Follow Me Back (7 page)

Marnie shrugs half-heartedly, like her shoulders are the heaviest thing in the world to lift. ‘Maybe.’

I think of the rumours rushing round school, the whispered words quoted from police officers’ mouths.
Conquests
.
Partners.

‘Marnie,’ I say, ‘is it true what people are saying? That
Lizzie…’ I don’t know how to finish.

She looks up, eyes flashing. ‘That Lizzie what? Lizzie got with a few people, got a bit drunk? What difference does it make?’

My stomach drops; a terrible, looping sensation. So it is true. ‘That doesn’t sound like her,’ I say softly.

Marnie’s eyes drop to her lap. ‘People change.’ She starts picking at the edge of the tablecloth, and for a minute she
doesn’t say anything. I watch her and I think of her by the lockers, I think of Lizzie listening to her, laughing with her, that notebook under her arm.

Just when I think she’s not going to carry on, she says, ‘It just started in the summer. She wanted to go out all the time. She’d tell me about hooking up with people she didn’t even like, blacking out drunk –’ She stops suddenly, her eyes
filled with tears, and claps her hand over her mouth just as the first sob escapes.

‘Hey –’ I reach out and put my hand on hers.

‘And I just keep thinking,’ she says, her voice cracking, ‘I should’ve done something, I should’ve
known
. All this –’ She waves a hand in the direction of the laptop. ‘I should’ve stopped her.’

She starts to cry, her hands covering her face as her hair falls forwards
to hide her too.

I edge my chair round the table and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Hey,’ I say again. ‘Hey, come on.’

And then she sort of lurches towards me and buries her face against my shoulder. I put my arms around her back and I listen to her cry. I keep telling her that it’s okay, that it isn’t her fault. I smell the nice, soapy vanilla smell of her, and the last of her coffee, the
buttery teacake. I think about Lizzie. I think about Lizzie ‘hooking up’ with random guys. Drinking at parties. Flirting on screens. I reach behind me and close Marnie’s laptop.

‘It’s okay,’ I tell her again. ‘We’ll find her.’

She pulls back and wipes her eyes with the palms of her hands like a little girl. ‘God, I hope so.’

‘Look,’ I say, as she straightens herself out. I really admire
how quickly she does it, how efficiently. ‘Whatever’s happened, you can’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have stopped her.’

She huffs, like she doesn’t agree.

I think of the Lizzie I knew, soft and sweet and caring. I think of the Lizzie I saw later: fierce, eyes flashing. Vulnerable, cheeks tear-stained. ‘Lizzie’s complicated,’ I say, uncomfortable. ‘You know that.’

She lets out a small,
hard laugh. ‘Yeah. You could say that.’

‘She might get in touch,’ I say, even though the words sound hollow even to me. ‘She might contact you. Or me,’ I add, even though I’d be last on her list.

‘Maybe,’ Marnie says, an eyebrow twitching. ‘Maybe she will.’

I really wish she’d been right.

S
UNDAY.
O
NE WEEK
since the police knocked on the door; one week and one day since Lizzie was last seen. And I keep looking back, all the way back, to when we were just getting to know each other, when everything was fun and flirty and full of possibility – and then I have to fast-forward to now, a year and a half later, when Lizzie is just a word whispered round school, a stranger.

And I can’t
stop thinking about what happened in between.

A conversation bubble pops up at the bottom of my screen: Scobie.

Thinking of Cheska makes me think of yesterday morning, seeing her and Deacon… Unexpected. And extremely disturbing. I don’t know if two people as self-obsessed as they are can get together
without the universe imploding.

See? This is why he’s my best friend. It’s like two guys, one brain, I swear.

This is surprising because for the last three years of his life, Frank Scobie has survived solely on a diet of chicken nuggets, fishfingers,
and, weirdly, swordfish steaks. That’s Abbots Grey for you.

It feels good to be joking, to be talking about normal, everyday stuff; like stretching a limb you haven’t realised
has gone numb.

Yeah, thanks, Scobes.

Whoa. My heart just did something I don’t think it’s done before.

London. Where she thinks ‘Hal Paterson’ lives.
No.
She can’t. She wouldn’t.

I feel sick. I click back to my homepage and scan through the status updates without really reading them.
Cheska Summersall is excited for the weekend, baby!!!. Jack Ciszewski is pissed off. Jorgie Mitchell is eating cupcakes with her bestie J. Cheska Summersall can’t wait for tonight’s episode… It’s a big one peeps!!!
(Cheska Summersall has Facebook diarrhoea). Scobie’s chat
bubble bleeps at me.

He sends a photo of a bag full of Iceland snack platters, samosas and spring rolls and skewers and I have to smile. We did the same last Shark Week, but I know that this time he’s making a big deal of it to take my mind off this whole Lizzie thing. It’s not going to work, but it’s nice of him.

Another
bubble pops up. Marnie Daniels.

I should tell her what Scobie’s just told me. I should tell her that it’s true; Lizzie did leave by choice, she did run away to meet a stranger without telling anyone. But sitting here staring at the screen, I can’t bring myself to type the words.

Do it,
I tell myself.
Get it over
with.

The seconds until she replies seem like hours.

And that’s true. At least now we have something solid, a place she was. The not-knowing has been worst. And yet I’m
so scared to know.

My heart is doing strange things again.

Right. That’s fine then.

Not.

I check the clock. 14:23.

Marnie’s bubble blinks at me.

Thinking about Lizzie. Boarding a train. Not coming back.

Gotta go,
Marnie writes after a while, and even though I feel bad, I’m relieved.

I say goodbye to Scobie too, and I’m about to log out when a little red icon appears at the top of the screen. New friend request. There’s a couple there, actually – I’m a bit lazy about checking
it, since most people at Aggers think it’s normal to add you on Facebook even if they’ve never spoken to you, or never intend to. I skim through them; a couple of guys from football, a girl from my maths class. The newest is another girl, but I don’t recognise the name: Autumn Thomas. I click on her and have a look at her profile. It says she lives in Clapton, so I probably do know her – she
must go to my old school. I click ‘Accept’, and immediately a message pops up from her.

Erm, awkward. Do I admit that I don’t?

Apparently, my silence speaks for me, because after a while, she ‘…’s, and then:

Oh. Mrs Gerber was my GCSE English teacher – at Aggers. So she’s not a London friend. Hmm.

Looking at her profile photos again, she does look really familiar. Reddish-brown hair, pale skin with freckles. Pretty, but not, like, in-your-face pretty. And then it hits me.

Next to Lizzie.

Nobody seems to really know the right word for the situation. Weird. Sad. No one’s sure.

Yeah, well, you and me both, Autumn Thomas.

I log out of chat but not out of my profile. And I click back onto my messages, and carry on living in the past.