Free Weightless by Michele Gorman Page A

walked in.
    I nearly didn’t turn up at all. Who willingly goes back into the bear pit once they’re freed?
Someone who’s flippin’ out of her mind, that’s who.
    My heart started rattling in my chest before
I’d even set foot through the Richmond pub’s door. Upstairs, a
table was set up beside the function room’s entrance. Two women
waited to label the alumni but I didn’t recognize them and it was
easy enough to sidestep their markers and Scotch Tape. I was
well-practiced in the art of creeping about.
    I should never have let Kate convince me to
come. Of course all the feelings I’d packed away over the years
wouldn’t stay neatly stowed. They’d wait till I was surrounded by
my classmates to spring their locks.
    To my relief, at least there was no break in
conversation when I stepped in to the room. A few faces turned
curiously but, recognizing neither friend nor foe, quickly turned
away again. After twenty minutes I was still alone on the fringes
of the party. I may as well have been sixteen again.
    Actually, that’s not quite true, because I
was rarely left alone then. Given the alternative, this was a bit
better.
    So Jack’s chattiness came as quite the
surprise. He’d said about ten words to me during the whole of
secondary school.
    ‘Do you see any of the old crowd yet?’ he
asked, scanning the room.
    My skin suddenly crawled with dread. What if
Christy herself was somewhere in the room? Or her friends? They’d
know in a second that I was an imposter. Then they’d single me out
in front of the whole room and it’d be eleventh grade all over
again. ‘No, no, I don’t see anyone.’ I started edging toward the
door.
    ‘Me neither. But I might not recognize some
of them. People can change a lot in ten years.’ He glanced again at
the crowd. ‘Isn’t it odd? When you’re in school you can’t wait to
get away from everyone and when you’ve left you’re excited to see
them again.’
    Speak for yourself. ‘Surely you didn’t hate
school though. What’s there to hate when everyone loves you and
you’re the teacher’s pet?’
    He laughed before catching himself. ‘You’re
exaggerating. I was never the teacher’s pet.’
    ‘But everyone did love you, so there’s no
use denying it.’
    ‘What about you? The school went into
mourning when you moved to France. Seriously, they flew the flags
at half-mast. Bereavement counsellors were called in.’
    I could think of at least one girl who
wasn’t in mourning when Christy moved away. ‘No black arm
bands?’
    ‘They changed our uniforms. Head to toe
widow’s weeds for the girls and black suits for the boys.’
    ‘Well that was a long time ago,’ I said.
‘They probably renamed a building or something and went back to the
usual uniforms eventually.’
    He touched his beer to mine. ‘Immortalized
in concrete. That’s my dream. Hey, what do you say we get out of
here? No one else is here that we know anyway.’
    ‘Definitely! Let’s go.’ Before Christy
sodding Blake turned up.
    I’d tell him later about the confusion.
     

Chapter 2
     
    To my relief, we left Richmond completely.
The last thing I needed was for poor Jack to see Christy sodding
Blake and think he was having a doppelganger moment on the
sidewalk. Though I still couldn’t believe we actually looked
alike.
    The Christy I knew had cold blue eyes.
Cold-as-a-shark, dead-soul blue eyes. This detail was burned into
my memory because she never looked away when she tormented me. That
girl had not one ounce of shame in her.
    My eyes were green. Dad said they were
beautiful, like cat’s eyes, but he had a parental duty of
kindness.
    People can change a lot in ten years and
small details get forgotten or misremembered. So Jack didn’t seem
to notice the color change as we chatted all the way into Soho. I
was surprised when he pointed to his office on Soho Square. I’d
always pegged him as the City type.
    ‘You really work for Fox?’ I said as we
found a tiny corner table