‘Hey look, it’s us.’ Liv shows me the page. We’re at Sports Day, in matching polo shirts, with ribbons pinned to our fronts. Me, a baby Grade One, Liv a big girl in Grade Six. We’re wearing these puffy old-fashioned bloomers that are just glorified underpants and my little infant legs look like sausages.

I screw up my face. ‘Embarrassing.’

I find my Year Seven yearbook and Liv and I leaf through it together. Our House Concert that year was set on a cruise ship, and there’s a photo of me in a sailor costume dancing with a mop. The Year Twelve formal minus Liv, who refused to wear a dress and wasn’t allowed to come unless she wore one. Bad poetry from nice girls. Class lists. Debating reports. A tedious essay from Mrs Christie extolling the virtues of the Lord.

‘I was looking for answers, I think.’

‘About you and Yin?’

‘Yeah.’

I show her the photo of Yin in Junior Orchestra, how she’s smiling so hard her eyes have disappeared, clutching that clarinet like someone might want to rip it out of her hands. She started learning it because she wanted to graduate as quickly as possible to the saxophone, but instead she fell in love and I bet she wanted to marry that clarinet.

Claire and Milla are in the photo too, Milla with her French horn, Claire on timpani drums. Every year, every time there’s a photo of Yin, either Claire or Milla are in it. I guess Claire and Milla are feeling what I’m feeling now, but maybe even worse, if that’s possible.

‘You never know, you and Yin might have come back together again, in Year Twelve, or even later in uni,’ Liv says. ‘That happens sometimes.’

‘Not now it doesn’t,’ I reply and burrow my head on Liv’s shoulder as another wave takes me.

CHLOE

DAY 67

‘Chloe, can I talk to you?’

I’m lost in my own thoughts when Petra speaks to me at our lockers. It’s a shock because I know she’s been actively trying to avoid me all week. Lisbeth told me she saw Petra stashing her books in Audrey’s locker, which is right at the far end of the corridor.

‘Sure.’

A mottled flush decorates Petra’s throat and ears. I wait, because I don’t want to make this too easy for her.

‘I want to apologise for going to Mrs Christie with my concerns about your photo. I thought at the time that I was doing the right thing. I didn’t think she’d disqualify you…’

‘Didn’t you? What did you think she’d do?’

‘I mean, I didn’t think it through that well—but I felt very strongly that—’

‘If you didn’t think she’d do anything, then why would you say something in the first place?’