Chapter 40
Nika
Monday
The diary is on Nika’s bedside locker, dusty after almost five years under her bed.
What would Maeve think if she knew Nika had it?
She’d be fucking terrified. Nika remembers when it went missing.
(“Missing.”) Maeve frantically checking all over her bedroom, asking Nika if she’d seen it.
Nika putting on a worried face and helping her search, the diary buried at the bottom of her bag.
Why she took it, she’s not sure. An impulse.
Curiosity. The knowledge that someday it might come in useful.
She’d seen Maeve writing in it from time to time, her hand crabbed around the page, shielding it from anyone who might walk into her bedroom.
Nika was newly thirteen then and Maeve was still twelve, the two of them fresh to secondary school, holding on to their primary-school friendship.
Or at least, Maeve was. Nika was ready to meet new people, and Maeve was…
well, kind of basic. A try-hard. Always trying to walk home with Nika, tagging along with Nika’s new friends.
And by October, just two months into their secondary-school life, Nika was over it.
It was Halloween, and Maeve wanted to go trick-or-treating together, then have Nika stay over.
Nika wanted to go to a party in Ariana’s house.
So she compromised—which, if you think about it, was actually really nice of her—and got Maeve invited to Ariana’s party too.
But it annoyed her all the same. This dragging feeling, being held back by Maeve.
It bugged her that she had to call by Maeve’s house on the way to Ariana’s.
And walking into Maeve’s room, finding her hunched over her diary, not yet ready to go, annoyed her even more.
Maeve shoved her diary under her pillow and went out to the bathroom to change.
Nika sat on her bed and pulled the diary back out, one eye on the bedroom door.
What would Maeve write about? Wishing she had more friends, maybe, wishing she looked more like everyone else?
Her curly hair didn’t fit with the straightened look everyone else went for and her clothes were just kind of…
well, still a bit primary school. The first pages were exactly as Nika expected—boring nonsense about the new school, and witterings about her sister coming into her room uninvited.
(“AOIFE IF YOU’RE READING THIS YOU’RE DEAD.
”) Then Nika turned a page and found something else entirely.
Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped and, just then, the bathroom door unlocked.
She needed more time. She hesitated for a second, then slipped the diary into her backpack and got up from the bed as Maeve came back—to Nika’s horror—dressed as a Minion.
She was twelve, not three, for god’s sake.
Nika had put huge effort into her outfit—strappy black dress, black boots, cute black button nose, smoky eyes.
(“What are you?” her dad had asked. “A cat, Dad, obviously?”) And now she’d have to walk into Ariana’s party with a Minion.
That was the end of it, really.
Nika did her best at the party to steer clear of Maeve, leaving the room each time Maeve came in.
It would be mortifying if the others thought she was friends with the Minion.
She heard them laughing about Maeve’s costume and slid over to join in.
She thought of the diary. Imagine what they’d think if they knew what was in that.
When Maeve’s dad arrived to pick them up, Nika said she was staying on at the party.
Mr. Khoury insisted on texting Celeste to make sure that was OK.
It was, of course. Celeste didn’t mind what Nika did; she trusted her.
Nika had discovered early on that if she confessed and confided small indiscretions to her mother, Celeste believed her daughter was the kind of child who told her “everything.” Which is why she believed she hadn’t been involved in the drama with Maeve in fourth year (“Mum, I left her on Delivered for, like, a day? And she called it bullying?”) and why she believed Nika didn’t drink (“I tried a small bit of vodka and Coke, but I hated it. I don’t know why people drink”) and why she believed Nika had had her first kiss at sixteen (ha).
Nika went back to Maeve’s the following morning to get her backpack, watching while Maeve searched for her diary, apologizing for not staying over the night before—vague excuses about her mother needing her home to keep an eye on Cody.
She left saying she’d call her later. But she didn’t.
The next day, when Maeve Snapped Nika, she ignored it.
The end of a forty-day Snap streak and the end of an eight-year friendship.
And now, it’s time to use the diary.