Corinne was different. To be near her was to feel excitement, the lick of an electric current, the fizz and jolt of her personality lending a charge to the air.

She was at the wardrobe now, briskly looking through the clothes that hung there. Most of the clothes were Eva’s castoffs that Beth couldn’t bring herself to wear, the rest a boring selection of jeans and tracksuits, everything shapeless and muted, like she was trying to make herself disappear. Corinne plucked a dress from a hanger and held it up for inspection. It was a green satin slip that Beth hadn’t the courage to wear.

‘Anouk has a dress just like this,’ she said.

Beth didn’t answer because at that moment, Corinne pulled the T-shirt she’d been wearing over her head, and yanked down her jeans, and Beth found herself staring at the thin body exposed to her, alert to the blue underwear, silky bra-straps cutting through tanned skin. There was a shrugging carelessness to Corinne, like she was unaware of her exposure as she reached for the dress. It made Beth twitchy with envy and longing.

The satin rippled as the slip fell over Corinne’s body.

‘What do you think?’ she asked.

‘Beautiful,’ Beth breathed.

Corinne was hunting around now for her smartphone.

‘Here,’ she said, handing it over. ‘Take a picture of me.’

Corinne pressed herself against the wall, drawing one leg up so the sole of her foot rested against the skirting board, her chin tilted up, her face unsmiling. Impressed by the readiness of her pose – the professionalism – Beth took the photograph. But when Corinne examined it, she frowned, displeased.

‘I look fat. Take it again.’

She altered her pose, changed the angle of her face. Still it wasn’t right. After five attempts, she was satisfied.

‘I will Instagram it,’ she announced, her thumbs flickering rapidly over the screen.

‘You can keep the dress if you like,’ Beth offered shyly. ‘I’m never going to wear it.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s just a bit … I dunno, revealing or something. I’d feel too exposed.’ She ducked her head, aware she was blushing again.

‘It would look cute on you. The green colour with your hair.’

But Beth hated her copper-coloured hair. Just as she hated her pale freckled skin and her teeth that still felt furry and strange since the braces had been removed barely a month before. She hated her stupid body with its flesh bulging in all the wrong places, her ugly feet, her sloping shoulders and flat chest.

‘Anouk used to tell me what to wear,’ Corinne said then. ‘For a whole year, it was a game we played. Every day, she would pick my clothes for me. And it didn’t matter what she chose, how silly or unsuitable for the weather – I had to wear what she picked.’

Beth frowned. ‘Didn’t that annoy you? Giving up control like that?’