Making Elijah belly-laugh should also be prescribed on the NHS. Though he shot me one more anxious look. The dark cloud of my brain turned to a slightly lighter shade of grey as we walked. I looked up, enjoying the magnolia adorning the passing trees.

  “Did you go to your Leavers’ Ball?” I asked him.

  “Umm. No.” He shrugged. “I didn’t see the point.”

  “It is a rite of passage though, isn’t it? It’s part of the school story. Even if you don’t go, that’s still part of the story. It says something about you regardless. We are still defined by the Leavers’ Ball.”

  He reached up as we passed a magnolia tree and yanked out a pink-tinged petal. He held it against his cheek for a second and then handed it over. “Do you want to go to yours?”

  I turned the petal over in my hand, not fully able to concentrate on its velvetness or even the ball chat, as Adam’s message kept flashing into my brain. “I don’t know,” I replied, honestly. “Going has never really been an option. Maybe I would’ve gone with Ruby if she hadn’t left. She would’ve wanted to go…” I held the petal to my lips.

  “Do you ever think about calling her?” he asked. “Asking her what happened? Saying how much it hurt.”

  I snorted. “She’s probably forgotten I exist. Plus, remember the giant coward thing? I told you, I just sat mute through yearbook today. So much for wanting to speak up…”

  “Okay, so I’m going to try this thing where I ignore you whenever you’re being a dick towards yourself.”

  “It’s true though. I’m all talk, no action… I’m not even talk. I’m just—”

  Elijah started whistling loudly to drown me out, and I laughed.

  “Thank you,” he said. “No more of that please.”

  As we got to town, people in our school-uniform colours merged with students from other schools in different colours, until the precinct resembled a paintbox of teenagers shrieking, and getting dirty looks from passers-by for the offence of being young. We got to McDonald’s and the usual post-school queue had died down as we were so late.

  “Strawberry?” Elijah asked, remembering. I nodded and went to get some money. “Don’t worry about it. Just grab us a seat somewhere.”

  I found a little booth at the back, cluttered with empty Big Mac wrappers. I shoved the rubbish onto another table and he arrived moments later, clutching one strawberry and one chocolate milkshake. He found me with my phone out, rereading Adam’s message, and I jerked when he offered me my cup.

  “So…you okay?” He nodded towards my twitchy hands.

  “Yes. No…” I took a slurp of my artificially sweet drink. “My brother, Adam, just told me he’s not coming home over Easter. That’s all. Well, that’s not all. It’s just, that’s everything.”

  Elijah nodded and held his straw to his mouth. “Right. I see. Well, I’m not sure I do.”

  I sighed and tried to explain the weird rules of my life. “My dad worships my brother. So it…won’t go down well that’s he’s not coming back. He’ll…make it our fault somehow.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “My dad’s responses tend not to make sense…from the outside.” I took a sip too quickly and my brain jolted with brain freeze. I winced. “They make sense to me though. To Mum. To Adam. We know the rules. Adam knows what will happen and he’s choosing to do it anyway.”

  Elijah was quiet apart from the slurp of his straw, thoughtful. “Maybe he’s just trying to protect himself?”

  “Oh, that’s definitely what he’s trying to do. But he doesn’t seem to care that it comes at a cost to us.”

  Elijah reached over and gently put his hand on top of my hand. My skin exploded with sensation, forcing me to look up at him. It was the first time we’d touched like that since the hug all those weeks ago.

  “I’m sorry I can’t make this better. I’m always here if you want to talk about it. And I’m happy to distract you if you don’t want to talk about.”

  “I don’t think I do…but thank you. Please, feel free to distract me.”

  Elijah smiled. “I’ve thought of the perfect distraction. I can take you to your ball.”

  I snotted out a pink fountain of milkshake. “Oww,” I said. “Oh my God, gross. I’m sorry.” Strawberry flavouring burned up the back of my throat as I grabbed a tissue, dying.

  “That was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen,” Elijah marvelled, watching me mop milkshake out of my dripping nostrils. “Can you do it again?”

  “Shut up! Sorry. Oww, it hurts. And it’s your fault. What do you mean you’re going to take me to the ball? That’s insane.” I wiped away the last of it, dabbing at my school jumper.

  “I’m trying to distract you and cheer you up,” he said. “Though, now you’ve responded by snotting up milk and calling me insane, I think I’m the one who needs cheering up. Thank you, Paige, for rejecting me in the strongest possible manner.”

  “I haven’t rejected you. I’m just surprised. I thought…well, you said, the ball isn’t your sort of thing?”

  “Yeah, but you said that thing about how me not going is actually a thing and now I want to reject that thing because I don’t like a thing like that defining me.”

  “You just said the word ‘thing’ a lot.”

  We laughed again. An atmosphere of ease slurping up our milkshake straws. I couldn’t understand how someone could pull me out of the pits of despair so very easily. I popped the top of my milkshake lid off and stared into its thick bubbled texture. I hadn’t ever considered going to the ball. The ball was made specifically for girls like Grace to be the belles. For them to achieve the American high-school fantasy. Part of that fantasy was knowing we all longed to be in their dress, wearing their glass slippers, in their Hummer limo. For regular teenagers, our role was only to provide the social backdrop for them, the envious looks, to be the ugly sisters…

  “I don’t know,” I said, when we’d laughed our nerves out. “I mean, won’t it be terrible? Isn’t the ball just going to be everything that’s wrong with school concentrated into a toxic pulp?”

  “Oh, yes, most definitely.” Elijah’s straw gurgled as he slurped up the rest of his milkshake.

  “So why would we want to go to that?”

  “Because, as you said, it’s a rite of passage.” His gurgling noise stopped. “Also, I’ve never had someone I wanted to go with before.”

  When I looked up again, Elijah had turned beetroot. He tried to style it out, waggling his eyebrows, like asking me meant nothing, but we both felt it. A zinging between us. An anxiety from him, that I’d say no. My blood started dancing with energy. With hope. With the fear that always accompanies hope – the usual two-for-one package. And even though this was all I’d wanted for quite some bloody time now – for us to get our zing back – I found myself softening it.

  “I mean, I don’t have the money for a limo or anything,” I said.

  “Neither do I. We can get a cab.”

  “I don’t have a dress.”

  “Have you considered buying one?”

  I guessed maybe Polly would give me the money. She’d howl with excitement if she found out what I needed it for.

  “You won’t know anyone there.”

  “I know you.”

  “The music will be terrible.”

  “We can appreciate it ironically.”

  “The food will be a buffet.”

  “Great. I love catching norovirus from people who don’t wash their hands properly. It’s good for your immune system in the long run.”

  “I hate everyone there.”

  “Surely you don’t hate me? Not after I bought you such a yummy milkshake.”

  “We can’t pull a Carrie. The rumours about me have only just stopped.”

  “Aww, dammit. No telekinesis? That’s it, I withdraw the offer.”

  It didn’t make sense. None of it did. Elijah was anti-establishment. And yet, he wanted to go with me. And I really wanted to go to the ball with him. Like a switch had been flicked, the world’s most basic fantasy started playing out in my mind. How his face would look when he first saw me in my dress. How his body would feel pressed against mine as we danced. People seeing us arrive together. The potent allure of the teenage secondary school fairy tale. That tale as old as time. I guess no matter how hard you try to resist, there’s a part of you that longs for that.

  “Okay, let’s do it,” I said, pushing my empty cup away. “Let’s go.”

  His face was like someone had turned on all the lights. “Are you sure?”

  “No.”

  “I will say it again. You really know how to turn the screw when rejecting someone.”

  “I’m not rejecting you, I’m saying yes.”

  If only he knew what it meant that he’d asked. If only I was brave enough to tell him that story.

  “You’re saying yes quite reluctantly.”

  “I’m not… Honestly. Elijah…” I made myself be serious. I made myself be brave enough to give him a crumb of the truth. “I would love to go with you. Sorry. I was just shocked, but…like…it sounds great.”

  I closed my eyes, waiting for the universe to punish me for being so needy and desperate. But there was no rebuttal, no It was just a joke. When I reopened my eyes, there was only a grin on his face and a flush in his cheeks.

  “I mean, this won’t help the rumours that we’re a couple.”

  “School is basically over anyway.”

  “And what about the devil worship? Can we fit that around our thriving social calendar?”

  “We can bring him with us. Get Satan in our limo. He can pay for it.”

  And for a blissful five minutes, my Dad anxiety faded. Because sometimes just five minutes of a nice storyline can help you through the dense chapters of a nasty one.

  I essentially danced home as the sunset finally came out to do its job. I hummed “Once Upon a Dream” under my breath and ballet-stepped from street light to street light. I took the usual shortcut through the dodgy tunnel and waltzed past the security camera – waving as I went. But, as I neared home, my stomach started aching and I dropped my dance steps, and everything about the ball and Elijah was forgotten.

  It took multiple attempts to get my key in the door, and I opened it as quietly as I could. Dad’s coat was on the hook.

  He was home.

  I closed the door behind me.

  No yelling. Good sign.

  “Is that our ever-absent daughter?” His voice boomed from the living-room, followed by a jovial laugh. Laugh?

  “I’m home,” I called cautiously. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “We should put a sign above the door,” he boomed. “The Vickers’ Hotel. Come and go as you please.”

  I inched my way to the living-room, further surprised to find the air filled with warmth, humour and affection. Mum and Dad were sharing a bottle of wine on the sofa, entwined. They both smiled as they saw me. Smiled.

  “I dunno, Jane,” Dad said. “But I’m starting to feel old. With Adam at uni, and Paige so grown-up, caring for her poor aunty…where did time go?”

  Mum was like a cat who’d got the cream, and the thicker part of cream at the top of the cream bottle, and had been given a spoon to get out the last of the cream. “Don’t!” she said. “I refuse to get old. Age is an illusion.” She was allowed to smile as Dad had set the evening’s precedent. “I’ve not started on dinner yet, sorry, Paige. Your dad came home early and we’ve just been chilling.”

  Dad gestured out to the good armchair. “Come. Sit. Tell me about your day?”

  “Oh okay.” I shuffled over and perched lightly on the edge. “So, I had a yearbook meeting after school, and—”

  “Have you heard Adam’s news?” Dad interrupted. “He’s hitch-hiking all the way to Slovenia over Easter, raising money for charity. Him and his hall housemates are all doing it. It’s a race to see who can get there quickest for free. Isn’t that hilarious?”

  I felt my eyes widen. He knew. Dad knew and he was…okay?

  “He messaged me earlier, yeah.”

  “And he’s coming home for Easter Sunday,” Mum said. “He said he wouldn’t miss my roast for the world.”

  Ahh, so Adam had done some damage control then. I wished him a silent thank you. Though I was still furious at him, and waited for Dad to sour as inevitably as milk left out in a heatwave.

  “Shame he’s got to get back for exams,” Mum added, sipping more wine. “Otherwise he could’ve stayed a bit longer…”

  “For Christ’s sake, Jane, he’s THERE to LEARN. We should be glad he’s revising.”

  Mum’s face had that slapped look, but Dad pulled her into him and kissed the top of her head and it faded again.

  “It’s lovely that you miss him. We all do. But we have to let him get his degree. Don’t we, Paige?”

  “Huh? Oh, yes.”

  “See, she gets it. I get it. Maybe if you actually worked, Jane, you’d understand responsibility.”

  Ah, the souring was coming. I twisted in my spot on the chair and watched Mum sense it too. She blinked a lot and put her wine glass down.

  “Oh, come on. I was only joking.” He laughed and was the only one laughing. “You know I love having you here, keeping everything nice. It’s just a shame it gives you time to think too much, you know?” He leaned over and retrieved her glass of wine and held it to her lips, jokingly trying to make her drink. She giggled and went along with it. “I do wish I’d had the chance to go travelling,” he said, settling back into his chair and swerving into a new topic. “Can you imagine? Hitching all the way to Slovenia? What an adventure. The people he’s going to meet…the things he’s going to see…” Dad looked away forlornly, out into the blackness beyond the living-room window, and hushed his voice a fraction. “I never got the chance, you see. Family life came too early…although, of course, you know what I always say…family is the most important thing…”

  Something strange shifted in my head in that moment – watching him, watching how he delivered his sentences. It occurred to me so strongly that I almost fell off the chair…

  …it was like Dad was reciting a dramatic monologue. I’d never realized it till then. But, as he sighed and looked further out the window, I knew so truly that, in his head right then, he was imagining himself in the play of his life or something. That a camera was focused close to his face and was live-beaming his speech to everyone’s TVs across the world. He was performing the leading role in the film of his life and believed it was a blockbuster smash hit.

  So many people do this, I realized. So many people behave like they think a cinema orchestra is following them around to give them backing music, that they’re the superstar of the universe…and the people who behave this way, they’re the people who tend to hurt others the most. They think they’re the hero of their own story, but, actually, in the pursuit of being so important, they’re often the villain of everyone else’s.

  Dad was in full-blown monologue mode right now. A soliloquy on all the sacrifices he had made. My only purpose in that house was to be his audience when he demanded one. It was Mum’s purpose too. And, to some extent, Adam’s. Though Adam had the extra requirement of being Dad’s legacy. Of taking the baton, of keeping the story alive, keeping Dad immortal.

  “Yes… I think I would love Thailand too. The beaches…the culture…the food…”

  Sitting nervously on that chair, listening to Dad drone on with his red-wine smile, I felt everything shift around me, like I’d put on a new pair of spectacles after wearing the wrong prescription my whole life. Dad came into focus for the first time.

  He will never care about me the way I need him to, I thought, as he made a racist joke about Thai women. He physically, actually can’t. There isn’t the capacity there. He only has room for himself, and his story, and his legacy, and for the feeling of the camera lens always on him. And another realization wiggled into my skin and bashed a sad, sorrowful gong in my heart.

  He is never going to change. The moment’s not going to come. He’s only going to hurt me more the more that I crave his love. And I could choose to keep trying and keep getting hurt. Or I could choose to accept it for what it was, and take back my sad, lonely and desperate heart and tend to it myself.

  Grief spasmed throughout my skin while I sat there, politely nodding when he said Australia is overrated and all koalas have chlamydia.

  “I’ve got revision,” I said, when there was finally a natural pause for him to replenish his wine glass.

  A slight head nod. “Oh, right. Yeah. Anyway, Jane, so I was thinking, we should get Adam a special backpack as a present, what do you think?…”

  It was safe enough. Mum was safe enough. It could’ve been so, so much worse. I climbed the stairs, thinking there are certain thoughts you can’t unthink. Realizations you can’t unrealize.

  The end of childhood = realizing adults don’t know what the hell they’re doing.

  A small part of me knew this was a good revelation. Maybe the start of a tiny shoot that could grow.

  But the girl who just wanted her dad to love her… The girl who needed that… The girl who’d been begging to matter since she drew breath… The girl who woke up every morning with hope that this would be the day…

  That girl?

  Well, that girl needed to go cry in her room.

  The Most Likely to… ballots went out. The votes were cast and then collected up by each form tutor and delivered to Ms Gordon for consideration. With Easter looming, she held a last-minute yearbook meeting for us to finalize who won what.

  “I know you’re going to be slammed with exams after the break,” she said, handing out the list of contenders with spring sunshine streaming behind her, making her neon-yellow outfit glow even yellower. “So if we can just do this now, then I can type them in. Then we only have the ball pictures to add. Apart from that, we’re pretty much done.”