On Monday I get up and go downstairs early. When Dad sees me, his eyes light up and he offers me some toast. I mean to ignore him as usual, but I don’t. I smile at him – just a small one – grab the toast and walk. Mum reaches out as I pass her in the hall and her finger runs over my wrist. ‘Have a good day, sweetie,’ she says.
I don’t answer and I don’t look back, but her words form a warm, tickly ball in my stomach, which stays there all the way down the road.
I almost bump into Joe at the corner, which shocks me. I didn’t dream he’d come, but here he is, just as if nothing’s happened. His hair is in spikes with tiny green tips to them and he’s looking at me as if I’m supposed to say something – as if all this was my fault. I’m so embarrassed I wish he’d just go away, but I guess the best thing is to act normal, as if I couldn’t care less.
‘You won’t get away with that,’ I say, pointing at his hair. ‘They’ll send you home.’
‘No,’ he says, ‘they won’t. They’ve worked out that’s why I do it. Why are you angry with me?’
How can I tell him it’s because I was stupid enough to think he might actually like me? Or explain why I’m angry with him because he doesn’t? When I think about it, I can’t even explain it to myself. ‘I’m not,’ I say. ‘Why would I be angry?’
‘Exactly what I thought. Good then.’
We both know it’s not. All I can think about is how I leaned against him, waiting for his arms to go round me, for him to kiss me back like I thought he wanted. I can see the look on his face all over again. ‘I told you. I’m not angry. Forget it.’
‘Clearly you haven’t. Why don’t you just tell me what’s wrong.’
I walk on. Surely he can’t be that stupid? ‘If you must know,’ I finally tell him, ‘I feel ridiculous! I thought you liked me. And then you didn’t want to know. I just feel stupid, not angry.’
We walk in silence. The clump of our feet on the pavement is the only sound. It’s a moment or two before I realise I’m alone and when I glance back, I see Joe staring after me. His face looks waxy pale.
‘Are you coming?’ I demand, but he doesn’t move and in the end, I walk back. He’s breathing heavily, then opens his mouth to speak and shuts it again. Then, just when it looks like he’s about to say something, a couple of girls from school pass us and giggle. Joe walks on and I have to run to catch up.
He’s walking so fast and it sounds like he can’t breathe properly. I may be angry, but he’s just acting strange. We go all the way to school and there’s still no time to sort it out because there are two girls from our school coming towards us. One is Chloe Edwards from my class. She used to be a friend, but after Sam died she stopped talking to me, as though I’d done something wrong. Mum said some people just don’t know what to say, but she could have tried. The other girl I don’t know. She’s a Goth Girl in a long black coat, with two dark slashes across the top of her eyes. Her hair sticks up like she’s been electrocuted and she’s picking at a blue plaster that’s presumably covering a nose ring she’s refused to take out. Her face is white and tired.
‘Hey Joe,’ she says when they reach us. ‘Didn’t catch up on your sleep then? That was a good night Saturday, yeah?’
He glances at her and nods, then turns his head and lets his eyes wander over the school rooftops and the branches of trees – anywhere but my face.
‘I saw Joe at the Gloucester,’ the girl says to me. ‘You ever go?’
Her eyes keep flicking to Joe as if she can’t control them. ‘It was a good night, wasn’t it?’ she says.
Joe flushes, and I wonder why she doesn’t notice and leave him alone, but then realise it’s all for my benefit. She wants me to know they were out together. She thinks I need warning off. If only she knew.
‘It was okay,’ Joe says. ‘Not that good.’
The girl stares at him for a moment then shrugs and starts rummaging in her bag. ‘Okay then,’ she says, and pulls Chloe along behind her until Joe and I are alone again. He still says nothing, and for no reason I can think of, I tell him one of my secrets.
‘I would invite you round later if you insist on talking about it,’ I tell him. ‘But I can’t. I have to go and see this woman. She’s a shrink. What do you think of that?’
I know my face is red, I can feel the blood beating in my ears, but ‘Okay,’ is all Joe says. ‘Maybe another time.’
The pavement has emptied; everyone has gone inside. I hear Chloe laughing in the distance in a high pitched voice and Joe winces.
‘I hope everything’s all right with us,’ he says. ‘You’re the best mate I have.’
I think of Joe later, when I’m opposite the Shrink Woman. Today she’s gone Indian in a floaty top and bindi, and the whole room stinks of patchouli. She’s leaning slightly forward with a tiny smile on her face, inviting me to speak. I tell her about leaving my bag with Banks, about drinking with him and about what happened with Joe. She doesn’t say a word, just sits there with her unchanging face so that I’m tempted to tell her I actually went on a mass killing spree, just to try and change it.
‘What do you think about all that?’ she asks me, and I’m sure she’d say the same thing if I confessed to mass murder. ‘What do you think about all those bodies? Tell me about it.’
I ask her if she thinks what I’m doing is bad, and she asks me if I think it is. When I ask if she thinks Banks is too old and a drunk, she says it’s not about what she thinks – the question is whether I do. I feel like hitting her – at which point she’d probably just say, ‘How do you feel now that you’ve broken my nose?’
When I get out and Dad is driving us home through the dark, her questions come back to me and I realise that everything I ask her is something I already know the answer to. She just wants me to know that, and now I do.
I know the answer to the question about Banks: he’s too old, and a drunk, and even if it’s not bad, it’s not a good thing to be doing.
I remember something else then. There was someone else with us on the beach when Banks was walking me away, and now I remember what Banks said – at least I think
I can – ‘No,’ he said. ‘Keep away. Don’t make me stop you.’
I search the memory for a face or some other clue, but it’s like a dream. The more I chase it the faster it fades away.