It was always the same door. Always the same shady looks given to the pupils and teachers and walls of the hallway. Just a few down the hallway to the left of Ozzie's classroom, four down to be specific. Where they stash the cleaning supplies and other unmentionables. Probably old junk that should be burned in a heap on the field out back.
"Sorry," she'll say with that fake smile of hers and that worried look in those big stupid eyes. "The caretaker and I have business to attend to."
"Yes," he'll say with a nod of his weird long head, "Yes," he'll repeat with a secondary nod of those ridiculous eyebrows, before affirming as though it hadn't been heard, "Business."
Doesn't take a genius.
She tells everyone they're friends. She told Marcus once that she's just really into cleanliness and the caretaker wasn't that keen on it, more into tinkering, she said. She told Maebh he's just a lonely old man, a little odd, and no one wants to talk to him much, so she's just offering a kindness.
Kindness my arse.
Because that skirt's hiked up a bit too high too often, those buttons aren't quite lined up, and that little red splotch on her neck after a little 'talk' about the kitchen sink? Sure as hell isn't dried ketchup. It's enough to make a girl laugh, and it's almost enough to make this girl think maybe there's something to be gained.
No one else knows about the moon, and no one else knows about the Squaddie's funeral. When they slipped away into that box and stopped just at the door. When he wiped away her tears and made some stupid promise to her.
Never leave her.
Never betray her.
Never let his sacrifice be forgotten.
Almost threw up in my mouth at that, making eyes on a deceased man's girl in his name. Only got worse after that. After that it was slipping away into that closet more and more. Like some secret no one knew, except everyone knew. If she paid more attention to the graffiti on the wall, she'd notice it. She'd burn as red as that ugly space suit I was made to wear.
Ozzie loves the Owl.
Bright blue marker on a locker beside the main office, on the bathroom door closest to her classroom, on the tallest windowpane the Doctor never got around to cleaning. Whispered as they rushed through halls, that weird giggle of hers mixing with that screech of a laugh of his and everyone knows, but no one knows where they're going.
Suppose I'll let that secret sit with me. Might be useful one day. I'll just smile when she makes an excuse and shake my head when he agrees and groan when they laugh nervously and flap a hand between them to tell anyone asking, "Oh no, we're just good friends – it's a working relationship."
It's working alright. Shagging in space. Could be its own sitcom on the tele. I'd watch it instead of doing her homework – but I'd rather clean a toilet than do her homework. Imagine that, some BBC show about that idiot space man and his human companion sailing around in space pretending not to be space married.
That's what it could be called. Space Married. Without all the slobbering babies because it's not some stupid soap opera. Besides, would give it away if Ozzie popped some kid with Owl's eyebrows. Though that'd be a riot – her saucer eyes and his bushy brows. Poor kid.
"Courtney," Ozzie calls my name like some kind of curse word, the way my dad might when I hand him my marks, "What… are you writing?"
"Journal stuff," which is mostly true. "You said I should write more, didn't you?"
She's staring like I've got something green coming out of my head; she doesn't seem to realize I'm quite used to that. "Journal stuff," she repeats, like I'm lying. "Not for Tumblr."
I suck my teeth and slink back in my chair. "No," is all I tell her. Who'd want to read about Space Married on Tumblr, anyways.