I don’t hear what Mr Acevedo says next. I think he’s happy otherwise. Gideon and Louis come up onto the stage, Tori stands up and says something to Mr Acevedo. He looks at her, then nods with understanding.
Her eyes meet mine as she turns away. I succeeded in hurting her the way she hurt me, and I want to make it unhappen. Right now. I want to apologize, and to cry. She’s pale. I feel sick. She leaves the room without even looking at me.
18
TORI
The tears sting my eyes as I walk down the hallway. Rapid steps, head down, don’t look at the few people who come towards me. I wish I wasn’t so weak. I really wish I didn’t need to cry after Charlie kissed Eleanor on that stage, the way he’s meant to. But it wasn’t like before. Stage kisses that look amazingly genuine but aren’t. It was different today. Today he kissed her on the lips, kissed her furiously and for ages. To go with my favourite bit of dialogue in the whole script.
Your mouth has cleansed my lips from sin – then give it back to me.
Hell.
He did it on purpose. He wanted to make me feel it, and I hate him because it worked.
Fate seems to have it in for me, because just before I turn off towards the girls’ wing, I run right into Val and his pals. His eyes look me over for a split second. Then he blanks me. What do I care? Even so, I can’t help studying his face.
Val doesn’t look as bad as Charlie, but there’s no denying that he’s been fighting.
I only realize I’d been holding my breath as I turn the corner and slowly exhale again.
To my own surprise, the relief I’ve been feeling since Thursday night is beyond words. I’m not proud of what I did, but it seems to have drawn a line under the thing with Val. A thing I still can’t classify. Were we a couple? Have we split up? Did I cheat on him? Or did we go on a few dates and have a nasty break-up before it got serious?
I haven’t the faintest idea. My head’s splitting as I climb towards my floor. The stairs seem never-ending today. I’ve only got to the second floor, but I want to sit down already.
By the time I reach our corridor, I’m feeling dizzy, but I force myself to keep going. I want to cry in my room. And break something.
I drop onto my bed and shut my eyes, but I can’t get rid of the images of Eleanor and Charlie. His hands on her face, his mouth on hers. My lips are tingling. I can feel his breath on her skin. I can taste him. I’m a hundred per cent certain he meant it. I felt it; you can’t imagine a thing like that. Or so I thought.
Being kissed by Charlie felt like the first day of my life. Like all my wishes had come true at once, and I should have known that that feeling was too good to be true. Because nothing’s gone right since then.
It’s the exact opposite of going to plan. I didn’t tell my best friend how I feel about him, but I’ve lost him anyway. All I wanted was to protect our friendship. And now we can’t even look each other in the eye. We’ve smashed it up. Us. The years we’ve known each other. All gone. And I don’t know if anything has ever hurt as much as the knowledge that things will never be the same between us ever again. I’m not just broken-hearted over the boy I’m secretly in love with. No. I’ve also lost my best friend. There’s nobody I can talk to about the way I feel. OK, so that might not be true, but neither Emma, nor Henry, nor Will nor anybody else will be able to understand that. Olive might, but unfortunately, that friendship’s fucked too. I’d hoped she’dtake up Mr Acevedo’s offer and join in with the rehearsals, but she hasn’t shown her face. Of course she hasn’t – she knows I’ll be there.
Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m just incapable of maintaining any ordinary friendship. There’s no other explanation. Instead of going with my feelings, I get caught up in dubious relationships with guys who give me bellyache, and push my friends away when they try to talk some sense into me.
There’s no point in denying it. Emma, Henry, Charlie, Will . . . they were all right. Valentine Ward made me feel things I didn’t want to feel. He might not have done it on purpose, but there again, he might. He’s the only person who can answer that. All I know is that I never felt that way around my best friend. So insignificant and demanding. Like I was being unreasonable, and then I’d get compliments that felt fake. Being close to Val was like riding a rollercoaster because I never knew which version of him I was going to get. The cheerful, euphoric one; the sensitive one he always tried to hide; the suspicious one who could tip over into unpredictable rage if I didn’t say what he wanted to hear. It was stressful. It was anything but safe. I got caught up in something I can’t explain. Because it went against my principles. My values are important to me, but Val said and did so many things that trashed them. I’d always been sure that I’d speak up when it mattered. But I didn’t, and I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed of having kept defending him to my friends and, above all, I’m ashamed of myself. I feel like I don’t even know who I am any more. What I stand for, my identity. Like I lost myself in trying to do the right thing. But it never was the right thing. It was stubbornness and my own fucking stupidity. And this is my reward.
I roll onto my back and press the balls of my thumbs against my eyes, but they don’t stop burning. My body feels like a leadweight, and my legs ache. Everything aches. My stomach, my heart. I don’t even have the energy to distract myself.
When Emma asks if I want to come down to dinner, I say I’m not hungry. It’s not even a lie. I feel sick; my head is pounding and dizzy at the same time.
I don’t know when I fell asleep, I only know that I wake up at some time in the middle of the night because I’m so cold that I can’t stop shivering. My window’s on the latch and I didn’t pull my bedding over me, but things are no better even once I’ve shut it, peeled off my clothes and cuddled up under the duvet in my thickest pyjamas. Ms Barnett has hot-water bottles we can use, but I haven’t the strength to get up. I just want to sleep; the headache is driving me crazy. However still I lie, every heartbeat throbs directly under my scalp. I should get up and look for some paracetamol . . .
It feels like only a second later when my alarm goes off and I wake up, dripping with sweat. It’s a quarter of an hour before I’m even able to sit up. I feel a bit better once I’ve had a shower, but I’m still considering telling Ms Barnett I’m ill. The only reason I don’t is Charlie and my stupid ego. If I don’t turn up to class, he’s sure to think it’s because of him. I don’t want him believing he has that much power over me. Because he doesn’t. I don’t care what happens to us. If he wants to kiss Eleanor, let him. And if he thinks that bothers me, he’s got another think coming. I’m not in the mood for that primary-school stuff.
Emma’s running late and I’m waiting for her – it’s almost time for the morning assembly and she and Henry have been out voluntarily for a run because they’re both nuts. I’ll never understand how they can do that to themselves every day. On top of the official morning run and even on Mondays – such as today – when we have assembly instead.
‘Are you OK?’ Emma asks, when she eventually emerges from her room. Her hair’s still wet.
I feel sick, but I nod. ‘Didn’t sleep very well,’ I mumble, as we walk downstairs. If she hadn’t sounded so concerned just now, I’d have asked her to slow down a bit. But she did, so I don’t. Not even when we’re among the last people to slip through the doors before they’re shut. Everything within me rebels when I reach the row for our form and see that Charlie and Henry have kept two seats between them. Like always. Charlie joins everyone in standing up as his mother walks into the room.
Emma straightens her uniform and I wish I could sit down. No, I don’t wish it, I’ve got to. My pulse is racing, it won’t stop, and with every passing second when I can feel my heart pounding right in my throat, I get a wee bit more scared.
Charlie glances at me and away again. I’m hot and cold all at once and then this buzzing starts in my ears. Slowly at first, but it gets louder, and there’s a white mist coming over my eyes so that I feel like nothing’s getting through to me any more. Not even Charlie, who’s looking at me again.
He says something; I don’t hear it. I break into a cold sweat.
My knees go weak and I lose all feeling in my fingers. Something’s not right. It feels like I’m disappearing inside myself and there’s nothing I can do about it.
