“Hey,” I say.
He stops and looks up at me. His eyes are full of pain and full of hate. “Hey.”
I don’t understand why he’s so cold towards me, why he didn’t even reply to my message or any of my calls since last night. I can feel my throat getting tighter, my chest hurts. I don’t know why every single person hates me so much. “Are you going in?” I mutter.
“Got to, if I want to study here next year.”
I nod. “Can we go in together?”
He looks up at me sharply. “Why did you do it onstage?”
“What?”
“Had to make it into a spectacle, didn’t you? Had to be this big thing, make it all about you, and people like me are just the collateral damage.”
I shake my head. “Nate, no! That’s not what— I promise you, I literally only realized what was going on as I was standing up there. It was Dylan and Tariq – the way they looked at each other—”
“OK, whatever, I’m not interested,” Nate says. “Even if that’s true, you could have waited until after. Now it’s legend, isn’t it? It’ll go down in history as the biggest prom embarrassment of all time. Cheers for that.”
“Nate—”
“No, piss off.”
And he pushes past me, towards the entrance of the school.
But then I hear him come to an abrupt stop and this little gasp of breath, like he’s been shot or something.
I turn, and he’s looking at Dylan and Tariq. They’re up ahead on the steps that lead to the main door, arms around each other, heads nestled into one another’s shoulders. And it hits me too. Before, Dylan and Tariq being together was just a concept. I hadn’t allowed myself to properly think about what that actually meant – I couldn’t, I was too angry. But now I see it. And it’s tender, and strangely beautiful, and even though I’m metres away, I can tell they feel something for each other that is so much more than anything Dylan and I had. I can’t help it, a tear escapes. And then I’m annoyed at myself for feeling like that, and I’m furious at them for making me feel like that. I’m burning up with so many conflicting emotions I could honestly scream.
“I can’t do it,” Nate mutters. He urgently wipes at his eyes. “Shit. Oh god. But if we want to come back for sixth form— Can you please stop crying?”
“You’re crying!” I splutter.
“Well, we both need to stop and figure out what the hell to do, this is such a frigging mess!”
I nod. “I think I have a plan. I can get us out of having to do this, but we need the most sympathetic member of staff. Who would that be?”
“Mrs Davidson,” Nate says.
“The librarian? OK, take me to your leader,” I say. “And let me do the talking.”
There are thirty year sevens sitting in pin-drop silence in the library, having some sort of supervised reading lesson, which is less than ideal. Mrs Davidson is behind the counter, with some kid on an office wheelie chair, who’s in charge of the computer for issuing books. She glances up as we approach. “The orientation day is in the main hall,” she says.
Thirty pairs of year seven eyes look up at me and Nate.
“We” – I keep my voice hushed and low to try and convey the gravity of the situation – “have a small issue.”
“Right?” she says at normal volume.
“So, for various reasons, we’re unable to attend the orientation session, but we really need a member of staff to sign us off.”
“What reasons?” she says.
“Various reasons,” I tell her. She is not the pushover Nate led me to expect.
She laughs. She actually laughs. “I’m going to need a bit more than that – attendance is compulsory if you want to come back next year.”
Nate goes to open his mouth, but I bat him away. “Yes, no, absolutely, and we wouldn’t ask, except it’s an emergency.”
She frowns. “Emergency?”
“Emergency.”
“What sort of emergency?”
I lick my lips and briefly glance at more than a couple of year seven kids who are blatantly listening but are pretending not to. I lower my voice to the merest hiss. “It’s a … it’s a gay emergency.” Throwing in the gay thing is usually enough. She won’t ask any more. If she does, that’s homophobic. Probably.
“It’s a what?” she says.
“A gay … a gay emergency!”
“Well, what’s that?”
“It’s gay!”
“And—”
“It’s gay and it’s an emergency!”
“But what is it?”
“Private! Very private!” I hiss. “Please, miss! It’s a private, terrible, gay emergency that means we really cannot be at the important thing, and we need your help.”
“The thing is—” she begins.
“Please!”
“I really can’t—”
“We just need your help!”
“Without you being more—”
“We’re not comfortable talking to anyone—”
“LICE!” Nate suddenly says really loudly, and then, just in case anyone at the back of the library didn’t hear, he repeats it. “It’s lice. We need help. Medical help.”
Mrs Davidson stares at him in shock.
The kid on the wheelie chair slowly pushes himself away from us.
I close my eyes because, what the actual hell, Nate?
And that boy is not done yet.
“We didn’t know who else we could trust to tell,” Nate explains. He glances around the library, and at all the year sevens who are now openly staring at us. “We didn’t want anyone else to find out.”
Mrs Davidson nods. “OK, boys. It’s good you’ve sought help. I think the first thing is to see the school nurse, she can advise you, and then—”
“No, we just need you to sign us off and we can go to the clap clinic,” I say. I can’t believe I’m saying it, but here we are.
“Why are you talking about the clap clinic?” Nate hisses. He points to his hair. “Head lice, I meant!”
I glare at him. “And since when did head lice constitute an emergency, Nate?”
“Well, don’t just jump in with the clap clinic when I didn’t mean that!” Nate mutters.
“How am I meant to know what’s happening in your brain? Hm? Do I look like a mind reader?” I take a deep breath and shake my head.
“OK, I’m not sure exactly what’s happening here,” interrupts Mrs Davidson, “but I’m going to ring for the nurse. It’s important you get the support you need, for whatever this actually is.” She’s picking up the phone. “We have a duty of care towards you, after all.”
“Wait!” I say. “It’s OK, we understand that. Since you’re so busy here, we’ll just go and see the nurse ourselves, it’s … really no problem.” I give her what must be a really fake smile, despite my best efforts. “Thank you so much.” I glance around the library. “Yay, books!”
Thirty disgusted faces look back at me, and I’m pretty sure one kid is already messaging under the desk.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NATE
It just came out. I’d always assumed head lice was a big thing, you know, a school wouldn’t want it to spread, and we’d need to be quarantined or something, so Mrs Davidson would agree to whatever we wanted and be all understanding. I hadn’t accounted for the fact that Jack would assume I meant pubic lice, and of course the staff at school like to be all up in your business these days because otherwise it’s neglect.
We should have just both agreed we had flu, put on the coughing and the croaky voice, and it would probably have been fine. Except, it probably wouldn’t because that’s an age-old trick, so maybe I did right.
“You are such a dick,” Jack mutters.
Or I possibly didn’t.
“Why the hell would you say that?” he continues. “Of all things! Lice! You had to pick the grossest thing.”
“It’s not gross,” I tell him. “Head lice, or any sort of lice, are nothing to be as
hamed of.”
“Anything you can use in a sentence with the word ‘infestation’ is something to be embarrassed about,” Jack tells me.
“Are we going to see the school nurse?” I ask.
He turns to me, sharply. “No, Nate, we are not.”
“What if Mrs Davidson asks about it later?”
“Tell her you got yourself fumigated and it’s all fine!” Jack hisses. He stomps off up the corridor.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“Orientation session,” he says, not looking back.
I watch him go, mulling my options, but realizing that this is school and I basically don’t have any. I sigh and follow Jack, eventually finding him hovering outside the double doors that lead to the main hall, where the workshop is happening. I guess he doesn’t want to go in either. Seeing Tariq with Dylan on the steps earlier cut me up. But going in there, seeing them again, being all together and apparently in love, I don’t think I can take it. And then there’s the fact Jack made the whole situation a billion times worse by announcing it in front of the whole school. Maybe to him it’s not a big deal. He loves the limelight, he’s confident. He might be upset, but he can deal with it better than I can. I know life hasn’t always been easy for Jack, but he comes out of it sparkling, whereas I always feel like it crushes me.
I hover with him for a few moments. We stare at the double doors, the frosted glass panels masking the horrors lurking on the other side.
“What are we waiting for?” I ask eventually.
“For everyone inside that room to die so I don’t have to face them.”
I nod. “That could easily be eighty years.”
He doesn’t reply.
“Just do your Jack thing,” I continue.
He grimaces. “And what, pray, is that, exactly?”
“You know,” I say. “Ta-da!”
He frowns at me. “What was that thing you did?”
“What thing?”
“Was that some sort of shimmy when you said, ‘Ta-da!’?”
“I guess.”
“OK, because it looked like you were having some sort of fit. If you’re going to shimmy, hold the whole body still and alternate your shoulders back and forth. That’s the move. It’s not hard.”
“I wish I hadn’t bothered.”
“So do I.”
He stares at the door, breathing hard.
“Anyway,” I say. “You don’t have to face them. We do.”
He glances, just quickly, at me. “What a beautiful thing to say, Nate. How very touching.”
“Piss off.”
“We can walk in there together, the jilted exes—”
“I think, considering your boyfriend probably seduced mine—”
“What?” Jack screams. “So, I have no idea who started what first, but how is that my fault? I don’t control Dylan, Nate, I’m not responsible for him! I didn’t realize what was going on until we were onstage with you!”
“And you had to make a big show of it when you did find out!”
“Oh, this again? So, what, I should just have smiled and not caused a scene because we’re British and all too polite? I should have let Dylan take the crown for being prom king because he’s such a great guy? I mean, what a load of crap!”
“All I’m saying—”
“Well, don’t ‘say’, Nate. Don’t say anything. You’ve said enough.” He glares at me. “Congratulations on coming out, by the way.”
“Thanks,” I mutter.
“Welcome to being gay.”
I look down at the floor.
“As you can see,” he continues, “it’s hell.” He gives me a huge sarcastic smile, and pushes both swing doors open with a huge flourish, bounding forward into the hall. “TA-DA!” he says to the whole room, doing a shimmy, which looks a lot more technically accurate than mine.
The doors flap back and hit me in the face, whacking my nose, so my eyes immediately start to water. I wince in agony as the doors flap open again, and Jack’s hand grabs my jumper and pulls me into the hall. And there I am, standing next to Jack, the rest of year eleven looking at me, while I’m apparently in tears.
Jack glances at me in dismay. “Why are you crying?” he whispers.
“I’m not,” I whimper.
“Jesus, Nate, don’t let them see weakness, they’ll eat you alive.”
Mrs Taylor, head of sixth form, studies us both with the tired resignation of someone who has spent too much time with sixteen-year-olds. “You’re late, boys.”
“Sorry, Mrs Taylor,” Jack says, giving her a smile. “Unfortunately we were disorientated. Thank god we’re here now, though, right? I suppose that’s a fundamental flaw with this whole thing – how do you find your way to a session before you’ve actually had the session about how to find your way?”
“Amusing,” Mrs Taylor says.
“It’s a riddle!” Jack grins.
I’m well aware that Jack’s being a bit of a knob, but right now I’m just grateful he’s pulling the focus to him, so fewer people are looking at me.
Mrs Taylor ignores him. “You can form your own group since everyone else is already in one – there are some paper and pens over there.”
“Due north.” Jack nods. “I’m getting the hang of this.”
Jack bounces over to the far corner, where there’s a huge sheet of blank paper on the floor, about three metres long and two metres wide, as well as a load of marker pens. I keep my head down and shuffle after him, feeling the heat of everyone’s eyes. I’m deliberately trying not to see where Tariq or Dylan are, and I’m not sure if it’s the stress from everyone looking, or the panic that Tariq and Dylan might be right next to where our spot is, or if it’s connected to the door hitting me, or maybe it’s all of the above, but a tiny bit of blood trickles out of my nose.
“MISS!” Jack gasps, seeing me. “Nate’s bleeding!”
“I’m fine,” I mutter.
“Miss, he’s haemorrhaging blood! I’ll take him to the nurse!” He’s gripping my arm and pulling me back the way we came. “It’s OK, we can catch up—”
But Mrs Taylor is having none of it. She’s a secondary school teacher: she knows the difference between a genuine emergency and teenage histrionics. “Just sit down, I’m sure it’ll stop.”
“But, miss—”
“Jack,” Mrs Taylor warns.
Jack sighs and goes back towards our piece of paper, while I dab at my nose with a tissue. I got through five years at this school by keeping my head down and being as invisible as possible. Now, in the space of forty-eight hours, it feels like I’ve become a circus act and my whole body is just filled with dread. I flop down on the floor and keep my head bowed, trying to shut everyone out, not daring to glance up in case the first eyes I meet are those of Tariq or Dylan.
“First task,” Mrs Taylor announces to the whole group, “is to create the perfect sixth former! One of you lies on the sheet of paper and your partner will draw around you. Then, together, I want you to fill in the body shape with the words and phrases you feel embody the perfect sixth form student – for example, you might pick ‘hard-working’ as one quality. As many as you can, twenty minutes – off you go!”
There’s an immediate hum of activity as everyone starts to get on with it, although by the sounds of the suggestions already being made by the groups nearest us (“Fit!” “Sexy!” “Goes to second base on a first date!”), I’m not sure everyone quite understands the point of the exercise.
“Lie down, then,” Jack tells me.
“You lie down.”
“I can’t risk you getting marker pen on this hoodie,” Jack says. “It’s vintage, and I’m not being funny, but you’re literally dressed all in black, like some sort of angel of death, so even if I did get some pen on you, which I won’t because I’ve got a really steady hand – literally, I could be an actual surgeon if I was taking the right A levels – it won’t show up anyway.”
I briefly wonder where Alfie
, Connie and Luke are, and whether I could work with them, but I simultaneously don’t want to look (in case I accidentally see Tariq and Dylan) and can’t be bothered with the hassle from Jack if I go and work with someone else. “Fine.” I lie down on the sheet of paper.
Jack selects a pink marker pen, because of course he does, and sets to work, starting at my head and working round my left side, carefully moving the pen around the fingers of my left hand, then back up my arm, down my side, right down my left leg, around the left foot, then up again, until…
“How do you want me to deal with your crotch area?” Jack asks.
“I don’t want you to ‘deal’ with it at all, thanks.”
“So, do you want some approximation of genitals, or shall I go full eunuch?”
“Just be vague,” I hiss.
He manoeuvres the pen up my left thigh and I close my eyes because I really cannot deal with this right now. At least the giggles emanating from the other groups suggest I’m not alone in this hideousness. Jack must have nearly finished drawing when I hear a,
“We need to talk!”
I open my eyes and Dylan is looming over Jack, deadly serious, while Jack is still on his knees with the pen. “There’s a rumour that you’ve got lice?” Dylan says. “So, were you going to say anything? I mean, that would be the adult thing to do.”
I can practically see the steam coming out of Jack’s ears. “Adult?” he says. “Oh my god. First of all, how dare you? Second of all—”
“So where d’ya get lice from? ’Cause it wasn’t from me.”
“Well, how can we be sure? It’s not as if our relationship was monogamous, as far as you were concerned.” He glares at Dylan. “Also, I don’t have lice. I probably should have said that bit first because it doesn’t sound convincing as an afterthought.”
“OK, well, I heard you did and you were asking to see the school nurse, so that seems weird.”
“OK, well, maybe you should try not getting your information from twelve-year-olds.”
“If you’ve given me lice, I will actually kill you. Not metaphorically, actually, literally kill you.”
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