I don’t understand why he’s so cold towards me, why he didn’t even reply to my message or any of my calls since last night. I can feel my throat getting tighter, my chest hurts. I don’t know why every single person hates me so much. “Are you going in?” I mutter.
“Got to, if I want to study here next year.”
I nod. “Can we go in together?”
He looks up at me sharply. “Why did you do it onstage?”
“What?”
“Had to make it into a spectacle, didn’t you? Had to be this big thing, make it all about you, and people like me are just the collateral damage.”
I shake my head. “Nate, no! That’s not what— I promise you, I literally only realized what was going on as I was standing up there. It was Dylan and Tariq – the way they looked at each other—”
“OK, whatever, I’m not interested,” Nate says. “Even if that’s true, you could have waited until after. Now it’s legend, isn’t it? It’ll go down in history as the biggest prom embarrassment of all time. Cheers for that.”
“Nate—”
“No, piss off.”
And he pushes past me, towards the entrance of the school.
But then I hear him come to an abrupt stop and this little gasp of breath, like he’s been shot or something.
I turn, and he’s looking at Dylan and Tariq. They’re up ahead on the steps that lead to the main door, arms around each other, heads nestled into one another’s shoulders. And it hits me too. Before, Dylan and Tariq being together was just a concept. I hadn’t allowed myself to properly think about what that actually meant – I couldn’t, I was too angry. But now I see it. And it’s tender, and strangely beautiful, and even though I’m metres away, I can tell they feel something for each other that is so much more than anything Dylan and I had. I can’t help it, a tear escapes. And then I’m annoyed at myself for feeling like that, and I’m furious at them for making me feel like that. I’m burning up with so many conflicting emotions I could honestly scream.
“I can’t do it,” Nate mutters. He urgently wipes at his eyes. “Shit. Oh god. But if we want to come back for sixth form— Can you please stop crying?”
“You’re crying!” I splutter.
“Well, we both need to stop and figure out what the hell to do, this is such a frigging mess!”
I nod. “I think I have a plan. I can get us out of having to do this, but we need the most sympathetic member of staff. Who would that be?”
“Mrs Davidson,” Nate says.
“The librarian? OK, take me to your leader,” I say. “And let me do the talking.”
There are thirty year sevens sitting in pin-drop silence in the library, having some sort of supervised reading lesson, which is less than ideal. Mrs Davidson is behind the counter, with some kid on an office wheelie chair, who’s in charge of the computer for issuing books. She glances up as we approach. “The orientation day is in the main hall,” she says.
Thirty pairs of year seven eyes look up at me and Nate.
“We” – I keep my voice hushed and low to try and convey the gravity of the situation – “have a small issue.”
“Right?” she says at normal volume.
“So, for various reasons, we’re unable to attend the orientation session, but we really need a member of staff to sign us off.”
“What reasons?” she says.
“Various reasons,” I tell her. She is not the pushover Nate led me to expect.
She laughs. She actually laughs. “I’m going to need a bit more than that – attendance is compulsory if you want to come back next year.”
Nate goes to open his mouth, but I bat him away. “Yes, no, absolutely, and we wouldn’t ask, except it’s an emergency.”
She frowns. “Emergency?”
“Emergency.”
“What sort of emergency?”
I lick my lips and briefly glance at more than a couple of year seven kids who are blatantly listening but are pretending not to. I lower my voice to the merest hiss. “It’s a … it’s a gay emergency.” Throwing in the gay thing is usually enough. She won’t ask any more. If she does, that’s homophobic. Probably.
“It’s a what?” she says.
“A gay … a gay emergency!”
“Well, what’s that?”
“It’s gay!”
“And—”
“It’s gay and it’s an emergency!”
“But what is it?”
“Private! Very private!” I hiss. “Please, miss! It’s a private, terrible, gay emergency that means we really cannot be at the important thing, and we need your help.”
“The thing is—” she begins.
“Please!”
“I really can’t—”
“We just need your help!”
“Without you being more—”
“We’re not comfortable talking to anyone—”
“LICE!” Nate suddenly says really loudly, and then, just in case anyone at the back of the library didn’t hear, he repeats it. “It’s lice. We need help. Medical help.”
Mrs Davidson stares at him in shock.
The kid on the wheelie chair slowly pushes himself away from us.
I close my eyes because, what the actual hell, Nate?
And that boy is not done yet.
“We didn’t know who else we could trust to tell,” Nate explains. He glances around the library, and at all the year sevens who are now openly staring at us. “We didn’t want anyone else to find out.”
Mrs Davidson nods. “OK, boys. It’s good you’ve sought help. I think the first thing is to see the school nurse, she can advise you, and then—”
“No, we just need you to sign us off and we can go to the clap clinic,” I say. I can’t believe I’m saying it, but here we are.
“Why are you talking about the clap clinic?” Nate hisses. He points to his hair. “Head lice, I meant!”
I glare at him. “And since when did head lice constitute an emergency, Nate?”
“Well, don’t just jump in with the clap clinic when I didn’t mean that!” Nate mutters.
“How am I meant to know what’s happening in your brain? Hm? Do I look like a mind reader?” I take a deep breath and shake my head.
“OK, I’m not sure
