But best didn’t mean perfect.
“You going to be OK for the party later?”
Sophie resisted the urge to tell Morgan she sounded exactly like her mum.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Is there anything—”
“I said I’ll be fine.” Sophie regretted the edge in her voice. Being nice never used to be this hard, but then, she didn’t use to be in a constant state of pain and/or exhaustion. No one had warned her how much other people’s concern could drain her, how she’d always have to accept it or risk being rude. Looking for a change of subject, she went with, “Where’s Georgia got to?”
“Over there, getting signed by Ewan Moore.”
Sophie followed Morgan’s gaze to where Georgia – whose tiny frame and innocent little face would see her ID-ed for life – fluttered like an amorous hummingbird at a boy standing half a head taller than his friends, most of it hair.
“That’s my girl,” Sophie said, grinning as she reached up to tuck her hair back behind her ear.
“This is nice.” Morgan touched a finger to the bracelet that rolled down from beneath her glove. “Didn’t Freya use to have one like it?”
Panic lanced through Sophie’s heart. This bracelet was so definitively Freya that when it had slithered out of the first layer of the parcel, silver links pooling on the kitchen table, Sophie had burst into tears. Ambushed by her emotions, she’d put it on without thinking.
“I guess she did,” she said with a non-committal shrug.
“How is she?” Morgan had the same soft tone for asking about Freya as she had for asking about lupus.
“Sad to be missing out, obvs.” Sophie tried a smile copy and pasted from her past. “Even sadder once she finds out that Georgia has actually made contact with Ewan after two years of long-distance pining.”
“Better send her a photo as evidence.”
“Good plan…” Sophie let go of Morgan to reach for her phone, the promise of sending Freya a photo yet another lie inched out from the Jenga stack for Sophie to set atop an increasingly precarious tower. No one knew the truth. They never could. Not after five months of lies.
She’d not meant for it to get like this.
That first day, when everyone at Buckthorn learned that Freya had left, Sophie was the person they’d turned to for an answer. And she had given a tight-lipped smile and gently shaken her head like there were things she knew not to give away. Like everyone else, she’d believed that even if Freya ghosted everyone else in this town, the bonds of best friendship were strong enough to transcend the metaphorical afterlife.
She’d never thought that first impression would turn into a barefaced lie that kept on growing, making her more anxious, more miserable and more lonely.
When Georgia came buzzing over from the Ewan Moore encounter, Sophie’s hug was as much to keep her from taking off as it was to congratulate her. After a few seconds, she released her friend so she could take a photo.
“Hang on a sec, let me just…” Phone in hand, Sophie switched to her camera and—
“Too tempting!” Came a voice Sophie knew all too well, as a hand flashed out and knocked the phone up out of her hand to catch it – except Ryan Krikler fumbled the catch so badly that her phone clattered straight onto the concrete.
“Ryan you absolute shit!” Sophie yelled, angry at how the knock had hurt – angrier about her phone.
“Oops.”
Buckthorn’s biggest gobshite stood there, concern dialled down below zero as he watched Sophie crouch to collect her phone.
Anger ballooned into rage at the sight of her screen.
“You broke my phone.”
Ryan’s attention darted down to her phone, then back up to her face, eyes shifty beneath perma-scowl brows. “Come off it, your phone’s fine.”
“It’s chipped!”
A crowd had gathered. People always liked a bit of drama and Joe T, one of the decent ones, elbowed Ryan in the side and nodded towards Sophie.
“Just say sorry, you dick.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Whatever, lighten up. Her phone still works. No harm no foul.”
“That’s not much of an apology.” Sophie tucked her phone into her pocket, fingers brushing against her pen.
“Because I’m not fucking sorry.”
“You should be.”
“And you’re going to make me?” Ryan’s voice was steeped in sarcasm, but Sophie’s hand closed round her pen – the wonky moustache inked on one of the lads behind Ryan giving her an idea.
“Maybe if Joe could hold you still a minute…” She pulled the cap from her pen with her teeth, and as Ryan made to get away, the lads held him back.
And because it was hold still or risk getting stabbed in the eye with the point of a Sharpie, Ryan stayed where he was, teeth grinding as Sophie put her pen to his forehead; her friends, his friends – anyone close enough to be curious – crowded round, someone letting out a strangled, “Oh, that’s class,” in contrast to Georgia’s scandalised, “Sophie!”
Ryan wasn’t worth her remorse. Not today. Not ever.
Stepping back, Sophie studied her handiwork and enjoyed the slow-burn glow of satisfaction.
“What? What have you drawn?” Ryan reached up to touch his forehead like she’d embossed it.
“A masterpiece.”
She didn’t need to take a picture of her own. Everyone else was too busy shouting Ryan’s name, getting him to turn so they could marvel at the penis she’d drawn on his head, hairy balls and all.
As he glared at her through the crowd, Sophie blew a kiss.
“Sorry yet?”
June – 206 days before Freya left
On Fridays Sophie went to Freya’s. On sunny Fridays, they got off the bus in town, bought something cold and went to sit on the bench outside the bakery to scope out anyone interesting. Lately “interesting” just meant fit. The Year 10 French trip had been and gone and both of them had kissed someone. Two someones in Freya’s case. Both boys: one French and pretty; one English and rough but, as Freya had put it, sexy as hell.
Sophie had kissed her first girl. Pretty. English. Just the once under the safety of a dare.
There were only two things Sophie remembered from that trip: the day she was too wiped to go to the cheese factory and spent all day huddled in her bunk bed switching between Pokémon Go and Two Dots on her phone – and the rise of excitement that tingled through her body after that kiss. A tingle of knowing.
None of their conquests went to Buckthorn, but ever since, both Freya and Sophie had felt an awakening of interest, as if sexy humans had only now started to exist as options rather than hypotheticals.
“No, no, no, maybe, no, no, mmm … no…” Freya sighed into her can of Diet Coke and scanned the high street. “Where is he?”
She was looking for the boy they’d code-named the Campion Prince. They’d seen him a few times now – mostly from the bus, although apparently Freya had passed him on the high street when she was out with her mum a couple of weeks ago and he looked even better up close. When it came to taste in boys, there wasn’t much overlap between Sophie and her best friend. Freya’s crushes had that narrow, suspicious look about them, like a cartoon weasel. Boys who looked like they couldn’t be trusted.