‘No.’ I breathe deeply. ‘It’s great.’ Smile. ‘Really.’
‘What are you doing later?’
‘Don’t know yet. I should make more content for Insta and TikTok, and I haven’t done any reading since the start of the week either.’
‘You can read when you’re old and ugly.’
‘Hey.’
‘It’s true. You should get out and live a little. Have fun, party. We’ll be down in the Dungeon after wing time. You’ll come, won’t you?’
I don’t answer. Val stops, and because he’s holding my hand, I have to as well.
‘Oh, I . . . The others were talking about maybe having a midnight party in the old greenhouse,’ I say, remembering that Emma and Henry had been messaging our Midnight Memories group chat earlier.
Val laughs. ‘Come to us then, save yourself from that nursery-school stuff. I mean, midnight party . . . How old are you? Twelve?’
I bite back the remark that Val and his friends had had their parties in the old greenhouse until less than a year ago. Like everyone in the fifth and lower sixth. School tradition. The old greenhouse is ours and the upper sixth have the undercroft beneath the school for their territory.
‘I’ll have to see,’ I say evasively. ‘I’ve been kind of short on sleep in the last few weeks.’
‘Tori, you do realize I’ve only got a few weeks left here?’ Val drops my hand. ‘A levels start soon and then I’ll leave. And you’d seriously rather hide in your room, reading, instead of having a good time with me and the others?’
‘Of course I want to have a good time with you.’
But I’d rather spend time with my friends. And mybestfriend, so that I can find out if that kiss just now was more of an accident or something genuine. Either way, it means that I can’t do this with Val any more. Maybe it was the sign I needed to tell me that being with him will never be enough. But how do you tell someone that?
I’m just so fucking unsure of myself around you.Val’s voice, his penetrating stare every time I’ve reassured him, yet again, that there’s nothing between me and Sinclair. He didn’t believe me, and in the end he was right. I thought he was pathologically jealous, but maybe he wasn’t. It was all me, because I’m evidently a bad person.
Val’s looking so expectantly at me that I feel kind of ill. This matters to him.Imatter to him. I have to tell him. And better sooner than later. I could try to speak to him alone this evening, and then his friends would be around if he took it badly. God, I can’t . . . But what choice do I have?
‘After wing time?’ I begin.
Val’s eyes gleam with hope. He nods. ‘Half ten, eleven, thereabouts. You in? I’ll pick you up.’
‘I’ll find my own way down,’ I say. Val frowns. ‘Don’t want anyone to catch you. Ms Barnett hears everything.’
‘Yeah, OK.’ He nods.
And I don’t want Emma or anyone to find out that I’m meeting Val instead of going to our midnight party. I could come on later. Once I’ve done what needs doing. It’ll be better if I’m not on my own in my room then, because my gut tells me that Val might react kind of unpleasantly. With reason. What I’ve done is kind of unpleasant too. Unforgivable even.
‘Perfect.’ Val smiles and stops on the corner of the cloister before heading to his wing. ‘I need a shower.’
He eyes me, slowly. My breasts, my belly, down to my legs. Have I overlooked something? When Val looks back to my face, there’s something in his eyes that’s making me nervous. Something dark and impenetrable and unsettling. It makes me want to run. Now, right now, far away. To some place where I can hide from this whole stupid mess. With Sinclair. So he can pick up where we got interrupted.
‘See you later.’ My lips feel numb as I turn away. My steps are hasty. I’m not thinking, just walking to the west wing. It’s not until I get to my room that I dare breathe properly again.
I shut the door, listen to the silence. And then I lift a hand slowly to my lips and touch them. The way Sinclair touched them earlier. Withhislips. For the second time in my life. But this time it was him who started it. It wasn’t in a dark school corridor. It was on a stage. OK, so we were our own entire audience, but that doesn’t matter. He kissed me. He leaned in without a second’s hesitation.
I shut my eyes.
But was it really Sinclair kissing Tori, or Romeo seducing Juliet? Was he still in character? Was he thinking about Eleanor?
He said your name . . .
Yes, he really did. I didn’t imagine that. No way.
My phone lights up but it’s only Gideon asking a question in Midnight Memories.
