The girls sit on the bandstand steps in the thin spring sunshine, subdued and melancholy.
‘You should have seen her,’ Savvy says. ‘She looks terrible, I swear. She’s this awful grey colour, like cold porridge. And there’s a huge scar like a half-moon on her cheek, from the glass vase. I am not kidding, she looks half dead.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Yaz protests.
‘It’s true, though,’ Savvy insists. ‘It’s horrible; she just lies there, like … well, like she’s already dead. Like a shell of a person. And I had to talk to her and pretend she could hear me, but I don’t think she could. It was like there was nothing there, nothing at all.’ She leans back against the steps, hugging her knees, forlorn.
‘So she’s actually brain-dead?’ Erin wants to know. ‘Seriously?’
Savvy shrugs. ‘They say not, but I don’t think they actually know. It was horrible, Erin. The most horrible thing I’ve ever had to do!’
Tears well up in Savvy’s eyes and slide soundlessly down her cheeks, and Lainey puts an arm around her shoulders and tells her she’s amazing and brave and kind for going to visit.
‘Amazing and brave?’ Savvy echoes. ‘I don’t think so. Terrified, more like. Sick with guilt. Do you know why I went to see her?’
‘Because you care,’ Yaz says.
‘Because I had to know,’ Savvy corrects her. ‘I had to know how bad it was; and it is bad, Yaz – it’s really, really bad.’
‘She’ll be OK,’ Lainey says hopefully. ‘Hospitals always make things look worse than they are.’
Savvy stands up abruptly, kicking against the bandstand wall so a splinter of paint flakes away on the tip of her shoe. She looks angry enough to tear the whole building down, one kick at a time.
‘Don’t you get it?’ she growls. ‘This is serious, Lainey! It can’t be any worse than it actually is. She’s in the ICU, being kept alive by machines. It was awful going in there, but I had to do it. I had to say sorry, and you should say it too. She might die!’
An elderly man walking past with his dog glances at them, disapproving, and the girls exchange uneasy glances.
‘Shhh!’ Lainey whispers. ‘What’re you trying to do, get us arrested?’
Savvy seems to crumple, sinking down on to the steps again. She rests her head back against the bandstand and the breeze blows wisps of caramel-coloured hair across her damp cheeks.
‘Why on earth did you say sorry?’ Erin asks. ‘You didn’t do anything!’
‘I did,’ Savvy snuffles. ‘We all did, but I feel responsible …’
‘Savvy, that’s crazy,’ Yaz says. ‘It wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t Lainey’s either. If you start apologizing, everyone will be asking questions and sniffing around. We could be in real trouble!’
‘Nobody heard me say it,’ Savvy says, whispers. ‘Not even Alice. I wish they had!’
‘Savvy,’ Erin says, patiently. ‘I know you feel bad. We all do, but this was an accident!’
‘Yes, but …’
‘But nothing,’ Lainey insists. ‘We didn’t make her fall. OK, maybe we should have been honest about it from the beginning, but we weren’t – we panicked. That’s not a crime, is it? We decided not to tell the whole truth, but that doesn’t change what happened, or make it our fault. If we start changing our story now it’ll look really dodgy; you have to see that!’
‘Lainey’s right,’ Yaz says. ‘We have to stick to our story. If one of us starts telling the truth, the rest of us will be in trouble … and for what? We’re all sorry for what happened, we all wish she was well again, but we have to stick to what we said to the police that night, or they’ll think we were covering up something bad! Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ Erin says, handing her friend a tissue. ‘Don’t mess up now, Savvy. It won’t help Alice!’
Savvy blots her eyes with the tissue, but the tears keep coming.