She was out through the front door before her mother had time to call her back and set off at a jog. She didn’t have a lot of time. Maybe Natasha had plans after school or maybe not. Becca wasn’t part of that circle any more.
Only when she’d rounded the corner onto Natasha’s street did she slow down. She couldn’t go in panting and dripping with sweat. She needed to look normal. Steady. She leaned against the cool brick wall by the front door for a few seconds until her breathing was back to normal, then stood tall and pressed the bell.
‘Rebecca!’ Always Rebecca, never Bex or Becca.
‘Hi, Mrs Howland.’
‘Come in, come in. Natasha’s not home yet.’ Alison Howland was back to her elegantly stylish self, perfectly made-up and colour-coordinated even though it was just an ordinary weekday afternoon and she’d probably only been to the supermarket, if that. Maybe she’d had lunch with friends. Becca imagined Alison Howland lived a perfect, perfumed life. Even the tragedy of Natasha’s fall into the river had turned out more tragic for others than for the Howlands.
Fresh magazines were piled up on top of the unused Airbook on the kitchen table but even that didn’t make the room untidy – the magazines were too high class for that. Instead it looked styled, like in those photoshoots of famous people’s homes. Relaxed rather than uptight, but still oozing with chic.
Becca held up the sweater. ‘I found this at home and thought it might be Tasha’s. It’s not mine.’
Alison took it and examined it. ‘I don’t think so. She doesn’t really like cashmere.’ She smiled apologetically. ‘It’s lovely, though.’
‘Oh,’ Becca said. ‘Maybe it was Hayley’s or Jenny’s.’
Alison’s face tightened then, and Becca almost hated herself for the sting of pain she’d clearly caused the woman. Maybe Alison still had wounds to heal after all.
‘You may as well burn it, then,’ Alison said, bitter. ‘They won’t be wearing anything other than prison uniforms for a very long time once the trial is done.’
Becca nodded, her hot face flushing again. Alison, who must have seen her awkwardness, squeezed her shoulder. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. I just . . . well, it’s been hard for everyone. I know Gary is hurt, too. He was very fond of them. Especially Hayley. And then they . . . they tried to . . . well. I’ve never seen him so upset and angry. It’s the deception. The lies.’
‘It’s such a shock,’ Becca muttered. She wanted to get to the subject of the bracelets but didn’t know how. Should she just blurt it out? Ask about them? ‘They were all so close.’
‘And they were so sweet, so helpful afterwards – that’s what stings the most. I cried with them. They sat at the hospital with her, fetched things from her room for her so we didn’t have to leave her bedside. And all the time they’d been responsible? I still can’t get my head round it sometimes. Even now. Even with it all out there.’
Becca hadn’t seen the Howlands since Hannah’s funeral, and although Alison might be less upset now, none of the pain of what the girls had done had faded. She was still living in that moment when everything changed. She needed therapy more than Becca did. How would she have reacted to seeing Hayley’s mum weeping on the drive outside her house? Becca hoped she’d be kind, but the icy hate she could see in Alison made her think it wouldn’t have been a pretty scene. They damaged her perfect life. That wouldn’t be forgiven easily. Like mother, like daughter.
‘And I want those bracelets back,’ Alison hissed. She wasn’t looking at Becca any more. ‘Natasha chose them. I told that policewoman to get them back for me but apparently I can’t have them yet.’
And there it was. Becca hadn’t even needed to ask. She had heard right at the funeral. Her face tingled and her breath caught. Tasha had said her mum chose them, but that wasn’t true. Natasha had chosen them. She glanced down at her watch.
‘I’d better be going,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a meeting with the counsellor in a bit.’ She didn’t but nor did she want to be hanging around here when Natasha came home. She’d look so needy. And she wanted to think.
It was only a small lie, after all. Maybe Tasha had just said her mum chose the bracelets because she didn’t want Becca to feel left out. But what other small lies might she have told?
‘Of course.’ Alison gave her a sudden, surprising hug, which Becca returned, too shocked to do anything different. ‘You were always the best of them, Rebecca. I was so sad when you all drifted apart.’
Becca said nothing, just muttered a goodbye and let herself out. She was feeling shaky. Alison Howland obviously had no idea they’d drifted apart all over again, or seen all the shit about Becca on the Internet. But then she didn’t go online, according to Tasha. Never used her brand-new computer. Becca herself was reaching the conclusion that it was the best way.
‘Bex?’
She looked up. Oh, shit.
‘What are you doing here?’ Tasha squinted in the low afternoon sun. It was hard to tell if she was annoyed or just struggling to see, but her tone was definitely displeased.
‘I brought this.’ She half-held up the jumper. ‘Found it and thought it might be yours.’
‘Really?’ Tasha raised an eyebrow. ‘That?’
Becca gritted her teeth. Tasha the bitch was back then. She had a point, though. There was a reason other than the size why Becca had never worn it. There was something middle-aged about it.
‘Yeah, I should have known. I guess I . . .’ She shuffled her feet and rounded her shoulders. ‘I just wanted to see you. Been ages since we’ve talked. Wanted to check you’re okay about everything.’ It was the best she could come up with. And wasn’t entirely untrue. It hurt that they weren’t friends any more. It hurt a lot.
‘I’m fine.’ Tasha softened. ‘I’m sorry about all that stuff on the Internet. Must be tough to have to delete all your shit.’
‘I don’t really care about that,’ she said, although she did. Despite being free of the trolling, it was like she’d cut an arm off. Much longer and she’d be setting up fake accounts just to feel like she wasn’t in an entirely different universe from the rest of the school. ‘I miss hanging out, that’s all. It was good being friends again.’
Tasha looked awkward, her eyes darting past Becca to her front door, seeking escape.
‘I just don’t feel ready, you know?’
‘Sure,’ Becca said. For the first time since all this started, Tasha looked insincere. ‘Sure, I get it.’
‘Thanks, Bex. Don’t think I don’t love you. I do. Without you, well, who knows how everything would be now?’
And how would that be? Becca thought. What exactly did I do for you, Tasha? Why does Hayley think you used me?
She shrugged. ‘I’d better go.’
‘Cool,’ Tasha said, relieved. ‘I’d better get in as well.’
Becca took about four steps away from her before turning back. ‘Tash,’ she called out.
‘What?’ The other girl was nearly at her door, moving fast.
‘Why did you tell me your mum picked those bracelets you gave Hayley and Jenny?’
‘What?’ It was clear irritation now. She wanted Becca gone.
Well, fuck you, Miss Perfect, Becca thought, heading back towards her. I’m still here. ‘Those friendship bracelets. When you got me the chess set. You told me your mum chose them, but she said you did.’
‘Does it matter?’ Tasha said. She put her key in the lock, looking at Becca over her shoulder. ‘What difference does it make now? I don’t actually remember. Did I say that? Maybe I meant we chose them together.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ Becca said. She wasn’t convinced. She could remember it clearly. They were in the theatre. She remembered because she’d felt so fucking special that Tasha had chosen her present and not theirs. Heat fizzed at her insides. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing.’
She lied, Becca thought, and in that instant she knew it for a certainty. She lied to me. But why? Hayley’s words, in her mum’s tearful voice, echoed in her head. She used Becca. And then of course there was the memory of the green dress. The world trembled with possibilities Becca didn’t want to examine. She didn’t want to think that way. She couldn’t. But this was starting to feel like the green dress all over again. Maybe they hadn’t changed so much since then after all. Natasha had fooled her then. Had she fooled her all over again now?
*
That night, she smoked the last of her Marlboros out of the window and thought about Natasha’s lie and Hayley’s words and the green dress until her brain felt like it was being pushed through her mum’s juicer. Why had Tasha lied? It wasn’t a big lie. It might not mean anything. People lie all the time to save other people’s feelings. Maybe she’d been feeling bad about Becca’s present being less personal. It could be that. It could. But it didn’t feel like that. And Tasha’s memory might have gone but she’d not had a personality transplant. She wasn’t the kind of girl to lie simply to make someone else feel better. She could still have won Becca’s friendship back without it. So why would she lie?
She leaned out through the window and let the cool air tease her face. Was Hayley lying awake in her cell right now? Was she off her face on prison smack or something? Or locked up in some hospital ward to get her off it?
The bracelets. The green dress. She used Becca, too.
The green dress was like a tendril of weed, wrapping around her legs and dragging her down towards the darkness where the past and the present collided.
Tasha was always the core of the group. It was true. They all had danced to Tasha’s tune, as if they knew even as small children that she was the special one and their place in the world would depend on her favour. Even after the incident with the green dress, how deceptive and mean she’d been, it had remained the same. Natasha could always charm you back. Becca breathed smoke into the night air and her eyes ran over the dark shapes of the garden: the black hulk of shadow that was her dad’s shed; the two-seater swing lurking by the fence; the plants rising out of the black earth. It all looked alien, sinister and unclear without daylight. A murky world.
Tasha lied. That thought wouldn’t fade. And now Tasha knew that Becca knew she’d lied. Tasha, the straight A* student, the girl who breezed through her GCSEs top of the class, the chess player who did nothing without a reason, would not be fooled by Becca’s shrugging it away. She picked up her phone and scrolled to Tasha’s number. It was no longer near the top of her most recents. Ditched again. Funny that.
Suddenly remembered
my green dress. Crazy
huh? All those years ago
and I think about it now.
Wonder why.
She typed the words fast and then pressed ‘send’. She flicked the cigarette butt through the window, closed it and lay on her bed, her heart racing.
When her phone buzzed back so fast, she jumped.
Sorry, was working. Yeah, it’s
a relief. Thanks.
Not Tasha but Aiden. She stared at the words. They were cold and distant. No kiss. It wasn’t like her Aiden at all. But then, as it had turned out, he’d never really been hers at all. How could he be when he’d kept so much from her? She hated herself for having texted him in the first place. Why was she so weak? Why was she such an idiot? She flicked off the light and raged and burned into the night, fighting the urge to reactivate her Facebook page just to see what was going on in his world. In the end she turned her phone off and put it on the other side of the room on top of her wardrobe so she couldn’t get to it easily. She felt sick. Why was heartache so hard to get rid of?
Forty-Nine
The next day she missed the morning at school to go and navel-gaze with the well-meaning but monotonous Dr Harvey. She didn’t talk about seeing Hayley’s mum or Tasha’s. She didn’t talk about the green dress. She didn’t talk much at all, and in the end pleaded a headache to cut the session short. The afternoon passed in a haze of English, the ghost of Mr Garrick still hovering over the class, and especially over the shoulder of the nervous and twitchy supply teacher who had taken his place. She was good enough as a teacher, Becca figured, but she didn’t have any history with them, and the ghoulish look on her face whenever her eyes rested on Becca told them all that she’d studied the newspapers avidly for every detail of the morbid saga that had affected so many of the class.
Becca kept her head down and let the lesson drift over her. Tasha hadn’t got back to her. She couldn’t decide if that was weird, or if she was now so low down in the hive’s social structure that she didn’t even warrant an I have no idea what you’re talking about text. Maybe Tasha didn’t remember. Becca hadn’t until she’d seen the photo. But surely she’d have remembered as soon as Becca mentioned it? After all, Tasha had got in proper trouble with her mum over it. One of the rare times her parents ever really told her off. Maybe she was still figuring out how to respond. Maybe it was all just craziness in Becca’s head.
When the bell went, she ambled to her locker to dump her books and spotted the new Barbies, Jodie and Vicki, up ahead. She groaned internally. It wasn’t that they were bitchy to her – she didn’t merit enough attention for that – but she was well aware of their disdain. If anything, these two were worse than Hayley and Jenny. They knew they were the second choice and had no intention of losing their new prestige, or missing a moment to revel in it.
They glanced her way and then giggled together, gossiping. Becca opened her locker door to block them out but their words still drifted her way.
She’s meeting him in Starbucks – like NOW.
I can’t believe she fancies him but she says he’s been really sweet.
I know! Mark Pritchard’s going to be so fucked off when he hears.
Mark’s way better-looking.
Yeah, but guitarists must be good with their fingers.
God, you’re disgusting!
Becca’s stomach churned. She. She. She. There was only one She who could dominate their conversation like that. Only one She Mark Pritchard had mooned around after. Natasha.
Guitarists’ fingers.
Unsure if she was going to throw up or not, she slammed her locker shut and hurried outside. She needed fresh air and a cigarette. Aiden. They were talking about Aiden. Aiden and Natasha. Her palms burst into a nervous sweat. It couldn’t be true. They couldn’t be going on a date, could they? He wouldn’t, would he?
Starbucks. That’s what the bitches had said. She was meeting him in Starbucks right now. Had they meant her to overhear it? To stick a little knife in her already broken heart and twist it? She bet they had. It wasn’t enough to cut her out, they needed to cut her down, too.
Aiden wouldn’t do that to her. Her feet pounded the pavement hard, sticking just the walking side of a jog, not wanting to look too desperate. He wouldn’t. He’d know how much it would hurt her, and she might have been a bit mental sometimes but he had no reason to want to hurt her any more than he had by breaking her heart. Surely he wouldn’t have asked Tasha out. Surely he wouldn’t?
But he had.
That became very clear when she stared through the glass. His back was to the window, but it was Aiden’s black leather jacket and Aiden’s beautiful dark hair. His elbows were on the table, and as she watched, Tasha leaned forward and took his hands, her perfect head tilted sideways, blonde hair tumbling down one side of her face. She was smiling, and then she laughed at something he’d said, and Becca could almost hear it, flirtatious and oh so confident. So not-Becca.
Becca wanted to storm inside and pull that blonde hair out by its dark roots. She wanted to scream in rage and hurt
and anger. She wanted to kill them both. She got out her phone and jabbed a text to Aiden.
Really? Really? Tasha?? I knew
you fancied her. I KNEW IT.
Can’t believe you’d do this.
I can’t believe you’d hurt me
like this. You’re a shit. You’re
both shits!
Her fingers trembled as she punched ‘send’. Her nose was running with the shock. Through the glass, she saw Aiden glance at his phone. In that instant, Becca’s eyes met Tasha’s. They stared at each other, the winner and the loser, the way it had always been. Tasha smiled. A knowing smile. It was like a slap in the face.
Becca turned and ran.
She didn’t even know she was crying until she got home. She didn’t want to stop running. She wanted to run and run until she was on the other side of the world from Brackston and all its poison. How could he do this to her? How could he? Her phone buzzed. Aiden.
What is the matter with
you???? It’s COFFEE. No biggie. Jesus fuck Becca. What is it with you??? You’re fucking mental.
Are you stalking me?
She cried afresh then. There wasn’t even hatred in his text. It was irritation and that was worse. She was annoying him. That was all. There wasn’t even enough emotion there to make him hate her. She’d made herself look stupid again and this time Tasha knew about it. They were together. No way he’d got that text and not showed her.
God, she just wanted to die. She stormed up to her bedroom and slammed the door, not caring if it was childish. She flopped face down on her bed and sobbed until her pillow was a damp mess of tears and snot. She didn’t care about Tasha’s lie, she didn’t care about Hayley’s words, she didn’t care about that stupid green dress. None of it mattered and it didn’t make sense anyway. This, though, this was all real. If her life had been over before, it was doubly over now. Tasha would tell Vicki and Jodie about it, and they’d tell the rest of the school. It was probably all over the Internet already. Everyone would be laughing at her. Jealous, mental Becca Crisp.
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