Undone(20)

‘Don’t you want to find out who did it?’

Louise shrugged and went back to staring out of the window. There was a game of football going on. Stu Hicks was in the middle of some complicated goal celebration. Max and Lucas were high-fiving each other like something genuinely amazing had just happened rather than some poxy goal against the lads from the year below. Boys were pathetic sometimes. She eventually turned to face me. ‘What does it matter? What’s done is done.’

‘How can you say that? We could go to the police or something. There are laws against this sort of thing . . .’ I wasn’t quite sure this was true, but it sounded like it could be.

‘You really think Kai wants the police seeing that video? Yeah, that would make everything so much better. Kai would be even more humiliated and you’d be even less popular than you are already . . . if that’s even possible.’

‘I don’t give a f*ck about being popular! I just want to find out who did this to him. And if you don’t give a crap, I’ll just have to do it myself.’

‘Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?’ Strangely enough, I was completely aware of how ridiculous I sounded.

I wanted to hurt her. ‘Is everything OK with you and Max?’ I asked in my sweetest, most innocent voice.

She blinked quickly a few times. ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but things are going great.’

‘Really? Because it sort of looked like you were fighting at the party the other night?’

She shrugged her shoulders and grabbed her bag from the windowsill. ‘That was nothing. It’s half the fun of being in a relationship . . . having little disagreements. It’s totally worth it for the make-up sex.’ She smirked. ‘You know how it is, don’t you? Oh wait. You don’t . . . I forget you’ve never had a boyfriend. Silly me.’

She patted me on the shoulder and left me standing there thinking of all the things I could have said. The best I could come up with was, Well, at least I’m not a slag. And that would have been lame by anyone’s standards.

I hated that girl almost as much as I loved her brother. It was as if she’d become the price I had to pay to have someone as amazing as Kai in my life. On balance, it was a price worth paying. But at that moment, standing alone in that classroom, my cheeks burning with shame . . . it was a close-run thing.

The school day had one more unpleasant thing to throw at me before it spat me out at three thirty. I bumped into Stu in the corridor between lessons. And when I say ‘bumped into’, I mean it literally. I’d swear in a court of law that he did it on purpose, but I’d never be able to prove it.

‘Oops! Sorry!’ Because that’s what you say when you bump into someone, before you realize it’s someone you’d gladly headbutt (again).

He grabbed my shoulders as if he was trying to steady me – except I’d never been in any danger of falling over. I was very aware of his thumbs pressing into my collarbones. ‘Oh, it’s you!’

‘Er . . . can I just . . . ? I’m going to be late for maths.’

Instead of letting go, he leaned towards me and whispered in my ear. ‘Always late for something, aren’t you? Curfew . . . maths . . . I wonder what’s next . . . Late for your period, perhaps? No, of course not. How could you possibly get laid when you spend all your time following that little gay boy around?’ His face was so close to mine that people must have thought something was going on between us. He laughed and kissed me on the cheek before I had a chance to dodge him.

I rubbed my cheek with the sleeve of my jumper. ‘Don’t ever touch me again.’

‘Don’t you worry about that. I wouldn’t touch you if someone paid me.’ He did this fake shuddery thing as if he found me physically repulsive.

‘Ditto. Shame you didn’t feel that way on Saturday.’ I don’t know why I was talking back to him. I don’t know where the courage came from. Normally I would just scurry away without saying anything.

‘Yeah . . . about Saturday . . . that was a dare, you stupid little f*ck. What’s your excuse, eh?’

‘You’re lying.’

‘Whatever you say, darlin’. Whatever you say. Anyway, it’s been nice talking to you, but I’d better be off. Things to see, people to do.’

He swaggered off down the hallway, leaving me standing there feeling . . . feeling what exactly? It was hard to separate all the different things I was feeling at that moment. Angry, definitely. Annoyed. Embarrassed. I could handle those three. They were what you’d expect. But there was something else lurking at the edges. Something like disappointment. Something like sadness. And that made no sense whatsoever.





chapter twelve


I went straight round to Kai’s after school and was surprised that he was the one to answer the door. I was doubly surprised to find him smiling. He ushered me in and we went straight upstairs. He bounded up there like an overenthusiastic puppy. I trudged up there like I’d had the worst day ever. Which I pretty much had.

Kai sat down at his desk. There were three empty cups, which was unusual – he was usually so fastidious.

‘Um . . . you seem . . . better?’

‘I am better, thanks.’

‘Really?’ I wasn’t buying it – considering the state he’d been in the night before.