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  For my dearest great granny, Mary Margurite Gibson (née Wild), and her son, my beloved grandad Papa, Philip Graham Gibson

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: Amber

  Chapter 2: Chloe

  Chapter 3: Amber

  Chapter 4: Chloe

  Chapter 5: Amber

  Chapter 6: Chloe

  Chapter 7: Amber

  Chapter 8: Chloe

  Chapter 9: Chloe

  Chapter 10: Amber

  Chapter 11: Chloe

  Chapter 12: Amber

  Chapter 13: Chloe

  Chapter 14: Chloe

  Chapter 15: Amber

  Chapter 16: Amber

  Chapter 17: Chloe

  Chapter 18: Amber

  Chapter 19: Chloe

  Chapter 20: Amber

  Chapter 21: Amber

  Chapter 22: Amber

  Chapter 23: Chloe

  Chapter 24: Chloe

  Chapter 25: Amber

  Chapter 26: Chloe

  Chapter 27: Amber

  Chapter 28: Chloe

  Chapter 29: Amber

  Chapter 30: Chloe

  Chapter 31: Amber

  Chapter 32: Chloe

  Chapter 33: Amber

  Chapter 34: Chloe

  Chapter 35: Amber

  Chapter 36: Chloe

  Chapter 37: Amber

  Chapter 38: Chloe

  Chapter 39: Amber

  Chapter 40: Chloe

  Chapter 41: Amber

  Chapter 42: Amber

  Chapter 43: Chloe

  Chapter 44: Amber

  Chapter 45: Chloe

  Chapter 46: Amber

  Chapter 47: Chloe

  Chapter 48: Chloe

  Chapter 49: Amber

  Chapter 50: Amber

  Chapter 51: Chloe

  Chapter 52: Amber

  Chapter 53: Amber

  Chapter 54: Chloe

  Chapter 55: Amber

  Chapter 56: Chloe

  Chapter 57: Amber

  Chapter 58: Chloe

  Chapter 59: Amber

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  I don’t realize I’m trembling until he looks at me. His eyes are so beautiful, pale grey irises speckled with flecks of green. He gazes down at me, smiles, and I feel my whole body melt.

  ‘Here – this is how you do it.’ He takes the handle of the rowing machine and expertly pulls it back. The muscles in his arm ripple. I look away, and my cheeks grow uncomfortably hot.

  ‘Now you try.’

  I do, but my hands are still shaking, and I can’t quite pull it right. I yank the handle, and it makes a loud, jarring screech.

  I can feel the heat everywhere now. On my face, my head, my neck.

  But when I look up, he’s laughing. He takes the handle from me gently, resting a hand on my shoulder. My stomach gives a weird lurch at his touch. His beautiful eyes look down at me, teasing, as though we share a secret.

  CHAPTER 1

  Amber

  There’s not just one picture of his face – there are hundreds. Scattered around the screen like smiling confetti, lighting up the dark. Football matches, blurred screenshots of drunken, well-thumbed photos. Gently I drag each image into a folder.

  As I work, the clock on my bedroom wall gives a low rhythmic tick, but I don’t register the sound. It’s like the room around me is out of focus. All I can see is his face.

  Instagram. Twitter. Facebook. There’s also a page on the new ‘Trainee Personal Trainers’ on the Ferrington gym website. The third one down says Ren Moore, and beside a brief description there’s a small, blurry image of him. He is seventeen, as I thought, and the description says he’s only been training as a personal trainer with the local college for the last month.

  I right-click save and drag that photo into the folder too.

  My laptop has linked up a slideshow of the images, which I thought would be cringey, but it’s actually OK.

  Is this confidence-building?

  Maybe if I look at him enough, here in my bedroom, I’ll stop choking up when I actually see him.

  Even thinking about the last time I was at the gym makes my cheeks warm.

  For the millionth time, I conjure up the way he gazed at me, his hand gently brushing my shoulder. The tingling feeling that swept through my body.

  Did he feel it too?

  I’ve replayed that moment so many times, it feels like it should be worn out – but each time I remember it, the memory gets brighter, more vivid.

  The photos are playing on a loop, flicking through what looks like his entire life: a school Paris trip; training at the gym; that house party he live-streamed.

  My eyes slide across to my own Instagram profile. There isn’t really much there to be honest – but then again, I’m not very snap-happy. When I go out . . . Oh, who I am kidding? I have nothing to take photos of.

  My twin brother Seb’s Instagram page is the polar opposite. There isn’t a single of photo of him where he isn’t surrounded by friends. We’ve both only been at this school for six months, but it took him about three seconds to slot into his new surroundings.

  But it’s OK. We’ve always been different.

  When I scroll back to the slideshow, I’m struck by the curve of his face. His flushed cheeks, beautiful speckled eyes, and that look he gets when he’s explaining something and his lips drop open slightly.

  If he were right in front of me now, how would I feel?

  The slideshow stops on one image. It’s of him, topless, posing in the mirror, and it makes me feel incredibly small. There’s dark shadows accentuating the curves of his muscles. The angle of his sharp face, highlighting his cheekbones, and he’s jutting out his lower lip.

  OK, I know it’s a bit try-hard. It’s actually an incredibly vain photo, and if I knew him better, I’d probably tease him about it . . . But if I can speak to him topless and not completely burn up, maybe I can speak to him properly next time I’m in the gym.

  I purse my lips into a funny little smile and whisper, ‘Hey.’

  I swallow and try again.

  ‘Hey.’

  I tilt my head and give my hair a little flick.

  ‘What are you doing here—’

  At that moment, a flood of light illuminates the room. My eyes snap open, taking a moment to focus on the lanky frame of Seb, who is bounding through my bedroom door.

  I slam my laptop shut, my heart thudding.

  ‘Get out!’ I hiss.

  ‘Yo, sis! Guess what Bill and me just saw on—’

  He’s already heading towards me, laughing, arm outstretched with his phone.

  ‘Get out!’ I say, louder this time.

  He blinks. ‘Whoa – what’s wrong with—’

  ‘Just leave me alone! OK? Leave me alone!’ I’m shouting now, my face burning.

  I’m not sure why my voice is so high, but Seb doesn’t need telling twice. He rolls his eyes to the ceiling, muttering, ‘Christ,’ before doing a loop of my bed and slamming the door shut behind him.

  Once he’s left, the room falls dark again.

  When I open up the laptop, my hands are shaking.

  I look down at the hundreds of pictures of Ren, and suddenly I’m struck by the ridiculousness of what I’m doing. I snap the laptop shut and lie back in bed, staring at the ceiling.

  Ren is gone. Seb is gone.

  My eyes rest on the outline of my hands in the dark.

  Alone.

  CHAPTER 2

  Chloe

  After school, Louise, Rachel and Ameerah are screaming so loudly, I can’t even make out what they’re saying.

  ‘This, Chloe – get this!’

  Rachel’s hands are clutching silky
red fabric – a sequinned devil costume that glimmers in the light as she tugs it off the hanger.

  I tilt my head to one side. ‘It’s a little . . . much, wouldn’t you say?’

  Rachel drops it like it’s burning her fingertips. ‘Ugh, yeah – way too much.’

  I turn away, not really paying attention. My eyes have already focused on my phone, which is buzzing incessantly with notifications. In a group chat, a couple of the guys are posting memes about my ex-boyfriend Tom’s Halloween party on Thursday, in just over a week’s time, and a few more people have commented on my Instagram posts.

  I click on the latest photo: me in the mirror, my lips red and slightly parted, body tilted forward, a low-cut grey dress clinging to my waist.

  It took me about three hundred photos to get that pose right, to look both thin and curvy, and I’m still not happy with it. My hips jut out too much on one side, and my eyeliner is definitely wonky. Ugh.

  There are five new messages, almost all from guys at school. One of them, Sven, I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it’s this guy who works in the corner shop near my house. He’s been commenting on every photo I post, things like beautiful and stunning. This time, he hasn’t written any words – just posted a mouth-open, shocked-face emoji.

  ‘Chloe! What do you think of this?’

  Louise is walking over, brandishing a deep-green slip of velvet. It dips down at the front and is decorated with beaded feathers across the hem. I stroke the material.

  ‘Nice,’ I say, taking it off her.

  Louise smirks at Rachel and goes back to rifling through the hangers.

  I can see myself in this, dressed as a peacock, with shimmery make-up across my face and feathers in my hair. I imagine stepping into Tom’s familiar beamed house, passing through that staircase with the crooked bannister. Him glancing at me as I walk in.

  Thinking of Tom makes me gnaw the inside of my lip. I’m not angry with him any more – I just feel kind of hollow. I can’t stop thinking about the last time I saw him: his ashen face, lower lip sticking out; the way his eyes hardened when I threw my arms in the air and said, ‘Maybe we should take a break.’ He seemed to have already made up his mind.

  And I felt so dizzyingly angry then, I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. Tell him to stop messaging other girls and that he clearly didn’t care about me. But I didn’t. Instead I rolled my eyes and left. When I said the word break, he jolted as though I’d hit him, and I can still remember the weird metallic taste in the back of my mouth as I walked away.

  My phone buzzes again, snapping me out of it. I have over a thousand followers now, and pretty much every day there’s a new guy who comments on my photos or slides into my DMs.

  Sometimes a guy will start following me and then comment or like every single one of my 200 photos, which I find a bit creepy.

  But I’m not paying attention to my profile; I’m on Tom’s. Skimming image after image that I’ve seen a million times before (he doesn’t post very often). Underneath his most recent post – a photo of him laughing with a couple of friends at the local bar, Playshack – there is something new.

  A comment from another Year Eleven girl, Jasmin Reid, who’s in my form at school.

  jaz_R Looking good

  I stare at it for several seconds.

  Christ. What is she playing at? Has he been messaging with her too? We’ve only been split up for a few weeks – he’s just trying to upset me! I click through to Jasmin’s page and see Tom has posted a wink emoji on one of her recent photos.

  I jut out my chin. Well, two can play at that game. I skim through my recent notifications, trying to find someone Tom doesn’t know who has started commenting on my selfies.

  There’s this Sven. About a week ago, he sent me a DM – you’re the most stunning girl I’ve ever seen – though maybe he was drunk, as it was followed by a mishmash of letters. And his Instagram page is odd: mainly photos of him by himself, biking or playing football.

  Oh, who cares? He’ll do.

  On one of his most painstakingly posed photos (one arm outstretched behind his head so you can see the muscle of his arm), I click like and type a comment.

  Chlo03 Bold ;)

  My phone almost instantly lights up with two new DMs.

  ‘Tom will like that dress,’ says Louise, suddenly at my side. I lock the screen of my phone. She nods at the material I’m holding. ‘Wasn’t his favourite colour green?’

  At the mention of Tom, all the other girls look at me.

  I wrinkle my nose as though trying to remember something.

  ‘Tom? Oh God, that feels like a lifetime ago.’ I snort a laugh. ‘Who cares what he thinks?’

  CHAPTER 3

  Amber

  The floor-to-ceiling gym mirrors light up every imperfection on my face. There are dark purple rings under my eyes, a sheen of grease across my forehead, and a huge whitehead on the tip of my nose. My fingertips shake slightly as I swing myself onto the exercise bike.

  I grimace at my reflection. Oh God – I wish I’d had more sleep. I wish I hadn’t stayed up until 2 a.m. obsessing about this very moment: being at the gym attached to our school before lessons; the chance of seeing Him again.

  What if I mess it up?

  What if I say something stupid? Or my voice starts quivering in a dumb, nervous way? Worse: I could try to speak to him, and he could just ignore me completely.

  My whole body is trembling now. Little goosebumps are travelling up my arm, and there’s a buzzing feeling tickling my skin. I clamp my teeth shut so they don’t chatter.

  Enough. He’s not here yet. I need to stop this.

  I tug my jumper over my fingertips and start stabbing at the buttons. An ear-splitting beep makes me jump back as the machine turns on.

  Did anyone see that? I dare a glance across the room, but no one is paying attention. The man closest to me has headphones in, and the woman lifting weights in the corner is looking directly in the mirror.

  I gently start to pedal.

  The wheels are spinning, faster and faster. Blood rushes to my face. Ren could walk in. Any minute now.

  There’s a soft tearing sound and a tug at the bottom of my trousers.

  What the—

  One of the pedals has got caught on a loose thread at the hem of my jogging bottoms. I lift my feet up, but the pedal keeps spinning for a few seconds, winding tighter and tighter against the fabric.

  It starts to pull my jogging bottoms down on one side. Glancing round, I yank my trousers up, but they get tugged down again.

  I try to manoeuvre my leg away from the machine, but the thread is wound so tightly round the pedal that I’m either going to fall flat on my face or pull my entire jogging bottoms down over my bum.

  My cheeks start to prickle.

  Oh God. I’m stuck.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a tall guy with a flash of dark hair in one of the royal-blue personal trainer tops. Please, please tell me it’s not Ren. Don’t let him come over.

  I try to bend down so I can untangle the thread, but I can’t. I’m not flexible enough, and if I bend any further, my trousers are going to come right down.

  Tears of humiliation begin to burn my eyes.

  This was so pathetic, coming here. Thinking me and Ren would actually speak to each other. Making a slideshow of photos. Now this is what’s really going to happen: I’ll get stuck on this machine for the entire morning and eventually have to rip my trousers off in order to even make it into school.

  Oh God – and I’m not even wearing nice underwear.

  They’re white – and baggy. The first thing I grabbed when I got dressed this morning, half asleep.

  I blink several times, sniffing back tears.

  At that moment, a girl appears beside me. She’s tall and thin with wavy thick red hair tied up into a topknot. She’s wearing the same royal-blue personal trainer top as Ren’s.

  ‘I’m Iulia, one of the trainees here – do you need some help?’
She glances down at my snagged trouser leg, then lowers her voice. ‘I saw you struggling. Don’t worry – I can get it.’

  In a matter of seconds, she’s kneeling down, deftly unwinding the thread from the machine. At one point, she leans almost to the ground and uses her teeth to snap a dangling thread, setting me free.

  I gingerly lift my foot off the pedal. There’s no tug. The hem of my jogging bottoms is slightly frayed, but I just feel an overwhelming sense of relief that I’m not going to be glued to the pedal all morning.

  ‘If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to ask!’ says Iulia, smiling broadly, and I realize with a jolt that she’s the first person from school to smile at me all week.

  I open my mouth. I want to say something to thank her for getting me out of this, but before I get a chance, she’s already leaped off to give a man advice about his squatting technique.

  Now my legs are free, I don’t want to take any chances. I jump off the machine, gather up my water bottle, and scuttle back to the changing rooms.

  Ren is nowhere to be seen.

  How could I have been so pathetic? Getting up early and coming here just in case he was working. All the trainee personal trainers are at college and just do placements at our town gym in the leisure centre; they’re not even here every day. I’m pretty sure Ren finished school last year, so he’s just a year older than me. But maybe he still thinks I’m some stupid little kid, coming in here from the school gates next door, changing into my PE gear.

  In a way, maybe it’s good he’s at college today. What would have happened if Iulia hadn’t freed me? I could have ended up showing my bum to the entire gym.

  I almost feel like crying again as I pull my school jumper roughly over my gym shirt. I’m an idiot, aren’t I? That smile he gave me obviously meant nothing to him. I shouldn’t have come back here. It was completely and utterly stupid.

  At the main entrance to the leisure centre, two receptionists have their heads together and are whispering. I don’t pay them much attention; my mind is circling with horrible thoughts about what Ren thinks of me. Thoughts like glue that stick to my mind and won’t budge, no matter how hard I try to shift them.

  ‘I can’t believe it about Ren!’ hisses the male receptionist.