.
Mum!’ Esme grabbed Mollie’s hand and dragged her through the flat, ‘You’ve got to see what we found!’
‘What we made!’ Evie corrected, winking.
‘A secret room! My room!’
Mollie frowned, looked at Evie and then shrugged, letting herself be dragged through the flat. They stooped through the little door; the space inside was beautiful. There was a fluffy purple rug in the corner, next to an old bookcase they’d found in a second-hand shop and lugged back with considerable difficulty. The window had a bead curtain, parted in the middle, rustling purples and reds and pinks in the breeze, giving the room a warm glow. The lantern in the corner glowed too, highlighted by the purple fluffy fairy lights strung around the room, and a patchwork purple duvet on the floor where the bed would be.
‘Still a work in progress,’ Evie said, ‘we only found it this morning.’
‘It’s wonderful!’ Mollie said, looking with wonder at her daughter, who seemed to have gained four new facial expressions since she’d left her sleeping that morning. Pure joy and unadulterated excitement being two of them.
They blew out the candles and moved into the living room to eat, Esme still chattering away about all the things she was going to put in her room.
This could work, Evie realised. Her and Mollie and Esme, making Ruby’s legacy mean something. Making sure Ruby’s singing career was more than an empty party with some sparkle alongside the drama. They could build what she had always wanted: a safe space for people to create. Where no one was excluded. No one was too weird or too plain or too common; like they’d been when they were younger. Chelsea was missing, though, a necessary part of the trio. Evie had always been the ideas person, and Mollie was a grafter, but Chelsea got shit done. She handled people so well they barely noticed, and when she strong-armed them, they gave in through sheer exhaustion. Without her, Evie feared they wouldn’t make it at all. She’d try to see Chelsea, try to get her on board. Find some smidgen of something they had in common now that they were completely different people. If that was even possible.
***
‘Here,’ Ruby threw her a chocolate bar, a Wispa Gold, her favourite. Evie frowned at her.
‘What’s this for?’
‘I saw you beat the shit out of your locker this morning,’ Ruby shrugged, walking in step, ‘you going to the art rooms?’
Evie’s lips were a thin line, ‘It’s too wet to go out onto the field and scream.’
‘Can I tag along?’
‘Depends if you’re going to try and make me talk about my feelings and shit, because as much as that quack of a guidance counsellor – who, by the way, hasn’t even got a counselling degree, she’s just too emotionally damaged to bother working anywhere else, so got a job here as soon as she finished school –’ Evie took a breath, feeling the anger build up again. ‘… As much as she says I need to go to another workshop on anger management, I kind of think that’s bullshit.’
‘Total bullshit,’ Ruby nodded and Evie looked at her witheringly. ‘What?’
‘Stop agreeing with me just to show you’re on my side.’
Ruby held up her hands as if she was being held at gun point, ‘I am on your side. I also think that woman hasn’t got a clue. And I think anger’s useful.’
They pushed through the doors to the art room, letting them swing heavily behind them. Evie sat on the same stool as she had that first day she’d met Ruby, and Ruby sat on the windowsill – long legs hanging, the holes showing on her black dolly shoes, getting out a bottle of nail polish to dab on the ladder on her tights. She only had bright pink.
Evie was quiet, drawing frantically, and they sat like that for ten minutes. Ruby was silent as she tried to fix her tights, and then started blotting nail polish on a piece of paper, attempting to make a pattern. She knew Evie didn’t like to talk at times like this. Eventually she heard the rustle of a gold chocolate wrapper, and when she looked up Evie was delicately nibbling at the end of the chocolate bar, looking at her.
‘Sorry I’m such a bitch.’
‘Good thing you’re an artist – no one puts up with bullshit like this from accountants or people who work at Burger King.’ Ruby grinned, ‘Give me some of that?’
Evie broke off a chunk and chucked it at her.
‘So… your dad’s back?’
Evie stilled, then took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘Yup.’
‘And?’
‘And… that man really pisses me off.’
‘Shocking that the guidance counsellor hasn’t made the connection. It’s pretty damn obvious.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Evie snorted, ‘who doesn’t love a good cliché? She mumbled some bullshit about attachment theory and Freud and then asked me if I ever felt confused about my sexuality.’
Ruby made a ‘that was a mistake’ face, ‘Oh boy. And what did you say?’
‘I said I was confused about whether her degree was one of those images that already comes as a background to a frame in IKEA, and maybe she should think about actually cracking open a psychology book before slamming me with her mumbo jumbo.’
‘Detention?’
‘Nope,’ she grinned, ‘that’s the beauty of it. Anything said in there is “an authentic expression of my feelings”… can’t get in trouble for being authentic.’
‘Hmm, think I’m going to use that next time I want to slap Nicki Bridwell in the face.’
Evie tilted her head and Ruby shrugged. ‘Started going off about kids in care, and how we’re all fucked up.’
‘Want me to slam her head into a locker?’
‘Nah,’ Ruby twitched her nose, ‘I’m not that bothered about it. I think I might just tempt her boyfriend into leaving her and then let them sit in the wreckage of it all.’
‘You never do things the simple way, do you? It’s never just telling people how you feel.’
Ruby smiled, ‘Now where would be the fun in that?’
***
The next afternoon they were summoned to the Glass residence. Well, that’s how it felt. In reality, Evelyn Glass, their new landlady, wanted to invite them to afternoon tea to celebrate their arrival in London.
Evie was nervous for some reason, dawdling as she walked with Esme ten minutes down the road, hands swinging back and forth as the houses seemed to get bigger and more grand. Esme’s eyes got wider as she took in stained glass windows, huge metal gates fencing off properties bigger than she’d ever seen before. She gripped Evie’s hand tighter.
‘So why is this lady asking us to her house?’ Esme frowned, looking at the houses with suspicion.
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