‘Okay. So we’ll say we broke up, if anyone asks. Or we pretend to be together for a while. Or we tell them it was a joke. Or whatever you want! Who cares what they all think,’ Jesse says.

It really doesn’t matter to him. The tangled web of lies and rumours and people asking questions and our reputations and some people never knowing the truth, because the original gossip headline travels faster and further than the correction, everyone knows that, and so most people will just hear that Jesse and I are together, and why does the thought of that hurt me so much, and why didn’t I consider all of this before I agreed to the plan.

‘I do. I care,’ I say. I can feel anger bubbling.

‘Okay, fine, you care,’ Jesse says. He sounds confused. ‘Did I do something wrong?’

‘You just don’t seem to care about much,’ I say.

‘I did you a favour tonight, and you’re mad at me for not caring that it might be a big mistake?’ Jesse says, half-angry now too.

‘I’m not mad at you.’

‘It sounds like you are.’

‘Well, I’m not.’

‘Can you slow down for a second?’

‘No.’

‘Is this about what just happened, with the kiss?’ he says, after a beat of silence.

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

God, his tone is so patronising, I could scream.

‘I don’t care about the kiss,’ I say, walking faster.

‘Ten seconds ago you’re telling me you do care, now you’re telling me you don’t care.’

‘I was talking about different things.’

‘Okay. Well, what if I care about the kiss?’

‘You don’t.’ I stop, swing around and look at him. ‘I know you don’t.’

God, I’m so angry. With him, yes. But with myself too, because I swore I wouldn’t let myself be humiliated again, and now here I am, humiliated and heartbroken and crushed again. And worst of all—it’s by the same person, in the same situation.

‘How do you know?’ he says.

‘I heard you, talking to Harper.’

‘What did you hear?’

‘You said something like, “Do I like Brooke? No. No. Fuck, no.”’

There’s a pause.

‘I didn’t say that to Harper,’ he says quietly. ‘I didn’t say it like that.’

‘Whatever.’

I turn onto our street. I just want to get through the door and away from him, get into the shower and cry, then put my head under a pillow, maybe two pillows, really burrow down. Then I need to take every emotion I have felt tonight and squash them, one by one, like a line of poor, sad little ants.

‘Brooke! I didn’t say it like that,’ he says, jogging up beside me.

‘You did,’ I say. ‘You said it to Gretel. And you said it again tonight.’

‘Tonight is nothing like that,’ he says.