I have to tell her. She can’t go into school tomorrow without knowing. It will be torturous anyway. I can guarantee that Eloise will have something planned. I can’t send Tracey into it blind. She has to know.

“Tracey, I need to tell you something.”

She sips on her tea, sits back against the pillows and exhales. “Oh god, is this when you tell me all the embarrassing things I did last night?”

“No, it’s… it’s my fault. I… so I’ve been taking these pills I found in my mother’s bedroom. There’s a few – I don’t know… uppers, downers, sleeping pills, anti-depressants – you name it, she has it. Anyway, I gave some to El last night and she… put some in your drink. That’s why you passed out and fell in the pool.”

“Wait, I fell in the pool? I don’t remember that. All I remember is sitting outside in the cold.”

I tell her everything – the taunts that led me to going outside with Jason, coming back to find her slumped on the lounger, the photos, the touching. All of it.

She is silent for a while, her face pale, her eyes wide and scared. Then her eyes narrow. “Where are the photos?” Her voice is cold.

I hadn’t thought about that. I hadn’t given the Polaroids any thought at all.

And I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting the ice in her voice, the way she shrank away from me, like I was toxic.

“Wait, so you’re not upset about the rumours about us?”

“I don’t care if people think I’m gay. Rather that than a slut,” she says pointedly.

I hang my head in shame.

“You’re always so worried about the way people perceive you, the image you portray. I’ve spent my whole life looking different, feeling different. There are more important things in life, Helen. Like the fact that they assaulted me and took photos. There’s evidence and I want it. Where are the photos, Helen?”

“I… I don’t know. I came back up to the house with you and sent Martha to shut down the party. I left everything there. They may still be there.”

“Or Eloise took them with her. You know she would. To humiliate me.” She flings back the covers and gets up. “She could do anything with them. Pass them around. Copy them.”

“I guess, but she wouldn’t.”