13 Minutes (33 page)

‘What?’ It was clear irritation now. She wanted Becca gone.

Well, fuck you, Miss Perfect
, Becca thought, heading back towards her.
I’m still here.
‘Those friendship bracelets. When you got me the chess set. You told me your mum chose them, but she said
you
did.’

‘Does it matter?’ Tasha said. She put her key in the lock, looking at Becca over her shoulder. ‘What difference does it make now? I don’t actually remember. Did I say that? Maybe I meant we chose them together.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ Becca said. She wasn’t convinced. She could remember it clearly. They were in the theatre. She remembered because she’d felt so fucking special that Tasha had chosen her present and not theirs. Heat fizzed at her insides. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing.’

She turned and walked away, waiting to hear the sound of Tasha’s front door shutting. It didn’t come for several seconds. Tasha had watched her go.

She lied
, Becca thought, and in that instant she knew it for a certainty.
She lied to me.
But why? Hayley’s words, in her mum’s tearful voice, echoed in her head.
She used Becca.
And then of course there was the memory of the green dress. The world trembled with possibilities Becca didn’t want to examine. She didn’t want to think that way. She couldn’t. But this was starting to feel like the green dress all over again. Maybe they hadn’t changed so much since then after all. Natasha had fooled her then. Had she fooled her all over again now?

*

That night, she smoked the last of her Marlboros out of the window and thought about Natasha’s lie and Hayley’s words and the green dress until her brain felt like it was being pushed through her mum’s juicer. Why had Tasha lied? It wasn’t a big lie. It might not mean anything. People lie all the time to save other people’s feelings. Maybe she’d been feeling bad about Becca’s present being less personal. It could be that. It
could
. But it didn’t feel like that. And Tasha’s memory might have gone but she’d not had a personality transplant. She wasn’t the kind of girl to lie simply to make someone else feel better. She could still have won Becca’s friendship back without it. So why would she lie?

She leaned out through the window and let the cool air tease her face. Was Hayley lying awake in her cell right now? Was she off her face on prison smack or something? Or locked up in some hospital ward to get her off it?

The bracelets. The green dress.
She used Becca, too.

The green dress was like a tendril of weed, wrapping around her legs and dragging her down towards the darkness where the past and the present collided.

Tasha was always the core of the group.
It was true. They all had danced to Tasha’s tune, as if they knew even as small children that she was the special one and their place in the world would depend on her favour. Even after the incident with the green dress, how deceptive and mean she’d been, it had remained the same. Natasha could always charm you back. Becca breathed smoke into the night air and her eyes ran over the dark shapes of the garden: the black hulk of shadow that was her dad’s shed; the two-seater swing lurking by the fence; the plants rising out of the black earth. It all looked alien, sinister and unclear without daylight. A murky world.

Tasha lied.
That thought wouldn’t fade. And now Tasha knew that Becca knew she’d lied. Tasha, the straight A* student, the girl who breezed through her GCSEs top of the class, the chess player who did nothing without a
reason
, would not be fooled by Becca’s shrugging it away. She picked up her phone and scrolled to Tasha’s number. It was no longer near the top of her most recents. Ditched again. Funny that.

Suddenly remembered

my green dress. Crazy

huh? All those years ago

and I think about it now.

Wonder why.

She typed the words fast and then pressed ‘send’. She flicked the cigarette butt through the window, closed it and lay on her bed, her heart racing.

When her phone buzzed back so fast, she jumped.

Sorry, was working. Yeah, it’s

a relief. Thanks.

Not Tasha but Aiden. She stared at the words. They were cold and distant. No kiss. It wasn’t like her Aiden at all. But then, as it had turned out, he’d never really been hers at all. How could he be when he’d kept so much from her? She hated herself for having texted him in the first place. Why was she so weak? Why was she such an idiot? She flicked off the light and raged and burned into the night, fighting the urge to reactivate her Facebook page just to see what was going on in his world. In the end she turned her phone off and put it on the other side of the room on top of her wardrobe so she couldn’t get to it easily. She felt sick. Why was heartache so hard to get rid of?

Forty-Nine

The next day she missed the morning at school to go and navel-gaze with the well-meaning but monotonous Dr Harvey. She didn’t talk about seeing Hayley’s mum or Tasha’s. She didn’t talk about the green dress. She didn’t talk much at all, and in the end pleaded a headache to cut the session short. The afternoon passed in a haze of English, the ghost of Mr Garrick still hovering over the class, and especially over the shoulder of the nervous and twitchy supply teacher who had taken his place. She was good enough as a teacher, Becca figured, but she didn’t have any history with them, and the ghoulish look on her face whenever her eyes rested on Becca told them all that she’d studied the newspapers avidly for every detail of the morbid saga that had affected so many of the class.

Becca kept her head down and let the lesson drift over her. Tasha hadn’t got back to her. She couldn’t decide if that was weird, or if she was now so low down in the hive’s social structure that she didn’t even warrant an
I have no idea what you’re talking about
text
.
Maybe Tasha didn’t remember. Becca hadn’t until she’d seen the photo. But surely she’d have remembered as soon as Becca mentioned it? After all, Tasha had got in proper trouble with her mum over it. One of the rare times her parents ever really told her off. Maybe she was still figuring out how to respond. Maybe it was all just craziness in Becca’s head.

When the bell went, she ambled to her locker to dump her books and spotted the new Barbies, Jodie and Vicki, up ahead. She groaned internally. It wasn’t that they were bitchy to her – she didn’t merit enough attention for that – but she was well aware of their disdain. If anything, these two were worse than Hayley and Jenny. They knew they were the second choice and had no intention of losing their new prestige, or missing a moment to revel in it.

They glanced her way and then giggled together, gossiping. Becca opened her locker door to block them out but their words still drifted her way.

She’s meeting him in Starbucks – like NOW.

I can’t believe she fancies him but she says he’s been really sweet.

I know! Mark Pritchard’s going to be so fucked off when he hears.

Mark’s way better-looking.

Yeah, but guitarists must be good with their fingers.

God, you’re disgusting!

Becca’s stomach churned.
She. She. She.
There was only one
She
who could dominate their conversation like that. Only one
She
Mark Pritchard had mooned around after. Natasha.

Guitarists’ fingers.

Unsure if she was going to throw up or not, she slammed her locker shut and hurried outside. She needed fresh air and a cigarette. Aiden. They were talking about Aiden. Aiden and Natasha. Her palms burst into a nervous sweat. It couldn’t be true. They couldn’t be going on a date, could they? He wouldn’t, would he?

Starbucks. That’s what the bitches had said. She was meeting him in Starbucks
right now
. Had they meant her to overhear it? To stick a little knife in her already broken heart and twist it? She bet they had. It wasn’t enough to cut her out, they needed to cut her down, too.

Aiden wouldn’t do that to her. Her feet pounded the pavement hard, sticking just the walking side of a jog, not wanting to look too desperate. He wouldn’t. He’d know how much it would hurt her, and she might have been a bit mental sometimes but he had no reason to want to hurt her any more than he had by breaking her heart. Surely he wouldn’t have asked Tasha out. Surely he wouldn’t?

But he had.

That became very clear when she stared through the glass. His back was to the window, but it was Aiden’s black leather jacket and Aiden’s beautiful dark hair. His elbows were on the table, and as she watched, Tasha leaned forward and took his hands, her perfect head tilted sideways, blonde hair tumbling down one side of her face. She was smiling, and then she laughed at something he’d said, and Becca could almost hear it, flirtatious and oh so confident. So not-Becca.

Becca wanted to storm inside and pull that blonde hair out by its dark roots. She wanted to scream in rage and hurt and anger. She wanted to kill them both. She got out her phone and jabbed a text to Aiden.

Really? Really? Tasha?? I knew

you fancied her. I KNEW IT.

Can’t believe you’d do this.

I can’t believe you’d hurt me

like this. You’re a shit. You’re

both shits!

Her fingers trembled as she punched ‘send’. Her nose was running with the shock. Through the glass, she saw Aiden glance at his phone. In that instant, Becca’s eyes met Tasha’s. They stared at each other, the winner and the loser, the way it had always been. Tasha smiled. A knowing smile. It was like a slap in the face.

Becca turned and ran.

She didn’t even know she was crying until she got home. She didn’t want to stop running. She wanted to run and run until she was on the other side of the world from Brackston and all its poison. How could he do this to her? How could he? Her phone buzzed. Aiden.

What is the matter with

you???? It’s COFFEE. No biggie. Jesus fuck Becca. What is it with you??? You’re fucking mental.

Are you stalking me?

She cried afresh then. There wasn’t even hatred in his text. It was irritation and that was worse. She was
annoying
him. That was all. There wasn’t even enough emotion there to make him hate her. She’d made herself look stupid
again
and this time Tasha knew about it. They were together. No way he’d got that text and not showed her.

God, she just wanted to die. She stormed up to her bedroom and slammed the door, not caring if it was childish. She flopped face down on her bed and sobbed until her pillow was a damp mess of tears and snot. She didn’t care about Tasha’s lie, she didn’t care about Hayley’s words, she didn’t care about that stupid green dress. None of it mattered and it didn’t make sense anyway. This, though,
this
was all real. If her life had been over before, it was doubly over now. Tasha would tell Vicki and Jodie about it, and they’d tell the rest of the school. It was probably all over the Internet already. Everyone would be laughing at her. Jealous, mental Becca Crisp.

She missed Hannah. Suddenly. Sharply. Hannah would have been able to calm her down. If Hannah hadn’t died then none of this shit would even be happening. Maybe she and Aiden would still be together. She took a deep breath before her overwhelming self-pity started to make this all Hannah’s fault. It was
her own
fault. Her fault for being mental. And Aiden’s for being a lying bastard. And Tasha’s for being the sort of girl who always got what she wanted so easily.

She hated them all. She hated herself. No more overthinking it.

She dragged herself down for dinner, pretending to eat and avoiding conversation, and when her mum asked what was the matter, she just shrugged and said she missed Hannah. It was the easiest way to get them to stop talking to her. Her parents were as shit at talking about their emotions as she was. The last thing she wanted was to tell them Aiden and Tasha had been on a date. She could manage without
their
pity.

Later that night she got a text from Casey saying she should know she was getting trashed again on Twitter. Vicki and Jodie’s feeds were full of stuff saying she’d gone properly mental over Aiden. Facebook, too. She buried her head in the pillow and hated herself all over again. Why would Casey tell her that? Admittedly, Casey was almost the only person who was still civil to Becca – probably because she’d been through that whole
Is Casey Morrison a dyke?
stuff back in Year Ten so knew how it felt. But still: why tell Becca that shit was going on? Maybe Casey thought Becca should man up about it. Get back online and face it.

She stared at her phone. She didn’t care what people were saying about her, not so much, anyway, but her curiosity about Tasha and Aiden was overwhelming. Would their Facebooks say
in a relationship
? Did she want to see? Maybe they’d see she was online again and immediately unfriend her. Would that be such a bad thing? The thought of Aiden ditching her on Facebook made her stomach flip again. She’d look quickly and then deactivate again.
Two minutes
, she promised herself.
Just to know.

So she took a deep breath and logged in.

Fifty

‘So, do you fancy doing it again?’ Jamie said as they strolled up the gravel path to the house. Although their evening had been good, the tension easing after the first glass of wine, he felt like a teenager now, awkward and stumbling. He’d just suggested a drink and maybe some food, a vague request that didn’t have to be seen as a date, but asking her a second time stripped that pretence away. He was way too out of practice at all this. But at least they had the law in common, even if she’d been more interested in his music, which was a pleasant surprise.