Haven at Hollowdale High is OUT NOW
Wednesday, 1st September
My name is Layla Williams. I am eighteen years old. I have blonde hair and blue eyes. My mother’s name is Darcy and my father’s name is Daniel. I have been through hell, but I am safe now.
Those were the words that ran through my head daily, and rather constantly, too. It was a trick my counsellor taught me back at my old school. “Remind yourself what is real and what isn’t,” she had said and I’d latched on to it ever since.
For the past few months, I had been reminding myself of the facts. I knew most people would wonder why I needed to do it. I mean, surely most people knew their name, age, and who their parents were, right?
Of course I knew. But it was something real. Solid. Factual. Something I could hold on to when the dark memories crept in, fighting at the edges to take over my mind.
Starting at a new school was freaking me out, too. I worried I wouldn’t make any friends and if I did, I doubted I’d ever feel like I could open up to them fully.
At the end of the summer, Mum and Dad had moved us to the town of Beurre and I’d barely had time to adjust or meet anyone in the area before term time had come around. If I was being honest with myself, even if I had moved here at the very beginning of summer, I still wouldn’t have made any friends. Going to school wasn’t something I was looking forward to, but there had been a time when I had loved it. I guess most people my age wouldn’t be looking forward to it either, but at least they knew people. At my old school, I was classed as one of the popular girls. But then I’d never wanted to be. The girls I’d known there all seemed so superficial and the majority of them had a serious attitude problem. To survive, you either joined them or were eaten. At Hollowdale, I had the chance to change my behaviour. Make sure that nobody would ever feel threatened by me. I just wasn’t a threatening person.
Until next time,
