Follow Me, Like Me Page 6

  * * *

  He wasn’t out that night on a date with Jemma. He was with his friends.

  Frowning, I click through to Jemma’s Instagram. There’s nothing there, so I scroll through a couple of her friends’ profiles, hoping to spot a clue from that night.

  On one girl’s page, Ope, there’s a shot of Jemma with her arms wrapped around a tall, dark-haired guy I don’t recognize. Date posted: 01 October.

  I try to click through to this guy’s profile, but he’s not tagged. Even in the out-of-focus image, I can tell one thing: that man is not Ren.

  I knew it! He couldn’t have done those things.

  But if he didn’t go after those girls, why does everyone think he did? I gnaw on my inner lip until the skin grows sore.

  Has Ren been set up?

  CHAPTER 17

  Chloe

  The rest of the day, me and Tom don’t go back to school – we keep walking. We go through the main high street, along the arcades, past the town church, down by the river.

  I know I look a mess. I can feel my make-up smeared across my face, see half of it smudged on Tom’s shirt, but he doesn’t even seem to notice.

  We’re walking along the paths we used to take when we first started dating, holding hands. There’s something about his skin on mine that makes me feel so much safer, so much less alone. Every so often, tears prick the back of my eyes, and I let them spill down my cheeks. I sniff into the sleeve of my school jumper and dab the black marks across the hem of navy blue.

  Me and Tom are tracing our steps now along the pavement by his house. We didn’t even plan it – just followed our feet. His family are actually nice, so we never went to mine when we were together. Mum would just make things difficult.

  Tom smiles now as we get closer to his house.

  ‘You know my parents nearly killed me this morning.’

  I look up, and his eyes crinkle.

  ‘Apparently someone sat on the cooker, and now it needs replacing. I’m having to repay them in instalments.’

  ‘Tell me that doesn’t mean more car wash?’

  The ‘car wash’ is what Tom calls his job at the petrol station, because almost every shift someone can’t work the self-service car wash at the side and asks him to come out and wash the car for them. Several times, he’s tried to explain he doesn’t wash cars, or he’s tried to take the pump off irate customers and ended up getting soaked.

  He lifts his eyes to the sky. ‘Yes. Double shift at the car wash. Better bring my trunks.’

  I start laughing weakly, and he smiles.

  My phone starts buzzing again, and my body tenses up.

  ‘Ohhh!’ I groan, dropping Tom’s hand and pulling out the screen. ‘Why won’t he stop messaging me?’

  ‘Let me have a look.’ Tom takes the phone off me.

  As we walked along the town, I told him everything about what happened when I left the party, but I only mentioned Sven briefly. Part of me was worried how he would react. Me and Sven had been messaging every minute – I even called him late at night. I know Tom and I weren’t together, but part of me feels . . . I don’t know what.

  Tom frowns, flicking through the most recent messages and my non-responses.

  ‘Christ. Sending that many messages without a response isn’t normal.’

  Hearing Tom say that makes me start to relax.

  But there’s something else I need to get off my chest.

  ‘Me and Sven—’

  Tom looks at me.

  ‘. . . We, erm, messaged this morning after the thing happened with that J-guy.’

  A flicker of annoyance passes over Tom’s features.

  ‘He – he called me a slut.’

  The word hangs in the air between us.

  ‘I just . . . I feel –’ I take a deep breath. ‘Do you think that’s what I am?’

  Tom takes a long, deep sigh.

  ‘For God’s sake, stop being ridiculous. What is this guy – from the 1950s? You can do whatever you want. He said that because he likes you. He’d call you a slut if you got with anyone apart from him. Why are you even talking to him?’

  ‘I don’t kn—’ But before I can finish the sentence, it clicks into place.

  Because I’m scared.

  But of what, exactly? This is a guy I’ve never met. He probably wouldn’t even recognize me in real life. Why have I been replying to him just because he might freak out again?

  ‘You’re right,’ I say instead.

  Feeling some of my old resolve trickle back, I look at the fifty unanswered messages – and delete him from my WhatsApp. Then I go into settings, enter his contact, and click block calls and texts from this number.

  Tom raises his eyebrows. ‘Not even going to tell him why?’

  But I’m already feeling lighter, more free. My phone isn’t buzzing – and it’s not going to. Unless there’s a message from someone I know.

  ‘He can work it out.’ I slip my phone into my pocket, and look up to see Tom still watching me.

  ‘I’ve missed you, you know,’ he says quietly, playing with the strap of his backpack. ‘I know you made the decision, but, yeah, it was tough.’

  I think of the last month away from him. How angry I was – but also how alone and vulnerable I felt. How I tried to fill the void with other people, and Sven, which worked . . . for a while.

  I think back to the party, me flirting with everyone there.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I look up at him. ‘I’m so, so sorry. About everything. I know you probably won’t forgive me, that there’s nothing I can do to take it back. But I want you to know – I know I was wrong. I made a mistake . . .’ There’s a lump forming in my throat. ‘I miss you too.’

  Tom doesn’t take long to respond. He puts his arms around my small shoulders and pulls me into him. Not greedily, like J, but gently. I can feel my heart filling up, and I feel the weight of everything I did crashing down on me.

  I should never have broken up with Tom. I was so difficult – such an idiot. Why am I like this? Why did I go around flirting with everyone in front of him? Why can’t I just be nice?

  ‘I love you,’ I say, slipping back into our old language without even meaning to. I look up in shock, wanting to take the words back, but Tom is looking down at me with a strange expression.

  He looks annoyed, but his eyes are very wide.

  Tom sighs.

  ‘I never stopped,’ he says quietly, and our lips meld into one.

  CHAPTER 18

  Amber

  When I get in from school, Mum is busy making pasta in the kitchen, but other than the gentle bubbling of boiling water, the house is oddly quiet. I go straight up to my room, fling open the door, and almost jump out of my skin when I see the tall figure of Seb sitting hunched over the edge of my bed, gently tapping a football between his two big feet.

  My eyes dart to my laptop, but it’s closed and off.

  ‘What are you doing in my room?!’ I shout.

  Seb looks up.

  He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he goes back to staring at the ground and nudging the football between his two feet.

  I approach him gingerly and see there’s a deep crease between his two brows.

  ‘Are – are you OK?’

  He shrugs, his bottom lip sticking out.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says.

  But it’s not the usual laughing, joking Seb. There’s a flatness to his voice. I’ve only seen him like this a handful of times: that summer he broke his leg and couldn’t see any of his friends, and when Dad shut him in his room all weekend for breaking my bike when we were eight. Essentially, any time you cut Seb off from his many friends, it’s like his entire mood gets drained.

  I take a step forward. ‘Why aren’t you chatting to Will? Or Andy or someone?’

  Seb looks up at me, and there’s a half-smile playing on his lips. ‘It’s Bill, you idiot,’ he says, but softly.

  Then he sighs and leans backwards flat on my bed, his big hands cove
ring his face.

  ‘Ugggggggh.’

  ‘What?’

  He looks up to the ceiling for a moment, thoughtful, biting his lip. Then his frowning eyes meet mine.

  ‘You know Chloe—’

  ‘MacNeil?’

  ‘Yeah. Well you know that party I was at last night—’

  There’s a small pang in my chest. I didn’t even know he was at a party. I’d assumed he was at late-night football training at his friend’s house because that’s what he’d told Mum.

  ‘Um, yeah.’

  ‘Well I came back about midnight, and I saw this dark-haired guy – one of Andy’s friends . . . I’ve played him at football before. He was there, with Chloe –’ Seb sticks out his bottom lip – ‘and I tried not to look, because, y’know, I’m pissed. But then I saw him pushing her against a tree. I think . . . I think she was trying to get away. So I went over, but she shoved him and ran off before I got close.’

  Seb is staring, hard, at the ground. There’s an awkward pause as my eyes flicker over his face. He shakes his head and sighs bitterly.

  ‘I tried to speak to her at school, she says it’s nothing, but, like . . . it didn’t look like nothing.’

  Seb kicks the football gently at my shins. But I can barely focus – my mind has just realized something. Something big. Something that makes complete sense.

  ‘What was the guy’s name?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The guy who got with Chloe, you said he had dark hair – what was his name?’

  Seb is shaking his head. ‘I don’t . . . Why do you—’

  ‘Please!’ I look at Seb, my eyes wide. ‘I think there might be two victims here.’

  CHAPTER 19

  Chloe

  The next few days pass in a blur of long walks and laughter. When we get back to school on Monday, each day I’m desperately itching to get through lessons so I can go back out on the field and see Tom. It’s not like before, when we first went out and stood at the edge of the field where everyone could see us. This time, I walk with him at the back of the school grounds, away from everyone, so we can just stand together, kiss, and talk.

  Everyone wants to know what’s going on with us, but I couldn’t feel less like talking about it. Louise, Rachel, Ameerah have all messaged me in the last few days, or grabbed me in lessons asking for the gossip, but I’ve been vague about me and Tom ‘needing time to work things out’.

  The truth is I don’t feel like I normally do. I don’t feel like speaking to anyone, to be honest. And I don’t want to get worried about other girls and get carried away, like I did before.

  After school on Wednesday, I’m round at Tom’s, and we’re lying on his bed: me propped up on my elbows, and him on his back, tracing his fingertips across my shoulders. I’m beginning to feel myself relax for the first time in weeks.

  I lay my head across his chest as he laughs at some memes he’s scrolling through on his phone. He occasionally shows them to me, and I smirk. We’re not even talking about anything really, just lying together, laughing, occasionally kissing – but I feel like I’m home again.

  It doesn’t matter if Mum screams at me or if Louise is being moody – I have Tom, my best friend, back.

  All of a sudden, Tom frowns at his phone. I loll my head against his chest.

  ‘What’s up?’

  He seems to notice me for the first time and changes his expression.

  ‘Oh, what? Nothing. Just a meme I didn’t get.’

  Something in his tone makes me frown.

  ‘Show me?’

  He shrugs. ‘Nah, I’ve scrolled past it now –’ he shows me his phone, which is open on an Instagram photo from LADbible – ‘I’ll never find it again.’

  ‘Oh, OK.’ I pick up my own phone and open Instagram. There’s twenty notifications I haven’t looked at.

  Tom’s eyes widen as I scroll through my pictures.

  ‘You know what we should do,’ he says, gently taking my phone out of my hands. ‘Let’s post a selfie.’

  ‘A selfie?’

  ‘Yeah. Of us – why not? Show people we’re back together.’

  Tom has never suggested posting a selfie before.

  ‘We’ve only been dating a few days. Don’t you think it’s a bit . . . soon?’

  I think of Sven and how he will react. I can’t bear to think of how many unseen messages have been silently filling up on my phone from his blocked number. But surely he must have gotten the idea by now. It’s been several days. He’s probably stopped messaging, hasn’t he? I know I would if someone ghosted me.

  Then again, maybe a selfie with Tom is a good thing. Show I’m not interested.

  Maybe Tom is the one who wants to make this clear.

  ‘OK, sure,’ I say.

  Tom smiles. ‘Here we go.’

  He takes my phone, clicks on the front camera, and very deliberately leans down in view of the screen, placing a kiss on my forehead. I pull a closed-lip smile and turn to show my better side. After a couple of takes, I glance at the screen. It’s very coupley. Very obvious. You wouldn’t post a photo of your friend or your brother kissing your forehead like that.

  I dither for a few moments. Tom glances at me.

  Oh, screw it. We are back together. Who cares what Sven thinks? If anything, it’ll get him off my case.

  I post the photo with a love-heart emoji, and Tom immediately likes it, commenting with a kissing-face smiley.

  Louise, Ameerah and about fifteen others from school quickly react with likes and hearts.

  I snuggle back down next to Tom, and he pulls me right on top of him, making me giggle.

  ‘There. It’s on Instagram now – it’s official,’ he says, kissing my nose.

  I kiss his face back, smiling.

  * * *

  Later that night, after Tom has walked me back to my house, I’m lying in bed, staring at the phone screen when I get a ding from Instagram. Idly, I click through to the notification.

  It’s a new comment on one of my photos. From Sven.

  I already know which photo it’ll be. It only takes a few seconds for the photo of Tom kissing the top of my head to load into view.

  I scroll down, biting at a hangnail.

  Sven_247 WHORE.

  The phone screen swims in front of me.

  Dumbly, I click through my other unread notifications. I didn’t pay much attention to them earlier, but now I see all the comments he’s posted – about five on every photo.

  Sven_247 Looking stunning, beautiful.

  Sven_247 My baby <3

  Sven_247 Can’t wait to speak to you later, my baby <3

  I stare at the comments, my mouth open. Anyone would think we were dating. No one would think from his words that this is just some guy I messaged a few times on WhatsApp and called once.

  Is this what Tom saw on my Instagram tonight? Is this why he wanted us to post a photo?

  There’s a sinking feeling in my stomach as I get another notification. A new comment from Sven on the photo of me and Tom.

  Three words.

  Sven_247 Who is he?

  CHAPTER 20

  Amber

  On Saturday morning, every screen I own is spread out across the kitchen table, open on images of Ren. My hair is in a messy bun, and tendrils keep flicking down across my face as my eyes skim across his Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.

  I still can’t work out what’s really going on. It’s like a stu bborn stain I can’t scrub out. My mind keeps circling back to Ansh’s words. Trying to understand what he meant – trying to find anything that could give me more of a clue as to what Ren did, or what he is meant to have done.

  I scratch the side of my nose and a flop of hair falls across my face. I tuck it behind one ear and my eyes flit between the screens.

  I’m going to keep going until I get to the bottom of this. So far, I’ve noted down his location every time he’s shared it on Snap Map. From searching his Facebook friends, I’ve discove
red he (luckily) has two sisters. He’s the middle child, with one older sister and one about my age, judging by his mum’s Instagram photos.

  He started training as a personal trainer with the local college on 4 October. Since then, he seems to have gathered loads of good reviews on the leisure centre’s Facebook page.

  I glance down at the Google doc I’ve started. I’m linking up every date the girls have accused him of something with posts from his Instagram and Facebook. The problem is, I only know the date for the second girl, Jemma. The others are still a mystery.

  At that moment, Mum comes bustling into the kitchen with a huge basket of washing in her outstretched arms. I quickly swipe and click my screens over to my maths homework.

  ‘Hey.’ Mum smiles as she plops a load of washing on the kitchen worktop and starts bundling it into the machine. ‘Want to give me a hand?’

  I get up and start helping her. She’s so pretty, my mum. She has this shock of long, wavy dark hair, which tumbles down across her face as she shoves the clothes in the machine. As I pass crumpled balls of clothes to her, she sticks out her tongue in concentration.

  Mum is like Seb. She’s friends with everyone, knows everyone. And she’s lived in our town since she was a teenager. Sometimes it feels like she knows more people my age than I do.

  ‘Mum?’ I say, putting my head on one side.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she responds, shaking some powder into the top of the machine and only half listening, her tongue still slightly sticking out.

  ‘Do you . . . You know . . . Have you ever heard of the Moore family?’

  ‘The Moores?’

  I glance up, but Mum has stopped doing the washing and has already started walking out of the kitchen, back up the stairs. That’s another way she’s like Seb: she’s always rushing to do something else; you can never quite catch her.

  I start hurrying out of the kitchen, but I’m slower than Mum, and she’s already at the top of the stairs. By the time I get there, she’s disappeared into Seb’s bedroom.

  ‘So, do you remember, um, the Moores?’ I say, casually leaning against the doorframe to his room. Mum is busy folding dry clothes, so I take them from her.