Next step.
Just for a moment.
“Anyway, it’s all in your head,” says Emma, at that exact second. Almost like she’s in mine. “Anytime you think you can’t go on, you can actually go on at least that long again.”
“Doubtful,” I wheeze.
“Seriously, no doubt about it. You just have to take your mind off it. Do you like listening to podcasts? Or audiobooks?”
“Kind of.”
“Or I’ll make you a playlist that’s all charts songs. D’you think that would help?”
“I think stopping would help.”
“No, Henry.” She smiles, and now, after kilometer four, her cheeks are gradually flushing a pale pink. This is still no fun, but if I have to run four kilometers every morning to see that, it might just be worth it.
Emma
“So what’s going on?” Tori begins casually, but there’s something in her voice that gives me a clue about where she’s heading. “Are you and Bennington running together every day now?”
OK, fine. It was a predictable question, but did Tori really have to ask it almost as soon as we’ve left the school’s thick walls behind this afternoon? Maybe the whole point of this trip to Ebrington was actually more to do with interrogating me than showing me around the village and cheering me up after the shitty English test that Mr.Ward dumped on us with no warning.
“I don’t think he’s ever done the whole morning run of his own free will before,” Olive remarks as she twists her still-damp hair up into a bun.
“I’m helping him train so he can get onto the rugby team.”
“Why isn’t Grace training with him?” Olive eyes me.
“Presumably because she doesn’t feel like getting here two hours before school starts every morning, and then having to go home again to shower?” Tori suggests.
“She could use Henry’s bathroom,” Olive says curtly. Her words are like tiny daggers in my chest. “And anyway, why don’t they train in the evening?”
“She hasn’t got time,” I say. It feels like a lie, yet it’s exactly what Henry told me.
“Or maybe Henry just prefers running with Emma.” Tori’s eyes bore through me. “Doyoulike running with Henry?”
“I, uh...” Olive is now staring at me too, and I know that, whatever I say, there are only wrong answers here. “It’s nice?”
“Nice?” Tori laughs. “Yeah, well, Henry in his PE kit is definitely a nice sight. He’s got such a cute arse. So it’s actually mean of him not to be interested in sport.”
“Apparently he is now,” Olive replies.
“Yeah, but you know what I mean.”
“Well, he’s no Sinclair...”
“Emma’s not into Sinclair.”
I open my mouth, but Olive doesn’t give me time to speak. “No, but you are. And clearly Emma’s not into Henry either, because he’s with Grace.”
Ouch. Breathe. I don’t dare look in Olive’s direction.
“I love him like a brother, Livy,” says Tori, in that deliberately casual voice. “Like a brother.”
“Course you do,” murmurs Olive. “Except when Sinclair wears those superskinny jodhpurs, huh?”
I’d probably have been grinning if Olive’s words weren’t still echoing in my head. Why did she even come when she clearly can’t stand me? This would have been way more fun with just Tori.
