on a novel – the only problem being she had more ideas in her notebook than she could ever hope to feasibly turn into novels.
    Naya entered the room – her pyjama shorts revealing miles of gorgeous olive leg. Her endless black hair was twisted into a knot on top of her head where she’d washed her face. ‘What ya doin?’
    ‘Writing … ’
    ‘Is it the one you were talking about?’
    ‘The suicide one? Yeah.’
    ‘Get your Plath on, girl.’
    Bobbie laughed. ‘Oh I intend to. How’s Sadie?’ She rested her pen inside the notebook and closed it up – she’d rather die than show someone her writing at draft stage. What’s more, she couldn’t deny a ping of nosiness about their classmate.
    ‘Between you and me it looks like worst case of PMS I’ve seen in a while – she’s howling and sobbing and saying she wants to go home. Girlfriend needs a hot-water bottle and a Nurofen, stat.’
    Bobbie rolled off her bed. ‘The sympathy spring has truly run dry for you, hasn’t it? I’m gonna go brush my teeth.’ She dragged her wash-bag off the dresser and sloped out of the dorm, the floor tiles freezing cold on her bare feet.
    The hallway was deserted. Mrs Craddock had already turned the hall lights out so only a pale glow filtered through from the dorms. On Sundays it was standard for girls to retire to their rooms after supper. Last scraps of homework were hurriedly completed ready for the next day and the dreaded Sunday night/Monday morning malaise fell over the dorms. As Bobbie padded down the hall, her warm feet stuck to the floor, making a tiny suction noise as she went.
    The bathroom was empty but smelled of fresh mint toothpaste and perfumy floral shower gel. As ever, the room was humid, never entirely drying out. Someone must have just finished. The shower head made a steady, echoing drip into the cubicle. Hating to see water wasted, Bobbie reached into the stall and squeezed the lever tighter. She frowned. The drip continued. It must be inside the pipes somewhere, out of her control.
    Drip, drip, drip.
    Bobbie brushed her teeth for the recommended three minutes, before filling the sink to wash her face.
    Drip, drip, drip
. God, that was annoying.
    She took off her glasses and rested them next to her wash-bag. Earlier, at the chemist in Oxsley, she’d bought some new foaming-cleanser-miracle-spot-defence and was keen to give it a try. After all, it promised ‘results’ after ‘just one wash’. Who knew; it might just transform her into a supermodel. Her eyes tightly shut, she scrubbed her T-zone as directed before rinsing her skin. With a blind hand she felt around for her towel. She patted her face dry, making sure she’d cleared all the soap from her eyes.
    When she reached for her glasses, they’d gone. ‘Where are –’
    The bathroom door slammed shut. Bobbie jumped, knocking her toiletry bag onto the tiles. Her conditioner rolled under the sink. ‘What the … ?’ They’d been right there a second ago. She checked the floor, but they weren’t amongst her toiletries.
    Stepping over her spilled things, she tugged the door open and looked out into the corridor. Without her glasses, her vision was pitifully weak, like someone had rubbed grease over her field of sight. Squinting through the gloom, she saw a figure at the furthest