Then she turns back around and starts to walk away.
“Celine Bangura,” I bellow. “Do. Not. Move.”
If I’d thought about what I was saying before I opened my mouth, those words are…not the ones I’d have chosen. A few kids giggle as they pass me, but it’s worth it because Celine halts. Instead of flipping me off and leaving with Michaela, the two bend their heads together for a second before Minnie leaves. Alone.
I stride over to meet Celine before I lose my nerve. I feel like a wrecking ball headed for a skyscraper made of steel. The last trickle of schoolkids loiter on their way past, making themselves late to lessons, all for the chance to see a bit of sixth-form drama. Celine’s skin is slightly damp with fog, gleaming like silk. I’d stare at her too.
“I’m sorry,” I say when we’re a meter apart.
She scowls. “What for?”
I blink. “Is this a test?”
Celine rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t walk away. “Your friend was a dick. You told him to shut up. What are you sorry for?”
“You don’t mind that I said…I mean…” I take a frosty breath and get myself together. “Listen, Celine, I’ve treated you like shit for the longest, and that’s not me, and I’m sorry. And if…if it made other people do the same, then…” Then I will very shortly be flying myself into the sun because I’m too enormous an arsehole for this planet. “Then I’m even sorrier.” I meet her eyes and I mean every word. “Like…the sorriest.” With such a masterful command of the English language, it’s a wonder my book isn’t already published.
Celine’s scowl intensifies, but it’s focused on the floor rather than on me. “Whatever,” she mutters. “That douche canoe has nothing to do with us.”
Us is a real heavyweight of a word and it almost knocks me out.
“And you don’t treat me like shit,” she adds, chin up, eyes burning. Suddenly her glare seems less deadly and more self-conscious. “I treat you like shit, and you try really hard to reciprocate but ultimately fail to meet the high standards I’ve set.”
The tension bracketing my spine slides away. My lips twitch at the corners but if I smile, she might whack me. “The…high insult standards?”
“Yes,” she bites out.
“Right.” A thought hits. “Hang on. If you aren’t pissed about Donno—”
She rolls her eyes. “That amoeba wishes he could piss me off.”
“Then why were you ignoring me just now?”
She blinks rapidly and assumes a vaguely innocent expression. “Um.”
“Um?” I repeat. “Um, what? You saw me following you and you just kept walking?”
“How was I supposed to know you were following me?” she mutters. The self-conscious scowl is back. It’s very cute, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m officially mad at her. She saw me and turned around! She was going to walk away! For no reason!
There’s a question that’s been biting at the back of my brain and I thought it was just paranoia but now, now, I set it free. “How come you’ve been weird with me since we got back to school?”
Her head snaps up. “I haven’t—”
“You have.”
“I haven’t! You say hi, I say hi. You highlight your entire textbook; I keep my mouth shut. What do you want from me, Brad?”
“The…How…Before! I want before! How we were in the woods!” I didn’t intend to say this, but the nagging urge in the back of my mind finally quiets, so I swallow my vague horror and keep going. “I know I’m not wrong about this, Celine. We were basically friends and you liked it.” I point a finger like I’m accusing her of cannibalism.
“We were friendly,” she corrects.
“Yeah, and you’re sooo friendly with people. All the time! Notorious for it.”
“You didn’t ask for everything,” she splutters. “You didn’t say we should be friends. You didn’t say I should forgive you for…for back then. You said to forget it. Temporarily. While we were out there!”
“Yeah, well, I changed my mind.” The words spill out before I can check them for contraband. “Forgive me. For everything. Please.”
Silence falls. There are no more children lurking; just us and the fog and the buildings on either side of this path, windows filled with students and teachers who probably aren’t paying any attention to us. I really hope they’re not paying attention anyway, because I might’ve just lost my mind.
After a pause so long it almost murders me, a laugh bursts from her lips. “You’re funny,” she says, like I was joking.
“Oh, are we listing qualities? Here’s one: you’re avoidant.”
She throws up her hands and sweeps away like a queen. “Piss off, Brad.”
I follow. “You’re avoiding a conversation about our friendship because you avoid your feelings.”
She examines a nearby bush with apparent fascination.
“Way to prove me wrong.”
Her focus transfers to a brick wall.
I put on my best clipped-and-impatient voice. “Look at me, I’m Celine. I want to be friends with Brad, but I would rather choke to death on a crab stick—”
Her braids whip my shoulder as she spins around to face me. “Why would I be eating a crab stick? I hate crab sticks!”
“I know,” I explain patiently, “that’s the point. Now shut up and let me finish.” I clear my throat and start again. “I’m Celine and I would rather choke to death on a crab stick than admit I like Brad because I think I can replace all emotional conversations with power moves and epic stink eye.”
“Oh my God.” Her voice lowers to a hiss, like air rushing out of a hot-air balloon. “Fine! Okay! You’re not so bad and I…I might understand why you did what you did when we were kids, and I…forgive you. Okay? So will you shut up?”
Did I just annoy Celine into saying we’re cool? I think I might have. Funny how it’s not as satisfying as I imagined. “Maybe.” I shrug.
“Maybe?”
“Hey. You’re not the only one who can hedge.”
“Ugh. Can we just…talk for five minutes without you making me think about myself?” she asks, which is a sentence I never thought I’d hear come out of her mouth. She wrinkles her nose. “I’m not like you. I really don’t have the whole emotional intelligence thing down.”
I blink, and the tension in me pops like a cork. My smile is slow but this time I’m satisfied because she’s talking to me. Actually talking, like we know each other again. I didn’t realize how badly I wanted that until it happened.
We walk down the path side by side. “You know,” I say casually, “I have a theory that everyone needs therapy. Like going to the dentist.”
“Yeah? Tell that to the NHS.” She snorts.
My parents paid for my therapist Dr. Okoro privately because, between Dad’s job and Mum’s dental practice, we’re not exactly struggling. I scratch the back of my head.
Celine’s grin is razor sharp. “Nothing to say, rich boy?”