Sinking onto a boulder, I took my shoes and socks off and dangled my feet in a sun-warm rock pool. The sea was smooth and sparkly, as if someone had strewn thousands of tiny crystals across the surface. To my right, a toddler was splashing in the shallows and squealing with delight. Further down the beach, a group of teenagers was playing beach volleyball.

  Trailing my hand through the water, I was so absorbed in the blurry outline of my fingers that I didn’t even hear him until he was right behind me.

  ‘Mac.’

  I startled as Will touched my shoulder.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, withdrawing his hand.

  ‘It’s OK.’ I gave him a tentative smile. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Fine. Great day, isn’t it?’ Will sat next to me, as if he hadn’t been avoiding me all week, ever since the kissing incident last Saturday. Well. I was happy to not be ignored.

  I gazed at the craggy outline of Rangitoto. ‘It’s really nice. Like summer, almost.’

  ‘Almost.’ Will’s feet were bare, sand stuck to his knees. ‘Some of us are playing volleyball, if you want to join us.’

  ‘I’m useless at volleyball.’ Worried he’d think I was brushing him off, I added, ‘But I could come and watch.’

  He smiled. ‘Cool. We thought we’d get fish’n’chips.’

  ‘I’m good at eating fish’n’chips.’ I stood up, slipping a little on the rocks, and Will steadied me.

  ‘Um,’ he said. ‘About last week—’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I touched him on the hip, just above the line of his shorts, and my unravelled heart sped up. Will looked back at me, his expression inscrutable. I guess he was probably thinking he couldn’t read me either. I could have told him that’s because my emotions were inscrutable too, even to me, but I know this: loneliness can make you feel as though you’re drowning, can kill you, even. So I kissed him on the cheek. I could see he didn’t know what to do.

  ‘Mac,’ he said. We were standing so close I could feel his breath stirring into my nostrils.

  I lowered my head. ‘I’ve been a bit confused.’

  Will stroked my cheek, lifted my chin. From down the beach, I heard cheering and music. This time when he kissed me, I didn’t pull away.

  Oh Jesus, what am I doing?

  Surviving. That’s what I’m doing.

  DAY 100

  Today, Will and I went for a walk in the bush above the beach. It was one of those days where it’s raining one minute and sunny the next, and sometimes both at once. The air smelt of rain-damp soil and wet leaves, and everything seemed shiny and new.

  Halfway along, we sat on a sloping bank overlooking the ocean to eat the picnic lunch Will had prepared. He’s sweet like that. Five weeks together, and he’s the light at the end of a very long tunnel.

  I wasn’t expecting that.

  ‘Not long until school breaks up.’ Will bit the end off a strawberry.

  ‘Just over a month.’ We’d have study leave and then exams. ‘Goodbye, high school.’

  ‘That’ll be weird. Everyone going off in their different directions.’ Will reached up and touched the corner of my mouth, flicking away a breadcrumb. ‘After all these years.’

  ‘Yeah. But I’m ready for something new.’ I plucked a daisy out of the soil. ‘It’s been a pretty crappy year.’

  ‘Sure has,’ he agreed, and I knew he was thinking about Sophie A too. ‘But then … there’s us. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘A great thing.’ I bent forward to kiss him.

  Here’s the thing. Kissing your best guy friend may not always be fireworks and rockets, but it can feel good in other ways. All I want is to be held, and loved, and Will does both of those things. Not just that, but he makes me feel safe.

  Will pushed me back into the grass and we fooled around for a bit. Nothing too crazy — I’m not ready for that yet. But as we lay beneath the kaleidoscope sky, I thought maybe one day I could fall in love with him. Maybe I could.

  DAY 126

  Petra, the head girl, had a Halloween party tonight, even though it’s two days since Halloween. She invited most of our year at school. I went dressed as a witch. Will was a giant pumpkin. Mitchell Henare arrived in a black jumpsuit with a skeleton embossed on the front.

  I had a good time at first. After downing a couple of RTDs, I went through the haunted house with Will, and we had a bit of fun in a dark corner. We haven’t gone all the way yet. It’s kind of fun to wait, unlike with James.

  I don’t want to think about that. Once school finishes, I’m hoping never to see James Bacon again.

  Once it got dark, we sat around a bonfire in the back yard, drinking and swapping stories about old times.

  ‘Remember when we asked your dad if we could borrow a screwdriver one night and we used it to nick all those road signs?’ Will asked Mitchell.

  Mitchell took a swig of beer. ‘Oh yeah, I’ve still got that Stop sign above my bed,’ he said, his speech slightly slurred.

  ‘My mother made me take my Give Way sign back,’ Will said. ‘I had to put the screws back in and everything.’

  ‘Remember when we had that race with the shopping trolleys in year nine?’ the Crazy German asked.

  ‘Was that the one where Twiggy fell out and broke her arm?’ Will said. ‘Where is she, anyway?’

  ‘She said she had a headache when I texted her earlier,’ Petra said. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t Twiggy who fell out, it was Sophie A. Don’t you remember the hot-pink cast?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Will said, and everyone fell silent. The fire crackled, sparks flying into the endless night. Mitchell, wordlessly, stood up and sloped towards the house.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Petra asked.

  ‘He’s probably just going for a pee.’ Will found my hand in the darkness and gave it a squeeze.

  Peter cleared his throat. ‘Remember when …’ he began. Soon everyone was laughing again, but a little too loud, as if they were trying to chase the bad spirits out of the back yard.

  Spirits. Spirit.

  ‘Just going to the loo,’ I whispered in Will’s ear, before walking across the lawn. I was almost inside when I saw a shadowy figure in the deck chair to my left — a solitary figure holding a bottle.

  ‘Hey.’ I took a step back.

  ‘Hey.’ Mitchell sounded nasal, as if he had a cold.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Sort of. Yeah.’ Something about the way he said that made me hesitate, then move over to sit in the chair beside him.

  ‘Southern Cross,’ I said, looking up at the stars. Mitchell didn’t reply, but I could hear his ragged breathing and the way he kept sniffing. Oh.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I couldn’t see his features very well, but I was pretty sure he was crying, or had been.

  ‘I dunno.’ From inside I heard the loud, unrestrained laughter of Petra’s little brother and his friends. I hugged myself — it was pretty cool away from the fire — and kept my gaze on the sky.

  ‘It’s hard,’ Mitchell said, ‘when people pretend it’s like Sophie A never existed.’

  I swallowed. ‘Yeah. It is.’ But it was protective too; every mention of her still gave me a plunging sensation in my chest.

  ‘What do you think happened, Mac? Do you think someone really took her, or do you think—’

  ‘Think what?’ I glanced at him.

  Mitchell looked away. ‘Do you think she wanted to disappear? Do you think she might have hurt herself, even?’

  ‘As in, did she take her own life?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He set his beer bottle on the ground, swiped a wrist beneath his nose. ‘Do you think she could have done that?’

  ‘Well,’ I said carefully, ‘I guess it’s possible.’

  He gripped the sides of the chair. ‘Come on, Mac, you were closer to Sophie A than anyone, weren’t you?’

  ‘Apart from Twiggy,’ I said, but Mitchell shook his head.

  ‘No. No, she’d never have told Twiggy, no way. But she told you, didn’t she? At least, she said she did.’

  ‘Told me what?’

  Mitchell waited for a couple of kids wearing Scream masks to hurtle past before leaning towards me. ‘About being pregnant,’ he said.

  My heart began to hammer. ‘S-she told you about that?’

  ‘So you did know?’ He squinted at me.

  ‘A couple of nights before she went missing. She wouldn’t tell me who it was.’ Why would she have told Mitchell, unless … oh no. I tried to slow my breathing. ‘When did she tell you?’

  ‘On the day she went missing.’ He swallowed. ‘I told her she needed to sort it out before both our lives got ruined, and she was so upset. God, I was just so shocked, it was like the first thing that came out of my mouth. I tried to call her on Friday night, but I never got a reply, and then — then—’

  ‘Wait. Whoa. You guys were together?’ How had I missed that?

  ‘Just the once,’ he said. ‘At Arthur George’s party.’

  ‘The pool party?’ I said, remembering how I’d spent half the night talking to Will, how I’d driven both Twiggy and Sophie A home.

  ‘Uh-huh. We were both so drunk. Afterwards she said, This can’t happen again. Twiggy really likes you, she’d never forgive me. So we kept it a secret.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I said, and I remembered helping Sophie A get undressed that night, remembered the blood in her underwear — sodding periods — and I remembered her standing on the rock too, her eyes wide as she tried to tell me, but I never let her. I never did.

  It was just once.

  ‘She said she told you,’ Mitchell insisted.

  My brain felt as if it were going to explode. ‘She told me she was pregnant. She didn’t say it was you.’

  What’s going on, Mac? Why are you so angry?

  ‘Who did you think it was?’ Mitchell wasn’t even bothering to whisper now.

  ‘I don’t know, she wouldn’t tell me.’ Fresh waves of horror rippled through me. No, no, no.

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ he said. ‘If I hadn’t been such a bastard …’

  I grabbed his arm. ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, it’s not your fault. You’ve got to believe me.’

  You’ve got to believe me, it wasn’t him.

  ‘But do you think she could have done something to herself? Do you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, which was a version of the truth, or at least I thought it was. ‘I think maybe she could have.’

  ‘Fuck.’ He slumped into the chair.

  ‘Here you are. I was getting worried about you.’ Will was standing beside me, holding a bag of giant marshmallows.

  ‘Sorry, lost track of time.’ I stood up. ‘And I still haven’t gone to the loo.’

  ‘Must have been an exciting conversation,’ Will said when I got back to the bonfire a couple of minutes later.

  ‘Oh, Mitchell’s just really drunk, wouldn’t stop talking,’ I said, keeping my tone light even though my heart was still going so fast I felt ill.

  ‘Yeah, where is Henare?’ Peter asked, throwing a fresh lump of wood on the fire.

  ‘Probably passed out on the front lawn,’ Elijah said, and everyone laughed, except for me.

  I can’t sleep. I’m too scared Sophie A will chase me into my dreams.

  It’s one hundred and twenty-six days since she went missing. I thought things were getting better, but now it’s all looming up again, the memories I thought I’d moulded into a shape I could cope with.

  You could have any guy you wanted.

  You’ve got to believe me, it wasn’t him.

  Any guy.

  Wasn’t him.

  She stepped back

  Spread her arms

  And the sea rose up

  Do you think she could have done something to herself?

  Yes. I think maybe she could have.

  And the rain fell and fell and fell.

  DAY 128

  It’s been another crazy day.

  I can’t think straight. I don’t know what is right or wrong anymore.

  It all started with the message from Will this morning. I’d only just woken up, and reached for my phone to see he’d messaged me at 7.35, only ten minutes earlier.

  Just heard that Mitchell was taken to hospital last night. Parents found him in the garage around midnight.

  ‘What?’ I sat up and rang him.

  ‘Hey.’ Will’s voice had an echo.

  ‘Are you in the toilet?’

  ‘No, settle down, I just got out of the shower. Did you get my message?’

  ‘That’s why I’m calling you. What’s happened to Mitchell?’

  I heard a tap running, Will clearing his throat.

  ‘So, Mitch tried to gas himself,’ he said. ‘In his dad’s car.’

  My stomach plunged. ‘Oh shit.’

  ‘I know, I’m gutted. Did he say anything when you were talking to him at the party?’

  ‘He didn’t say he was planning to kill himself, no,’ I snapped, then felt bad. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK. Jesus, I feel sick. I didn’t know he was feeling depressed. Maybe that’s why he got so trashed on Friday.’

  ‘Maybe.’ I tugged on the curtain. Grey sky. The inside of my head was black, black, black. ‘He did seem … really down. I mean, he was.’

  ‘Yeah?’ The echo had gone. I pictured Will walking down the hallway to his bedroom, a towel wrapped around his waist.

  ‘Um,’ I said. ‘Can I come over?’

  Will’s house was, as always, in a semi-chaotic state. I followed him into his bedroom, past the younger sisters having an argument over whose turn it was to empty the dishwasher and his dad, who was sitting at the dining-room table with a newspaper and a plunger of coffee. No one even seemed to notice I was there.

  ‘Sorry,’ Will said, closing the door against the noise.

  ‘Don’t apologise.’ I sat on his bed and hugged a pillow to my chest. ‘Sometimes I wish my house was like this.’

  ‘Swap you.’ He sat next to me. ‘Sucks about Mitchell, huh?’

  A tremor passed through me. ‘Really sucks.’

  ‘Mac,’ he said softly, ‘I heard he’s going to be OK. They got him out in time.’

  ‘Yeah, but I need to tell you why he did that.’ I looked down at our interlaced fingers. Could I trust him? Well, who else could I trust? I needed to let some of the poison out, before it destroyed me, and everyone else around me.

  Like Mitchell. Was that my fault? If I’d called the police that night, would Mitchell still be blaming himself?

  I don’t know, I don’t know.

  ‘Is that what you guys were talking about on Friday night?’ Will asked.

  ‘Uh-huh.’ A door slammed and I jumped. ‘Um, maybe we should go somewhere more private.’

  ‘Dad’s taking the girls to netball,’ Will said as a car engine tumbled into life.

  He lay back, pulling me down beside him. ‘Relax, huh?’

  ‘Easy for you to say.’ I’d never cried in front of Will before. Unlike when I’d cried in front of James, my biceps weren’t throbbing from his grip, but my head was spinning in an all-too-familiar way. ‘If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone?’

  Will stroked my cheeks, collecting tears. ‘I promise.’

  I gulped. Revelation number one. ‘So, Sophie A was pregnant. She told me two days before she went missing.’

  His eyes grew big. ‘Really? Crap.’

  ‘Yeah, she was really stressed out. She wouldn’t tell me who it was. I thought … I thought I knew. But the other night, Mitchell told me he and Sophie A got together at Arthur George’s party, do you remember?’

  ‘I remember the party,’ Will said slowly. ‘But I don’t remember that.’

  ‘They kept it under the radar. I didn’t know either. But he said she told him he was the father.’

  Will frowned. ‘But who did you think it was?’

  I took a deep breath. Revelation number two.

  ‘I thought it was a teacher.’

  Will’s mouth dropped open. ‘A teacher? Who?’

  ‘James Bacon,’ I said, and his eyes grew even wider.

  ‘Has this got something to do with the kissing in the car thing?’

  ‘Yeah, but I was wrong.’ I took another deep breath. ‘The reason I thought that it was Mr Bacon was … Well, I was jealous.’

  ‘Jealous.’ He drew away. ‘What, you’ve got a thing for him?’

  ‘Not anymore,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m never going near him again.’ I waited for Will to process that, watched his brow wrinkle.

  ‘Again?’

  ‘We were together. For a while.’ I averted my gaze.

  ‘Jesus, for how long?’

  ‘Five months,’ I whispered. Why did I tell him that? Because I’m so sick of keeping all this inside me. Because if I can at least let some of this poison out, then maybe, just maybe, I can keep the last secret.

  The only secret that really matters.

  Will blinked, once, twice. ‘So when did you break up?’

  ‘On the day Sophie A went missing. We had an argument, Sophie A and I. I accused her of taking him away from me. I’d seen them in his car that afternoon. I thought he was going to kiss her. I’m pretty sure he would have if he hadn’t seen me.’

  ‘Whoa.’ He sat up, running his hands down the side of his face. ‘Whoa, this is … Have you told anyone about this?’

  ‘I’m telling you now,’ I said, and started crying again. Still Will didn’t touch me. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised given what I’d just told him. ‘I broke up with him.’

  ‘Because of Sophie A?’

  ‘At the time. And because …’ But no. I couldn’t tell him about the rest of it, could barely admit it to myself. ‘It’s over. For all sorts of reasons.’

  Will let out a slow breath. I couldn’t stand having him look at me like that, as if I were a stranger.

  ‘I thought I should tell you,’ I said. ‘You’re the only one who knows.’

  He rubbed his forehead. ‘OK.’

  ‘Do you hate me?’ I asked in a small voice.