I hope you understand my photo was for you, I think. You and other girls like you, and all of us for having to live in this shitty world where people don’t value our lives.

NATALIA

DAY 69

The thing about churches is that they’re designed to give you religious vibes, with those high ceilings and stained-glass windows and hard benches. If the light hits the windows just right and sends shards of light beaming into the church then you can’t blame people for thinking about stairways to heaven and all the other stuff.

But churches do none of this for me, ever, and definitely not today.

I am full of terror and it is very hard to hide that amount of scared with my usual tricks.

There are hundreds of Balmoral girls crammed into the pews, and any other spare spaces they can find to stand, and the air is cold against my hands and bare neck. The cross hanging up high looks judgey; the priest or father or whatever he’s called is a dinosaur in a black robe.

I turn around in my front-row pew and sneak a look across to the standing-room-only section at the back, thinking of all the times in history you could find big groups of girls gathered. Witch hunts, denouncements, concerts. I see Sarah and Ally and half of Marley’s obscured head, but I don’t see Chloe. I try to take everyone back in time, put them in tartan pinafores and hats with ribbons but my trick doesn’t work today.

Suddenly the priest is calling my name.

There’s a rustle and a murmur because everyone expects Claire and Milla to speak at the memorial service but no one expects me, and there’s also my new haircut and I’m already sick of everyone making a big deal out of it.

The walk to the lectern is long and I hope I only feel twitchy instead of visibly twitching.

I don’t look up as I pull the microphone down towards me.

My voice starts croaky when I wanted it to be pure and strong.

‘Yin was my best friend for a long time, even though our friendship changed in the last few years,’ I begin, reading from paper that’s already wearing thin on the folds.

I look over at Chunjuan and she’s a mess of tears and snot and puffy eyes and she might be breaking Stephen’s hand she’s squeezing it that hard, but at least she’s not wailing like an animal and she’s also looking me straight in the eye, nodding. She trusts me, she trusts me, she wants me to do this.

I take that look and I turn it into a reason to do this properly, to not turn away from the task, to do something real for a change.