‘Oh my God!’ She bounced on my bed, genuinely excited, and I realized that Izzy hadn’t had any love interest for just as long as me. Longer. ‘Tell me everything. Where? What’s his name? Everything.’

‘I met him at Beachview,’ I said. ‘Remember I said that on the day my dad left I went and found a little room there, that I kind of remembered? And I wrote on the wall that I hated him?’ She nodded. ‘Well, I went in again yesterday, and then today, and both times there was someone already there. A boy. Joe. He’s going on a school trip to France, leaving about now, but he’s back next week and I’ve got his number.’

‘Amazing. What’s he like?’

‘Really good-looking. He looks a bit like … like.’ I scrambled around for a comparison. ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t look like anyone except himself.’

‘Who’d play him in the biopic?’

I thought about it, unexpectedly thrown. ‘Robert Pattinson,’ I said in the end. ‘As Cedric Diggory. But that’s very, very approximate.’ I frowned. ‘He doesn’t look like that, but that would be the Hollywood version, I think. His mum’s doing a yoga course in India. He lives with his dad and his brother. He’s a bit weird, but I kind of like that.’

‘How old?’

‘Our age,’ I said, then adjusted it to the actual truth. ‘Bit younger actually. He’s fifteen.’

‘Which school?’

‘He said it’s called Beachview. Like the mall.’

‘Is it a posh school?’

I thought about that. A few things fell into place. There were loads of little private schools around the area. It made sense. That would be why I didn’t recognize him.

‘I guess,’ I said.

‘Fancy!’

‘I know.’

‘A rich boyfriend! A toy boy!’ cooed Izzy. ‘And a good-looking one at that.’

‘He’s not my boyfriend. I won’t see him for over a week.’

‘Text him! Tell him you want to see him when he’s back. Go on. Do it. He’ll get it. It’s France: you can text people there.’

‘No.’ I looked at her. ‘Shall I?’ She nodded. ‘What shall I say?’

We crafted the perfect casual message. I looked for him on WhatsApp, but he wasn’t there. I couldn’t find him on anything else without knowing his surname. I copied our message and sent it as a text, then stared at the phone and waited.

A moment later I got a ‘delivery failure’ notification.

12

I go to school. I go to the mall. I buy a Mars milkshake just for the hell of it and walk into an angry man. I don’t want to go to France.

I wrap myself in the blanket. The door opens. A girl is there. I’ve met her before, but I don’t know who she is.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ she says, and she looks super pissed off.