Rose drew a pained smile, the sort you usually see on grown-ups, not tweenagers. “You know what I’m going to say.”
“No, what are you going to say?” My voice sounded sulky, like someone Rose’s age.
“Logical things – like it’s fine to just brush the crumbs off the bed and leave them on the floor. That you won’t get sick from people eating on your bed…that you could probably even leave the crumbs on the sheets and the world wouldn’t stop rotating.”
“You never know, it might.”
“No, Evie,” she came in and perched on the end of my bed, “it wouldn’t.”
I did one last quick spray, on my pillow, for good measure. My room stunk of pine. If I opened the cupboard I wouldn’t be surprised if Robin Hood was squatting in there. I gave Rose a pleading look. “You know how I feel about logic.”
“The thing about logic is…” Rose curled herself up like a cat. “Is that it really is rather logical.”
“Screw logic, it’s just not imaginative enough.”
She giggled.
I put the spray away in the box under my bed and sat next to her, pulling her in for a free head rub. She groaned and wiggled into my fingers.
“Did you have a nice time with your friends?” she asked.
I smiled. “I guess. We were supposed to be talking about feminism but we ended up just whinging about boys not calling us. I wish I was your age again.”
“No you don’t.” I felt her tense under my fingertips.
“Everything okay, Rose?”
“I heard you and the parents talking about you reducing your medication again.”
“That is called changing the subject. Is everything okay, Rose?”
She sighed. “It’s fine. So, how do you feel about the medicine?”
“We’re not supposed to talk about this together. You’re impressionable, remember?”
“You’re cleaning a bit more than normal.”
“Well you’re avoiding my questions more than normal.”
“Touché.” She rolled over and looked at my films. “How about we just watch a movie and stop interrogating each other?”
I nodded. I could finish after she went to bed. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Or Mum, or Sarah. It was just a bit of spray.
BAD THOUGHT
But it’s not just a bit of spray though, is it, Evie? You plan to finish the whole bottle.
I smiled down at Rose and gave the side of her face one last stroke.
“A movie sounds fab.”
I waited until everyone was asleep before I crept out of bed and slowly drew the box out from underneath it.
A floorboard creaked. I paused.
Silence again.
I fished out the spray, and, okay, a bit of bleach and a J-cloth from my hidden stash – I mean, they ate in here! My phone went off. It sounded far too loud in the quiet of the house, vibrating angrily against my bedside table. I grabbed it to shut it up.
It was a message.
A message from Guy. Otherwise known as Ignory Norington.
You are coming to Battle of the Bands, aren’t you?
A smile started in my teeth and spread out across my face. If anyone walked in, I would be quite the sight – crouching in the dark, grinning like a madman, clutching a bottle of bleach.
I hid the bleach back under my bed and crawled under the covers.
I fell asleep smiling.
Twenty-six
Autumn had barely put in an appearance before winter arrived, basically overnight. It swept through our town like a late party guest, one who overcompensates for their bad timekeeping by drinking too much too quickly and making an embarrassment of themselves. One day it was all warm and golden, the next all bitter and grey. Within days dresses were pushed to the back of wardrobes, put into hibernation until April. Girls trawled online shopping sites for the perfect pair of ankle boots that didn’t exist. We pulled out our long-forgotten winter coats and found last year’s receipts and used tissues still snug in the pockets.
I didn’t have any old used tissues in my winter coat. I would never be that disgusting.
Oli still hadn’t come back to college. I worried about him. I worried about him but I still didn’t message him.
As abruptly as the change in season, they’d lowered my medication again. To almost nothing.
“Now, if you start suddenly feeling really low and potentially suicidal, you are to ring me immediately,” Sarah said, as she chatted through the new recovery plan. “It’s a really rare side effect of withdrawal, but it can happen.”
“Thanks,” I said, dryly. “Give the anxious girl coming off her medication something more to worry about, why don’t ya?”
“I’m proud of you,” she said. And the way her face looked made me think she really meant it. “Now, I’m going on holiday for a week, so we’ll miss a session. I know this isn’t great timing, but you’ve got the emergency contact number, haven’t you? And you can always go to your GP.”
I felt my tummy sink… I hated it when Sarah went away. It was weird to think of her having a different life, a normal one, with holidays, and people she could talk to without using medical training.
“I’ll be grand,” I said, smiling. Thinking, I don’t know if I will, but I like how proud you look right now.
Mornings took longer, as I had to carefully pour out a liquid form of my medication onto a spoon. Very soon, I would stop completely.
Rose told Mum about my cleaning box and it was removed from under my bed. I didn’t talk to Rose for two days and spent all my spare time with the girls instead. Amber was enough to bring anyone out of a bad mood.
“Guys,” she announced, on a windy Wednesday, smashing her bag on the table. We’d relocated to a cosy corner of the cafeteria. “Guess what? I’ve made an agenda for today’s Spinster meeting.”
Lottie and I looked up from our game of noughts and crosses.
“An agenda?” Lottie asked.
Amber nodded, her face as red as her hair. “To give us focus. You two spent most of the last meeting whinging about boys. That is all fair and well, but I think we need an agenda too.”
I poked my tongue into the side of my mouth in amusement.
“Item one: History of the Suffragettes – discussion topic: Were they terrorists or heroes?” I said, in a BBC news presenter voice. “Item two: Why won’t Guy reply to my messages?”
Lottie rolled her eyes. “Has he done it again? Messaged you then not replied to your reply?”
I nodded. “Yep. He messaged the other night, asking me about the new Wes Anderson film. I know, right? Guy? Wes Anderson? Anyway, I thought he might ask me to go see it. But when I replied – after a good half-hour of waiting time I may add – saying it had good reviews, nothing. Nada. Not a sausage.”
“You need to stop replying.”
“I know.”
“So why do you keep replying?”
I put my head down on the table. “I don’t know.”
Amber bashed her bag on the table again, like a judge with a gavel.
“You see!” she said, her face even redder if possible. “This is why we need an agenda!”
I looked up and smiled at her. “I couldn’t agree more.”
As if he knew I’d just made a conscious effort to stop talking about him, Guy barrelled through the double doors of the cafeteria. Why do guys like Guy look so good in duffel coats? It really is terribly unfair. He had Joel and Jane with him – their hands in each other’s coat pockets – just like the saying. They spotted us and headed over.
Guy sat next to me and I felt outside’s cold air coming off him. He stank of smoke.
“Smoking in winter is such a mission,” he announced, without even saying hi. “It’s so effing cold outside.”
I sat up straighter in my seat, realized I should look casual, and slouched again. “So why smoke?” I asked.