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  My feet suddenly stop working. I pretend to find something in my gym bag.

  ‘That manager always had it in for him.’

  I drop my bag. The two receptionists glance over at me.

  Did they hear me?

  ‘Do you need any help, sweetie?’ says the woman, leaning over the desk.

  I snatch up my bag. ‘Um, no, I’m fine,’ I say, then hurry out of the double doors.

  The cool wind hits my cheeks, but I ignore it.

  Ren? In trouble?

  I remember the way he smiled at me. His kind eyes. How he helped me use the machine the first time I went to the gym, when I was so unbelievably stupid.

  I nibble on the inner corner of my lip.

  He wasn’t at the gym today. Now I think about it, he’s always at the gym when I come on a Wednesday morning.

  Something’s definitely not right.

  What’s going on?

  Absently, I open up my phone on Ren’s social media pages and refresh them a couple of times, but quickly close it again. There’s no new posts.

  CHAPTER 4

  Chloe

  Later that afternoon I wander into the kitchen clutching the sequinned green dress. Mum is standing with her back to me, facing the mirror. She’s wearing a little denim skirt, which would probably be too small for me, and a skin-tight leopard-print top. As she dabs her lips with an Yves Saint Laurent lipstick, her gold bracelets clatter on her scented wrists.

  I clear my throat, but Mum doesn’t react.

  I dump my dress on the island in the centre of the kitchen and get some orange juice from the fridge. As I pour myself some, a droplet spills on the worktop.

  ‘For goodness’ sake!’ Mum’s piercing voice is high and makes me jump.

  ‘What?’ I say.

  She’s facing me now, hands on her hips.

  ‘Do you have any idea how much these marble worktops cost?’ she says.

  ‘Sorry,’ I mutter, grabbing the tea towel and mopping it up.

  But Mum has stopped talking and is staring at my face with a frown. ‘Come here.’ She tries to grab my cheek.

  ‘What? No!’ I duck away from her.

  Mum’s brows knit together. ‘Is that a spot on your chin?’

  ‘No, Mum. I don’t know, OK?’

  She pulls up a chair, sits down, and sighs. ‘Oh, maybe it’s just a scar from you picking at your face.’

  ‘I don’t pick—’

  Mum cuts me off. ‘Your father has been a nightmare today.’

  I stop myself rolling my eyes (because I know Mum will start shrieking about wrinkles) and suppress a sigh.

  ‘Why? What’s he done?’

  ‘I bloody asked him to sort out the curtains in the living room. People were meant to come today to hang them up – but did they arrive? No! Did he sort it out? No! He should bloody well put his money where his mouth is. How am I meant to have my girls over when the living room looks so cheap?’

  I mumble something in reply and, after a couple of minutes of listening to Mum complain, manage to slip out by saying I’ve got homework to do.

  As I go up the stairs, I catch sight of myself in the floor-length hall mirror (our house is literally covered in mirrors. I counted them once: twenty-two) and am struck by how different I look at home versus school or out. My shoulders are hunched, my eyes are downcast. It’s like without other people, I just wither away. I hate being by myself, being at home. I need my friends to bring me to life.

  When I get to my room, I peel off my school clothes and hang them up in my wardrobe. Sitting on my bed, I open YouTube and start watching the best ways to stop under-eye concealer creasing.

  As I’m watching, my phone lights up. For a split second, my heart leaps – could it be Tom?

  But it’s not. It’s just some random creepy guy commenting on my Instagram again.

  I don’t even open the app. I just tap straight through to mine and Tom’s old WhatsApp thread.

  The last messages from him are angry, and they immediately make me frown, but I don’t want to see those. I tap search and try a few phrases, looking for the very first messages sent between us from around six months ago, when we first started dating. It takes me almost five minutes of searching the chat to find them, but eventually I do.

  I scroll through, remembering how much I agonized over every text. The excitement I felt when I read his sweet words for the first time. I reread the first few, one at a time, then skip to the messages after our first kiss, and the first time he said I looked beautiful.

  Tears spill down my cheeks.

  It wasn’t my fault. It was him. Not me. Him.

  That’s what everyone said. That’s right, isn’t it?

  I sniff, scrolling all the way down to our final messages. The pain almost radiates out from the screen. Once again, I think back to his hardened face when I told him it was over.

  I did the right thing.

  Did I do the right thing?

  I catch sight of myself in my table mirror. Black tears have melted my make-up over half my face. I know I look disgusting. There’s not a person alive who would say I look attractive right now.

  My phone buzzes again angrily. I swipe the message open.

  Sven_247 You’ve probably got way better things to do right now, but fancy a WhatsApp call?

  I stare at his profile icon. He’s bent over, tensing, and you can see the dark outline of his biceps.

  He’s a massive try-hard, obviously. He’s also not Tom.

  But I need to be brought back to life again – I need to stop feeling like this. I dab my eyes with my fingertips and start typing.

  Chlo03 Sure, why not.

  CHAPTER 5

  Amber

  It’s Saturday afternoon, and while everyone else my age is either out with their friends or having a lie-in, my parents are forcing me to go round a garden centre with them.

  This morning, Mum started becoming obsessed with taking me out somewhere. Seb is staying away all weekend at a football training session and match with his local club, and when he left to get the minibus, Mum just kept watching me sitting on the sofa refreshing my phone screen, until eventually she yanked on my arm and said, ‘Right! We’re all going out.’

  Of course, I didn’t want to go anywhere. Actually, the last thing I want to be doing on a Saturday is traipsing around a garden centre with my parents, but I didn’t want to make her upset, so here I am, skimming through plants with big, waxy leaves that droop almost to the floor.

  It’s not like Dad wants to be here either. Right now, he’s walking along next to me, hands in his pockets, shoulders slumped, head down. In fact, if he wasn’t a fifty-year-old man and I wasn’t a sixteen-year-old girl, we’d probably look more like twins than me and Seb.

  Dad sees me glancing at him and gives me a small smile. I smile back before looking away.

  Mum is out in front, whizzing around, her dark hair flicking from side to side as she holds up pots and plants, shouting at both of us.

  ‘Robert! Amber! What do you think?’

  She’s balancing the plants on either side of her hips with a quizzical expression, biting one side of her lip.

  ‘Would this suit the front room? Or would this?’

  She’s talking so fast that I don’t catch most of what she’s saying, and from Dad’s blank expression, I don’t think he did either.

  ‘You two! Come over here! I want to show you . . .’

  As Mum keeps talking, I mutter something about wanting to look at some plants for my bedroom and then slink off in the opposite direction.

  Walking around the corner of the shop, I find myself standing next to a selection of tiny painted ceramic pots with spiky cactuses and shiny-leaved plants. They look cool. I can almost picture buying these myself. Not being here with my parents, but maybe being with Ren, searching the shelves, choosing our favourites to decorate our new flat.

  Maybe we’d argue. Or he’d laugh at me as I picked up that strange little pot painted
with cat faces, insisting that we buy it.

  Then later, once our tiny home was filled with plants, we’d cosy up on the sofa together and put on the TV. Maybe he’d put his arm around me, lean down to kiss me. Maybe we’d forget about the TV show altogether . . .

  I’m so deep in thought that it takes me a few seconds to realize that the person directly in front of me is wearing a royal-blue personal trainer T-shirt striped with orange.

  My stomach tightens.

  ‘Oh, hey again!’

  I nearly jump out of my skin at the sound of Iulia’s voice. She’s reaching for one of the tools on the top shelf and smiles at me.

  My mouth hangs open for a few seconds. I don’t know what exactly I’m supposed to say. Hello back? It’s too late for that, surely.

  Oh God, why aren’t I saying anything?

  Say something!

  Iulia has turned back again, placing one foot on the bottom shelf so she can reach the gardening fork.

  ‘ThanksforyourhelpinthegymonWednesday,’ I blurt out so quickly that it sounds like one syllable.

  Iulia turns back to me, frowning. ‘Sorry?’ she says, ‘Oh yeah! No worries.’

  ‘I mean, it was all my fault. I’m so bad at exercise.’

  Iulia hops down from the shelves deftly and then looks at me, her head on one side. ‘What kinda exercise do you want to get into?’

  My cheeks start heating up. ‘Oh, I don’t know, really . . . I don’t . . .’

  ‘Have you tried high-intensity interval training?’ Iulia’s eyes light up, and she suddenly starts talking about these different workouts she does each day.

  ‘Look – I’ve got a clip.’ She passes me her phone, already open on a video where several people are frantically pulling themselves up with their arms.

  There’s no way I could ever, ever do that.

  Iulia looks like she’s waiting for a response. I don’t know quite what to say to her, so I just stare fixedly at the screen.

  There’s a crash from somewhere nearby. Iulia’s eyes fly open. ‘Oh crap! That’s probably my niece. I’m meant to be watching her. Just a sec!’

  In lightning speed, she’s dashed off round the corner, and I’m left staring at her unlocked phone.

  A creeping thought comes over me.

  This is Iulia’s phone. With all Iulia’s contacts in it.

  And she works with Ren at the gym; she sees him every day. You usually have the number of the people you work with, don’t you? Particularly if you are on the same training course and go to college together.

  If I can get Ren’s number, I’ll be able to see when he’s online on WhatsApp. I’ll be able to add his Snapchat. Maybe I can find out a bit more about why he’s in trouble at the gym . . .

  My pulse is speeding up.

  Am I actually going to do this?

  Without thinking too much about what my fingers are doing, I tap out of the short video on Iulia’s phone and pull up the home screen. With shaking hands, I quickly type Ren Moore into her contact list. His number comes up instantly – the top result.

  Looking around, I pull out my own phone and take a photo of the contact number.

  Iulia comes round the corner just as I tap back on the video.

  CHAPTER 6

  Chloe

  The soft pink duvet is crumpled like creased paper around me. I grab a handful of the covers and pull them over my mouth as I splutter with laughter.

  It’s 2 a.m., and I mustn’t wake Mum or Dad, who are sleeping silently two rooms along.

  I feel my cheeks burning from smiling so much as I press my phone to my ear.

  ‘Stop it!’ I hiss. But I can’t hang up. It’s like we’re tethered by some strange power. It’s almost like this isn’t the first time we’ve spoken.

  ‘Are you always this giggly?’ says Sven, his voice deep and gravelly down the line.

  I try to stop the grin from being obvious in my voice. ‘Are you always this rude?’

  Sven’s voice cracks. ‘Me?!’

  I giggle and dive once more under the covers.

  ‘Right. I’m offended! Goodbye!’ he says.

  ‘OK. Goodbye. I mean . . . you’re not the only guy to call me.’

  ‘You’re not the only girl to call me,’ he quips back.

  There’s a soft thump from the other room, and I glance at the clock.

  I really should hang up and go to sleep for school in a few hours. I don’t even know this guy. But there’s something about the way he speaks to me. When we first chatted, his voice was quiet, and I could tell he was nervous. And then when he later admitted he was ‘pretty shocked’ I agreed to call him considering how I looked in my Instagram, it was like I was some kind of unattainable goddess. Like he thought I was pretty.

  He’s only seen the photos of me online, with my stomach sucked in, waist twisted to the side so my back curves in sharply.

  Seeing myself through his eyes makes a weird tingling feeling sweep up my neck and across my cheeks.

  If I say goodbye and go to sleep, I have to lie here by myself. I have to think about school tomorrow, sitting with Tom on the field. Pretend that every imperfection on my face, every spidery eyelash or crust of concealer, doesn’t scream at me whenever he looks my way.

  Here, lying on my bed in the dark with no make-up on, speaking to Sven . . . I feel like me.

  Almost on cue, he starts speaking again. His voice isn’t teasing, but soft.

  ‘When I rang you tonight, I never thought you would still be speaking to me at 2 a.m.’

  The hairs on the back of my arm prickle.

  ‘It’s a shame you’re not around, y’know,’ I say, softer too.

  Sven lowers his voice to almost a whisper. ‘I’d love to be there.’

  Something makes a lump form in my throat. I’m already thinking of the last time I spoke to someone like this. When me and Tom were lying together on his bed, and he gently brushed an eyelash off my cheek, before kissing my eyelid.

  Nibbling my lip, I drag one of my sharp nails across the back of my arm, which causes a blotchy red line.

  ‘I-I should go.’

  Sven sucks in his breath. ‘Sorry. Th-that was too much. I shouldn’t have—’

  ‘Nah, it’s cool,’ I say, but something is bothering me.

  We’ve never even met each other. Why is this guy apologizing for being ‘too much’? I’ve been talking to him all night – and why? For all I know, he could be some complete weirdo. I need to stop this.

  Sven’s deep voice cuts through my thoughts. ‘Everything just feels so natural with you, I can’t help it. I know I’d be tongue-tied if I ever saw someone as beautiful as you in person.’

  I try to keep frowning, but I can’t.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ I say.

  It honestly takes about ten more minutes for us to hang up the phone.

  As I lie on the back of the bed, I start scrolling through Sven’s Instagram feed. His muscles burst out from every photo. His jet-black hair casts a shadow across his sharp cheekbones.

  I mean, he’s definitely attractive. Definitely better looking than Tom. Tom is a bit lanky, if you really look at him. He’s tall, yes – like six foot four – but almost too tall. He’s got a skinny chest, and because he always towers above everyone, he kind of hunches down, which makes his limbs look even more gangly.

  So why do I feel a weird tug in my chest when I see him?

  Ugh. Look – he’s not thinking about me. I need to get a grip. It’s over.

  I click through to the Facebook invite page for Tom’s party. Rachel, Louise, Ameerah – everyone we hang out with from school is on the invite list.

  What if Tom gets with someone at the party? What if he completely blanks me?

  I think of our final argument, when black mascara tears were streaming down my face. I can’t let that be how he remembers me.

  Climbing out of bed, I tiptoe across the room to my wardrobe and start pulling out dresses. I pick out the green sequinned dress again and
run my fingers across the feathered hem.

  I try to think how Tom is going to react when he sees me in it. Whether he’ll try to speak to me. Or whether I’ll chat to the other guys, and he’ll watch me. I don’t even really know what I want to happen. I just want him to see me.

  When I slip back into bed, my vision is blurring. Shaking my head, I pull the warm duvet up high to my neck.

  I start clicking through Tom’s Instagram pictures, all of which I’ve seen a million times.

  A tear dribbles down my nose.

  My phone dings with a DM. It’s Sven.

  Sven_247 Can’t stop thinking about you.

  My eyes are heavy as my finger hovers over the message, not quite sure whether to open it. After a few seconds, I tap the screen on lock and drop the phone onto the bed.

  Closing my eyes, I think of Sven lying in his own bed, flicking through my photos, and thinking of me.

  CHAPTER 7

  Amber

  My ears, nose and cheeks are turning pink from the chill in the wind as I walk home after school on Monday night. For the last week, my thoughts have been stuck on Ren Moore and what those two receptionists said: ‘That manager always had it in for him.’ I can imagine what she’s like – always sneering when he’s a minute late and finding any excuse to get him in trouble. I spent the whole of last weekend refreshing Ren’s Instagram, Twitter and the public profile of his Facebook page, trying to work out if I can glean what’s really going on.

  I’m not paying attention to my feet – I just keep refreshing his profiles, clicking through to a couple of his friend’s Instagrams to see if there are any new photos of him I may have missed.

  I bite at a hangnail on my thumb as I exit the app and open Snapchat.

  After I came back from the garden centre on Saturday, I set up a fake profile and added Ren on Snapchat. He almost instantly accepted, but so far he hasn’t posted anything.

  Part of me wants to delete him from my friends list. What if we do actually speak, and he sees I’ve set up a fake account so I can see his Snapchats? What if he ever found out how I got his number?

  My hand hovers over the gear icon. I know I should delete him. It’s too weird, too risky. I shouldn’t be looking at his Snapchats under a fake name.