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Chapters (86)
  1. Title Page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. Love
  4. Before
  5. One
  6. ONE
  7. Two
  8. TWO
  9. Three
  10. THREE
  11. Four
  12. FOUR
  13. Five
  14. FIVE
  15. Six
  16. SIX
  17. Seven
  18. SEVEN
  19. Eight
  20. EIGHT
  21. Nine
  22. NINE
  23. Ten
  24. TEN
  25. Eleven
  26. ELEVEN
  27. After
  28. One
  29. ONE
  30. Two
  31. TWO
  32. Three
  33. THREE
  34. Four
  35. FOUR
  36. Five
  37. FIVE
  38. Six
  39. SIX
  40. Seven
  41. SEVEN
  42. Eight
  43. EIGHT
  44. Nine
  45. NINE
  46. Ten
  47. TEN
  48. Eleven
  49. ELEVEN
  50. Twelve
  51. TWELVE
  52. Thirteen
  53. THIRTEEN
  54. Fourteen
  55. FOURTEEN
  56. Fifteen
  57. FIFTEEN
  58. Sixteen
  59. SIXTEEN
  60. Seventeen
  61. SEVENTEEN
  62. Eighteen
  63. EIGHTEEN
  64. Nineteen
  65. NINETEEN
  66. Twenty
  67. TWENTY
  68. Twenty-One
  69. TWENTY-ONE
  70. Twenty-Two
  71. TWENTY-TWO
  72. Twenty-Three
  73. TWENTY-THREE
  74. Twenty-Four
  75. TWENTY-FOUR
  76. Twenty-Five
  77. TWENTY-FIVE
  78. Twenty-Six
  79. TWENTY-SIX
  80. Twenty-Seven
  81. TWENTY-SEVEN
  82. Twenty-Eight
  83. TWENTY-EIGHT
  84. Eleven Months Later
  85. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  86. Copyright

When I’m done, I feel like I’ve just run up five flights of stairs. I almost tell Adara that I need to sit down, but we’re already late for school so I need to keep going, even if it’s more of an effort to put one foot in front of the other than it was a few minutes ago.

Adara doesn’t say anything for a long time and that scares me because, much like Poppy, she isn’t the type to think before she says something, she just says it. I can’t help but wonder what she’s thinking, if she’s trying to choose her next words carefully because she knows that she upset me yesterday when she offered to come with me in case Poppy didn’t show up.

Finally she stops and turns to face me. ‘This is it, isn’t it, Ash?’ she says, lifting her heavy eyelashes to look at me, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. ‘She’s the one, isn’t she?’

All I can manage is a nod as she pulls me into a hug that lasts a beat longer than usual.

When she steps back, she’s still smiling. ‘I’m so happy for you, Ash. When I think about those other girls and how they mucked you around . . .’ She stops to shake her head. ‘I’m so relieved. I’m not gonna lie,’ she admits, ‘I was worried for a minute there, but maybe you’ll get what everyone else gets to have.’

I smile back. ‘Thanks, Ad.’

‘Just be careful, yeah?’ she adds with a solemn frown and I’m relieved because I was about to ask her who she was and what she’d done with my best friend.

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Poppy and I meet in the same place after school. I don’t stop myself running towards her this time and she does the same, the pair of us meeting somewhere in the middle in a hug that nearly knocks us both off our feet. All I can think is, Now. Please just kiss me now, but she takes my hand and leads me into town.

I want to ask her where we’re going – if she’s taking me to the place – but at the same time I don’t want to know. I just want it to happen. So I let her talk. Talk about everything. School. How nice the weather is, given it’s almost October. The shoes in the shop window we pass that she’d buy if the heel was higher. The poster for a band she wants to see that are playing at The Haunt next week.