Page 113 of Good Girl, Bad Blood

Pip:

I know you didn’t know she was a catfish at the time, but looking back now, did Layla let anything slip, any clues about her real identity? Her age? Any out-of-date slang she might have used? Did she mention Jamie Reynolds to you? Or any other people she interacts with in real life?

Anonymous:

No, nothing like that. I believed she was exactly who she told me she was. No slips. So, if she’s a catfish, then I guess she’s a pretty damn good one.

Twenty-One

Connor wasn’t eating. He pushed the food around his plate, scoring deep lines through the untouched pasta with the points of his plastic fork.

Zach had noticed too; Pip accidentally caught his eye across the table as she watched Connor sitting there silently in the deafening cafeteria. It was the comments, she knew. Strangers on the internet with their theories and their opinions.Jamie Reynolds must be dead. And:He’s definitely been murdered – seems he kind of deserved it, though. Pip told Connor to ignore them, but it was clear he couldn’t, their words skulking around him, leaving their mark.

Cara was sitting beside her, close enough that her elbow occasionally nudged Pip’s ribs. She’d picked up on Connor’s silence too, hence her attempt to bring up Connor’s favourite topic: Area 51 conspiracies.

The only ones who hadn’t noticed were Ant and Lauren. Ant was supposed to be Connor’s best friend, but he had his back turned to him, side-straddling the bench as he and Lauren huddled and giggled about something. Pip couldn’t say she was surprised. Ant hadn’t seemed all that concerned about Connor yesterday either, only bringing Jamie up once. She knew it was an awkward situation and most people struggled with what to talk about, but you say sorry at least once. It’s just what you do.

Lauren snorted at whatever Ant had whispered and Pip felt a flash of something hot under her skin, but she bit her lip and talked it down. This wasn’t the time to pick a fight. Instead she watched as Cara pulled a KitKat from her bag and slowly slid it across the table, into Connor’s eyeline. It broke his trance and he looked at her, the corners of his mouth twitching in a small, passing smile as he abandoned the fork and reached out to accept her offering.

Cara passed that same smile on to Pip. She looked tired. Three nights had gone by, three nights that Pip had been too busy to call her, to talk her to sleep. Pip knew she must be lying awake; the tint beneath Cara’s eyes told her that. And now they told her something else, widening and gesturing up just as someone behind Pip tapped her on the shoulder. She swivelled and looked up to see Tom Nowak standing there with an awkward wave. Lauren’s ex-boyfriend; they’d broken up last summer.

‘Hi,’ he said, over the din of the cafeteria.

‘Urgh,’ Lauren immediately butted in. Oh, so now she paid attention. ‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing,’ Tom said, shaking his long hair out of his eyes. ‘I just need to talk to Pip about something.’

‘Sure,’ Ant charged in now, sitting up as tall as he could, crossing one arm in front of Lauren to grip the table. ‘Any excuse to come over to our table, right?’