Monday 1 August

I have an annoyingly confusing final period of Maths. I do dummy maths and still it’s hard. My pals do brain maths. Although, let’s be frank, Lola can only keep up with help from a private tutor. I cannot wait to graduate from dummy to zero maths next year. It’s simply not the way my brain is wired. I’m chill-blasted for the five-minute walk between school and Muse, our near-school cafe. When I see Lola and Tash and Bec sitting there in a cloud of self-righteousness masquerading as concern, I’m tempted to brave the cold again.

Kate is sitting at a corner table where Max has just arrived and is unscarfing and settling down next to her. I give them a wave. Max is not wearing a school uniform – my dream – because she goes to MCA, Melbourne College of the Arts, a specialist secondary school where students get to exercise a bit of freedom instead of being slowly asphyxiated by a thousand and one rules.

I drop my coat, scarf, gloves, and order a hot chocolate.

Tash is the lead inquisitor. ‘I hope you caught up with Rupert. He was so sad on Friday night.’

‘Yeah, he came over yesterday.’ I don’t mention that I asked my mother to come upstairs and make a little mother speech about leaving my bedroom door open. ‘I think he’s recovered.’

‘Where were you?’

‘I told you – it was just spur of the moment. Anyway, I don’t even know Sam that well.’

‘But that’s a reason to go, to get to know your boyfriend’s friends.’

‘It looked weird that you weren’t there,’ says Lola.

‘Like you two were fighting or something,’ says Bec with a worried frown.

‘We weren’t. I know it. And Rupert knows it. And you guys know it.’

‘And you were really with her?’ Tash asks, glancing over at Kate and Max.

‘Yes.’ I eat a half-melty pink marshmallow from my spoon. ‘Her. Kate. She’s . . .’ I think of all the nice and unusual things Kate seems to be, and how you certainly couldn’t summarise her in just one word.

‘Weird,’ Tash finishes for me.

‘Look, it morphed from our Malik thing. We had coffee and then we went back to my place –’

Tash nearly chokes on her coffee. ‘You invited her to your place?’

‘Sure.’

They all give me the side eye of disbelief. I know. I don’t really believe it myself. If you’d told me a week ago I’d be hanging out with Kate, I would have laughed. ‘So, how was the party?’

Significant looks.

‘I think I might like Sam,’ says Lola.

‘You love him,’ Bec tells her.

‘Great,’ I say. Great, the heat’s off me. ‘So, let’s all do something together at the weekend. I’ll ask Rupe.’

I look over to where Kate and Max are sitting. Max is offering Kate an earbud to listen to something.

‘Hey.’ Tash waves her hand in front of my face. ‘Do you want to go over and sit with your friend?’

I need to smooth the feathers a little more.

‘I am sitting with my friend,’ I say, putting on my best happy face, giving her a hug and tuning in to whether Lola should ask Sam to the formal or wait for Sam to ask her.