‘What you grinning at? Are you thinking about that girl you were talking to before?’ I hear Adara ask, as we stand up to get off. Before I can respond, I hear someone say my name as we step off the bus and turn to find a woman in a green Extinction Rebellion T-shirt smiling at me.

I’m about to tell her that I don’t have any money on me, assuming that she’s going to ask for a donation, when she says, ‘You don’t remember me, do you, Ash?’

Shit.

This never ends well.

‘I’m Gillian,’ she says when I don’t say anything, just stare at her. ‘I work with your mum in A&E.’

‘Oh, hi,’ I say in a way I hope doesn’t betray the fact that I don’t remember her at all.

‘How’s it going? How’s school?’

‘Good. We went to Rampion Wind Farm this afternoon.’

‘That’s brilliant!’ She beams. ‘I’m so glad they’re teaching you about stuff like that. It’s so important.’

‘Yeah.’ I nod, tucking my phone into the back pocket of my jeans. ‘I guess.’

‘Who’s this?’ She nods at Adara who is next to me, scrolling through her phone, and when Gillian’s smile gets a little tighter, I feel each of the muscles in my shoulders clench at once.

‘This?’ It’s a moment too long before I can catch my breath to finish the thought as I turn to Adara, who is looking up now, gaze narrowing at her – this Gillian – and I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing. If Gillian knows. If my mother told her, and now she’s going to tell my mother that she saw me in town with a girl.

‘Adara,’ Adara says with an equally tight smile.

‘Yes, Adara. This is Adara. This is my friend Adara. We’ve been friends since infant school.’

I have to stop saying Adara, but I don’t want Gillian to forget her name so when she tells my mother that she saw me in town with a girl, my mother will just say, Oh her. They’ve been friends for years.

Adara must be thinking the same thing because when Gillian excuses herself, saying that she needs to pick her son up from school, Adara waits until she’s across the road before turning to me with a scowl.

‘Do you think she knows?’

I shrug. ‘If she does, I can’t believe that my mother told her.’

‘No way.’ Adara shakes her head. ‘She can’t have. You don’t even know if she’s told your dad that you’re, you know.’ She raises her eyebrows up and down. ‘Why would she tell some random woman at work?’

‘She wouldn’t.’

Would she?

‘She wouldn’t, Ash. Don’t worry about it.’