We’ve been getting closer over the weeks but suddenly I feel a surge of proper unity with her. As if foundations are being set underneath us. This is something the others can’t be part of.
‘I don’t care who my dad is,’ I say. ‘I totally honestly don’t.’ I pause. ‘A while back someone at school said maybe my dad was a rapist. You know, like he raped my mum and she didn’t abort me? And that’s why she’s never had a boyfriend or anything.’
‘Wow.’ Her eyes have widened. ‘That’s some messed-up shit.’
‘Yeah. I mean, I don’t believe it, but it’s the only time I’ve ever cared about who he was. The rest, well. It’s hard to miss a ghost. I don’t even have a photograph.’
‘Did you tell your mum about the rapist thing?’
‘Yeah. She was horrified. She was fussing around me, re-assuring me.’ I laugh. ‘How fucked up is it to be reassured that your dad is just some bloke your mum shagged round the back of a pub after drinking too much.’
I see her face.
‘I’m exaggerating. It wasn’t round the back of a pub, but she says it was a drunken one-night stand.’
‘At least she can’t have a go at you for anything to do with sex.’
I laugh again, but I’m thinking of last night. My first sex. The only sex I’ve had. Shit sex. I can’t imagine having any one-night stands. ‘I haven’t told her about Courtney yet.’
‘Are you guys a proper thing now?’
I stare down at my cooling coffee. ‘He wants it to be. I’m not so sure.’
‘I thought you were crazy about him. Was it the sex? First time’s always bad, so don’t judge him on it. Unless it was you who was shit.’
I half-heartedly throw a cushion at her. ‘Shut up. It’s not that. It’s complicated.’
‘Someone else?’
She sits up straighter, curious, and I know I should have lied and said everything was fine. I need to shut this down. ‘Maybe.’ Everything I say is potentially making it worse. I wish I hadn’t opened my mouth. If Jodie tells Ange I’m interested in someone, she’s going to presume it’s someone at school and be on my case all the time to know who. I’ll have to make someone up. Pick some boy at random. I can’t think of anyone I fancy in Year Thirteen. ‘But it’s only a crush.’ My face is flushing with worry. ‘It’s not going to be anything.’
‘Don’t worry. I won’t say anything to Ange,’ Jodie says, reading my mind. ‘I love her, but she’s got a big gob and I wouldn’t want her knowing my secrets, if I had any.’
‘Or the others?’ I ask. ‘I don’t want it to be a thing. I’m sure me and Courtney will be fine.’
‘I swear,’ she says. ‘Your secret’s safe. But if anything happens, you have to tell me first. Deal?’
‘Deal.’
For a moment I’m tempted to tell her everything. To tell her what’s really turned me off Courtney. The friend request. The messages. Everything about him. But suddenly, she’s up on her feet and saying I should grab the spare room shower and she’ll use her en-suite, and then we should go.
‘Shit,’ I say when we get back to mine and I’m rummaging in my bag. ‘I’ve lost my keys.’
‘Check the car floor,’ Jodie leans over. ‘I always find stuff down there.’
I scrabble around under the seat, but they’re not there. My house key, swim-locker key and school-locker key, all on a key ring with a pair of big red Mick Jagger lips. Gone.
‘Nope. Fuck it. Where can they be?’
Jodie roots around but comes up empty-handed, and then it dawns on me. ‘That dumb bitch in the pub who knocked my bag over.’
‘What about her?’
‘I don’t remember picking my keys up.’
‘You must have.’ She looks in my bag as if maybe my eyes aren’t working properly. ‘She was helping pick stuff up. Maybe she put them in a side pocket.’
I let her look, but I’ve already searched everything.
‘Your mum’s in though, right?’ she says.
‘Yeah, but I’ll take the spare from down the side. She’ll want to change the locks if she thinks I’ve lost mine, even though there’s no address or anything on them. You know what she’s like.’
‘You don’t have to explain your mum to me, remember. The weird mums club, that’s us.’
I grin and I want to say a thousand things to her but I think they’ll all make me sound lame, so instead I say, ‘I hear ya, sister,’ and climb out of the car. ‘See you at training on Monday. But text me, bitch.’
‘Happy revising!’ she calls out, and I groan. Three exams this week, and I can’t find a shit to give about any of them.
She toots her horn as she pulls away, and I hurry down to the side gate and lift the loose brick on the wall, peeling away the taped key underneath. I know Mum will have heard the car. She’ll be waiting for me.
LISA
It’s pouring summer rain, but it’s so good to be driving Ava to school again. This used to be our everyday routine until Year Ten, when it became cooler to get the bus. It’s wonderful that my daughter is so independent and busy, but I still have a sneaky delight when she needs a lift, even though the journey takes me the wrong way to work through rush-hour traffic.
There’s no swim training this morning – and I’m glad because Ava has two exams today – and in this weather a ride with Mum is definitely preferable to waiting for the bus. For all her sportiness, Ava has never liked bad weather. She feels the cold too much, and now there’s the added worry of how it will affect the way she looks. They make me smile a little, these worries of her youth. I like how she’s preoccupied by such things, because it means her life is relatively carefree. I’ve done a good job in that regard. I don’t pride myself on much, but I do think I am, in my own way, a good mother.
The radio is on at my usual station. It’s the local one which tends to play more music from the eighties and nineties but Ava doesn’t complain. She’s head down over her phone, texting or whatever it is they do to talk to each other.
‘Everything okay?’ I ask as her fingers fly over the keyboard. I keep my tone light. It’s dangerous ground, showing any interest in Ava’s life these days. In the wrong mood – and those come more frequently recently – she can bite my head off. I know it’s normal. I’ve seen enough TV shows with surly kids in them to know I’ve had a good run before we got here, but it still stings when it happens.
‘Yeah. Last-minute nerves and stuff.’ She glances up at me. ‘Is it okay if the girls come round after my afternoon exam?’
I almost say no, there’s still a week or so of GCSEs left, but after two papers today she’ll probably need to relax. I’ve studied her exam schedule and she only has revision sessions tomorrow, so a few hours with her friends might be nice. Also – and I hate myself for thinking it – if they’re in the house, I know where she is.
‘Sure. Have they got exams today too?’
‘Lizzie has Geography AS I think. Ange is in History this afternoon with me, but she doesn’t have double Science this morning. Jodie’s all done. Her term is pretty much over.’
Her phone goes silent and she looks away, out of her