Saturday 20 August, later

Ady kicks a heel against the tram floor. ‘Whose house is this anyway?’

‘Danny. He plays music with Stu. He’s super-hairy.’

Kate perks up. ‘What kind of music?’

‘Stu calls it “noise”.’

I don’t tell them how old Danny is. I don’t want to put them off.

It takes a while to find the house. It’s on a massive block, with a wild, overgrown garden.

‘I’m going to wait for Oliver,’ Kate says.

I zoom ahead of Ady down the long driveway. In front of the house is a bonfire stack. People are lugging the furniture out and breaking it up, adding it to the pile. I stare at it, transfixed, until Ady catches up.

‘Hey, girls, are you lost?’ A guy wearing jeans so slashed you can’t even call them jeans comes out from behind a tree. His eyes are wrecked. He’s carrying a puppy. I worry about that puppy. He doesn’t wait for an answer, just wanders off into the house.

The front door has already been dispatched to the bonfire pile. The first thing we see as we go in is a man with a screwdriver taking down another door.

‘Burn, baby, burn,’ he says with a wink.

‘Okay . . .’ Ady looks after him warily.

I head for the band and just assume that Ady’s following, but when I see Stu everything else falls away.

He looks grungy, like he’s slept in his clothes. For some reason he has bare feet and a hairclip in his hair. He’s playing guitar, but the sound can’t be what he’s aiming for, because it’s like ear torture. The other people in the room are all older, black-clad, not dancing. The smell of dope fills the air. Dope and beer and apathy. I stand in Stu’s eye line, waiting for him to see me, but he’s lost in his noise.

Finally he looks up. He stares at me blankly for a moment – a terrible moment – and then he smiles and triumphantly sends more unearthly sounds into the ether.

Seconds are swallowed by minutes. The trouble with Stu’s music is that it has no end point. Every time I think we’re close, Danny steps in and plays something on his saxophone and they’re off again. I’m getting sore feet from standing around. I can’t not notice the girl from the pub is here, watching Stu. And I can’t not notice there are other girls, too. When he finally, finally finishes, it’s like there’s a pool of us, offering things: a drink, a word, a hug, ourselves – but he slings his arm around me – me! – and kisses the curve between my neck and shoulder. He stoops so that his eyes meet mine.

‘Let’s go someplace quiet.’

His eyes flash. I can read my future in them.

We try the upstairs rooms first, but one is barricaded and the other is occupied by the puppy guy, shirtless now and looking even more wrecked than before. Stu steers me to a small room with an open window. He climbs out the window. I stick my head out. He’s on the roof of the garage – it’s flat, pebble-dash, someone’s had the foresight to drag a couch out there.

Stu dusts the couch off. ‘After you.’

From where we’re sitting we can see the lights of the city and the dark ribbon of the river. Our breath makes clouds in the cold night air.

Stu’s lips are soft. His hands are fast and fervent. My cardigan is off, my dress pushed up, my tights and undies down. I’m trying to arrange myself so he can’t see my fat bits. He takes his jeans off. He lies on me, warming me up, and the couch creaks under us.

‘Uh . . .’ I stop. I’m feeling . . . overwhelmed. Overpowered and blocked and chaotic, like the world is tilting, like I’m falling or maybe flying. Things are happening too fast. What about the weekend? What about finding a place? Is this our place? I want to stop but I can’t say it – it’s like there is no room for words – there is only kissing and touching and –

‘Okay?’ Stu’s breath is hot. He’s tussling with a condom. And I want to laugh, but that’s just nerves. He’s gone all strategic – eyes unfocused, hands downtown. Then he’s pushing – for a moment I think it’s not going to happen, but then it’s in. And it hurts. Stu stops. Starts. Stops. Repositions. I don’t know if I’m supposed to move or what. He doesn’t speak or look at me, and over his shoulder the sky is black and the stars seem not like fixed points, but a wild swirling.

While it’s happening I’m trying to capture it. I’m trying to think of the words I’ll use to talk about it. In movies sex goes for ages but here on the couch on the roof I’d put it at four minutes, tops. Afterwards Stu passes me his shirt to wipe myself with. He lights a cigarette and asks me if I’m sore. ‘It gets better,’ he says. And all I can do is laugh and cover my face.

We return to the party. Once we get downstairs we separate – this feels okay, like the mature thing to do. I find Ady outside by the fire, with a cool-looking girl who must be Max.

Ady checks me out. ‘Uh-oh.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Special skill.’

The party’s gone over the edge. There is a drunk girl dancing to no music. A guy in a ‘Motherfucker’ t-shirt tries to dance with her and she flings him off with crazed drunk-strength and he falls into the fire. He runs out screaming, his long hair ablaze. He rolls on the ground in the fallen leaves. We watch, frozen. Ady grabs my arm and there’s no time to find Stu to say goodbye.

On the tram back, it all seems like a fevered dream: first-time sex, a man on fire. but the proof comes with a tantalising ping.

That was fun, Stu texts. Are we still on for next weekend?

When I get back to school the grounds seem spookily quiet. I edge around the back and shove the portal door. I’m shuffling through the dark basement when I hear footsteps above. I tuck myself into a cavity, the shower stall. The light goes on. I hold my breath. It’s Old Joy and I’m done for. This is it. But after a minute the light goes off again. She retreats.

I wait in the damp until I’m sure it’s safe then I creep up the stairs back to my room.

People say you don’t feel any different. Lainie said she didn’t feel any different – but that’s not true for me. My pulse throbs. I am tender everywhere.

I am not who I was yesterday or last week or last year.