Freya padded across the kitchen to a row of artfully mismatched tins.
“What would you like?” What Win would like was to know if she could trust her. If Freya could keep Win’s secrets better than she kept her own. “We’ve got PG Tips, Earl Grey, one of these is mint, I think, or there’s coffee?”
“Mint’s fine, thanks.”
Coming out to Sunny had been terrifying – the same vertigo as standing at the edge of the highest board at the pool, staring at the blue below. But underneath the fear there had been faith that Win could make the leap, break the surface and come back up for air. Nothing like the persistent prickle of doubt crackling like static as she watched Freya fill the kettle and flick it on, fetching the mugs…
Win gripped the edge of the worktop, feeling the pressure of truth about to come out.
“I’m going to tell you something because I think I have to.” She might have been the one who’d written the lines, rehearsed them in her mind, but her voice sounded like it had come from someone else – the sound of a song playing through her headphones before she’d had chance to put them on.
Freya stopped what she was doing. Set the mugs down and turned to lean back against the sink, the span of the breakfast bar between the two of them.
“OK, I’m listening.”
“I wasn’t with a friend yesterday.” Win swallowed, held her nerve. “Riley’s my girlfriend. We were on a date.” Then, just to be clear, “I’m gay.”
A statement Win accompanied with a very good impression of the Elmo shrug GIF because she wasn’t sure what to do with her hands.
Then she made herself look at Freya.
She wasn’t laughing, like she thought this was a joke, or recoiling like she didn’t approve. She was just nodding, looking serious and thoughtful, like she’d actually heard what Win had to say.
“That’s cool,” Freya said, lifting her eyebrows a touch before she said, “Do you still want a mint tea?”
Win did.
They talked then. A bit about yesterday – Freya asked how she knew Riley, how the date went – and Win tried to get her head around the fact that she was talking to someone other than her sister about this, veering wildly between being glad to have said something and terrified that she’d not yet said enough.
“How come you were there – in Leeds?” Win asked.
“With Dad.” Freya pushed over the punnet of raspberries she’d been picking from and Win took one as Freya carried on. “He’s in Manchester, Mum and me live here – and Leeds is halfway. It’s a good place to meet during term time when Mum thinks I’ve too much on to go all the way to Manchester.”
“I didn’t know your dad lived in Manchester,” Win said. She didn’t know much about Freya’s family life beyond how much she argued with her mum. Neither of them seemed to realise that the louder they shouted the further it carried and that Win’s window was nearly always open because of how hot Mama set the central heating.
“Why would you?” Freya said with a shrug. “It’s not like I talk about it.”
Win realised then that she’d assumed Freya’s online life was a full measure of her real one because that was how Win measured her own. That there were parts of Freya’s life she kept private was reassuring.
Time to finish what she’d come here to say.
“About that. Talking, I mean…”
She sensed Freya straighten, knew that she had switched back to a more attentive mood than the one they’d relaxed into.
“I’m not out at school and I’ve not told my parents yet. Although I will, soon.” She picked her mug up, took a tiny sip, put it down. Knew she was delaying. “Sunny knows and I’m out online.”
Freya frowned then.
“If you’re out online then wouldn’t your mates know?”
“My mates do know.” Win’s frown matched Freya’s.
“But you said you weren’t out at school—”
“Oh.” Win laughed and shook her head. “Yeah. When I say ‘mates’ I mean my online crowd, not the people I go to school with.”
To Win, being someone’s friend meant knowing that bad days required pictures of Chris Evans and his dog, or that the best way to make someone feel part of a con they couldn’t go to was to take a photo of their face on a stick to hold up in all the official photos with the actors. Friends were people who didn’t flinch at a stream of all caps in an argument and understood that Thor: Ragnarok could be someone’s favourite film even if it didn’t pass the Bechdel test. Win’s friends might have been made behind the anonymity of a quippy username and a fan art avatar, but they were the people she trusted the most in the world.
The other end of a direct message was as good as sitting next to each other at school.
“So,” Win said, drawing in a breath and meeting Freya’s eye, “I came over because you saw me with Riley, and I feel safer telling you the truth, making it clear it’s not something to talk about, than leaving it for you to guess, or ask someone else—”
“I wouldn’t. I won’t.” Freya’s face, so carefree in all the pictures she posted, held conviction. “I understand. This is your life; you get to choose who you tell. Not me.”
SOPHIE
Last period had descended into chaos. The whole of Year 11 swarmed the grounds, ties knotted around limbs and heads, fists bristling with marker pens as students wrote all over each other – shirts, skin, whatever was on offer. The world had become a hurricane of movement and noise that left Sophie feeling besieged. Trying to write something meaningful on everyone’s shirt was a challenge for someone whose brain wasn’t willing to play along. Although at least if someone’s name dropped out of her head she could scan their shirt for an answer.
Her hand hurt though – her right this time. The compression gloves helped with her joints, but something about the angle, the need to press her pen into the material, made things worse.
Stepping back from the storm and swapping pen for phone, Sophie checked for any messages from the mysterious Winnie – Win – Su.
Nothing.
Not exactly a surprise. Giving Win her number had been a long shot – desperate curiosity disguised as an offer of help. Not that Win looked like someone who needed help. Sitting on her own, she’d not looked as if she needed anyone else’s approval, with that super-short fringe and a black-and-grey aesthetic that didn’t ask for attention. And the way she’d looked at Sophie… Only people who believed in themselves made eye contact like that.
“Sophie?”
“Mm?” She’d not noticed anyone was talking to her.
“You OK?” The corners of Morgan’s mouth tucked themselves away into her soft, round cheeks. The Sympathetic Look.
“I’m fine,” Sophie said, sliding her arm through her friend’s to rest her head on Morgan’s shoulder. She was one of those people who was always warm and Sophie sank into the feeling of having someone else take a little of the weight. “Just recharging a moment.”
“Same.”
They both knew it wasn’t.
Lupus was an invisible illness, which meant Sophie had the option of keeping it that way around people who didn’t look too closely. For a while, she’d not wanted to tell anyone else at school. Dealing with other people’s reactions was hard when she was still struggling to get a handle on her own. But without Freya around, Sophie had needed at least some support, and Morgan and Georgia had been her best options.