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As I’m trying to formulate a reply – and trying to decide if Ireallywant to get invested in a show where there are characters wearing animal skeleton masks as part of a cult, even if I’m just pretending – my phone buzzes again, and this time Jake has replied to the photo I texted him.

Jake

Sick! He looks amazing! Told you that you’d love the special effects, didn’t I? It’s almost like I know you too well or something x

My heart skips a beat, my smile so wide I cover my mouth with a hand before someone sees.

Because he does; he knows mesowell, just like I know him so well. I don’t know how he doesn’t see it – how perfect we are for each other, that we’re not just best friends, but meant to be. Jake’s never really had a girlfriend, though, or dated anyone, so I’ll just have to work a bit harder to make him recognize the signs that I am interested, that I do have feelings for him.

I’ve never dated, either, but that’s more to do with a general lack of interest from boys at school. So maybeI’mmissing some signs, too.

His messages are all his usual friendly, teasing self, though, so it’s hard to work out if he’s flirting and this is the sort of back-and-forth banter I see all the time in a good romcom movie, or just Jake being Jake.

Maybe I can ask Daphne or Nikita, I think, but I don’t really want them to mention anything to Evie. There’s a chance that ifsheknows, it might make its way to Jake or our group from school via mutual friends, and I don’t think I could bear that embarrassment. Maybe in a couple of weeks? I might know the girls well enough by then to swear them to secrecy and get their advice.

In the meantime, I’ll just have to carry on with The Plan, and try to arrange another opportunity to hang out with Jake. This time, hopefully, it’llactuallybe one-on-one – with no old school friends being an inadvertent buffer between us, and certainly no Max to lurk like a sullen third-wheel.

Near the end of class, I get up to wash my hands at the paint-splattered sink in the corner, scrubbing off all the pencil that shines on the edge of my palm and has left grey smudges on my fingertips. When I turn back round, there’s a girl standing over my desk, looking closely at the sketchbook I left wide open.

I recognize the girl. Anissa O’Shea. She went to my old school. She was a bit of a loner; I’d always see her tucked out of the way on the field in the summer with a book, or in the corner of the canteen on rainy lunchtimes with her headphones in, her long hair falling in a curtain over her face. She never came out anywhere and never talked much to anyone, and had a reputation as … well, kind of a weird kid. Generally someone people kept their distance from, for no apparent reason other thanshekept her distance from the rest of us. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a conversation with her beyond a group project for Year 9 geography. I don’t know her well at all.

But Idoknow that I don’t like the way she’s studying my drawing.

The bell sounds, and there’s mass motion across the classroom as everyone begins to pack away their stuffor stand up from their seats. I run through them all to slam my sketchbook shut.

‘Hey,’ says Anissa. ‘Is that –’

‘Cerys!’ Evie shouts from the doorway. ‘Are you coming or what?’

I bundle my stuff into my arms and sling my bag over my shoulder. I mutter a quick, ‘Sorry,’ to Anissa and run after Evie, who’s already chatting to me a mile a minute, recounting some funny story she was just told by another classmate.

I’m sure I can feel Anissa’s eyes burning into the back of my neck, but I don’t dare turn round to find out.

CHAPTER 5

On Friday evening, Mum knocks lightly on my bedroom door. I quickly close my sketchbook and slip off my headphones.

‘I was thinking of ordering some takeaway,’ she says, smiling at me. ‘Do you fancy a bit of a girly movie night and some Chinese?’

I grin. ‘Yes, please. That sounds perfect.’

We haven’t done that inages. Dad used to watch the films with us, too, even if he’d grumble through half of them and secretly enjoy them, but it’s always been mine and Mum’s thing, really. She’s a sucker for a good romance.

I guess that’s why she hasn’t suggested watching any for months now. A bitter, drawn-out divorce must make Julia Roberts going after her best friend at his wedding a bit tricky to swallow.

Maybe since Dad moved out a couple of monthsago and they’ve both gotten a bit of space, they’re finally getting over themselves? It sounds brutal even as I think it, but it’s true.Everythingrecently has been about the failure of their marriage, the counselling that didn’t work, that endless back and forth with divorce lawyers, the fights that culminated inflipping a cointo see who’d move out and who’d stay in the house with me. The very least they needed was space from each other – I’m just glad it seems to be working.

‘What’re you working on?’ Mum asks now, nodding at my sketchbook. I wish I’d shoved it further out of the way and made it look like I’d just been scrolling TikTok or something instead.

‘Just something for school. Coursework.’

Which it is, sort of. It’s another sketch of Téiglin the stag-creature, this one a rough outline for the version I want to do on canvas with acrylics, a little more abstract and less precise. It fits in with the nature theme, and it’s certainly a bit more technical than a rose in a vase and would get me a better grade – or at least, that’s what I’m telling myself. Not because I’menjoyingit, or intrigued enough by OWAR that it’s inspired me …

‘Can I have a look?’

I tug the sketchbook a little way off the desk, like I’ll hug it to my body if she comes too close. ‘It’s not ready yet.’

Mum clicks her tongue and laughs, used to me not showing my schoolwork. She jokes that it’s because I’m a perfectionist like her, and I let her go on thinking it. The truth is, in the last couple of years it’s been more a case of not wanting to show off my artwork because it usually leads to a fight with her and Dad and then they end up at each other’s throats.