Hi Guys
Thought I'd write a new story that I've been formulating for a change, rather than continuing my other series. I hope you enjoy! Just for reference, I used my own experiences with Asperger Syndrome as a basis for the backstory of the autistic character in this story, Willow.
Cheers
GT
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Wet, shivering and covered only by a towel, Willow sat hunched on the lid of the toilet, desperately trying not to cry. She was hiding in this stall in the Girls' changing room, hoping to God that nobody would notice how long she had been in there. She got plenty of shit from the other girls as it was, without them thinking she had an upset stomach.
The reason for her being in here was very simple; her clothes had been stolen.
Willow hated having field hockey practice on Friday afternoons, because it always meant she would have to rush into the changing rooms, shower quickly, get dressed and rush out to catch the 17:20 bus home. Missing it would mean an hour-long wait for the next one. Which would really fuck up her routine.
And to make matters worse, it made her more susceptible to bullies.
Willow had always been very disadvantaged with her looks; she was slightly overweight, her reddish hair was quite messy and straggly, her clothes were quite plain and baggy, and her large eyeglasses made her look like a bit of a nerd. As such, she had always been a victim of bullying.
Most of it was verbal -- she had been called every variation of every insult for fat people under the sun. She had been the "pig" that guys sometimes pulled whenever they wanted to play "pull a pig," and had been branded with the nickname "Four-eyes" from the moment she had first set foot in this school five years ago, when she was a mere 13-years old. And recently, there had been rumours spread about her being a lesbian, or at least of her trying to kiss some of her fellow girls.
There was, however, also some crueller, more targeted forms of bullying as well; she was marginally on the Autism Spectrum, and had been diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome at the age of 16. This meant that the other students now knew how to hurt her in such a way that would affect her greatly, but make it much harder for her to explain what was going on to the other teachers. These included making annoying or strange noises whenever she was around, breaking into her locker and messing up the neat, organised stacks of books that she kept there, hiding her bag whenever she made the mistake of leaving it somewhere, and sometimes such simple things as crowding her and talking all at once to make her confused and disorientated.
To someone who didn't have the condition, these would be so easy to explain away -- "We were just talking to her... It's just a noise..." -- but to someone who does, it can fuck with your mind.
Needless to say, being at this school longer than she needed to was not an option for her, and she absolutely had to return home and disappear into the internet... her video games... her TV... frankly, any of the hangouts she liked to disappear to whenever she wanted to escape the bullies. Plus which, she hated having her routine thrown off. So much so that she would have a mini-meltdown if she did.
That was why, when she stepped out of the shower, returned to the locker where she kept her clothes and found it empty, she had practically almost had one there in the middle of the girls' changing room. The only reason she hadn't was that she had known that someone would probably film it, or would take her towel from her as well and possibly humiliate her even more. She had learned that the hard way.
To make matters worse, she already knew who likely stole her clothes.
Rosie Summers.
Rosie was another girl in Willow's class, and was everything she was not. She was popular, had many great friends and dated all the best-looking guys in the school. She was captain of the Girls' football team, where she played Defender. And she was one of the best-looking girls in the school; long legs, muscular, athletic build, long, silky blonde hair and olive skin. Academically, she wasn't the brightest tool in the shed, but she was still very good at the subjects she excelled at, French and Spanish, and certainly defied the stereotypes of girls of her looks. She was always accompanied by two friends, Becca and Cassie. And it would be unnecessary to go into detail about the kinds of people that they were, because frankly, it could have been taken right out of the classic Lindsay Lohan flick "Mean Girls."
Rosie, as it happens, was also one of the main bullies who liked to pick on Willow.
Ever since her first day, Rosie had picked on her. She was one of the first to figure out how to target the Asperger-specific traits that would make her melt down. But she was also very strange in the fact that most of her insults towards her were oriented towards sex: how no guy would want her, how she was a virgin and always would be, things like that. She would call her a prude who dressed in granny clothes, and wonder aloud whether she had any boobs at all, or if it was just impossible to tell because of the bagginess of her clothes.
She hadn't confined herself to just the verbal insults either -- on occasion, she liked to slap her ass quite hard, and run away, laughing. Sometimes, she liked to trip her up, and then pull her to her feet again and dust her off as if she was a hero. On another occasion, she'd pushed her into one of the changing lockers, locked her in, and refused to let her out unless she said "I love you, Rosie" five times. And, most recently, she'd drawn a heart on one of her textbooks, underneath which were the words:
<3
Love you lots, 4-eyes!
R
Xxxxxxx
This clothes-stealing stunt had never happened before, though. For some reason, most of the girls seemed to stop short of doing it, as it could potentially be grounds for a very, very serious punishment. Trust Rosie to be the one to go over that line.
With no clothes, still wet and covered only by a towel, and the changing room still full of girls, Willow had darted into the nearest cubicle and shut the door. Beyond this, she wasn't sure what kind of a plan she had to escape. She had no other clothes, and her phone was in her other locker, at the other end of the school, so she couldn't phone her only friend, Christine, to come bring her some. Nor could she call her mother. She could alert a member of staff, but that would just create more problems than she needed right now. Plus which, would they really be all that sympathetic? They'd never really done anything about the bullying before.
The only thing she could think of was to wait until the coast was clear, head over to the Lost Property basket, which was almost always full, and find something to wear until she got to her locker. Then she could collect her phone and wallet, and just head home. She could figure out what to do about her lost clothes later.
The problem was that the girls were taking forever to get changed, and seemed to get bogged down in conversations about what they were going to do for the weekend. Most were talking about taking advantage of being 18 to go down to the pub and drink legally (Willow, whose birthday was the first in the entire year group, had been of legal UK drinking age for months already, but nobody had ever invited her to join them). She was used to hearing a lot of bitchiness, but the amount she was hearing -- and some of it was about her -- was shocking. Luckily, nobody seemed to be taking any notice of the stall that had been occupied for the best part of fifteen minutes now.
All Willow wanted to do now was cry. To have her meltdown in the privacy of this stall. She wanted to take out her frustration by banging on the walls, by howling and screaming, by throwing herself against the door. But she didn't want to draw any attention to herself, so it took all of her willpower to fight the urge. But still... Why had this happened to her? She went to church once a week. She gave money to homeless people and charity collectors every time she came across them. And she was always nice to people whenever she could. What had she done to deserve this? What kind of merciless God would allow this to happen?
The only solace she could get was that she only had two more months to go. Two more months in this hellhole. Then she could leave it all behind, go off to university and find herself.
After what seemed like hours to her -- although it was really only about twenty more minutes -- she heard the sounds of conversation and general noise of a crowded changing room start to fade. As the room grew quieter and quieter, Willow's hopes started to improve. Maybe she might come through this with at least some of her dignity intact. But that still seemed like a bit of a tall order.
Eventually, the room fell silent. It was almost certainly empty now. If she was going to make a break for the lost property basket, now was the time to do it.
Slowly, and quietly, Willow unlocked the door to her stall, and pushed the door open.
She found herself looking right into the eyes of the very last person she wanted to see at this moment.
