‘Suspended?’
Pip sank into the stool in the kitchen, avoiding her dad’s eyes. ‘Yes.’ Her mum was standing on the other side of the room,
Pip in the middle. Talking around her, over her head. ‘For three days. What about Cambridge, Pippa?’
‘Who was the other student?’ Dad asked, voice softening where her mum’s had grown harder, sharper.
‘Anthony Lowe.’
Pip glanced up, catching the face her dad pulled: bottom lip rolled up over the top, eyes crinkling like he wasn’t surprised.
‘What’s that look for?’ her mum said.
‘Nothing.’ Her dad rearranged his face, untucking his lip. ‘Just never really liked the kid that much.’
‘How is that helpful right now, Victor?’ her mum snapped.
‘Sorry, it’s not,’ he said, exchanging a look with Pip. It was quick, but it was enough, and she felt a little less alone out there in the middle of the room. ‘Why did you do it, Pip?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’ her mum said. ‘You shoved him against a locker with your arm on his throat. How do you not know how that happens? You’re lucky Cara, Zach and Connor were there and defended you to Mrs Morgan, told her Ant provoked you, otherwise you would have been expelled.’
‘How did he provoke you, pickle?’ her dad asked.
‘Called me a liar,’ she said. ‘The internet thinks I’m a liar. A jury of twelve peers think I’m a liar. My own friends think I’m a liar. So I guess I’m a liar now, and Max Hastings is the good guy.’
‘I’m sorry about the verdict,’ he said. ‘That must be really hard for you.’ ‘Harder for the people he drugged and raped,’ she said.
‘Yes, and it’s unfair and awful,’ her mum said with a frown. ‘But that’s not an excuse for your violent behaviour.’
‘I’m not making an excuse. I’m not asking for forgiveness,’ Pip said, flatly. ‘It happened and I don’t feel guilty. He deserved it.’
‘What are you saying?’ she said. ‘This isn’t like you.’
‘What if it is?’ Pip rose from the stool. ‘What if this is exactly like me?’ ‘Pip, don’t shout at your mother,’ her dad said, crossing over to her
mum’s side, abandoning her in the middle.
‘Shouting? Really?’ Pip said, really shouting now. ‘That’s what we’re focusing on? A serial rapist walked free today. Jamie has been missing six whole days and might be dead. Oh, but the real problem is that I’m shouting!’
‘Calm down, please,’ he said.
‘I can’t! I can’t calm down any more! Why should I?’
Her phone was face down on the floor. She hadn’t looked at it for an hour, sitting here underneath her desk, her fingers hooked around her toes. Her head was pressed against the cool wood of the desk leg, eyes hiding from the light.
She hadn’t gone down for dinner, said she wasn’t hungry, even though her dad came up and said they didn’t have to talk about it, not in front of Josh. But she didn’t want to sit there at the table, in a fake truce mid- argument. An argument that couldn’t end, because she wasn’t sorry, she knew that. And that’s what her mum wanted from her.
She heard a knock at the front door, a knock she knew: long-short-long. The door opened and closed, and then the footsteps she knew too, the scuff of Ravi’s trainers on the wooden floor before he took them off and lined them up neatly by the doormat.
And the next thing she heard was her mum’s voice, passing by the stairs. ‘She’s in her room. See if you can talk any sense into her.’
Ravi couldn’t find her, as he stepped into the room; not until she said, quietly, ‘I’m down here.’
He bent down, knees clicking as his face came into view. ‘Why aren’t you answering your phone?’ he said.
Pip looked at her face-down phone, out of arm’s reach. ‘Are you OK?’ he said.
And she wanted, more than anything, to say no, to slide out from under the desk and fall into him. To stay there, in his gaze, wrap herself up in it and never set foot outside again. To let him tell her it was all going to be OK, even though neither of them knew it would be. She wanted just to be the Pip she was with Ravi for a while. But that Pip wasn’t here right now. And maybe she really was gone.
‘No,’ she said.
‘Your parents are worried about you.’ ‘Don’t need their worry,’ she sniffed. ‘I’m worried about you,’ he said.
She put her head against the desk again. ‘Don’t need yours either.’ ‘Can you come out and talk to me?’ he said gently. ‘Please?’
‘Did he smile?’ she asked. ‘Did he smile when they said, “not guilty”?’
‘I couldn’t see his face.’ Ravi offered his hand to help Pip out from under the desk. She didn’t take it, crawling out on her own and standing up.
‘I bet he smiled.’ She ran her finger along the sharp edge of her desk, pressing in until it hurt her.
‘Why does that matter?’ ‘It matters,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry.’ Ravi tried to hold her eyes but her gaze kept slipping away. ‘If there was anything I could do to change it, I would. Anything. But there’s nothing we can do now. And you getting suspended because you’re so angry about Max . . . he’s not worth any of that.’
‘So he just wins?’
‘No, I . . .’ Ravi abandoned his sentence, stepping over to her, his arms out to pull her in and wrap her up. And maybe it was because Max’s angled face flashed into her head, or maybe she didn’t want Ravi to get too close to the after-scream still thrumming inside her, but she pulled away from him.
‘Wha—’ His arms fell back to his sides, his eyes darkening, deepening. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘So, what is it, you just want to hate the whole world right now, including me?’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Pip –’
‘Well, what’s the point?’ Her voice snagged against her dried out throat. ‘What was the point in everything we did last year? I thought I was doing it
for the truth. But guess what? The truth doesn’t matter. It doesn’t! Max Hastings is innocent and I’m a liar and Jamie Reynolds isn’t missing. That’s the truth now.’ Her eyes filled. ‘What if I can’t save him? What if I’m not good enough to save him? I’m not good, Ravi, I –’
‘We will find him,’ Ravi said. ‘I need to.’
‘And you think I don’t?’ he said. ‘I might not know him like you do, and I can’t explain it, but I need Jamie to be OK. He knew my brother, was friends with him and Andie at school. It’s like it’s happening all over again six years later, and this time I actually have a chance, a small chance, to help to save Connor’s brother where I had no hope of saving my own. I know Jamie isn’t Sal, but this feels like some kind of second chance for me. You aren’t on your own here, so stop pushing people away. Stop pushing me away.’
Her hands gripped the desk, bones pushing through her skin. He needed to get away from her, in case she couldn’t control it again. The scream. ‘I just want to be alone.’
‘Fine,’ Ravi said, scratching the phantom itch at the back of his head. ‘I’ll go. I know you’re only lashing out because you’re angry. I’m angry too. And you don’t mean it, you know you don’t mean it.’ He sighed. ‘Let me know when you remember who I am. Who you are.’
Ravi moved over to the door, his hand stalling in the air before it, head slightly cocked. ‘I love you,’ he said angrily, not looking at her. He slammed the handle down and walked out, the door juddering behind him.
