“Man, he is fit,” Gideon mutters.
“He is a fit man all right.” And Anj lets out a lovelorn sigh.
“Really?” I shake my head. Outraged into action, Gideon grabs the phone to hunt for a more convincing picture. He’s flicking through when I see something. “Hang on a sec, go back.”
The girl on the screen looks beautiful, dark hair swishing around her shoulders as she raises a bottle to the person behind the camera. She’s standing next to Katie Coleman, who does not look anything approaching beautiful.
“Hannah looks stunning!” Anj says and we all lean a touch closer to see if we’re seeing it right. Normally Hannah wears very little clothing and a lot of make-up when she goes out, but in this photo she’s wearing a good amount of both. I scroll through a couple more photos taken on the same night — “A proper send off” the album’s called — and find one with Hannah and Jay. The two of them aren’t looking at the camera — it’s an action shot of them dancing and they’re completely natural. They look good together. Put him next to hot Hannah and I can suddenly see what Anj and Gideon mean about Jason Sheppard.
“Hello?” A hand swooshes in front of the screen and we all look up.
HANNAH
Aaron, Anj and Gideon all give me equally blank looks and for a second I panic that I was never really invited out in the first place. Until I remember that I was the one that did the inviting.
“What?” They’re still looking at me. Maybe I’ve overdone it on the eyeshadow…
“I was just showing Aaron photos of your fit stepbrother,” Anj says with a grin. “You know, the one I’ve crushed on since for ever. His leaving party looks like a night to remember.”
“It was,” I say and summon up a smile.
AARON
We move inside and I hold the door open, letting Gideon and Anj through, followed by Hannah. There’s a distant look in her eyes as if her mind is in a different time and place and I wonder what she’s thinking about. I think we creeped her out with how odd we were about Jay’s Facebook photos. It’s hard to explain that we acted like that because we’d just been re-evaluating Hannah’s hotness.
Whilst Gideon and Anj get snacks I wait for Hannah by the ticket machine, subtly checking her out as she frowns at the screen. Whatever effort she put into this outfit — a lot given the way it hides her middle yet shows off the shape of her bum and legs — it’s less try-hard than anything she ever wore to the park.
It looks good.
HANNAH
When I turn away from the machine I catch Aaron looking at me.
“What?” I’m sick of this. What is it with these guys tonight?
Aaron smiles — the nicest of his smiles, one where there’s nothing more than a secretive curve to his lips. “I like your outfit.”
Oh. Well. He’s forgiven, then.
I fall into step beside him to join the others and I smile at the ground.
Aaron cares what I look like.
MONDAY 25TH JANUARY
HANNAH
For the first time in ever I’m looking forward to school today. Which is not like me. At. All.
It’s because I want to see my friends. Actual more-than-one-who-I-see-all-the-time friends. Plural. It’s not like I wasn’t friendly with Anj and Gideon before now, but I don’t know if I’d have said we were mates or anything. Not like with Katie.
The stupid thing is that if I’d never started hanging out with Katie, then I’d have probably been mates with Anj and Gideon instead. Anj is the only one here who went to my primary — she lived on the same road as me and we were regular trick-or-treat partners. On hot weekends Anj would come and play in my paddling pool — she still came over even once we moved in with Robert on the other side of town. The summer before we moved up to Kingsway, the summer after Lola was born, Anj and I spent most of our time running in and out of the sprinkler system on the back lawn. Once we ran out of breath, we’d go inside to get drinks, wearing T-shirts over our swimsuits in case Jay had his friends round — then act more mature if he did. None of them ever noticed.
My first day at Kingsway was terrifying. There are thousands of kids and the buildings are massive. I don’t think I’ve ever felt smaller — but at least Anj was there being small with me.
It wasn’t until halfway through the first term that I started hanging around Katie. She was really gobby and I’d been a bit scared of her, but we eventually bonded over a hatred of PE. Anj has always been sporty and she got picked first for everything, even by the boys. I was always one of the last to be chosen because I was so short and skinny; Katie because she’d decided it was better to give off CBA vibes than try something and fail. We’d end up sitting on the subs bench together and friendship followed from there.
One of the other reasons Katie was never picked was because she isn’t a team player and that attitude goes for everything, including friends. As we became mates she began edging Anj out. She’d invite me somewhere and never mention Anj. I’d sit next to Anj in a lesson and Katie would come right up to the desk and ask me to sit with her at lunch. When she invited me to her birthday party, I assumed that everyone in the class had been invited. They had — everyone except Anj. Stupidly, I’d felt special. When we started at Kingsway, out of the two of us, Anj was the one people talked to. I was just “Anj’s friend”. No one even knew my name. For someone to pick me instead felt good.
It didn’t take long before Katie was the only one coming to my house and the person Anj spent the most time with wasn’t me, but Gideon. It wasn’t a big deal when it happened — it wasn’t as if we’d started school with matching friendship bracelets — but I wish it had been. If Anj had ever asked me what I was doing, I might have actually thought about the choice I was making.
That summer I invited Katie round to our house on one of the hottest days of the year. I got my costume out and I started early in the sprinkler so that when Katie arrived I was already slick from the spray. She’d eyed me up and down when I answered the door.
“That’s what you wear in the garden?”
“Yeah. What’s wrong with it?” I’d looked down at the swimming costume I’d got to go on holiday with Dad at Easter. It was purple with a sporty white swash across my very flat tummy.
“Nothing.” Katie had shrugged and walked in, then she’d taken off her clothes to reveal a bikini so small that it barely hid her early developments in the boob department.
We’d gone outside and I’d stood like a useless purple lump as Katie pulled out a sun lounger and lay down on it, stretching herself out like a cat. Ten minutes later, Jay came and sat on the end of the lounger to talk to her. I sat on the grass and watched them.
The next day I begged Mum to take me shopping for a bikini.
WEDNESDAY 3RD FEBRUARY
AARON
It’s cold, it’s windy and tiny droplets of drizzle lash what little of my face is exposed to the elements. How I ended up being roped into going to the corner shop to buy Hannah an ice cream is beyond me. I’m even more bewildered that I’ve been tasked to bring back treats for Anj and Gideon as well.
The bell on the door is broken, which suits me fine when I see who’s browsing the magazines as I walk in the shop. Katie’s hair is plastered to her head and there’s a distinct shiver to her stance. Thankfully, she’s too distracted to notice me walk to the freezer. By the time I’ve collected everything, Katie’s moved on to arguing with the shopkeeper about serving her cigarettes. There’s a stash of gossip magazines and various diet drinks on the counter in front of her. I guess as bottom feeder of the WAG hierarchy it’s her job to brave the rain and fetch supplies. I could be accused of hypocrisy here, since Katie’s going to get more enjoyment out of those magazines than I will out of this Feast, Gideon’s banana milkshake or Anj’s disgusting prawn-cocktail crisps, but at the end of the day I’m aware of the difference between buying refreshments and buying friendship.