Thursday 18 August

At dinner everyone is buzzing. Iris sidles up.

‘Did you hear?’

‘What now?’

‘Rupert gave a report on Ady – sexual proclivities and so forth. It’s all over PSST. That means your photos have been bumped down.’

‘Great,’ I say, thinking PSST, like life, rolls on inexorably. I’m about to do the same, but the mean glint in Iris’s eyes stops me. She barely knows Ady. She’s never even had a conversation with her. The way she says ‘sexual proclivities’ – so prudish; so the opposite of what I’m sure the post actually says. I bet it calls Ady a slut. Because according to PSST all girls are. Sluts and bitches and skanks and hos.

‘Why do you even care?’ I ask Iris.

Her face shifts to sour. She doesn’t have an answer.

‘I don’t want to hear about that shit,’ I say, ‘and you shouldn’t be spreading it.’

‘I’m not spreading it. God, you make it sound like I’m personally responsible. Get a clue, Clem.’

‘I’ll get a clue when you get a life.’

Late in the night I listen to Kate’s mix CD and scroll through my Stu gallery. Just when I’m thinking about turning in, my phone pings. A photo of Stu’s ankle.

He texts: Your turn.

I take a photo of my knee. It looks like a lumpy face. I can’t send Stu my knee.

I’m waiting.

I want to tell him I miss him. I want to tell him what my week has been like. The PSST photos, the cancelled Canberra trip.

I text: I want to see you.

He texts: I want to see you too.

Followed with: All of you.

I look across at Jinx, dead to the world, her mouth quivering in snores. I take my PJs off and lie back and try out a few poses, shuffling my singlet off one shoulder, sinful skin-full, promise of curves. I take a full frontal, neck down, because cyber safety, then I sketchify it. Send.

Wow. You’re so beautiful. Zaftig Clem.

I have to google ‘zaftig’. It means deliciously plump, ripe, juicy, sexy. Beats being called Orca. So weird how one pretty word can almost cancel out all the ugly ones.