Céline is still laughing. Even and especially when Côme slides his hands down her back. His mates are giving him sly looks, like, You’ll never dare: after all, she’s pregnant, and she’s sixteen. But there’s admiration in their eyes, challenges and all, Côme does crazy stuff nobody else would dare. There are even two girls watching, passively, from a distance.

Céline is laughing but declines with a vague gesture when the young man proffers her another drink – vodka this time, he’s given up on beer, it’s too slow at getting her drunk and then she keeps having to go and pee every fifteen minutes, which is a drag. He insists, and since she doesn’t want to lose this smile, this attention that makes her feel beautiful, she takes the frozen glass.

“You’ll see, it feels good, it’s straight out of the freezer.”

The little group surrounding them watches her drink greedily, the guy trying to give her a refill even though her head says no and her mouth grimaces.

“Stop, Côme, let go, you can see she doesn’t want any more.”

Céline is suddenly grateful, and holds no grudge about the previous drink – forgotten already. She smiles at him. He’s a clever bastard. If she moves too much she’s going to keel over, so she glances around for somewhere to sit. He anticipates this and catches her by the waist.

“Hey, this way, gorgeous, don’t go fainting on us.”

He drags her towards the house as the others watch, laughing with admiration and a vague sense of guilt. The little gang hesitates, waiting for a sign from Côme, a crack or an acknowledgement. So he eagerly obliges: with his free hand he pulls out his iPhone in camera mode and waves it like a treat over a dog’s mouth. Not a word, just a greedy smile thrown at the gallery, a promise, and Céline doesn’t react, too busy trying to walk in a straight line and savouring the pleasure of the arm around her, reassuring her.

Johanna follows her sister with her eyes. She hasn’t witnessed the scene but can clearly see that Céline’s plastered and Côme’s a dickhead. Not heavy-handed like their mates at the technical high school, no. But still a dickhead, just a different variety.