Ollie has sent me a friend request on Facebook. When is this? This is last year… is it? I think it is, but I can’t remember how long after we start commenting on Instagram this happens. Anyway, I’m like, OMG, I can’t believe it. His Instagram name is @makeurOllie, but his Facebook name is just his normal name: Ollie Thomas, like two first names together. I press accept and scream into my pillow so you won’t hear. That’s it. We are now Facebook friends as well as Instagram buddies. Later, when I’m cleaning my teeth, he DMs me. The phone is propped up on the sink; I nearly knock it off, LOL!

Gr8 to c u over here on FB. Do you have Snapchat yet?

I spit the toothpaste foam and rinse my mouth. I go out into the hall to check on you. You’re on the sofa lying down. There’s half a bottle of red wine on the coffee table and you’re watching House of Cards on Netflix. Your eyes are closing; you won’t be getting up any time soon. You always say I have to leave my phone in the kitchen overnight, but you’re always so knackered you forget. I kiss you on the top of your head.

Night, Mum.

Night, love. Sleep tight. Love you.

Love you more.

Wrong. Love you more.

I run back into my room and jump into bed. My phone lights up the space under the covers like a magic underwater cave or something – you know, like when a diver shines a torch into it? I can see my bare legs, my toes. I swipe the screen and read Ollie’s message again

Gr8 to c u…

My stomach is full of butterflies, like before an exam. We’ve only liked and commented over on Instagram but that was in front of everyone. It was public. This is more. This is private. This is just us. I want to tell him everything! I want to tell him my fears because I have this deep, deep feeling he’ll understand. I want to tell him I’ve never had a boyfriend before. I want to tell him I’ve never even kissed a boy apart from Paul Briggs, but that was in Year 3. He won’t laugh. He won’t take the piss out of me, I just know he won’t, because he’s cool but, like, kind cool not cruel cool. He’s the cool where you’re nice to people even if they’re not hot or trendy or whatever. Anyway, you don’t know about Instagram, and let’s not even go there with Snapchat. You won’t let me have it, obvs, and I can’t get it in secret without you finding out. It’s not as easy to hide as Instagram, but I can’t tell him I have to keep things secret from my mum because it’s so lame. My friends all have Snapchat, obvs. They’ve all had a boyfriend or at least kissed someone, like, say, at a party or something. Two girls in my year, OK, they’re not my friends but I know them, they’ve gone all the way. Loads of girls have done other stuff, like blow jobs. This one girl, Louisa Simms, she gave Josh McCann one behind Sally Franklin’s cabin when she had a party… that I wasn’t allowed to go to, obvs.

I just want to kiss someone to see what it’s like.

I want to kiss Ollie.

Gr8 to c u…

I reply: Cool. No Snapchat cos CBA. Also, my mum’s a FB friend so… I add a gritted-teeth emoji.

CBA… can’t be arsed. Do you know that one? We shorten it to ceebs when we talk. That’s my favourite abbreviation. Ollie replies on FB literally seconds later.

DW… I’ve come off Snapchat anyway. Too busy. Better 2 PM you on Insta instead if u worried about ur mum? He’s put a gritted-teeth emoji and a monkey-covering-eyes emoji – hilarious!

DW. Don’t worry. Phew.

I reply: Cool. Thumbs-up emoji. Monkey-covering-eyes emoji.

Oh my God, this is basically a conversation!

Over on Instagram we have a full-on private-message conversation. Our messages are just banter, chit-chatting about what we’ve seen on Netflix, about college, drama stuff, whatever, but they’re ours, just his and mine, and I’m proper gassed. I flick over to his Facebook while I’m PMing him and scroll through. There are the same pictures on his Facebook as on his Insta: him on holiday in Spain; one where he’s put: In Mauritius. The sea is green, he has these sky-blue shorts on and his hair is wet and pushed back, and oh my God, the abs! Like a chest of drawers or a tortoise’s shell. Literally. He is ripped. There are two pictures I haven’t seen where he’s cropped off his head, but it looks arty, and he’s holding a bottle of San Miguel, which looks cool. He is so tanned in a way I could never be because you make me wear, like, factor three thousand million when it’s not even that hot, and a hat and a shirt when it’s boiling – so embarrassing.

I take a screenshot from his Instagram. When we finish messaging, I look at it for a bit there in my duvet cave of light. I look at his tanned skin. How would it feel to put my hand on his stomach, or have his hand on mine?

Rosie?

Shit, you’re right outside my door.

Rosie, baby, have you got a light on?

Oh yeah, soz, was just reading something.

Lights off now, OK? School in the morning, baby girl.

OK. Night.

Night.

I delete his picture. Delete it from my deleted album.

GTG, I message him. That means got to go BTW.

Sweet dreams.

I turn off my phone, listen for you out in the hallway. I hear you cleaning your teeth, switch the phone back on and check I defo deleted the picture. I did, phew. But I didn’t delete it from my head.