That night Julia doesn’t go to sleep. She curls up in a loose ball the way she usually sleeps, keeps her eyes shut and her breathing long and even, and listens. She has the back of her hand up against her mouth, where she can bite into it if she feels herself drowsing off.

Selena isn’t asleep either. Julia’s back is to her, but she can hear her moving around, restless. Once or twice her breath has a wet sound, like she might be crying, but Julia can’t tell for sure.

After a few hours, Selena sits up, very slowly, one move at a time. Julia hears her hold her breath, listening for the rest of them, and forces herself to stay slack and easy. Becca snores, a tiny delicate noise.

After a long time, Selena lies down again. This time she’s definitely crying.

Julia thinks of Chris Harper waiting in their grove, probably throwing rocks at rustles and pissing on the cypress trunks. She wants to pray for a tree to drop a branch on his head and smash his slimy brain all over the grass, but she knows it’s not going to work that way.

On Wednesday afternoon, as they get their books ready for study period, Julia says, ‘Tonight.’

‘You’re over your virus, yeah?’ Holly asks, tossing a copybook on her pile. The sideways slant of her eye says she’s still not convinced.

‘If it comes back, I’ll make sure and aim for you.’

‘Whatever. I just don’t want you puking your guts when we’re right outside Matron’s room and getting us all caught.’

‘You’re all heart,’ Julia says. ‘Becs, you on?’

‘Course,’ Becca says. ‘Can I borrow your red jumper? I got jam on my black one, and it’s going to be freezing out.’

‘Sure.’ It’s nowhere near cold, but Becca loves borrowing things, lending things, all the small rituals that blur the four of them into one warm space. If she had the choice they’d all live in each other’s clothes. ‘Lenie,’ Julia says. ‘Tonight?’

Selena looks up from her study schedule. She’s shadowy and thinner, the way she’s been all the last two days, like she’s in dimmer light than the rest of the room, but the thought of a night has raised a spark of what looks like hope. ‘Yeah. Definitely yeah. I need that.’

‘God, me too,’ Julia says. One more, she thinks. One last night.