CHAPTER TWELVE
I reach under my pillow for my phone.
I don’t wake up feeling right the day after a meltdown. It’s how I imagine a hangover feels –my head hurts, everything is heavy and I have to drag my body around like an unwilling participant in a party game. I don’t want to have a hangover if this is how they feel. I’ve got enough trouble with my own head messing me up without adding drink to the equation.
The phone’s dead – I remember now that it died when I was on the way home from my time with Gabe, which feels like it happened some time in the last century. I reach under the bed for my charger and realize bloody Leah’s stolen it again.
The blank black rectangle in my hands could hold lots of things. Right now I’m not sure I want to switch it on and find out what’s inside. Leah, who can’t actually breathe unless she’s checked her notifications once a second, can’t understand why I can take or leave my phone. But the truth is life’s noisy enough and my head is full of all the things I have to remember when I’m being a person every day: don’t be rude, don’t stare, don’t look blankly into space when you’re not thinking anything, shut down the noises of everyone talking, concentrate, hold it together, don’t have a meltdown . . .
Oh God.
I climb out of bed and head downstairs, trying to wish away what happened last night.
‘Morning, darling,’ says Mum, who is still surrounded with papers on the dining table. She looks up from her laptop and smiles at me and I feel relieved that she looks back at the screen and doesn’t seem to be planning A Little Chat right now.
I feed Withnail, who tells me he’s starving to death. I realize when I hear voices from the sitting room that it’s Leah’s best friend, Meg, I can hear, and that feels like normal and I like it.
Mum taps away at her laptop for a bit while I sit on the worktop beside the toaster, waiting for the kettle to boil.
‘Empty that dishwasher for me, Grace, honey?’
More tapping. Because I’m feeling heavy with guilt and horrible things after last night, I do it without even protesting. That’s usually Leah’s department and I feel quite pleased with myself as I stack plates and put the mugs back on the corner shelf by the sink.
‘D’you want tea?’
‘Mmm? Yes, lovely, thanks, darling.’
I butter the toast – leaving crumbs on the worktop because I’ve not had a complete personality transplant, and Leah’s bound to be making some in a bit anyway – and make two cups of tea, placing one on the newspaper next to Mum’s laptop.
‘Oh, watch out – I need that article,’ she says, shifting it sideways. ‘I’m applying for a job, actually,’ she continues, turning the laptop round to show me.
I realize then that Leah would’ve asked what she was doing. I always forget to ask the questions that people want to be asked. It’s not that I’m not interested (well, quite a lot of the time I’m not that interested in where my form tutor is going for half-term, and stuff like that), but it just doesn’t really occur to me to ask because I think if they want to tell me, they’ll tell me at the end of the process. That’s the bit that confuses me. Why do people tell me their thought processes when they’re doing a thing?
‘Oh,’ I say, because I realize I’ve been standing there for I don’t know how long.
‘You’re OK with that?’ Mum’s voice sounds a bit . . . surprised or something. I can’t quite work it out.
‘Yep,’ I say, mainly because I don’t have the brain to look at all the bits of paper and the stuff on the screen that’s already giving me the warnings of a flickery headache.
She puts her arm round my waist and pulls me in towards her. She smells of something purple and soft and her hair is fuzzly from the shower.
‘Hug?’
And I put my arms round her, because I get the feeling that she’s the one that needs one. I don’t particularly like hugs when I’m processing other stuff, because it’s just another bit of information to deal with, but I know that other people like them, so I do them more than I would otherwise. And right now I’m still feeling bruised from last night and I haven’t even begun processing what happened yesterday, but I’m putting that on hold in my head until later because I don’t have the space to think about the Gabe stuff right now.
‘Have you got my phone charger?’ I say into the air. She’s still sitting there, squeezing me from the middle like I’m a tube of toothpaste. It makes her let go.
‘Nope.’ She looks automatically at her own phone, which is sitting on the table. ‘I bet Leah’s snaffled yours. She’s never away from that phone. I’m going to institute some kind of technology ban, actually.’
I step backwards because I can already tell where this is going, but it’s too late. She’s off.
‘In fact, we should be having more family time, less screen time.’ She shuts her laptop. ‘Monopoly. Proper bonding time. We don’t need your father here to do that sort of thing. In fact, really, we need to get used to it . . .’
I back out of the room while she’s still talking, because once she’s off it can go on for ages. I can hear her looking in the kitchen dresser for the stack of neglected board games already.
‘Did you nick my charger?’
‘Morning, Grace,’ says Leah. She’s dressed and her hair’s been straightened and then twirled at the ends with some kind of curling machine thingy. She’s also wearing a crop top that shows off her leftover holiday tan and make-up that makes her look a lot older than thirteen. If she wasn’t my sister, I think I’d be a bit nervous of her. She’s gone a bit spiky-looking, like she’d fit in with Holly Carmichael’s gang quite easily. Meg, on the other hand, has her hair tied back in a ponytail and her usual jeans and trainers and a hoody on. She looks like thirteen ought to look. She also looks a bit alarmed, and I get the feeling that she’s sort of holding on. It’s hard to describe, but it’s how I feel all the time and I can always recognize it in other people. Like you’re expecting to be caught out at any moment and banished from society.
‘Uh, I dunno,’ says Leah, offhand. ‘C’mon, Meg, let’s go upstairs. I’ll do your hair and make-up.’
If Meg feels alarmed by this, she doesn’t show it.
‘Charger?’ I repeat.
‘Oh,’ says Leah, and I get this weird feeling that she’s trying to look cool in front of Meg, which doesn’t make sense because they’ve been friends since preschool. ‘It’s in the sitting room.’
She beckons Meg and they head upstairs.
It’s the weirdest feeling. It’s like someone shifted everything slightly, and home feels out of sync. Everything’s changing and I don’t like change.
Maybe a shower will fix my head.
I plug my phone in and leave it behind the sofa.