She lurches over to her desk, and yanks open the drawer. She reaches underneath a pile of GCSE textbooks (all in suspiciously good condition) and pulls out her journal, the present from her sisters that caused her to erupt on her birthday. Since she’s managed to erase Javier’s involvement, she’s started writing in it, and is secretly enjoying having somewhere to offload her thoughts, a place that doesn’t have an opinion of its own, or a voice to remind her that eczema breeds in refined sugar, you know.

With a contorted face but deepening resolve, Katherine drops back onto her bed, but pushes against the wall and draws her legs up towards her. She picks up her pillow and shoves it between her stomach and knees to create a wobbly table for her journal. She doesn’t want to write in it now – what would she say? I smeared toxic waste on my face today – but she flicks through the pages to her favourite entry, almost two weeks old now.

Thurs 2nd March

When Becca saved Katherine …

LUNCHTIME

Mum had made me this salad thing. It actually tasted okay, but I knew people would’ve taken the piss out of me if I tried to eat it in the dining hall, or say something like: ‘yeah well, it’s about time you went on a diet,’ so I ate it at one of the picnic tables outside. But then Jade Carrington and her mates turned up. They were laughing at my Rugrats lunchbox (FFS Rugrats??) then Jade got a pen out of her bag and said she wanted to play dot-to-dot on my face. She’s such a bitch. An ugly, stupid, nasty bitch.

Obviously I didn’t tell her that. Too much of a wimp. I just kept pushing her hand away and trying not to cry. But the more I resisted, the more she forced the pen on me, and the more they all laughed. But THEN Becca showed up! She was with two of her friends and she still stopped, told Jade to quit being such a bitch, and said that she was embarrassing herself the most. Jade’s face was hysterical. And her shoulders hunched over as she walked away. Hahaha.

And then Becca told her friends to go on without her, and she sat with me for the REST OF LUNCH. Turns out we like the same music (Radiohead and Björk) and the same TV shows (Dawson’s Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer). She was so easy to talk to. She smelled amazing too. Apparently it was Impulse Free Spirit. I’m going to get some on Saturday.