The Campion Prince was a rare exception.
“Hey, I got the job.” Freya only had two modes: butterfly brain and hyperfocus. Today had been flit-ful.
“That’s good!” Sophie raised her can to tap it against Freya’s, but her friend’s response wasn’t enthusiastic.
“Is it?” Freya slumped back onto the bench, head tipped to the sky. Given that two days ago all she’d talked about was getting a job up at Rabscuttle Hall, Sophie was inclined to say yes. But she knew Freya better than to answer questions her friend hadn’t intended to ask.
“It’s just…” Freya sighed. “It’s another way to be trapped, you know?”
But Sophie didn’t know.
“Think of the money,” she said, trying to find something positive. “And not having to spend as much time at home with your mum.”
A smile touched Freya’s lips at that, before she noticed Sophie pressing her can to the top of her right arm to stop herself from scratching. A rash had blossomed there and heat made it worse.
Freya nodded at her arm. “I thought you’d been to the doctor about that?”
“I have. She now thinks it’s eczema.”
Freya did the Pet Lip of Pity and gave Sophie’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “At least they can treat that.”
Which was the same thing she’d said before, when they’d thought it was ringworm. Optimism wasn’t always the answer, but it was all Freya ever offered when it came to health stuff. And there’d been a lot of it that year – enough for the school to call her mum in about how many sick days she had. Not that there was anything either of them could do – it wasn’t like she was faking. Sophie might pretend to enjoy re-watching Sam and Cat so many times she dreamed in sarcasm, but really, she’d prefer to be at school. Which was sad.
“Ladies…” Ryan emerged from the bakery behind and hopped over the back of the bench, forcing Sophie to scoot over so he could sit between them.
Historically, Ryan Krikler was nothing more than someone who made a nuisance of himself from the back of whatever classes they had in common. Lately, though, Freya had been reacting to his piss-taking and general ass-hattery in a way that seemed to be giving him ideas.
“Doughnut?”
Ryan held out a box of them – three chocolate ring doughnuts, the fourth already stuffed in his mouth. Freya took one, but Sophie turned him down. She preferred it when the only thing Ryan offered was the opportunity to start an argument.
“Carbs? You sure?”
“Please don’t call me that.” Charbonneau was a last name that could be butchered any number of ways, each cut as ugly as the last: Chardonnay, Carbonara, Carbs… Bonbon. Sophie hated them all.
Sophie leaned even further away to stop Ryan knocking her with his elbows. “Why are you here?”
“Waiting for someone.”
When Ryan ate it was cartoon-sized bites that had him chewing with every muscle in his face, the scar that ran from his jaw and across his ear lobe accentuating every move.
She glanced down at her phone.
“We need to head if we want the next bus,” she said, standing up and looking at Freya, then giving Ryan a dismissive “… guess we’ll see you next week.”
“You guess? We’re in half the same classes, you spleen.” The insult came round a mouthful of icing and half-chewed dough as he leaned round to look at the cobbled parking bay behind. “My ride’s here anyway.”
Sophie turned with Freya to see a black BMW pull up. Freya tensed a second as the passenger door swung open and a boy got out to push the seat forward. It was him. Freya’s objet d’amour. Blue Campion uniform, tie off and shirt unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up to the elbow. His dark hair was brushed back from a face that was handsome in a way that looked more rebel than regal and, when he glanced towards them, the way he squinted against the sun only added to the appeal.
“Ry, you coming?” he called.
Freya whipped round to look at Ryan. “You know him?”
Ryan closed the lid on the last of his doughnuts and frowned. “What? You mean ‘do I know the person who just called my name out and is waving me into the back of his car’?” Ryan smirked. “You concerned about stranger danger?”
She punched him on the arm hard enough that he winced. “I’m serious. Who is he?”
Rubbing his arm, Ryan scowled at Freya, then at the boy next to the car. “That’s my cousin, Kellan.”
WIN
Had Sophie given this parcel to Win’s sister, she’d have torn it open the second she saw it, too desperate to know what was inside to care who was there to see it.
Win waited.
The parcel remained in her bag, unopened, through Physics, then lunch, then a particularly torturous Mechanics lesson going over momentum calculations. It wasn’t until last period, after she’d returned a university prospectus to the Careers room, that Win finally had the peace and quiet she wanted.
Alone, sitting in the driver’s seat of the car she shared with Mama, Win scored down the seam of the tape with her thumbnail and unfolded the paper.
She’d been right to wait.
Under the paper was a rainbow flag. Big and bright and bold – the one that she’d worn round her shoulders like a cape last July, Pride fever giving her even greater confidence than she’d felt in Leeds.
The day had been planned around Riley – tickets to London booked and paid for, a perfect opportunity to introduce her to her friends IRL – until Riley and Win broke up during a particularly tearful FaceTime right in the middle of Win’s exams.
Rather than go alone, Win had offered the train ticket to Freya. (Sunny had sulked for the whole week and several days after, but fourteen was too young for her to go to London without their parents wanting a lot more detail than Win was prepared to fabricate.) Freya had embraced her role as straight ally to the fullest, making a playlist – “No, no … a gay list!” – for the journey, and had wowed Win’s friends so much that Felix still referred to her as his “Favourite Flirtatious Straight”. Then, on the journey home, tired and smudged and glitter-coated, she’d accepted the flag that Win had held out across the table. But only for safe-keeping, she’d said, until Win wanted it back.
Returning it like this was the opposite of keeping it safe. Of keeping Win safe. One of the lads in her year was a homophobe – the kind that didn’t feel ashamed enough to keep his opinions to himself. Waving a rainbow flag on the streets of London during a parade was a long way, in every possible sense, from pulling it out of a parcel like a magician in the middle of Buckthorn sixth form.
Win sighed and folded her arms over the top of the wheel, resting her chin on them and staring out at the Year 11s starting to leak out of the school gates.
What if she’d opened this in front of Sophie, like Freya had so clearly been hoping? Freya might have assumed it would be fine. But that hadn’t been her decision to make. She knew that. Or she had, once.
If it weren’t for the fact that she’d find someone else’s name under the flag, Win would have shoved the whole lot back in her bag and forgotten about it.
Taking a breath, she removed the rest of the paper, then the flag. Then, finally, she read the next name.