Jade and Sally nodded along with red-rimmed eyes. Sally stabbed a forkful of lettuce in her plastic container. She’d not had her kebab in pita bread, as she was currently on the Atkins Diet. Last week she’s been on a diet where she could only eat branded cereal for two out of three meals.

“You’re all wrong. He definitely has a head trauma,” I insisted.

“How did he ask you out again?” Jade asked.

“Well, as we know, he’s been staring at me all term in English,” I said, “but then, this morning, he came and actually sat next to me, and we got partnered to talk about Doctor Faustus together. Then he kept deliberately brushing his arm against mine...”

The girls squealed again. Jade started coughing from the excitement.

“...and then, when the bell rang, he told me he had a gig coming up and I should come along and, I quote, ‘hang out after.’”

The squealing cranked up multiple notches. It was so strange, being the center of attention in this telling-about-boys dynamic. It was often only Sally who got this treatment, who fell in love once a month. Jessica kept her dalliances quiet. Despite Jessica’s constant silence about her sex life, since that first party of Georgina’s, she’d created quite a reputation for herself. Jade’s worst fears were proven correct when Mike and Jessica indeed had “a thing” for a month or two before deciding to be “just friends.” Murmurs on the wind were that she’d let him do “kinky shit” with her. Though, whenever questioned about it, both of them just smiled—Jessica raising her eyebrows, Mike shrugging. They broke it off for no obvious reason, unclear who had ended it first, but seemed to remain friendly. Then Jessica had got with this guy from the year above called Karl. When they broke things off, further murmurs went around that she was filthy. The boys would make jokes when she wasn’t there, calling her “nymph” or “Slutty Jessica,” while the girls laughed along, me included. Especially as Jessica didn’t seem to mind. In fact she even started wearing a belly top with “Nympho” on it—calling everyone’s bluff—and Mike had declared her a legend once more. Of course, the subtle slut-shaming eased the second Jessica was there, and the boys would instead bombard her with adoration—hoping they’d be next to be picked, showing the rest of us no attention at all. And Jessica’s smile never waned, her confidence never faltered. She never addressed the rumors and mostly played up to them. Her current favorite trick was putting a lighter down her cleavage and then brandishing her breasts at any boy who asked for a light. “There you go,” she’d say, smiling innocently, and they’d pluck it from her body, grinning, using the opportunity to let their fingers drift over her skin.