Chapter 7: The Invisible Girl in Room Thirteen by Stephen Simpson
Standing on the lawn in front of the Library, I looked up at
the building framed in stark contrast to the grey, oppressive clouds in the
background and I understood my life would never be the same again. I had never
thought a lot about destiny, but maybe this was mine. Maybe it was my destiny
to find out what happened to Lily.
Tall, green-leaved trees basking in the weak light of the
sun, stood on both sides of the square building.
The surrounding colours seemed to drain from the world as I
headed up a couple of stairs and pushed past the frosted glass doors.
I stood in the door for a moment, trying to see if Oliver was here already while a fan blew warm air on to me from a vent just above the door frame.
Bookshelves lined every wall of the large room, and some
shelves were placed in a labyrinth of aisles at the back of the room. A row of
shelves in the front boxed in an area with five large wooden tables and soft
lights.
Oliver waved me over from a table at the back.
As I reached him, he smiled and said, “Morning. Are you okay
after last night… You know...”
I did not want to be reminded of the bloody remains that
used to be Shannon. “It’s so quiet in here. A little eerie,” I said looking
around the room as I shrugged out of my jacket.
He looked around the sombre room. We were the only two
people here, besides the librarian who was standing behind the high, wooden
reception desk at the front of the large room, checking books back in.
“There's hardly ever anyone here, except when it’s exams,”
Oliver explained. He said, again, “Last night...”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Oliver.” My voice sounded
too harsh in the hushed atmosphere.
He recoiled, holding his hands up, palms facing me. “Okay.
Not a word.”
I sat down beside him, looking at the yearbooks he already
had stashed on the table.
“I’ve been here a while already.” He looked bashful. “I
couldn’t sleep so I thought I’d get a head start and gather all the yearbooks
so long.”
I began digging through the pile of books, looking for the
last year my mum went to school here.
When I found the one, I was looking for, I flipped through
the pages until I landed on the individual photographs and quickly found my
mother’s young face beaming up at me. Poking at her name in bold font below the
black and white image: Dianne Cameron, I said to Oliver, “This is my mum when
she went to school here. Her last year.”
Oliver moved his chair closer and his shoulder pushed
against mine as we both looked down at the image. “You look a lot like her.”
I rolled my eyes without looking away from her youthful
face. “I suppose.”
“What did Lily look like?” He asked and tried to pull the
book away from me.
I put my palm on the book to keep it where it was. “I’ll
look,” I insisted as I turned the page and scanned the names printed below each
photo. Two pages later, there was a memorial page with the name Lily Martin in
large, bold font under a photo which took up most of the white space on the
page. I said softly, “She died before photo day.”
In the photo, Lily was smiling. She was very pretty, and I
could not help noticing she was much prettier than my mum. Her symmetrical face
was framed with blonde hair, cut in a short style, but she had a feminine grace
about her so even if her hair was all shaved off, she would still be beautiful.
Looking at the image of Lily made me feel a deep sense of loss, sadness and
regret.
“Do you think if Lily could do it all over again, to change
the way she ended her life, do you think she would think twice before doing
something so drastic?”
He did not answer my question as we both stared at the image
for a while as if we were having a minute of silence for her.
Oliver said, “It’s not an official school photo, look
there’s a hand on her shoulder.”
I leaned down to have a closer look. The person who was
standing next to Lily on the photo was cropped out, but fifteen years ago I
guess nobody thought about Photoshop to erase the hand on her shoulder.
“There’s a class ring or something on that finger,” I said
poking at the image.
Oliver leaned even closer, our heads and our shoulders were
now pushed together.
He leaned down even more. His nose was almost touching the
paper. “It looks similar to the ring our head boy wears.”
I shoved him with my shoulder to get him to move. “Let me
see.” It did look like the rings they gave head boys. I knew because my dad had
one. “Who was the head boy that year at your school,” I asked even though I
already knew the answer.
He shrugged his shoulders as he looked at me.
“It was my dad. Roger Locke,” I said softly.
He looked shocked. “Say again. You’re saying the guy who
broke Lily’s heart was your dad?”
Unable to form words I could only nod my head.
“So...” He started. “Your dad and Lily...”
“Yes. It seems my mum stole my dad from Lily.” I looked up
at him, not sure if I should tell him the sordid history of how I came about.
Taking a deep breath, I said, “I’ve always known my mum fell pregnant with me
while she was still at school. You see, I was born in September, fifteen years
ago. By the time it was Valentine’s Day that year my mum was already a few
weeks pregnant with me. They must have just found out and he must have told
Lily or maybe even my mum told Lily, we would probably never know how it
happened exactly, so basically, my dad cheated on Lily and ultimately my
parents drove Lily into the lake that night.”
I wiped my face with my hands and filled my lungs with air.
“I didn’t know. I didn’t know my dad was in a relationship with someone else.
They always made it sound so romantic and told me even though they always knew
about each other, going to segregated classrooms yet part of the same school,
they only really met at a Christmas party at my mum’s house. They spend every
second of the Christmas break together and the story of how they fell in love
always seemed so perfect, so idyllic. Obviously, I was gutted to learn I was
not a planned baby, only an accident, but I got over it because how many
children are really planned these days?”
I looked at him for confirmation, but his eyes were focussed
on the image of Lily smiling happily at the lens of the camera.
I continued in a soft whisper, “Sad thing is, I knew my dad
went out with another girl before my parents started their relationship, but
truth be told, it never bothered me. It’s part of life sometimes, isn’t it?” My
stomach twisted in anguish and as a feeling of rage threatened to overwhelm me,
I felt a headache starting to grow.
“Before your parents met at the Christmas party, they
probably never spoke to each other and when they did, they most likely realised
how much they had in common and grew to love each other. It happens.”
Am I really the reason Lily was broken? Why she walked into
the lake that night? When I was in room thirteen and I asked her why she was
still here, she shoved me and said it was all because of me. Now I understood
what she meant. If not for me, my dad most probably would not have ended their
relationship. Lily would not still be here, haunting room thirteen, waiting for
someone to see her. Even though she saw everything, nobody ever saw her. Just
like me, she was invisible.
A voice inside my head said, together we could be
invincible.
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