I read and reread that message till I knew it by heart. Melting into a puddle of hope and longing.

  As I said, if something didn’t happen at this ball, after he sent me a message like that…

  Well…

  I stood up, brushed the dried grass off my arse, and walked towards the house and heart of someone deserving of my time, leaving Ruby in the past, where she had already left me. I couldn’t wait to see Elijah’s face when I told him.

  Adam arrived on Easter Saturday, in a heap of stinky exhausted backpack and dark purple rings under his eyes. We lined up to meet him in the hallway, like we were the royal family greeting an ambassador.

  “Oh my God, it’s so weird to be home.” His eyes landed on me. “Paige, dude, it’s been too long.”

  He pulled me in for a smelly hug, rucksack still on his back, and clutched me tight while I tried not to inhale. Why was he being so friendly all of a sudden? Guilt?

  “Hope you’re okay, dude,” he whispered in my ear, before releasing me, and giving Mum a hug next.

  “Darling, you absolutely stink.”

  Dad laughed with a bark. “Let him smell! He’s been on an adventure.”

  Adam and Dad did that weird man hug thing where they kind of clutch each other’s forearms. And Easter began.

  The following twenty-four hours seemed picture-perfect from the outside. Adam was treated like a returning war hero, and had so many travelling tales we never wanted for conversation. Mum, as usual, outdid herself with the cooking, bringing in roasted chicken and rosemary potatoes and endless home-made tarts, alongside the giant Easter eggs she’d bought everyone. Polly joined us for Easter dinner and we sat together in the corner, cramming thin chunks of Easter egg into our mouths, watching the Dad and Adam show play out.

  “How’s your application to college going?” she asked quietly, while Adam described this “totally epic” moment in Italy where he’d “totally thought we were stranded”. “You sent it off yet?”

  I smiled at her. “Not just yet. I need a reference, and I’m going to ask Ms Gordon, I think. The due date is still a few weeks away.”

  “And revision? You getting enough done here?”

  “It’s okay. I’ve just been staying upstairs. They’ve been distracted with Adam coming home.”

  She raised both eyebrows. “I bet, I bet.” We turned to where he was delighting my parents, arms waving madly as he told his story, Dad beaming with pride. Polly’s eyebrows drew down again. “I worry though…after he leaves…you know you can call me any time?”

  I leaned my head briefly against her shoulder to let her know what that meant to me.

  Her prediction was right. Easter Sunday came to an end, completed with a family viewing of The Sound of Music. We stayed up late to drag out the enforced joy. Dad was drunk again, resembling a smug tomato – his eyes kept straying to Adam in delight that his son was home. But as it got later, his manner hardened.

  “Off early then, tomorrow, are you?” he asked Adam, after the von Trapps had climbed over a mountain to flee the Nazis.

  Adam sat up straighter in his chair. “Not too early,” he said delicately. “It would be nice to have breakfast with everyone.”

  “Surely you need to rest some more before going back? You must be knackered after all that hitch-hiking?”

  “I am… I wish I could stay. But I need the library facilities.”

  “For what? You can get books out, can’t you? That’s the whole point of libraries.”

  Adam kept his voice calm. “It’s more than that. It’s the computer software and stuff…”

  Polly stood up. “Right, guys. I’m off. Thanks for such a lovely day. The food was amazing, Jane.”

  Mum, vibrating with newly arrived anxiety, stood up so they could kiss cheeks.

  “Lovely to see you, Adam. Good luck with your exams.” She hugged him but she only waved at Dad, knowing he wouldn’t stand to say goodbye. “Bye, Glynn.” She turned to me. “Remember, call me anytime,” she whispered into our last hug.

  After Adam left, I could feel the thickness of tension hanging in the air of my house. I wondered how long it would take for the explosion to come, my stomach tightening. Hours? Days? Weeks? It was like being able to smell a thunderstorm before the downpour hits.

  The thickness in the air hung around school once we went back too. Wide-eyed teachers stampeded through the syllabuses, shoving practice exam papers at us desperately, reminding us over and over that we DID go through this and they DID teach us properly and we DO know this and, no, they DON’T know what exam questions are going to come up which is why we need to revise. There was this weird mix of end-of-school-screw-it vibes, and oh-my-god-exams vibes – congealing together to make a big mass of stress and relief, curdling like oil and water. After-school clubs were replaced with revision sessions. Even Grace and the Awfuls seemed to be taking it hard. Elijah and I did a double-take when we saw them holed up in the library one lunchtime – making revision timetables with an assortment of glittery pens and taking up too many tables.

  Rumours about their elaborate ball plans were released into the public one by one, like a marketing strategy.

  “Have you heard Sam’s dad has hired a Hummer limo?”

  “No, that isn’t it. Grace’s dad has shelled out for a helicopter to take them to prom.”

  “Amelia got her dress in Paris so no one else would have the same one.”

  In fact, the ball dominated most of the conversations I overheard. Chats about how much the limo cost, and how long it took to save up for it, and who was going in which limo with who, and whether they were just friends or a couple now. Chats about dresses and checking no one had the same one, and booking a hairdresser slot in town, and how there were no slots left because we have the same ball date as Grange School, so which YouTube tutorial was best for fancy up-dos? Then there was the Leavers’ Assembly prep, and the accompanying “muck up” day – sharing whispers over what was planned, and how to outdo previous years. Everything mattered and nothing mattered. The end was in sight but it was still just a horizon blob. A blob no one knew quite what to do with. The future seemed earnest and right up in our faces and yet still too far away and unmanageable.

  I just wanted my last few weeks to be lived out in peace. To go to the ball with Elijah and let the magic of expectation lull us into whatever was supposed to happen between us. And, yes, I had a dress too. Polly had taken me out shopping over Easter and forced me to buy a dress made of golden sequins which was so not me, and yet I couldn’t stop looking at it hanging in my cupboard.

  The night before the ball rolled around and the dress was hanging on the back of my door. I watched it twinkle from my bed as I tried to sleep, smiling as the sequins caught the moonlight. I told myself the fairy tale of how my Leavers’ Ball would go… Elijah’s face as he saw me. The perfect song playing through the speakers at the perfect time. The perfect look he’d give me before he leaned in for the perfect first kiss.

  I curled up in the warmth of my self-written fantasy – completely indulging myself. Using it to comfort the gnawing ache in my gut that told me I would never get a story like that.

  That I didn’t deserve one.

  The ache that knew that trouble was coming.

  Polly: Paige, my darling! Have an amazing night. Send so many photos! At least twelve an hour, for your pathetic aunty. So sorry I can’t see you head off. Stupid cat conference emergency. They should let cats organize it, I reckon. They’d do a better job. Anyway, have the night of your life xxx

  REMEMBER PHOTOS. ON THE HOUR. EVERY HOUR.

  Elijah: I’m wearing a suit, Paige. A SUIT. What have you done to me?

  Paige: Dude, it was your idea to go.

  Elijah: Oh yeah. See you at six x

  There was a girl looking at me from the mirror and I didn’t know her at all. She…shone. She was unmissable. She was the new Paige. A dress like this made it impossible to hide in the margins. But this Paige had survived the rumours. Had learned to care less. Learned to stand out.

  We’d been allowed to leave school early that Friday afternoon. There was no point trying to teach with everyone so giddy.

  The house had been empty when I got home, though the air still hung thick. I’d showered – taking my time to properly shave my legs, singing and enjoying the sensation of being home and free to be myself. When I’d dried off, I pulled up the YouTube videos I’d saved. One taught me how the hell to do make-up properly, and the other taught me how the hell to do hair properly. I carefully copied the chirpy girls on screen. At one point, I tiptoed into my parents’ room to steal my mum’s curling wand. The air was even thicker in there. Tension laced the wallpaper. The room was immaculate, each fold of the bed linen a perfect crease. Mum’s existence was hardly evident – all her clothes were stowed away, her make-up, her jewellery. I really had to rifle to find the curling wand. Whereas Dad’s residue was everywhere…framed photos mostly of him and Adam, his tie collection on its special hanger on the back of the door, the giant stack of books he never really read piling up against the wall. I felt my skin break out in goosebumps, and curled my hair quickly, desperate to return the wand before anyone came home. Dad had taken the day off to attend some barbecue thing with Mum for his friend’s fiftieth. They were unlikely to be home till the evening, but I still rushed.

  I came undone a few times. Who knew liquid eyeliner required the hands of a surgeon? But, after a few urgent saves, I wiggled into my golden dress, and stood on the landing to see myself full-length.

  Who was this girl?

  It felt incredibly narcissistic, to be this obsessed with my own image. But I honestly couldn’t stop looking at myself. I twirled, jaw open, catching myself from different angles.

  I couldn’t stop smiling.

  I checked the time on my phone. Less than forty-five minutes to go before I was meeting Elijah. I was going to his, rather than risking him picking me up here. I just needed to brush my teeth, pack my clutch bag and wobble into my new heels before I could head off. The extractor fan whirred itself on when I pulled the bathroom light. I caught my reflection and smiled again. I brushed twice, wanting my breath to smell nice. Then, smiling at myself one more time, I turned off the light, shutting off the fan noise, and walked out into the hall…

  It was there, I heard it.

  Dad’s voice. Bad. His bad voice.

  They were home. I had no idea what they were doing home early. I froze like a cartoon on the landing.

  “…embarrassing me, yet again. Why do you do it? Why are you OBSESSED with embarrassing me?”

  “Glynn, sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think.”

  “What a surprise. You, not thinking. Why would you even say that?”

  “I said I’m sorry. Maggie just asked about Adam, and I didn’t think my answer through properly…”

  “What does it mean, when your own son can’t bear to spend the holidays with you? They must think we’re terrible.”

  “It was a throwaway joke. They knew that.”

  “They didn’t. I saw the way she looked at us…”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, it’s too late now.”

  I stayed suspended, one foot raised in the air. Too scared to lower it in case I made the floorboard creak.

  “Everywhere I go, you make me look like an idiot. No wonder Adam left as soon as he could. He’s probably enjoying being able to walk around Bristol without feeling like a walking joke.”

  “Glynn, please.” Mum started crying. Full crying. I’d never heard her like this. My own eyes filled with tears as I digested this violent shock of an afternoon.

  “Oh God. Here we go again. Stop crying, you pathetic bitch.”

  I audibly gasped. My blood freezing in my veins. He never said things like that…

  They don’t realize I’m in, I thought.

  Then I had a worse thought.

  Maybe it’s always this bad when I’m not in?

  “Look at you. Look at the actual state of you. Do you have any idea how disgusting you are?” His voice was louder and louder, Mum hysterical. I couldn’t really breathe. What was happening? What was…

  “God knows why I put up with you. What are you doing? Don’t walk away from me. Jane!?” His voice turned into a shout as his footsteps followed Mum’s into the living-room below. “Come back here. Come. Back. Here.”

  A scream.

  A crash.

  A bolt of trauma shot through me like lightning.

  I fell to the carpet, shaking.

  “Now look what you’ve done.”

  Mum’s sobs were guttural, like an animal about to be slaughtered. I had never felt such primal fear in my life. I wanted to run down to protect her, but I was stuck to the carpet.

  “I can’t do this.” Dad’s voice was calmer now, calculated. The total opposite of Mum’s hysterical shrieking. “I can’t be with someone so obsessed with showing me up.”

  “Glynn, if you’d just listen…”

  “What’s the point of you anyway? You can’t be a very good mother, if your son can’t bear to stay in the home you’ve made. And your daughter is just as useless.”

  Fear and sadness rushed into my lungs as I gulped for air.

  “I said I’m sorry,” Mum pleaded through whimpers. “I didn’t think. It was just a joke. Maggie will know it was just a joke.”

  “The only joke here is you.”

  Another time-freezing scream. Another smash. Violence. Fear. Danger. I flung myself down the stairs, with no thought, no plan, just a need to make it stop. Whatever it was, it had to…

  “STOP!” I yelled, running into the living-room, arms waving.

  My parents froze in shock at my sudden arrival and I took in the awful freeze-frame. Mum was on the floor. She wasn’t bleeding. But she was on the floor like she’d been thrown there. Dad was red-eyed. Two ornaments lay scattered like china ashes over the carpet. Had Dad thrown them at her? At the wall? One was only slightly better…

  “STOP! Stop stop stop stop STOP.”

  Dad turned. Slowly. Calmly. “Paige, what are you doing here?”

  “I was upstairs. Mum? Mum! Are you okay?”

  And just when I thought it couldn’t get worse…it did. Because Mum didn’t jump up and hide behind me. No. She caught Dad’s eye instead. Time slowed as I watched them share a look.

  Not just a look, a collaboration.

  A whole silent conversation danced between them. An agreement was come to without uttering a single word.

  “I’m fine, Paige,” she said in a breezy voice. She shrugged with her feet in china dust. “We were just having a bit of a row, and I accidentally knocked these over.” She got up and joined Dad’s side. United.

  “More to the point…” Dad looked me up and down. “What in God’s name are you wearing?” His gaze registered my curled hair and sequinned dress.

  “What? Er…it’s my Leavers’ Ball tonight… I was about to head out.”

  “Let me guess, Polly bought it for you?” He managed to say it in a way that made it clear I looked disgusting and Polly was disgusting and everything about me was disgusting.

  How were we talking about my dress?

  I crossed my arms, going into invisible woodlouse mode. Withdraw. Retreat. Apologize. Don’t say anything. Don’t make it worse. Placate. Allow. Vanish. Disappear. I stepped back and crossed my arms further. Retreating into my factory setting. Letting it happen. But as I stepped back again, I felt a jolt. Like I’d stood on one of the sharp shatters of china. A flickering of something in my heart, travelling down my arms, twitching down my fingers. I found myself standing straighter. I rolled my shoulders back and looked at Dad. Really looked at him. Taking in the redness in his eyes, the scowl on his face, the smashed crockery on the carpet, my mum cowering and covering for him. The dance we all danced to keep him happy, with the steps always changing, and it was never enough and he’d never be happy and he’d never, ever see us, because he was so obsessed with seeing himself. The sad…patheticness of him.

  And, with that, I felt an entirely new feeling stir.

  I felt sorry for him.

  My dad. The bully. The loser. The fraud. The sad state of him.

  And I found my power.

  “Why are you so cruel?” I asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said, why are you so cruel? I mean, most fathers would be proud of their daughter leaving school. Would want to take photos and ask who they were going with. But you…you didn’t even know I had my ball tonight…and now you’re making comments about my dress.” I forced myself to look right into his reddened eyes. “It’s cruel, Dad,” I said, as calmly as he had spoken. “It’s horrible.”

  It took a moment for him to metabolize what I’d said. I watched as, for the first time since I was born, he listened. My hands were shaking but I didn’t drop eye contact. Then, initially, a predictable response.

  “Oh my God, I was JOKING! You’re just like your mother. It was a joke.”

  “It wasn’t funny.”

  “It’s not my fault you have no sense of humour. Also, love, if you’re going to dress like…” He gestured to me. “…like Laa-Laa the Teletubby or whatever, you have to accept some backlash.” Then he started laughing. He actually started laughing.

  My heart tore apart like someone breaking open an empty fortune cookie. “What’s wrong with you?” I asked, in genuine astonishment. “I don’t understand what’s wrong with you… I’m your daughter… I mean…”

  Dad then rolled his eyes. “Paige, please do shut up.”

  It hurt so much. I don’t think there’s anything more cruel than someone rolling their eyes when you tell them you’re hurting. Especially when it’s your own father. Every atom of me burned and yet I wasn’t surprised. This is what villains do when you dare suggest they’re not the hero. That other people, and their feelings, are important too.

  “I EXIST, DAD!” I yelled, right into his face so he actually took a step back. “I wake up every morning and I exist. Because you made me. I didn’t ask to be here, in this world, in this house, but you guys made me and I’m here and I exist, even though you pretend I don’t. And you know what? It really hurts. It hurts that you treat me like nothing and treat Adam like everything. It hurts how we’re all scared of you. Literally everything about you hurts me, and you don’t even care that it hurts.”