He demands – like he’s really asking, like he needs to know – ‘How? How can you not care?’

People talk to Selena. They always have. She doesn’t talk to them, except Julia and Holly and Becca. She almost never even tries.

She says, slowly, ‘You have to have something else you care about more. Something so you know that some geebags bitching aren’t the most important thing; you’re not the most important thing, even. Something enormous.’

It’s just words, sounds, it doesn’t come near what she means. This isn’t something you can tell.

Chris says, ‘What? Like God?’

Selena considers that. ‘Probably that would work. Yeah.’

He’s open-mouthed. ‘Are you guys going to be, like, nuns?’

Selena laughs out loud. ‘No! Can you see Julia being a nun?’

‘Then what . . . ?’

The more she tries, the more she’s going to get it wrong. She says, ‘I just mean: maybe, depending, Carly could be fine just the way she is. Better than fine.’

Chris is looking at her, very close and very intent, and his eyes have warmed. He says, ‘You’re a once-off. You know that?’

Selena wants to say nothing at all. The thing finding its shape in the space between them is so new, so precious, the wrong touch could burst it like a bubble. ‘I’m not anything special,’ she says. ‘It just worked out this way.’

‘Yeah, you are. I never talk to people about stuff like this. But this, talking to you, this is . . . I’m glad we came out here. I’m really glad.’

Selena knows, like he’s reached out and dropped the knowledge into her lap, that he’s going to try to take her hand. The handprint on her arm burns, a painless gold fire. She wraps her fingers hard around the cold stone edge of the step.

The hall door flies open, and Miss Long points at them. ‘Your time’s up. Back inside. Don’t make me come out there and get you.’ And she slams the door.

Chris says, ‘I want to do this again.’

Selena is still working to breathe. She can’t tell if she’s grateful or something else to whatever sent Miss Long. She says, ‘Me too.’

‘When?’

‘Next week, after school? We can meet outside the Court and go for a walk.’

Chris shifts on the step, like the stone hurts him. He presses his thumbnail into the wood of the banister. ‘Everyone’d see us.’

‘That’s OK.’

‘They’d . . . you know. Like, they’d slag us. Both of us. They’d think we were going to . . .’

Selena says, ‘I don’t care.’