We took our laden trays back up to my bedroom and ate with gleeful abandon—dangling drooping pizza slices over our mouths like a Roman emperor eating grapes. We dunked the crusts into creamy pots of dip, discussing how best to mix the various options into the best “mega dip.” Before our bodies could even acknowledge what we’d done to them, we moved on to the crisps, sweets, and the chocolate. Then we lay on my carpet, backs against the bottom of my bed, listening to the The Smiths CD I’d bought. We spent some time chatting to people online in a music chat room for kids, getting into a private chat with a boy called Fisher who claimed to be sixteen, until he sent us a photograph of him masturbating and was clearly forty years old. We screamed and clicked off the screen and ran away from the family computer, laughing. Eventually it was time for magic, and I glanced down at the relevant page of the Teen Witch Handbook I’d bought from WHSmith, and instructed Jessica on how to make a magic circle.

“We need to say ‘as I will it, it will be’ over and over,” I explained.

Jessica saluted. “Perfect. ‘As I will it, it will be.’”

As I watched her set up the candles, I wondered what on earth someone as pretty as her could possibly wish for. We poured table salt around us, lit candles, and, with one eye half-open on my hot-pink spell book, we put our “manifestations” out into the universe. I prayed that I would get better. I prayed that I wouldn’t totally fuck up my exams with my relapse. I prayed that boys may finally start to fancy me. And, finally, I prayed that Jessica and I would be best friends forever, and that, maybe, she’d still accept me when she found out the truth about me. I prayed until a candle fell over onto my bedroom carpet and the smoke alarm went off.

We were still laughing at 2:00 a.m. My windows were wide open to let out the remaining smell, and a late-night furniture rearrangement covered the scorch mark.

“I still can’t believe your parents didn’t ground you.” Jessica was zipped up in her sleeping bag, with the hood over her head, so she looked like a fuzzy glowworm. We’d braided our hair before bed, so we’d have matching kinks the next morning.

“They’re such soft touches at the moment,” I admitted, staring up at the ceiling.

“Why’s that?”

I hesitated, dancing on the cusp of the truth. If I told her who I really was, there would be no coming back. Did I trust her? I’d trusted Amy...and now I hadn’t spoken to her properly in over a month.