Fracture

sigh, a caress.

But she couldn’t see anyone in the dark. There was no moon – the trees were shadows against shadows. The night felt dark and ominous – it had a weight to it that seemed to press down on her, making it hard to breathe.

‘Sylvain? Where are you?’ She craned her neck but saw nothing – nothing but trees.

‘Why did you do it?’

A sob shook her and she covered her mouth with her hand – he sounded so sad. Did he know she’d kissed Carter? How did he find out? They hadn’t told anyone. They could never tell.

‘Do what? I didn’t do anything.’ Her words were insistent but she could hear the lie in her own voice and she knew he must hear it, too.

‘Why weren’t you looking out for Jo?’ Sylvain’s voice sounded condemning. ‘She trusted you. I trusted you.’

Tears were streaming down her face now. She needed to see him. If she could see his face she could convince him that nothing happened. Nothing at all.

‘You can trust me,’ she insisted. ‘Jo can trust me. I won’t let her down.’

His reply was cold.

‘But Jo is already dead.’

It was Allie’s own scream that ended the dream; her own strangled voice.

She must have been crying in her sleep; her pillow was wet from her tears. And she sobbed again now as memories of last night returned to her in a flood.

Why did I kiss Carter? Why did I do that? I’ve ruined everything. Why am I this person?

First she’d failed Jo, then she’d ruined her friendship with Carter again. She couldn’t remember ever hating herself so much; she shook from it.

Without warning, her door sprang open and Rachel stood there, her hair wild from sleep, her face pale with fear that quickly transmuted into concern.

‘Allie? What happened? I heard you scream.’ Seeing Allie’s face, she ran across the room, kneeling beside her bed and pulling her into a rough hug. ‘Are you OK? Was it another one of those dreams?’

Still sobbing, Allie nodded against her shoulder. ‘I’m so sad, Rach. So sad. And I’ve done everything wrong and you can’t undo it. Once you’ve done it you can’t make it go away and I hate that.’

‘Oh, sweetie,’ Rachel’s tone was soothing. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong, I promise. You haven’t. There’s nothing you need to undo.’

But that wasn’t true at all.

‘I didn’t save Jo,’ Allie whispered. ‘And now I kissed Carter.’

For just a second, Rachel’s hand stopped stroking her back then she resumed the calming motion.

‘OK, first, you did everything you could to save Jo. Nobody could’ve saved her. Even God couldn’t save her. What happened to her was not your fault.’

Allie didn’t believe her at all but she wanted to.

‘Now.’ Rachel pulled tissues from a box on a nearby shelf and handed them to her. ‘Why don’t I get you some water and then you can tell me about kissing Carter.’

After she returned with a glass, they sat on the bed together, Allie clutching a handful of damp tissues in one hand and the water in the other, hiccupping as the tears slowed and then stopped. Brokenly, she told her what had happened that night in the forest.

‘And how did he react?’ Rachel asked, pulling a blanket over her knees.

‘Like it was a mistake.’ Allie held up her tissue hand as if to say What else?

‘Do you think it was a mistake? I mean, do you still fancy him?’

‘No… I don’t know.’ Allie sighed. ‘I’m just confused. I mean, when you were with someone and you thought that you… loved him, I guess… how do you just say, “Oh, I don’t love you any more.” Just like that? I miss being with him, and being friends with him, and I wish we didn’t have all this “formerly loving each other” thing hanging over our heads. But I can’t make it go away and when I’m alone with him it all gets muddled up sometimes.’

‘So… I think what you’re saying is you want to be his friend again.’

Allie paused to consider this. ‘I… guess so.’

‘Because I’ve got this theory.’ Rachel smiled and it seemed to warm the room. ‘Do you want to hear my theory?’

Nodding, Allie snuggled closer to her. She was beginning to believe Rachel could actually make this better.

‘I think that when we have a friend we love – like you and I love each other, right? Well, if that friend is the same gender, it’s super simple. You and I are not gay, and we love each other so… boom. We’re best friends.’ Allie agreed cautiously as Rachel continued. ‘But what if I was a bloke and you were my friend and we loved each other? It might get all confused. And if there was a lot going on and things were really emotional and dangerous, maybe your feelings of love for me could be misconstrued as romantic love. Then you might want to be my girlfriend and then it’s all tangled up.’ She leaned back to see Allie’s face more clearly. ‘I think what I’m saying is, it’s easy to confuse friendship love for romance love when your friend is a guy. And that’s why you’re confused.’

Allie shredded a tissue into tiny pieces as she thought this through. If true, it could explain how torn she’d always been between Carter and Sylvain. Maybe she had friendship love for Carter and romantic love for Sylvain. But how could she tell?

‘So you think I have friendship love for Carter?’ she asked, with a hopeful look.

Rachel hesitated. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I can’t know that. Only you can know that. But I know that you can love Carter and not be in love with him. And maybe, especially while he’s with Jules, you need to consider that.’

At the mention of Jules, Allie winced. She didn’t like the prefect, but cheating with her boyfriend was not anything she’d ever intended to do.

‘What should I do now?’ she asked with dull resignation. ‘I have to make this right somehow. I didn’t mean to be a cheater. And I can’t lose Carter again. I just can’t.’

‘Well…’ Rachel yawned and glanced at the clock on Allie’s desk. It was nearly five in the morning. ‘I think you need to talk this through with him and clear the air between you. And tell him that. Tell him you just want to be his friend, at least as long as he has a girlfriend. Then you have some time to figure out which kind of love you feel for him.’

‘But how will I know?’ Allie’s voice was plaintive. ‘How do you know which kind of love it is?’

‘Oh yeah. That?’ Rachel lay down next to her on the bed and pulled the duvet up over them both. ‘That’s the tricky part.’

School the next day was torturous. Classes seemed to drag on beyond any reasonable linear timespan. Allie, whose sleep had been shallow after her nightmare, even with Rachel beside her to keep her steady, struggled to stay awake as the dull replacement teachers droned through the day’s text.

In English and history – the two classes they had together – Carter kept his distance, never once meeting her gaze.

Once, when she passed Jules in the hallway, guilt made her panic and she turned into the nearest classroom, colliding so violently with a teacher coming the other way that his papers went flying.

At lunchtime the group gathered to whisper through their plans. Although she sat between Rachel and Zoe, just being at the same table with both Carter and Sylvain made Allie’s stomach flip, and she couldn’t bring herself to eat. Instead she methodically vivisected a sandwich.

Jules sat at a nearby table with Lucas and some of her friends. Allie tried not to look at her, but her conscience drew her gaze inexorably in that direction and she kept catching glimpses of the blonde prefect talking and eating her soup.

Across the table, Carter talked intently with Nicole and Rachel. The shadows under his eyes were the only indication that he hadn’t slept well last night either.