Chapter One

Bryony

Most Likely to Become Famous

There are few people I truly loathe in this world, but Steph O Connell and her sparking the idea for this school reunion is one of them. I m a close second on the list, right now, for going along with it all.

The balloon-arch delivery guy is competing to take my second-place spot, though, after shrugging his shoulders and saying that the assembly isn t part of his job and meaning that I m spending my free period at the end of the day wrestling with hundreds of blue and silver and white balloons, tying them to the framework of an arch per the YouTube tutorial I ve just found.

You know, says Yaz, one of the history teachers, who started here around the same time as I did, considering you re seeing all your old schoolmates and hosting an epic party tonight, you don t look very excited about it.

Oh, no. What gave you that impression? I m super excited.

The words slip out with a growl - an actual, honest-to-God growl - as I wrangle a bunch of balloons into place on the wire frame. Yaz just laughs. She must put my stress down to the last-minute change in schedule to deal with the decorations because she just says, B, relax, it s gonna be fine. Everybody s going to love it. Plus, you know - it s in the school hall. They re hardly expecting the Oscars, are they?

That s exactly the problem though, and I can t bear to explain it to Yaz. I have a sneaking suspicion she has her own sneaking suspicions about me, but admitting it out loud is Ugh. A full-on shiver rolls down my spine. It s unthinkable. Unconscionable.

I didn t intend to be the one organising the entire reunion, but somehow it ended up like that after I mentioned I could help out and then suddenly half the damn year group were jumping on the bandwagon, thanking me for arranging it Steph was always in charge of stuff like that when we were in school. Even bloody Ashleigh used to organise talent shows and fundraisers and things. I just showed up, the life and soul of the party.

But I guess that was a long time ago, and we re all different people now.

For example, Steph is not the defacto organiser extraordinaire anymore. The rugby lads have proper jobs now. Trendy Elise from my A-level English lit class spent three years living on a farm in New Zealand. And I am a liar.

Something surges up from my stomach to sting the back of my throat, hot and acidic and violent. I think it might be shame, but the thought spooks me so much I decide to call it plain old panic instead.

It s okay, though. It s just one night. I ve been - well, not lying , exactly, but vaguely untruthful, for years on my social media. That s way more difficult to maintain than breezing through a few face-to-face interactions, especially when everybody will show up with such a solid preconceived notion of who Bryony Adams is these days.

They ll show up expecting glamour, and glitz, exactly as would be befitting of a starlet like myself. Fun stories of times I bumped into hotshot actors and rubbed shoulders with household names, tales of parties and places they can only imagine. It s - just another role to act. That s all.

And I can do that.

No, you can t, and that s why you re scrambling to save face.

I shove the nasty little thought aside and take a deep breath. I can t let intrusive thoughts like that win. Not today. I have to get into character. I have to become the Bryony they re all expecting me to be. The one I ve been touting online for the last ten years.

Yaz and I finish up the balloon arch, swapping gossip about the maths teachers who are shagging and think they re being subtle about it, whinging about our Year Nines who have totally checked out now they re dropping our subjects come September, and gloating about the Year Eleven prank to hide dead fish in the staffroom that got scuppered thanks to Yaz overhearing some boys plotting by the bike shed when she was on duty the other lunchtime. It s enough to take my mind off anything except my mental checklist of party preparations, and I m glad she was free to help me out so I m not left alone with my own thoughts and guilt.

(Panic. Panic , not guilt.)

Between the two of us, the hall is transformed. The caretakers cleared away the rows of chairs for school assemblies earlier and, without them, the space is bigger than I ever realised. A cheap, synthetic roll of red carpet runs from the double doors to the centre of the stage. The balloon arch, finally complete but ever so slightly wonky, is set against a stretch of blank wall with a box of photo-booth supplies next to it - cardboard glasses, feather boas, moustaches on sticks, the lot. There s a long trestle table set up, with packs of paper cups and plates ready to go. I ll bring the snacks and soft drinks in later, and the dinner ladies are generously making a vat of fruit punch they ll leave out for the party. Yaz and I arrange a few chairs I asked the caretakers to leave behind into small groups, rather than the strict interlinked rows they d usually form. There s a guest book, and a box of felt-tips and markers I borrowed from the geography department - although how many of them actually work is anyone s guess.

As a finishing touch, I Blu-Tack posters up around the hall, covering some of the displays and the windows with them. I ve printed out all the Most Likely To s from our old digital yearbook. I ve got a slideshow to put up, but this will be fun too.

And, most importantly, it means that right now, I get to stick a piece of paper over the big MEET OUR STAFF! board, where there is a passport-sized photo of my face smiling out from the position of Head of Drama.

I cover an entire section of the board with a large print-out of eighteen-year-old me striding across the stage in this very hall dressed up in gingham for my role as Dorothy in the school play that summer. For a second, I let my fingers trail over the edge of the photo. The memory of that performance is so visceral I can feel the chafe of cheap tulle against my legs, hear the cheers of the standing ovation I got. It felt like the beginning of the rest of my life.

My eyes drift from the photo to the words above it. My name, my predicted future.

Most likely to become famous.

Yeah, right.