Chapter Four
‘H ave you seen this new guy, Georgie?’ Kira slid her tanned arms along the table in front of me, lounging like a jellyfish, and I looked up from the lame notes I’d been scribbling for my Media Studies class.
My teacher, Mr Carson, never checked the homework, because he always got distracted and launched into a discussion about some moral or ethical dilemma at the beginning of each lesson, which was useful for my critical thinking, but not so much for the approaching exams.
‘ This new guy .’ I smiled at Kira. ‘I have no idea who you’re talking about.’
‘He got introduced by Mrs Couch today in Maths. Ethan something. Smart or Spartacus or Spunk.’
‘His name is Ethan Spunk ?’ I laughed. ‘Oh dear.’
Kira’s giggle was a bubbling sound that made me feel like I was floating. My funny, kind, smart, beautiful best friend. ‘Probably not Spunk. He’s handsome, in a cruel kind of way.’
I closed my notebook, intrigued. ‘Why do you think he’s cruel?’
Kira swapped positions, putting her legs on the desk, her DMs clunking into the Formica. ‘He stared us all down, even Daggers Dave at the back, who was looking as scary as ever. He managed a deep hey when Mrs Couch told him to introduce himself.’
‘That doesn’t mean he’s cruel. He’s probably just shy.’ I turned back to my notes. ‘Anyway, what about Freddy?’
‘I’m not replacing Freddy with Spunk boy.’ They’d been dating since the beginning of year twelve, which already felt like a lifetime to me. ‘There’s not a lot of excitement here, that’s all. The new guy is the most interesting thing that’s happened all week.’
‘I’ll have to look out for him.’ I was about to throw my biro across the common room, towards the aloe vera plant that had been dying long before we started using it for target practice, when my phone buzzed.
It was a clunky Nokia with buttons that kept sticking, and I envied Freddy with his newfangled iPhone, but I didn’t have a dad who was high up in the tech industry in London.
I had no dad and a mum who worked as a dentist’s receptionist when she wasn’t laid low by MS. I read the message.
‘What is it?’ Kira asked, her petulance gone. ‘Your mum OK?’
‘Yeah.’ I sighed. ‘She’s been given an appointment at the hospital tomorrow, so I’m going to have to miss English and take her.’
Kira frowned. ‘Can’t she get someone else to take her? I know you’re only doing English and Media Studies and—’
‘Hey!’ I whacked her on the arm.
‘You still need to pass the exams if you want to go to uni. You work hard enough as it is.’
I nodded, doodling a flower in my notebook.
Mum was part of a new MS trial at the hospital, which had the potential to reduce her symptoms and improve her general condition, but it meant lots of trips to Truro, forty-five minutes away, and then periods afterwards when, because of the side effects, she needed a lot more care.
She preferred me to look after her rather than strangers, which I understood, but it was putting pressure on other parts of my life, and I was eighteen now, months away from university, so everything – my friendships, my schoolwork – really mattered.
‘It’s just A levels, G,’ she’d say with a soft, coaxing smile. ‘You can pick it up so easily. You’re clever and you apply yourself. No need to worry, my girl.’
‘Tell me about Ethan Spunk.’ I slid my notebook into my rucksack, done with Media Studies and thoughts about Mum and everything except some gossip with my friend.
Kira stared at the ceiling and I waited, anticipation building, knowing that whatever she said would be good. ‘Ethan Spunk is … like the most expensive Easter egg.’
I laughed. ‘In what way?’
‘He’s really hard to crack open, but you know that, when you finally prise him apart, you’ll be generously rewarded with the contents.’
I swallowed. I hadn’t even seen this guy and already I wanted to know how accurate that was. ‘What kind of contents?’
She shrugged, her brown eyes twinkling. ‘They could be anything. Something sharp and fruity, like the candied oranges you get at Christmas, or bitter, like 80 per cent chocolate drops. He looks like he’d have a dry sense of humour.
’ She tapped her lips. ‘Or they might be sweet: I can see that about him, too. He seemed wary, but also as if he might warm up, like chocolate truffles with coffee cream inside.’
‘Right.’ It was my turn to slump over the desk. ‘Thanks, Kira. Now I won’t have anything to say in Media Studies.’
‘Because you’re thinking about a guy you’ve never seen whose surname might be Spunk?’
‘You started this,’ I pointed out. ‘I am thinking about him, but now I also want some chocolate truffles.’ My stomach rumbled, and Kira laughed and slumped over me, two girls heaped over a desk like we’d completely given up.
When the laughter faded, I pushed my blonde fringe out of my eyes and said, ‘When’s your next Maths class? ’
‘Why?’ Kira took an apple out of her bag. ‘You’re practically allergic to Maths.’
‘I might need to come and give you a crucial message, sometime very soon.’ I watched the smile spread slowly over her face, matching mine.
I met Ethan, the most expensive Easter egg, two days later, in inauspicious circumstances.
I was walking across the courtyard in front of the sixth-form block, replying to a message from Mum, when something thumped into the middle of my back with a heavy thwack , pushing all the air out of me.
My mobile flew out of my hands, and I followed it onto the hard concrete, my knees and palms taking the brunt.
‘Fuck,’ I gasped, tears springing to my eyes at the shock.
‘Hey.’ The voice came from beside me, and I turned to see a pair of grey trainers, jean-clad knees in a crouching position, fingertips pressing into the ground next to my hand. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Was that your football?’ I sounded shrill, and I swallowed, trying to force the tears away.
‘I don’t have a football,’ the voice said. ‘Here, do you want to sit?’ Hands cupped my shoulders, gentle but insistent, manoeuvring me until I was sitting on the ground, the pressure off my knees and hands. I looked up into a pair of brown eyes, a furrow between neat brows, his concern aimed at me.
‘Thanks,’ I mumbled.
Kira’s description had been perfect, because I knew immediately that this was Ethan.
He looked pensive, and his posture was good even when he was crouching, his shoulders wide and straight in his grey shirt.
I couldn’t hold his gaze for long – there was something about his expression that made my dizziness linger – so I assessed the damage instead.
I brushed at my bare knees, knocking off tiny nuggets of gravel, leaving behind red pockmarks and a couple of grazes where I’d broken the skin.
I had on a navy dress and was relieved I hadn’t ripped the fabric.
I didn’t have a whole lot of outfits that I was comfortable about wearing to school. ‘Shit.’
‘Does it hurt?’ Ethan squeezed my shoulder, his hand radiating heat through the cotton of my dress.
‘It stings a bit. It’s the shock more than anything.’
He glanced over my head. ‘We’re sitting ducks here. That ball’s bouncing around like Lego in a spin dryer.’
‘A spin dryer?’ I laughed. ‘How old are you?’ But when he held his hand out, I took it, and he pulled me easily to my feet.
‘I’m eighteen.’ He started walking, without letting go of my hand. ‘Same as you, I imagine, unless you’re still seventeen?’
‘I was eighteen in November.’ I didn’t try to take my hand back.
We walked across the courtyard together, and it was obvious that we were getting stared at. ‘Good,’ he said, and it took me a beat to remember what he was replying to. My age wasn’t something I had control over, but I was still glad that he approved.
‘Where are you taking me?’ I asked, as he pushed open the door into the sixth-form block.
The linoleum squeaked against the soles of our trainers, and the slightly stale scent of lunchtime chips wafted down the corridor.
A student shouted from one of the floors above us, the sound echoing down the stairwell.
Ethan kept walking until we were outside the girls’ toilets, then he turned to face me, his shoulder skimming the wall. ‘You need to get your grazes cleaned up now.’
‘I will. Thanks.’ I brushed my palms together and he winced. ‘What is it?’
‘You could be pushing the gravel further in.’
‘I don’t …’ I looked at my hands. He was being far too cautious, considering it was just a standard playground fall. ‘I’m Georgie, by the way.’
He nodded. ‘Ethan.’
‘I know that,’ I said with a grin.
‘Right.’ He sighed. ‘The new boy.’
‘You can’t escape it in a school this small.’
His gaze flickered behind me, down the corridor then towards the common room. ‘Come on.’ He pushed open the door into the girls’ toilets.
‘You can’t …’ I started, as he pulled me inside.
He elbowed the doors of each of the three stalls, and they flung inwards one by one, slamming against the walls. ‘Empty,’ he announced needlessly.
‘Anyone could come in at any moment.’
‘I’ll tell them it’s an emergency.’
‘It’s not though, is it?’
He dipped into a stall and pulled off a long roll of toilet paper that was, thankfully, a lot softer than the stuff in the main building. Ages eleven to sixteen you were apparently adept at coping with tracing paper, but once you got to sixth form you were allowed the dignity of something better.
‘You need to clean your cuts, and something tells me you wouldn’t do a great job yourself.’
‘What something ?’ I crossed my arms, but he gently prised them apart, then ran the paper under the cold tap and dabbed it against my left palm, which had fared worst. I winced at the cold and the sting, and then his warm fingers, gently pressing.
He shrugged. ‘You just seemed like you weren’t that bothered.’
‘I was, I …’ I remembered what I’d been distracted by: Mum, who that morning hadn’t got out of bed, who had told me she was fine and that I didn’t need to worry.
I’d left feeling guilty, knowing she had really wanted me to stay, every step on the walk here cementing my status as Worst Daughter Ever. ‘My phone,’ I said forlornly.
‘It’s in my back pocket,’ Ethan told me. ‘I don’t know if it’s OK.’
‘Oh.’ Dread mingled with relief, because that Nokia was like a brick and I was sure it had survived the fall, and if I didn’t reply soon then Mum would call me.
A couple of times when I hadn’t picked up, she’d phoned the school office, as if I was the one who needed checking up on.
‘Thank you.’ Thinking only of stopping that scenario playing out, I reached around Ethan, felt the back pocket of his jeans and slipped my fingers inside, but it was empty and then …
He’d gone completely still, tissue pressed to my hand, and I realized I was exhaling onto the side of his neck.
A tiny muscle was jumping in his jaw. I pulled back quickly. ‘God, sorry.’
‘It’s fine,’ he said gruffly, and got on with cleaning my palm. ‘I’ll get it for you in a second. You OK?’
‘Absolutely.’ Except it suddenly seemed as if everything was spinning out of control.
Mum, waiting for my reply to her message, her patience running down, and me, standing in the girls’ toilets while a boy I didn’t know took care of me, and I’d just slid my hand into his jeans pocket like I was in Pretty Little Liars or something. ‘No, actually.’
Ethan looked up at me. For some reason I decided to elaborate.
‘It’s my mum. She’s not very well, and it’s … been a bit of a juggling act, recently. School and looking after her, I mean.’ I hoped I sounded competent, like I was taking it all in my stride.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ethan said, turning his attention back to my hand. ‘That sounds tough. Does your dad help? Brothers or sisters?’
‘No dad or siblings. It’s fine, really.’
‘It sounds like it’s not. Though I guess siblings don’t always make things easier.’
‘Do you have brothers and sisters, then?’
‘A sister, Sarah.’ His voice tightened. ‘She’s going through a rough time at the moment.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said softly. ‘Also, I’m not having to deal with being the new guy at school, with people speculating about me all over the place.’
‘What have you been speculating about me?’ Ethan asked without looking up. His voice had dropped, and I could feel his breath on my skin. It was as if he was putting me under some kind of spell, and I wouldn’t be able to lie even if I wanted to.
‘That you’re an expensive Easter egg,’ I said. ‘Rich and bitter, really hard to get into.’ I wrinkled my nose, because that wasn’t how I’d meant it to come out. ‘Not that I’m sayi—’
‘Might add that to my uni application,’ Ethan said lightly, then he did look up. ‘Unless I can change your mind about some of those things? I’m not rich, for example.’
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘And can you really say I’m hard to get into, when you haven’t tried yet?’
‘Yet?’ I echoed. I had been expecting him to be annoyed at my (Kira’s) assessment, but he seemed quietly amused.
‘This is the first time we’ve met. It’s natural to be guarded at the beginning.’
‘I didn’t even say …’ I started, but I lost my train of thought when he lowered my left hand and lifted my right one, where there was barely a scratch.
I felt a sharp sting and he caught my eye, triumphant, as he held a minuscule bit of gravel between his thumb and forefinger.
‘There. You would have left that in there to fester.’
‘It would have fallen out by itself,’ I said dismissively.
Ethan laughed, a low, rusty sound that I felt in the pit of my stomach, like the swoop of a rollercoaster.
‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘I just knew.’
‘All right, smarty pants.’ I grinned at him, but it faded when he dropped into a crouch and I felt his fingers brush against my knee, his hot breath on my thigh through my dress.
My ‘Oh’ was involuntary, and then it was joined by another chorus of ‘ohs’ as, inevitably, a group of girls in my year burst into the toilet, all Tommy Girl perfume and bubblegum lip gloss, and came to a crashing halt when they saw Ethan crouching in front of me, leaning his head of tousled, auburn hair towards the lower half of my body.
I should have been mortified, desperate to flee the school grounds and never return, but I felt the opposite, especially when Ethan looked up and gave them such a confident, gorgeous grin that I had to lean against the porcelain sink, even though it wasn’t directed at me, then went back to cleaning my knee, entirely unruffled.
‘Won’t be long,’ he said loudly into the skirt of my dress, and I was given the kind of gawping, envious looks by my perfumed, shiny-haired peers that I had never dreamed, in a million years, I’d be worthy of.