Brian and Jason peeled off to cluster with other boys, probably adding their own versions of what happened to the folklore and bigging themselves up in the process, while Steph and Emily became more of a twosome, playing the grieving friends, wearing black and pushing for the sympathy vote until they had well and truly picked up the mantle of the popular girls in Eloise’s absence, while throwing me under the bus in the process. Telling people I had turned on her before she died, that we weren’t speaking.

But that’s ok. It’s no less than I deserve.

I want no part of any of it. I don’t care what people are saying about me anymore. I remain alone, looking in, only raising my head when I hear Steph’s grating laugh carry across the canteen, inappropriately loud and cheerful in my ears, her ponytail still tied with a black ribbon in solidarity. I sit with my face in a book and pushing a pile of chips aimlessly around the plate. The irony is I have lost my appetite, my weight dropping to where I would’ve been giddy with joy before.

Be careful what you wish for, right?

Tracey is still friends with Tina to a certain extent, but she is different. Where once she was neat, polite, studious, she now seems unravelled, like someone has pulled on a loose string in her mind. Her hair seems to be thinning in places, gaps now visible in the cloud of curls. Her eyes have lost their sparkle and she prefers to stare out of the classroom window rather than engage like before.

Everyone assumes it is grief.

*

My parents have returned home in a bustle of suitcases and slamming car doors. Martha is busying herself with making tea and bringing out slices of homemade lemon drizzle cake while I hover in the hallway, not sure what to say to them.

Do I look different? So much has happened since they left that they must be able to see it on my face. But they don’t seem to notice. My mother gives me a brief hug, tells me I am “looking fabulous – have you lost weight?” and my father merely nods and asks how school is going. We sit in the dining room, the cake growing stale on the plates in front of us while my mother chatters about the places they went to and the people they met. My father yawns, requests the newspaper and retires to the lounge. My mother says she needs a rest after the long journey and disappears to her room.

And it is just me again. I go up to the attic, but can’t bring myself to write anything more than these diary entries. But my hand shakes uncontrollably as I go through the motions, see the words on the page that make it all true. My handwriting is almost illegible.