Monday 18 July

Our show-and-tell Wellness class is not very telling. No one wants to reveal themselves – can’t Malik see that?

Jinx forgot about the assignment but she’s been wearing her Marlins bomber since she got it so just raves about that, then has a rant about disposable fashion and how all the shitty fibres of cheap clothes are polluting the ocean via washing machines . . .

If I was going to show something that was meaningful to me right now, I’d show the seedpods, or my phone. (No phones! Wellness is a tech-free zone.) But in the end I brought in my medal from Nationals. I sit with it squat in my hand. I could just as easily pitch it out the open window. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t feel like anything.

Kate has her laptop with her. For a minute I think she’s going to play some of that crazy music, but she just talks about her necklace, trailing her pinkie along it.

Iris stands up. She’s brought in a photo of the two of us from Year 3, dressed up as Thing One and Thing Two for Book Week. I can’t believe she’s being so open. I don’t want people to know about us – any of it. The photo travels from hand to hand to the soundtrack of snickers and Iris stammering about how when we were little, even though we are fraternal, she somehow managed to convince herself that we were identical. I hear myself say, ‘That photo’s a fake! I’m serious. That never happened. Photoshop much?’

And people laugh, but it’s weird laughter, like when everyone knows something’s wrong, but no one wants to say it. I slump in my beanbag. I imagine myself sinking until the material closes over my head. Maybe I can just stay here forever.

I feel fraught today. I feel guilty about the email from Beaz. Why don’t I just go to training? But, but – my hair is the longest it’s ever been, and I smell like a normal girl, not chlorinated. My skin feels soft. My diet has gone to hell. I can’t seem to stop eating.

Later I’m in my room and I hear footsteps, and see a shadow at the door. Jinx looks at me and I look at her, but we don’t get up. Whoever it is slides something under the crack. It’s the photo of me and Iris – she’s coloured my face in with white-out. I chuck it over to Jinx and she shakes her head and starts to pick the white-out off.

‘What the hell happened to you two anyway?’

‘Nothing.’ I sigh. It’s too much to go into and too hard to explain. because there’s not one big reason but a thousand little ones. ‘We’re just . . . different.’

‘You’re crazy,’ Jinx says. ‘I miss my family more than anything.’ She goes all pensive, puts her headphones on, and I know she’s listening to music from home. I turn away from her and fix on sleep. I don’t know why I feel how I feel or do what I do. Maybe it’s just a twin thing.