Fear gripped Kate. Was this how it would be from now on? For weeks she had lain awake at night, heart aching as she thought about Tilly. Finally, they’d surrendered to their burning need, and now Tilly didn’t want to be in the same room as her, let alone look her in the eye.

Possessed by uncontrollable hurt and wrath, Kate crossed the room, wrapped her fingers around Tilly’s doorknob and pushed.

By the bedhead, still wearing Kate’s blazer, Tilly was focused on tucking the fitted sheet around the corner of her unmade mattress. Her eyes flickered to Kate in the doorway. “Yes?” she said, no more than a whisper.

As Kate watched Tilly round the bed to anchor the other corner of the sheet, she vibrated with trepidation. “He’s going to Vanuatu next year and he’s asked Sister Ellie to go with him. He wants you to stay here with his kids.”

For a long, strained moment, Tilly stared back, eyes calculated. Suddenly, she reached across the bed and picked up a pillow and its case. “Check in at the Meriton isn’t until three so I’m thinking we should leave around eleven tomorrow.”

Stunned, Kate blinked.

“I’m going to take history with Year Eight first thing in the morning.” Tilly tossed the dress pillow toward the bedhead and smoothed the wrinkles from the sheets. “Will you be ready by eleven?”

Kate pulled her clammy hand from the doorknob and slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans. “Of course…”

“Great.”

Mind racing, eyes burning, Kate backed out of the room and pulled the door closed.

She locked the bathroom door behind her. Gripping the edge of the basin, she glared at her own reflection. Behind her, the bathroom curtain fluttered. There was a light on in the school, higher in the west wing bathroom.

Kate looked back at her reflection, her short hair swept to the side, barely two inches long on top. Not all that long ago, she herself had been up in that dorm bathroom, doling out free midnight haircuts to the rest of her cohort. After months of having Tilly sit on the basin observing as Kate worked her magic as resident barber, she’d handed Tilly the scissors. Cut mine, she’d said. Goose bumps rose on the back of her neck as she remembered Tilly with the spray bottle, lithe fingers in her hair. Just a trim. Tilly’s work had been so uneven, so terribly asymmetrical, that it had brought tears of laughter to both of their eyes. She’d only lost two inches on the right side, a few millimetres on the left, but it had been enough to let Tilly know under no-uncertain terms that the first time was most definitely the last. Never again, she’d said, tears rolling down her cheeks as they’d giggled and cackled, Tilly sweeping the damp, disparate tendrils of Kate’s dark hair into a pile as Kate held the dustpan still to collect the mess.

Kate pressed her fingers to her lips and recalled the sensation of Tilly’s lips against her own. The memory of Tilly’s horrified stare played in her mind’s eye. Never again, she thought. Never again.