33. Before

After my little porn bonfire, I can't sleep. Not for the whole night. I give up at sunrise and shower, hoping no one will hear the boiler. The mirror confirms I hate each individual part of me.

And so I pick up my scissors and cut off my hair so I'm not me any more. The dark cuttings stick to my damp toes.

But I'm still me. And now I look like a mushroom. So I'll have to hide until it grows back. Plus ?a change.

My mum demands to take me to school herself but I say nothing and she doesn't make me talk. I shouldn't have cut my hair. I shouldn't have made her worry about me and risk her wanting to know why I did it.

But maybe she isn't worried. Maybe she hasn't noticed. Not really.

At school, as per, I eat my lunch balanced on my legs in the toilets, stopping chewing, stopping breathing, whenever I hear the door open and girls flood in.

Twice I'm mentioned.

‘She took them down, right? It wasn't, like, her mum swooping in and saving her poor darling and putting us all in the shitter?'

And, ‘My favourite was the massive lesbo-sheep-athon. It all makes sense now, doesn't it? Why she was so desperate to hang out with the pretty girls?'

So, I'm a lesbian now? Who knew this fancy school was home to homophobic troglodytes? I let my sandwich drop in the bin.

That might be nice, actually. If there were something to pin this on. If, in the orchard, Princess had called me a dirty dyke. And then I could get the world's hottest girlfriend to burn them all to cinders for me.

I decide to go contemplate suicide in the library. At least no one talks in there.

I head down the stairs, into the corridor, my eyes on the tiles – if you can't see them, they can't see you – and walk slap bang into… oh shit.

Wide blue eyes, slightly too far apart, lips like a bow, red hair neatly swept back under a purple Alice band: Spanish.

Whip was always going to fall in line behind Princess, behind Don. But what had Spanish ever had against me? Had she really taken up agricultural porn collage, just to torture me?

‘Did you do it?' I say, not caring any more about self-preservation.

Her slow cat eyes search the hallway.

‘What did I ever do to you? What have I done to deserve this?'

She spies Princess at the same time as I do, standing in a classroom doorway, watching. Spanish fixes her face in a smile.

Her backpack is only on one shoulder and I grab it so fast she can't stop me. I shake it upside-down, but only books and a make-up bag and an apple fall out. As if she'd be carrying porn around the next day.

Behind her, Princess catches my eye then slips past and pushes into the toilets. Our toilets. With the vent for hiding things.

Spanish's smile fades as the door closes behind Princess. ‘It wasn't my idea,' she says.

‘But you went along with it.'

‘You shouldn't have been so mean to Princess,' she says, her jaw jutting.

‘When was I mean?'

She scowls. ‘In the orchard? You pushed her over? The night of that shitty party?'

‘I pushed her? She pushed me! She?—'

Spanish snorts and I throw the bag at her.

Behind her, Princess exits the toilets and studies me before walking away. My heart pounds. I push past Spanish, into the toilets, and head for the third cubicle on the right.

I pull out the vent cover and trace my fingers inside over cool, rough bricks, hating myself for wanting so desperately to find something there.

And then I feel it: the edge of a piece of paper.

I scrabble at it, pushing it further into the hole, and I can feel tears starting. But then I have it. It's written in Princess's neat, rounded handwriting, like the good old days, except it isn't just a stupid joke.

I'm sorry. Let me explain. Meet me in the fox field after school. xx

She's drawn a heart around PD + BS 4 EVA at the bottom, which makes me pause because Don once drew that on one of her school books, teasing her about how close we were, but she had just told him to piss off and covered it in pink glitter.

I fold the note and put it in my wallet.

After school are the first of Miss Smith's one-to-ones. Twenty minutes each, they start at four. I know Don and Princess have theirs tonight. So Princess will have to come out to meet me then hurry back.

Or maybe Miss Smith will come to her senses and cancel them. Already the gossips are wondering which scene she'll do with Don. They haven't stretched their imaginations: Romeo and Juliet, Act 1 Scene 5, with the kiss.

I guess I'll find out after lunch. Or not. Maybe – obviously – I should just skip drama and go wait in the clearing. Because can I really face acting in front of anyone who saw those pictures?

Why am I even thinking about going to the fox field? About talking to her?

A normal person would probably go to their mum, explain how their former best friends decorated their common room with pornographic pictures, kind of but not quite of them, and ask for help. But obviously I can't ask for my mum's advice. It would break her.

I rinse my face and push back into the hallway, still bustling, and I feel like my knees are going to buckle – all these people looking at me, at my stupid hair – and I can't take it. I hurry out, ignoring everybody laughing, pointing, a couple even following me, pretending to ask if I'm okay.

My back slickens with sweat, and as soon as I'm beyond the gates I slip into the trees and sit on the cool earth.

I don't skip classes. Never ever.

What will Miss Smith say?

And then I feel sick because I know this means we'll have to have a conversation. I can't skive her class and expect not to be asked why.

I lie in the shadows telling myself I'm not going to meet Princess, but knowing I am.

I watch the shifting coins of sky between the leaves until I hear the final bell – school is over – and all the buses hum past and then the traffic starts to thin. I get up and start walking.

It's only been three hours but it feels like years and my stomach aches. I wish I hadn't tossed away the rest of my lunch.

I can't believe I'm going to the clearing. What am I going to say to her? She can't pretend there's some reason for this, that it can all just go away.

But she's my best friend. I sound like a whining baby but she is. I remember lying head to head in the long grass, staring up at the sky and saying that sometimes I forgot we weren't the same person.

I pick up a long, thin branch and slash at the overgrown verge.

And then, like a phantom, a car rolls up next to me, its window rolled down.

Miss Smith leans towards me, over the passenger seat. I keep walking.

‘You want a lift?' she says.

I take a wide swipe with my stick and take the feathery head off some Timothy grass. ‘I thought you had your one-to-ones.'

‘I'm just popping home for something.'

Just popping home, or looking for me?

‘Come on, ride with me.'

I drop the stick and turn to face her. There's no judgement there, no hurt, just a wide smile, her eyes gently sparkling. Miss Smith. She's just perfect, isn't she?