‘You heard what happened with Jacob? Harry’s going to hate me if he finds out. He’ll think I’m a —’
‘A what?’ Grace cuts in, and I know what she’s thinking, because in those few hours she wasn’t off making sweet love with Nell, we’d had this discussion over and over, after that first photo when the boys – and some of the girls! – didn’t just stick it to me with Fingers but branched out into other insults too.
‘He’s going to think you’re a what, Izzy?’ she says again, obviously not letting it slide. ‘Listen –’ Grace’s eyebrows lift into arches that could rival Ronald McDonald’s – ‘from what Max told me this morning about the deal Jacob made with you, it didn’t sound like you did anything. It sounds like it was done to you. That’s why I had to call your mum. There was no consent there. He raped you.’
And I totally cramp at that.
‘It’s a word, Izzy. The action was worse,’ she says, wiping my tears before she wipes her own. ‘Dumbledore?’ She sees my confusion through the wet. ‘He said to call something what it is, remember? Voldemort. Rape.’ And maybe I wince a little cos Grace takes my hands and kisses them, a reminder of the kindness another body can bring. ‘Being scared of the word makes you more scared of the thing it represents, less able to face it down. Jacob might call it all fair play or banter or some other kind of shit as disguise, but it was rape.’
And she seems so sure as she gives me her hot chocolate. There’s no doubt as she holds me while I drink it. Not a slither of a maybe I played my part in it as she tells me over and over how sorry she is for not working out exactly what Jacob was up to.
‘What he did is not who you are, Izzy. It doesn’t define you. No more than what happened with Daniel defines your mum. I’m not saying they’re not huge shitty things that went on, and that they won’t shape you in some way, but if Harry likes you, he’ll listen, and he’ll get what you’ve been through and he’ll be kind and understanding and loving and everything else you deserve.’
‘That was quite a speech.’ It comes out a little mean, but all Grace does is hold me tighter. ‘You really think he won’t mind?’
‘It’s not his to mind, is it? I’m serious. You deserve someone who’s not just going to accept you for who you are and everything that’s happened but someone who will love you all the more for it.’
‘Like Nell does with you?’
‘Like you do with me, Izzy.’ Grace looks at me like, duh! ‘Who do you think gave me the confidence to be myself all these years?’
‘What?’ I don’t get it.
‘You’ve always had so much faith in me, this ginormous, unshakeable faith that I’m amazing, that I can do whatever I set my mind to, that I’ll face down anyone who questions who I am or who I love. You’ve been there for all of it, Izzy, and you never had any doubt that I’m the best.’
‘That’s because you are,’ I tell her.
‘In your eyes, yes. Not everyone has so much confidence. But that doesn’t really matter, because you always do. And you’re always telling me, never letting me forget how awesome I am.’ She strikes her fiercest Beyoncé pose then blows me a kiss. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever even thanked you,’ she says, more serious now as she sits me down on the bed. ‘Not properly. So, thank you, Izzy Grace Chambers for being the most wonderful friend a girl could ever ask for. My life would have been totally shit without you.’
And in this moment, I’d one hundred percent swear Grace’s sixth-sense thing is as real as her arms, which she squeezes around me with such force I can barely catch my breath. But I’ve never been so happy to gasp for air.
‘I love you, Grace Izzy Ashdown,’ I tell her when the hug eases and my body’s still buzzing with the mass of love she’s somehow pressed into my skin. I mean, it’s probably pins and needles, but the moment’s so magical I’m half expecting a unicorn to turn up and offer me a lift so I don’t have to risk that conversation with Harry.
‘I love you too,’ she says, with no extra emphasis because every word is important. ‘More than anything.’
I’m so tempted to ask, ‘More than Nell?’, but I sit in our loosened hug instead, wondering how I can capture these last few minutes and stick them in a bottle to sit, rainbowcoloured and proud, with the Jar of Sunshine I’m going to rescue in the morning.