Evie smiled, despite herself. The drying ground was in shadow, the gate still hanging open where she had left it. She had the oddest urge to go out and close it.

Kym raised her hand, tucking her hair, thick and dark, behind her ear. She wore a single earring, a long thin scarlet bead and there was a small gold hoop hooked through the cartilage inside her ear.

‘Has Tyler been in touch?’ Evie asked. ‘Since – you know.’

Kym put her hands on the edge of the sink, leaning forward. ‘Nope.’

‘You’ve known him a long time, haven’t you?’

‘Small town,’ said Kym.

‘Yeah.’ Evie put her hands on the sink too, her fingers brushing lightly against Kym’s. ‘Do you think you might – get back together?’

‘Why, do you fancy your chances with him?’

‘No.’ Evie concentrated on the fine cracks in the surface of the porcelain. ‘I don’t – no.’

‘Not your type.’

Evie shrugged, she could feel Kym looking at her.

‘And now there’s the witch marks, you know? And the shoe,’ said Kym. ‘All in this one house, and I have this feeling that if we looked at it the right way, if we could get everything in order, it would all – make sense.’

Evie turned to look at her, holding Kym’s gaze; she was almost unbearably lovely, Evie thought, delicate underneath the bold make-up, untouched. Fragile.

She looked at her for the longest time, not daring to move. ‘I have to go,’ she said, eventually.

‘Well, if you’re not interested . . .’ said Kym, looking away.

‘It’s not that. It’s – exams.’

‘Well, yeah.’ Kym shrugged. ‘But it’s only AS levels, isn’t it?’

‘The thing is – last year, at my old school, my GCSEs. My grades – they were OK, but they weren’t brilliant, you know? They were – disappointing.’ Her mother’s word.

Kym looked puzzled. ‘Did you have to do re-sits?’

‘No. They weren’t that bad, just – not good enough, for her. My mum. My dad didn’t mind, not that much – I think he’s happy he doesn’t have to manage the fees anymore. Business sort of – quietened down for a while, so we moved. But Mum has all these ideas, expectations of me; she doesn’t really get me. So, you know – I try not to get – all confrontational.’

Kym rolled her eyes.

‘There’s stuff I can’t tell her,’ Evie went on, ‘about . . .’ But she couldn’t do it; she couldn’t get the words out. She couldn’t tell Kym the truth about herself. No one knew, not for sure. Not at her last school, not at this one, even if the rumours had finally reached Grace and Marnie and the others. She stood a little straighter, pulled her hand away from Kym’s.

Kym was studying her. ‘What stuff ?’