“I do.Maybe we could add a sports section to the regular editions.I’d never have thought I’d be interested in the rugby boys’ matches, but you make it sound really exciting.”Theresa grins at me.
“You think?Really?”The almost total absence of sports news was the main reason I’d rarely bothered to read the school paper before.
“Definitely.That would be a real win for us.”
“I’d be happy to,” I say.
For the rest of the meeting, I just listen as the others discuss various articles.Afterward, I head to the dining room, where my friends are clearly up to something.In the end, they invite me and Colin to come to the old greenhouse just after wing time.
I don’t normally make much of a fuss about birthdays, but there’s something special about turning eighteen.And not just that I’m now officially an adult.After all, it’s the date I’ve been longing for since the summer.But now I don’t know what I want any more.
I’m sure Tori’s thinking that too, later on, when she glances at me and points outside.The others are deep in a game of truth or dare and don’t even notice us slipping out.I follow Tori through the door and breathe in the cool air.
“Now you’re grown up too,” Tori says, putting her arms around me with a sigh.“The baby of the group.”
“Come on, you’re not even six months older than me.”
Tori shrugs.“Six months can make a big difference, Livy.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” I mumble, thinking about the others in the lower sixth.Although I have to admit that I feel surprisingly good around them now.Which isn’t just down to how well the newspaper meeting went today.Classes are OK, and my job helping coach the swimming team means I’m no longer feeling so lost without my upper-sixth pals.
“Staying down a year, you mean?”Tori asks.She lets go of me.
“Aye.Dunno.I don’t belong there,” I say even so, because part of me still believes that.
“True,” she says sadly.“I’d never have dreamed we wouldn’t leave school together.”
“What can I say?”I mutter.
“I know.”Tori sighs.“It’s ages away yet, but I really don’t feel up to making plans for after A levels.If you’re not with us, I don’t want to.”
“Yes, you do.”I don’t say it to guilt her, just because it’s true.“You want to go to university with Sinclair, and that’s fine.”
“I want to go to uni with youandSinclair,” she corrects me.“OK, no, that’s not true.Uni will be exciting—all that freedom!—but, actually, I wish I could stay here forever.I’m not ready to say goodbye to Dunbridge yet.”
“You have to quit while you’re ahead,” I say.“But lucky me—I get an extra year here.”
Tori pulls a face.“So you’re not coming up to us?”
I shrug.“No idea.”
“I mean, that was your plan, wasn’t it?Sit out your time inthe lower sixth until you turn eighteen and your parents don’t have any say in the matter.”
“Yeah, it was,” I say.But that was before so much happened.Colin Fantino, for example.And realizing that my friends’ lives go on without me.I wish I could be in the upper sixth with them, but I haven’t come close to keeping up with their work in the last few weeks.I’ve been too busy living.And to be honest, I don’t hate that.That’s how things are meant to be, right?
A twig cracks behind us, and we whirl around.I stare into the darkness and shiver as I see someone standing in the greenhouse door.I can make out his silhouette, which ducks back as we look in his direction.
“Colin?”I ask, even though I’m certain it’s him.“Wait.”
I leave Tori standing there as he turns away.Did he hear all that?
“I’d better go back to the others,” my best friend says guiltily as she squeezes past us through the door.
“You’re going up into the upper sixth?”he asks.
“No,” I say instinctively.
“Really?I thought that was your plan?”He sounds mocking, but I know him well enough by now to hear that he’s hurt.“You only wanted to sit out your time in the lower sixth until you were eighteen.I’m glad to have made that a bit more entertaining for you.”
