First of all, she sounded different after spending the previous year up north. Each place affected the way she spoke, which made her stand out even more. She was just thankful that her dad only took postings inside the country. And because of her semi-nomadic lifestyle, she had different interests to the other girls in her class, which made breaking into the existing friendship groups very difficult. She was more comfortable in the library and spent a good deal of time there.

She liked a boy, having met him in the library during a free class. His name was Johnathon Peak; he was good-looking and popular, and he was into her. The only thing was that his circle of friends overlapped with the girls that bullied her.

Marcie, Maree, Maureen. The three Ms.

Her enemies. Nice when Johnathon was around, bitches to her when he wasn’t. They picked on her day in and day out. Olivia found it hard to keep a smile on her face. She lived for the moments when she was alone with Johnathon, and he made sure there were plenty.

‘Gonna run to Daddy now?’ Marcie had asked after following her to her sanctuary in the library, calling her names. Olivia tried to stay brave, but the constant bullying was wearing her down, chipping away at her soul. With every cruel word a new crack appeared. She grew weary of the constant barrage of spite directed at her alone. The words, the sneaky shoves from behind. The time she ‘accidentally’ fell down three concrete stairs, spraining her ankle and hurting her wrist. She took a week off school to recover, and it was the best week that she’d had since coming to Ashfield. She wrote in her diary religiously, detailing the abuse. She couldn’t even reread what she’d written, it was too painful, and she couldn’t believe that she was putting up with it. She didn’t want to go back.

‘What is it honey?’ asked her dad one night, finally noticing how withdrawn she’d become, and how her only friend seemed to be Johnathon, who admittedly came around a lot. He still hadn’t seen the bullying, but she would never confess it to him. He might have been able to stop it, but she wouldn’t tell. She would never tell. She kind of wished she could tell her dad so they could move towns, move schools again, so she could get away and start over. At each new school she became someone else, like she was wearing a mask, never truly being herself. Would she ever be?