Free Under My Skin by James Dawson

light. The tattoo’s eyes were wide open. Sally shook her head and sloped back to bed.
    On the very brink of sleep, so close she wouldn’t remember when she awoke, Sally idly wondered if the airy hiss was sounding out the letters of her name.

Chapter Six
    By the time Sally reached the benches outside the library the following morning, two things were clear. One was that spring had truly arrived. It was already pleasantly warm by eight thirty. Sally couldn’t bear to think what the temperature would be like by midday. The thought of her T-shirt riding up and revealing Molly Sue scared Sally so much that she’d opted to wear a tent of a shirt over it – one she normally wore only to sleep. She was going to boil to death. The tattoo was already itchy and she’d only just applied the ointment to it.
    The second obvious thing was that Jennie and Kyle had made up and wanted the whole world to see. Jennie sat on his lap at the picnic table, stroking his hair. He ran his fingers up and down her bare arm like he was playing a harp. The mere thought of his hands on flesh made Sally’s own skin crawl but the really sad part was that Jennie looked delighted. For now, she was
winning
. Based on what she’d seen at school, Sally sometimes wondered if that’s all relationships were – one big competition to gain the upper hand.
    â€˜Oh my God!’ Jennie beamed as she approached. ‘Sal, I’m hot just looking at you! Lose a layer!’
    â€˜I’m fine,’ Sally lied. ‘It’s not that warm.’
    Beside her, Stan had bust out shorts for the first time that year and a vintage Green Day T-shirt. ‘You do look pretty hot,’ he said before turning a distinctive radish shade in the cheeks. Kyle laughed like Nelson from
The Simpsons
. ‘Not like
that
,’ Stan quickly amended.
    â€˜Slick, dude.’ Kyle said. ‘Slick.’
    Stan gave him a look of barely concealed hatred. Stan wasn’t subtle at the best of times and Sally saw Jennie tense ever so slightly.
    â€˜Hey.’ It was Annabel Sumpter, one of their B-friends. She was OK, but like
really
intensely Christian, which Sally found off-putting. She’d once made a big speech about ‘Muslim Hell’ which hadn’t sat well with Sally at all. ‘Given that this could be the entire British summer in one day, we might go for a picnic up at the lake right after sixth period, if you fancy it? Ollie says he’ll drive. He’s got the people carrier.’
    â€˜Ooh, that sounds like fun!’ Jennie clapped.
    â€˜I can’t,’ said Sally, although she knew her parents didn’t like her going up to the lake, anyway (the ‘wild parties’, the ‘drinking’, the ‘wrong crowd’). ‘It’s the first
Little Shop
rehearsal.’
    â€˜Oh, bummer.’ Stan looked genuinely disappointed.
    â€˜You should go anyway,’ Sally told him.
    â€˜Well,’ Stan said, ‘Jen and I said we might come and offer our services to the production team . . .’
    â€˜Yeah. Kyle’s in the show band, anyway, so it could be fun,’ Jennie added.
    â€˜You guys are the best.’ Sally feigned excitement. She was already nervous about rehearsal – and now she’d have a keen-eyed audience.
    The rest of the day was as average a school day as you could imagine. The highlights, if they could be considered such, were the ice lollies they found to serve in the canteen, a glimpse of Mr Rudd, the gorgeous PE teacher, in his gym shorts, and Stan continuing his
Satanville
fanfic in French – even if his shipping of Taryn and Angela was getting a little X-rated.
    The day passed without troubling Sally too much mentally, even if her back was on fire. School never felt especially nourishing – more like brain chewing gum. The work was just too easy for her, but she certainly wasn’t going to draw attention to herself by announcing her