Forget Me Never

OK.’
    ‘Could have, but you’d have said no,’ I heard Reece say. ‘Stop being snobby!’
    ‘I’m not! I just think you’re spending too much time with her.’
    ‘You don’t like her, do you?’
    ‘She takes you for granted, and what’s more, you let her! And I don’t think you having a girl staying over is appropriate. You behave yourself, OK?’
    ‘Mum! That is a total overreaction.’
    I creaked the wardrobe door and noisily shifted some books on the bedside table. Reece and Effie fell silent. I let a moment pass, then opened the door.
    ‘Thanks for letting me stay,’ I said, poking my head around the door to Reece’s room.
    ‘Don’t mention it,’ Effie said thinly. ‘Do you like olives? I was going to get some from the delicatessen.’
    ‘Love them.’ I waited for her to leave, then turned to Reece and pulled a face. ‘Didn’t mean to get you into trouble.’
    Reece rubbed his shoulder, looking a bit awkward. ‘You know how Mum is. Least Aiden can’t get you here. That’s the main thing.’

REECE
    Mum didn’t say much over dinner but there was definitely a chilly atmosphere. Fortunately Neve was completely oblivious and proved a helpful distraction. Sometimes I wished I could get back down to her level. She was nearly always happy. When she was sad, it only took a few words from Mum to coax her out of it. That kind of trust, the belief that people are good and the world’s OK – everyone loses that sooner or later. It’s sad when you realize it.
    I half thought Mum might follow me and Soph when we took our bowls of ice cream through to the sitting room. But she just said something about being in the conservatory if we needed her. I must have been in a strange mood because I asked Neve if she wanted to hang out with us. Neve usually jumped at any invitation to be a ‘big kid’. This time she just shook her head. Soph had already gone through. When I walked in she was rifling through the DVD collection.
    ‘I can’t believe how many you have,’ she said. It was amazing how relaxed she seemed. ‘Do you ever rewatch any of these?’
    ‘Sometimes. Any guesses which films are Mum’s and which are mine?’
    ‘If the thrillers are your mum’s and the costume dramas are yours, I’ll have to start reassessing things.’ Sophie chose the latest James Bond and we sat down. I stirred my ice cream into liquidy goo, half watching the introduction.
    We were very close on the sofa. Though we’d sat next to each other on the tube, on the Eye, when we’d been looking up stuff on my computer, this felt different. Maybe it was because we were doing normal things, rather than talking about murders and stalkers and police. It felt weirdly intense.
    I put my bowl down on the table. The ice cream was making me feel a little sick. As Bond blasted villains and dived out of burning buildings, I kept sneaking glances at Sophie. She was totally engrossed in the film. She had always been like this whenever we watched anything, however far-fetched the story. It was kind of cute. Her hair had got really long now, almost to her waist. As usual it could have done with a brush. I didn’t think Sophie realized how pretty she was. If she had, she might have made a bit more of herself. Plenty of times when we’d been out I’d seen guys looking at her, but she didn’t seem to notice.
    Once again I found myself thinking that I could have been a better friend to her recently. It wasn’t like I couldn’t deal with it – I knew I could. About a year ago Sophie had been acting weirdly. I’d realized something was badly wrong one afternoon when we were hanging out in Caffè Nero. I’d been telling her a story about something funny that had happened in history class, but halfway through I’d realized she was a million miles away. While Sophie might be moody, she wasn’t usually like this.
    I knew she’d bite my head off if I asked what was wrong in public, so I waited until we were alone at her house. I’m pretty rubbish at this kind of thing, but I must have done OK because she started crying.
    ‘I just can’t think any more,’ she had said. Everythings bad.’
    ‘Don’t say that.’ I put my arm around her. Sophie flinched, but after a moment pressed her face into my shoulder, which really freaked me out. I said a lot of stuff about how it was OK to get upset and I wouldn’t tell anyone and how we were going to get past this.
    Sophie had said, ‘But people don’t get past bad things. You