Cross Her Heart(18)

‘I can’t see him tonight. My mum won’t let me out in the week while the exams are on.’

‘Your mum never wants to let you out past eight,’ Ange says. ‘Like primary school.’

‘She’s got better,’ I answer. It’s true, she has. And as much as she drives me mad, I still have pangs of loyalty to her. It’s always been just us and now I’m growing up and abandoning her. I don’t mind slagging her off myself but it bothers me when Ange does it.

‘Ava!’ The voice sounds distant through the door but instantly recognisable.

‘Jesus, what is she, psychic?’ Jodie says and smiles. It’s not malicious like Ange was. She gets it. Weird mums club.

‘Ava! Can you come down here for a second?’

I groan and roll my eyes as if this is the biggest pain in the arse, but actually I’m pleased to get off the topic of Courtney. I know I’m not behaving as they expect so I’m trying to cover my tracks. I made some comment to Ange at lunch about him being needy, so while I’m out of the room she can share that snippet with the others. We’re best friends. We talk about each other almost as much as we talk to each other. MyBitches. Sometimes the WhatsApp group name is too true. The group is like a hub, but then we splinter off to discuss the things one of the others says that pisses us off.

As I slouch down the stairs I wonder if boys’ friendships are the same as girls’. Do they give a shit about the minutiae – a look or comment or a pound of weight or two put on – the stuff we so obsess about and judge each other on? I don’t think so. I don’t think they have the same high expectations of each other that girls do. We demand everything of each other and it’s impossible to deliver.

Still, when it comes to the crunch we may be bitchy at times, but we have each other’s backs.

‘Did you knock this off?’ She’s standing by the hall table holding a broken photo – it’s a picture of the two of us from a few years ago. Alton Towers? Marilyn took it, I think. The glass is smashed in the frame.

‘Nope.’ I’d forgotten it was even there.

‘What about the other one?’

‘What other one?’ She looks angry, her soft, doughy face pinched and tight, and I feel suddenly defensive. She never gets angry. Disappointed and hurt and all that shit, but rarely angry. My loyalty of moments ago fades.

‘There was another picture here. Of you. Your first day of Year Eight. It’s gone.’

‘You must have moved it.’ I don’t know what the big deal is. They’re just old photos.

‘I didn’t,’ she snaps.

‘Well it’s nothing to do with me!’ I bite back; it doesn’t take much to light the touchpaper between us.

‘What about your friends? Could they have done it? By accident? Maybe thrown the other one away?’

‘No. They’d have said. They’re not idiots.’

She’s looking down at our younger faces through the broken glass as if this is some major deal.

‘Can I go now?’ I’m surly. All my guilt, the sex, him, bubbling out in moodiness. He tells me she’s too clingy. She should let me be free. He’s right. He understands me. She wants me to stay a little girl.

‘If it was you, tell me. I won’t be angry.’

And there it is. The pleading tone along with the pathetic facial expression that makes all the fine lines on her forehead and around her mouth crease and deepen.

‘For God’s sake!’ I explode, as if she’s accused me of stealing or something. My jaw tightens as rage surges through me. My fingers curl into claws. I feel more animal than human. ‘I’ve already told you! No! Anyway, they’re just stupid old photos, so who cares! Maybe it’s a poltergeist or something!’ I don’t wait for her response but turn and stomp back up the stairs.

‘Oh, and my exams went fine – thank you for asking!’ I send the words down to her with enough venom to make them poison arrows in the heart and leave her there, clinging to the old photo frame. Maybe that’s why I’m so angry. She misses those days. I know she does. And I do too. Life was simpler then, with no tits and no sex and no becoming something new, but I can’t help growing up – I want to grow up – and she needs to let me get on with it.

‘Everything okay?’ Ange asks when I close the bedroom door firmly behind me.

‘Yeah. Exam stuff. You know.’ I force a smile. It’s a lie, and I have a feeling Jodie knows it because as I pass her she flashes me a sympathetic look the others can’t see. Weird mums club. That, or they all heard me shouting.

‘Jodie was telling us how she likes old men.’ Lizzie snorts as I flop on my bed. ‘So gross.’

‘I said older, not old.’

‘I don’t think it’s gross.’ I try to sound nonchalant. ‘A lot of older guys are hot.’

‘I don’t think she means like thirty.’

‘Neither do I. Brad Pitt’s still hot and he’s fifty or something.’

‘I don’t care what you say,’ Jodie lets their mocking disgust wash over her. ‘It’s true. Older men have something.’

‘Experience,’ Lizzie says and giggles. ‘And cash.’

‘Your dad’s pretty hot, Lizzie.’ Jodie leans forward, enjoying the conversation. ‘How old is he? Forty-four? Forty-five?’