I take a step back as he opens it, and I see the pain in his face. On the floor behind him is a half-filled suitcase; his stuff is everywhere. At least he hasn’t finished packing, so that’s one benefit of his stupid injured shoulder.
“Are you out of your mind?” I whisper.
“Emma,” he says quietly.
“Why did you do it? Why did you say it was you? Why did you still have those fucking photos on your phone?” Henry doesn’t flinch as I approach him. I want to pummel his chest with my fists. I want to hurt him. I want him to understand how badly he’s screwed up.
“There was no alternative.”
“Of course there was an alternative! They had no proof. I didn’t have the pictures anymore. Mrs.Sinclair was on my side. She would have believed me, she would have—”
“Emma,” he interrupts, and I want to burst into tears. “It’s no good, none of it. We’d have been found out sooner or later, and then things would have got even more complicated.”
“No, we wouldn’t. Don’t you get it?” I stare uncomprehendingly at him. “Have you been suspended?”
“Rules are rules,” he says. It makes me furious that he’s trying to stay so calm. When he turns away now and runs his hand through his hair, it’s the first time since he walked into the office earlier that I’ve seen any emotion in him. “Hell, I didn’t think she’d really do it. I thought they’d take pity on me because of everything, but... It is what it is.”
“I can’t believe it! It’s all so utterly stupid, you could have—”
“I did it for you,” he says, and his words are like a punch in the guts. Because I remember them well. Except that last time, it was me saying them.
Henry blurs before my eyes. “And it’s not like I asked you to, for God’s sake,” I whisper.
“I know, Em.”
“So what happens now?” I wipe away my tears. “Suspended... Does that mean thrown out?”
“It means I can’t go to lessons until it’s all gone to the Council.” I don’t have to ask, because Henry carries on unprompted. “A committee of parent governors, former teachers, and major funders.”
A spark of hope glimmers within me. “So does that mean...?”
“In my time here, there’ve been a handful of cases that have gone to the Council. Two of them were over cheating. Both people involved left the school voluntarily.”
“You’re school captain, they’ll...”
“Emma” is all he says.
“No.” I’m not prepared to accept that. This is Dunbridge Academy—Henry’s home and his future, all rolled into one, and I’ve fucked it up. I have to do something, I just have to.
“Theo’s picking me up soon,” says Henry. “I should finish my packing.”
Henry
Maeve always found it kind of funny that Theo and his girlfriend rent a nice terraced house in St. Andrews rather than a grungy student flat. It sounds more upmarket than it really is. The house is in serious need of renovation, but there’s a small back garden. And it suits Theo and Harriett. They’re happy here.
Theo’s the oldest twenty-one-year-old in the world, Maeve said on his birthday at the start of last year. I was sixteen and didn’t understand. In the meantime, I’ve turned eighteen, Theo’s almost twenty-three, and Maeve is no longer with us. I hadn’t been expecting Theo to have a photo of us up in his living room. It’s one of the three of us, no Mum and Dad; I think it’s from our Christmas holidays in Cape Town two years ago. Maeve had just finished her first term at uni, where she’d discovered that nobody was fussed if you get your hair cut supershort and dye it gray. The dye washed out relatively quickly and then she experimented with being a redhead.
When she died, her hair was its natural color. Dark brown, with a slight reddish tinge in certain lights. The same as Theo’s and mine.
“Excuse the mess,” Theo says behind me. “I never got round to tidying up properly after the last lot of exams.”
I eye the pile of papers on the dining table, which isn’t quite as organized as the rest of his house. Everything else looks immaculate.
“You can sleep on the sofa.”
I owe him my life. Seriously. Theo picked me up without a word after I rang him.
“Thanks.” I stop in the middle of the room. I’ve never been alone here with him and Harriett before. It’s really amazing how different a house can feel depending on who’s filling it. It was kind of nicer when my parents were here, or Maeve, who could always find the right words so that Theo and I didn’t have to face up to the fact that we had nothing to say to each other.
