I feel Tori tense and immediately regret mentioning him.
‘I think Val has a very good idea of what he can and can’t do. And if he doesn’t see a thing as worth putting any effort into, he’d rather make fun of it.’
He’s so immature . . . I bite the thought back.
‘He’s so immature,’ says Tori. I suppress a laugh. ‘No, he really is. I’m still annoyed with how childishly he behaved at the auditions. And that I was sitting there with him and the others. I hope they don’t come to the performance.’
‘That would be better. I doubt he even understands the play,’ I add. ‘Mr Acevedo said the other day that every year there are kids in the audience who don’t get it so they laugh. But he also said every play is like a mirror held up to each member of the audience. What they end up saying about it tells us more about them than about us.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it.’
‘Yeah, right?’
Tori nods. ‘I’m super-nervous.’ She puts a hand on my shoulder and I don’t think she has any idea how wild that drives me. ‘I can’t believe the school year’s nearly over.’
‘Are you spending the summer in France?’
Tori shrugs. ‘We haven’t discussed it. Probably, though.’ She turns her head and blinks up at me. ‘Will you come with us again?’
‘If you’ll have me.’
‘Of course we will.’
I have to smile. I’ve missed spending the summer with Tori’s family at their holiday home in the South of France.
‘Or we can go travelling together,’ she says. ‘Interrailing. Just take a backpack and one train after another, through Europe. Unless you’d hate it?’
‘I’d love it.’
‘Genuinely?’
‘Genuinely. We could go to Verona. I need a photo of you on Juliet’s balcony.’
Tori laughs softly, and it’s the loveliest sound in this whole damn world.
‘Then where?’ she asks, squirming to and fro until she’s found a comfy position.
‘Venice and Florence, obviously,’ I say. ‘Via Paris and Zürich.’
‘Zürich’s not that pretty,’ Tori says. ‘Just expensive.’
I shake my head. ‘With you, everywhere’s pretty.’
She smiles.
TORI
The days are growing warmer and the evenings are longer so, naturally, we have end-of-year exams to do. Each teacher suddenly finds something they need to cram into us. May and June would be stressful enough anyway, but now that the performance is getting closer, those of us without exams are spending almost every afternoon in the theatre, and I can’t get anything else done. I can’t even remember when I last posted on Insta or TikTok, but there’s more important stuff right now. Mynights are reserved for Charlie, and although I’ve never slept less in my whole life, I feel more awake than ever.
This afternoon, too, I’m heading to the north wing after study hour because there’s a rehearsal any minute.
I meet Eleanor on the west-wing staircase, where she’s coming down from the floor above us, a spring in her step.
‘Hi, Tori,’ she says, in a tone that makes me prick my ears. And, yes, once we’ve chatted about her final A-level exam, which was last week, she pauses.
She glances around as we walk along the hallway. ‘I don’t think I ever said how happy I am for you and Sinclair,’ she says. ‘And I hope you aren’t giving a second thought to Val. He’s not worth it.’
That tells me he got into her head, the way he’s in mine. And I hate him for that. ‘Thanks. Maybe you’ll have to teach me. How not to waste time thinking about him, I mean.’
