To watch a movie. Our code word, in public, for fucking.

I debated it, not least because I was slightly flustered and there was a violent glimmer in her eyes that I wasn’t sure I liked. “I’ve got a lot of homework.”

She let out an impatient, unamused snort. “And you’re gonna say no to me coming over…for that?”

“You’re not staying late,” I told her with a sigh, but she simply smirked.

Chapter 13

June 1995

In the end, I suppose we just became too sloppy. Sometimes, the kisses on my cheek were just a little too low, a little too close to my mouth. Sometimes, the knowing looks that we shared were just a little too knowing. Sometimes, the way Connie touched me, held me—it was just a little too familiar.

It wasn’t her fault alone. I had always had a wandering eye and I was never very subtle in the way I would stare, open-mouthed, as my friends paraded past in skirts that left little to the imagination. I didn’t dress like the other girls, either, in my loose-fitting shirts and my ripped jeans and my beanies. I didn’t flirt with boys really, didn’t mindlessly chase after them at parties. The signs were always there for anyone that dared to look. And for the longest time, they didn’t. We got bolder and bolder, every near miss and narrow escape coursing through our veins like electricity. Holding hands beneath the desk, sneaking to the bathrooms between classes. Our kisses outside the school in the mornings got longer and our sex in her bedroom got louder. In many ways, I started to feel invincible, confident that even as we got more daring and sloppier nothing could manage to catch us.

Some time coming up to the end of Fifth Year the rumor that Alex Ryan and Connie O’Reilly were hooking up in secret spread around the school like wildfire.

“As if anyone would believe that,” Orla remarked, the first time we heard it. The feigned amusement in her voice, the worried glint in her eyes—I knew right away she wasn’t as oblivious as she might have let on. Connie barked with laughter and played it up, wrapping an arm around my shoulder before planting a sloppy kiss on my cheek, but wouldn’t dare meet my gaze until we were alone in her room together that night. In the end, she said nothing. I hadn’t entirely expected to, either, knowing her as I did. This was not something she could face straight on. Neither of us said anything to each other when we were alone, simply dismissing the rumor for the ridiculous, sly piece of gossip fodder that it was, and carried on. If we didn’t speak about it then nothing had to change. If we didn’t speak about it, it didn’t have to be confronted.

But then we stopped holding hands beneath the table. We stopped kissing in the car park and stealing away to the bathroom between classes. Our sleepovers became scarce and spending any time alone together at all became more and more infrequent. The cracks opened up between us and we turned a blind eye as if every day we didn’t sink just a little bit further.