‘Move up, move up,’ Bethany said to Oliver Sutton, who was now lolling on the sofa, legs spread and eyes closed. When he didn’t budge, Bethany sat down heavily on his lap. He came to life with a gasp, folding in on himself, and Bethany managed to jump to her feet again quickly, narrowly avoiding spilling her drink.
‘Bloody hell, Bethany.’ His eyes were streaked with tiny red veins as he scowled at her, but he shuffled up enough so they could squeeze in next to him.
Georgia smiled as she took a seat. Bethany wasn’t like the other girls at school – she was able to do things that would have mortified Georgia, like plonking her lunch tray down uninvited at a table full of boys and joining in the conversation. Bethany was a regular at table football in the rec room, pushing her way in to take a turn, yelling and joking as though she were one of the lads, and they all seemed to accept her without question. Perhaps they relaxed with her because she never showed the slightest bit of interest in dating any of them. And perhaps for this reason the girls didn’t find her a threat either – although there could be a few snide comments. Bethany was incapable of taking things to heart, brilliant at laughing at herself in a way Georgia only wished she could be.
Once on the sofa, Bethany was immediately caught up in another round of banter with Oliver. It went on and on, with no effort to include Georgia, and she began to feel uncomfortable. She was an imposter here – she wasn’t one of them any more. The secret she harboured made sure of that. She finished her drink, feeling morose, and somehow ended up holding another. The night began to ebb. She watched Sophia from across the room, but her cousin hardly noticed her, distracted by the presence of Eddie, all-round sporting talent and definite school stud. She watched Eddie’s hand rove underneath Sophia’s T-shirt, sneaking higher and higher, and was surprised and annoyed that Sophia didn’t push him away. She began to feel nervous for her cousin – everyone knew about Eddie. Quite a few of the girls in the year had already been humped and dumped – which was why Emma Osborne was sitting in the farthest corner, biting her lip, pretending to laugh along with the crowd.
And then the evening changed again. Georgia began to pay less attention to the hair-twirling, toe-curling flirtations of her cousin, because Danny Atherton sat down beside her and began to make her laugh, leaning in close enough that she could see flecks of brown in his large blue eyes.
Georgia wasn’t sure what to do about Danny. He was one of the boys at school who made the girls’ eyes linger longest as he strode by. Known for his love of outdoor sports, and excellent at all of them. As far as she knew he had never had a girlfriend and gave no sign of wanting one, larking about with his mates most of the time, until a few weeks ago, at the start of the school year, when he had made a point of seeking Georgia out and asking her lots of questions about the upcoming fell-running championships. They were both on the school team, so Georgia hadn’t found this strange, until Sophia suggested with a smirk that this was obviously an excuse for him to get closer to her. When he subsequently took a daily interest in her training schedule, and asked if they could run together, Georgia began to wonder if Sophia was right. She had firmly resisted so far, finding a variety of excuses, worried she would run out of them if he kept this up. She didn’t want to tell him the truth: that she had learned her lesson; that she was better off running alone.
The situation was particularly ironic since she had been interested in Danny for most of last term – along with half the girls in her year. But the events of the summer had changed everything. Now, each time she saw Danny, his intentions became a little clearer, his approach bolder. He seemed to be waiting for a sign from her, and part of her longed to give it. But although she found Danny kind and attentive, the group he hung around with could be less so. She wasn’t sure she fancied having to spend time with the likes of Oliver and Jamie, who seemed to enjoy baiting people, and who it was rumoured could supply you with any drug you had heard of. Besides, her life had become more complicated than Danny realised. She tried to picture his reaction if she told him her secret. She didn’t like what she saw.