Chapter 13
Emma
It’s amazing how quickly a new routine becomes a habit.
I’ve been at this school less than three weeks, but I don’t have to keep checking my schedule now.
I just know when I’ve got English or maths.
The anxious tummyache I get before every lesson with Mr. Ward is a reliable reminder of that.
I’m doing fine in maths and can keep up well, but in English, he’s still making me feel I’m behind.
I don’t even want to think about when he might hand back our papers from that unannounced test on our current reading—the one where I was basically guessing.
I don’t have any problems with PE either, but that’s not much consolation.
And this isn’t even the only thing that’s messing with my head.
I’m always feeling Grace’s eyes on me in the hallways.
Sometimes I almost wish she’d just be mean to me.
Then at least I’d know where I stood. But she’s friendly and kind, which makes everything so much harder.
On Monday, I actually went to athletics training with her, but it made me feel bad.
Because it was only a few days after I’d been in that darkened library with Henry, and ever since, I’ve constantly been fantasizing about what it would be like to kiss him.
You’d think I wouldn’t have much time for that kind of thing.
My days are planned and run like clockwork.
Each starts with registration at eight thirty, and then there are lessons until lunch, from one to two.
After that, I have more classes, training, or enrichment.
I also had to choose a duty, like helping the younger kids with their prep or working in the sick bay, the library, or the garden.
I picked gardening. So one afternoon a week, I’m part of a group helping Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Ringling in the school’s huge grounds.
I have to admit that I’m not sorry Olive does lifeguard duty at the school pool.
This way, I’m on my own with Tori while we help Mr. Carpenter outside.
By now, I’m pretty sure that she only picked this option because Valentine Ward does garden duty too.
It’s none of my business, but I have to confess that I don’t like him much—which has less to do with him being Mr. Ward’s nephew and more to do with him generally ghosting Tori.
I like her a lot, but we’ve known each other such a short time that I don’t feel like I’m in a position to tell her she deserves better than someone who plays with her emotions.
It seems to me she’s a lot happier in Sinclair’s company, even though she doesn’t seem to notice it.
But sadly, he doesn’t do gardening with us—he does stable duty and helps out with the riding lessons.
And Henry does prep supervision, which makes sense given his career ambitions.
I’m pretty sure this community service thing would never have worked at my old school.
Nobody wanted to spend any more time at Heinrich Heine than was strictly necessary.
Voluntarily staying on to sweep up leaves in the playground or help little kids with their homework?
No way. So it’s all the more amazing how seriously these duties are taken at Dunbridge Academy.
And somehow, it feels nice to work with the others making sure the school can be the best possible home for us all.
“Make sure you don’t snip too far down, Emma.” I raise my head as Mr. Ringling leans over the roses I’m cutting. I hadn’t even noticed him coming over to us. “Just here is fine. At the moment, we’re just deadheading them.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumble.
“Not a problem. This all looks like you’re doing a fantastic job.” Mr. Ringling smiles, and I relax a little, until I realize he’s still watching me. “It’s daft, but every time I look at you, I see your father. He must be very proud of you.”
Fortunately, Tori and the others aren’t around just now. “I have no contact with him,” I say. “My parents split up.”
Mr. Ringling raises his eyebrows in surprise. “I didn’t know that.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I force myself to smile. “Did you know him well?”
“It was a long time ago, but I remember him and your mother very well. It was a shame that he left the school after—”
Mr. Ringling breaks off as Tori, Salome, and a couple of younger girls jump up, screaming.
“Get it away, get it away!” Salome’s braids fly out as she shakes out her hands and grimaces with disgust.
“What’s the matter?” Mr. Ringling straightens up.
“Ew, a snake! There was a snake.” Tori shivers.
“Are you blind?” Valentine calls from the other side of the flowerbed. “It was just a slowworm, and it was tiny.”
“It was massive!”
“And it was definitely more scared of you than you were of it.” Mr. Ringling brushes some mud off his hands and turns toward them. “Slowworms aren’t snakes, they’re legless lizards, and they’re perfectly harmless.”
I’m not listening anymore. It’s what he said about my dad.
It was a shame that he left the school after—Yes, but after what? How can I ask him more about it without the others hearing?
There’s only another fifteen minutes until we have to put down our gloves and secateurs to make it back to school for study time, so I don’t get another chance.
I’m about to go into my room when Tori calls, “Tea?”
By now I know that almost everyone in the sixth form has their own kettle in their room and at least one packet of tea bags.
I’ll have to remember to ask Mum if she can get a kettle for me when she comes at the weekend.
Until then, I’ll rely on Tori’s generosity—I’ll have to pay her back with a huge box of tea bags soon.
“I’d love one, if you don’t mind,” I say.
Tori rolls her eyes as she fishes about for her key. “Will you stop being so bloody polite? We’re neighbors, and you can have anything you like from me.” She pushes open the door, and I follow her inside. “OK, maybe not that iconic Harry Styles Vogue cover. It cost a bomb, but what can you do?”
She puts her key on the desk, every last centimeter of which is, as ever, covered with books, tarot cards, and the camera equipment she uses to film videos for her social media.
And there’s that very same famous cover on the wall next to it, along with a few Polaroids and postcards.
There are more books piled on Tori’s chest of drawers and the shelf above her desk.
I recognize some from her recent Books of the Month video.
She showed me the other day, by way of explaining just what BookTube means.
But Tori doesn’t just have heaps of YouTube subscribers.
She posts on Instagram and TikTok almost every day, and she’s built up a huge community there too.
It doesn’t surprise me, because her book recommendations and photos with Dunbridge in the background are like something straight out of a dark academia Pinterest board.
“Wasn’t I going to give you some more fairy lights?” Tori asks as she disappears into her tiny bathroom with the kettle.
“It’s fine,” I call. “My mum’s bringing me some at the weekend. But thanks for the offer.”
“Have you got any plans?” Tori comes back into the room.
“We want to go and see the Highlands. How about you? Are you and Olive going into Edinburgh?”
“No. I’d totally forgotten that Will and I have to go home. My cousin’s getting married.” Tori sighs. “It’s going to be a total pain in the arse.”
“Don’t you get on?” I ask.
“No, no, we do, but my family gets kind of carried away.”
“It’s going to be big, then?”
“You have no idea,” says Tori. “They’ve rented a castle.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Tori says. “If your surname’s Belhaven, I guess you have to live up to it.” She takes two mugs off her shelf as the water starts to boil. She hands me the dark-blue one with the school crest on it. “But that doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?” she asks. “Belhaven-Wynford?”
I shake my head. “Not really. Sorry.”
“Oh, God, don’t apologize—I love you for it.” Tori sighs. “It’s just that anyone who grew up round here has almost certainly heard of our family.”
“Oh, I didn’t know . . .” I pause.
“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s nice just being Tori,” she says, smiling at me. “Not the Belhaven-Wynford lass.”
“Well, you’ll always just be Tori to me,” I say. “And I’m sure it’s the same for Olive, Henry, and Sinclair.”
“That’s true,” she says, reaching for the huge metal canister where she keeps her pyramid-shaped tea bags. “And Val gets how tricky it can be sometimes.”
“Does he?” I ask.
Tori nods. “My mum sometimes works with his. You just know people when you move in the same circles.”
“So you knew Val before coming here?”
“A bit, but we never really spoke. Not till now.” Tori lifts her head. “He looked over my way fairly often, didn’t he?”
To be honest, I hadn’t noticed. “Yeah, sure,” I say hastily as Tori looks expectantly at me.
“I knew I wasn’t imagining it. I think he doesn’t want his friends to notice, but, well . . .” Tori trails off as someone knocks at the door. “Hell-ooo?” she calls, throwing the tea bags into our mugs and filling them with hot water as the door opens.
“Four o’clock. Study time, you two,” says Ms. Barnett, popping her head in.
“I know. Emma just needs some tea,” Tori declares. I glance apologetically at our houseparent, but she just nods.
“The tea thing works every time,” Tori says, once she’s shut the door behind her. “Whatever it is, you can always say you were just making a cup of tea.”
I have to smile. “I’ll remember that.”
“Still no milk or sugar?” asks Tori.
I shake my head. “Thank you.”
“Happy study hour, then,” she says as I walk to the door. “I so can’t be arsed. I’ll probably spend my whole time scrolling on TikTok.”
I laugh. “Can you tag me in some more of those book videos, please?”
“I knew you’d get hooked on BookTok.”
“It’s the best.”
Tori giggles and waves to me as I leave her room with my mug. The corridor is almost empty, as always at this time of day. Ms. Barnett is coming out of a room at the other end and nods to me as I slip into mine.
I put my mug on my desk, and my bed really does look inviting.
I’ve been here long enough by now to know that, with a bit of luck, Ms. Barnett won’t look in again, and I can just spend an hour reading or watching YouTube.
According to Tori, it’s only the juniors and younger years who have to show their houseparents that they’ve really been working.
They also have to hand in their phones first. Pretty strict when I think that at my old school, nobody cared when or how you did your homework.
But although I could get away with not working, I sit down at my desk.
I’d rather focus on reading for English, so that next time, I can prove to Mr. Ward that I’m capable of keeping up with the A-level course.
I’ve just got out my folder and I’m about to put my phone away when I see the Instagram notification. I’ve been meaning to switch those off for ages now. I don’t want to be informed every time Isi or anyone else posts a story.
It was Isi, and now I’m going to have to find out what she shared or I won’t be able to concentrate on my work. I’ll just tap on the app for a moment, then switch off notifications.
Isi’s reposted a story that Betil—a girl in another class—shared yesterday evening.
They seem to be at someone’s home—at least, the room and its orange lights remind me of the party cellar in Eros’s parents’ house.
The photo, a selfie of Betil and Nikola, makes my heart stand still.
Not because of the two of them, but because they’re pointing their fingers at a couple wrapped around each other on the sofa in the background.
It’s Isi and Noah, and they’re kissing. Betil’s holding her phone higher, they’re laughing, and Isi and Noah are looking at them.
I feel numb, yet my thoughts are whirling.
Isi’s kissing Noah. Noah’s kissing Isi. Isi and Noah are kissing.
And it doesn’t look like drunken snogging at a party, no way.
It looks like the reason why Isi’s been so quiet on WhatsApp.
She’s got together with Noah. Even though she didn’t have a good word to say about him when I was with him.
She ripped him to shreds, and when he dumped me, she said I should think myself lucky, because I was too good for him.
And now she’s kissing him at some party, in front of people I thought were my friends. While I’m in Scotland.
Why did she share a thing like that? She must know I’d see it.
My blood runs cold.
Maybe she wanted me to see it . . .
Because everyone’s the same. Because nobody gives a fuck if they hurt other people.
Noah, who dumps people by WhatsApp like a fucking coward.
Isi, who pretends one thing, then gets together with him.
My father, who records “For Emma” and disappears off the face of the earth.
I don’t get it. What did I do to these people, and why does it always have to hurt so much? It shouldn’t be a surprise anymore.
I can’t cry. I’m calm. I exit Isi’s story and deactivate all notifications. I shut the stupid app and put my phone to one side.
And then I sit there, staring at my practically empty pinboard, wondering what the hell is going on.