Chapters (86)
- Title Page
- CONTENTS
- Love
- Before
- One
- ONE
- Two
- TWO
- Three
- THREE
- Four
- FOUR
- Five
- FIVE
- Six
- SIX
- Seven
- SEVEN
- Eight
- EIGHT
- Nine
- NINE
- Ten
- TEN
- Eleven
- ELEVEN
- After
- One
- ONE
- Two
- TWO
- Three
- THREE
- Four
- FOUR
- Five
- FIVE
- Six
- SIX
- Seven
- SEVEN
- Eight
- EIGHT
- Nine
- NINE
- Ten
- TEN
- Eleven
- ELEVEN
- Twelve
- TWELVE
- Thirteen
- THIRTEEN
- Fourteen
- FOURTEEN
- Fifteen
- FIFTEEN
- Sixteen
- SIXTEEN
- Seventeen
- SEVENTEEN
- Eighteen
- EIGHTEEN
- Nineteen
- NINETEEN
- Twenty
- TWENTY
- Twenty-One
- TWENTY-ONE
- Twenty-Two
- TWENTY-TWO
- Twenty-Three
- TWENTY-THREE
- Twenty-Four
- TWENTY-FOUR
- Twenty-Five
- TWENTY-FIVE
- Twenty-Six
- TWENTY-SIX
- Twenty-Seven
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- Twenty-Eight
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- Eleven Months Later
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Copyright
When I walk back into our room, Rosh is propped up against her pillows, half-sitting, half-lying. She probably hasn’t noticed as she reads whatever book she’s reading with such focus you’d think she was trying to decipher the Enigma code. She doesn’t even look up as I pad over to check my phone, which is charging on the bedside table between our beds. I haven’t missed much since I’ve been in the shower, just a couple of selfies from Adara showing off her new lipstick and an alert from ASOS to let me know there’s twenty per cent off everything.
I glance over my shoulder at Rosh as I head over to the wardrobe. I doubt she’s even noticed that I’m back in the room, but I still open the wardrobe door and hide behind it as I put on some clean underwear and wrap the towel around me again.
‘Aren’t you getting backache sitting like that? What you reading anyway?’ I ask, grabbing the bottle of Palmers from the chest of drawers and heading over to my bed. She just grunts, which is Rosh for Leave me alone, I’m reading, but I persist.
‘Rosh!’
‘What?’ she whines.
‘What are you reading?’ I ask again as I sit on the edge of my bed and flip open the lid on the bottle of Palmers, squeezing some into my hand. She turns the book for me to see the cover with a pointed huff before settling back against the pillows.
‘Noughts & Crosses. I read that last year.’
‘Hm-mm.’
‘I loved it. It’s so clever.’
‘Hm-mm.’
‘Really makes you think, doesn’t it?’
‘Hm-mm.’
‘I thought it was a GCSE text, though?’ I’m sure it is, I think as I cream my right leg, the whole room immediately filling with the familiar smell of cocoa butter. ‘How come you’re reading it already?’
‘Mrs Sangha recommended it.’
‘I thought you had Miss Briggs for English?’
‘Mrs Sangha, the school librarian,’ Rosh says, finally bothering to look up from the book, even if it’s just to roll her eyes at me. ‘You know, from the library? That building next to the canteen with all the books in it.’
I pull a face at her as I squeeze some more cocoa butter into my palm and she pulls one back.
‘I went to Rampion Wind Farm today,’ I tell her, rubbing it down my left leg this time.
She chuckles and returns to her book. ‘Did Mum go off about the boat?’
I stop to exhale heavily through my nose. ‘Of course.’
‘You know what she’s like, Ash. She just worries.’