Chapter One
Five days later
It should officially be illegal for exam rooms to have a view of the sea.
How is it fair that we’re stuck inside, fingers cramping from gripping a pen for two hours straight, while outside the light is dancing on the waves and it looks so bright and comforting? How am I supposed to remember who King Henry VIII’s fourth wife was when the birds are singing and I swear I can hear the happy, jaunty tune of an ice-cream van nearby?
I shake my head, dispelling the vision of a deliciously soft ice-cream cone with a cheeky Flake sticking out of it, and instead try to summon up a direct link into my best friend Elliot’s brain. He won’t be having much trouble remembering any of these facts and figures in his history exam. I gave him the nickname Wiki, because his brain seems to contain as much knowledge as Wikipedia, whereas my revision notes disappear from my memory as fast as a Snapchat.
I sigh and try to concentrate on the exam question, but the words swim in front of my eyes and I can’t make sense of my own messy scrawl. I hope whoever has to mark it has better luck.
Choosing to take history for GCSE was never a good idea. At the time, I just picked based on what everyone else seemed to be doing. The only subject I knew I definitely had to take was photography. The truth is I have no idea what I want to be when I leave school.
“OK, everyone, pens down,” says the examiner at the front of the room.
My mouth instantly goes dry. I don’t know how long I’ve been daydreaming for, but I know that I haven’t finished answering all the questions. These exams determine what subjects I’ll take next year and I’ve already mucked it up. My palms feel slick with sweat, and I can’t hear the birds outside singing anymore. All I can hear is the squawk of seagulls. It sounds like they’re chanting “Fail, fail, fail” in my ear. My stomach turns, and I feel like I might be a bit sick.
“Penny, are you coming?” I look up, and my friend and classmate Kira is waiting by my desk. The examiner has already snatched my paper and I’ve barely noticed.
“Yeah, just a second.” I grab my bag and slide out of my chair.
And then, as I stand up, a wave of relief takes over the nausea. No matter what the result, that’s it: my final exam. I’m finished with school for the year!
I have a stupid grin on my face as I high-five Kira. I feel closer to my classmates—and especially the twins, Kira and Amara—than I have in my entire time at this school. They gathered round me in the aftermath of the drama at the beginning of the year—a solid wall of friendship against the breaking tidal wave of news. The media went into a frenzy when they found out I was dating rock star Noah Flynn, and then they discovered my blog; they unearthed private details of my life and labelled me a homewrecker, since Noah was supposedly in a relationship with mega pop star Leah Brown. It was the worst few days of my life, but my friends helped me to weather the storm. And, when it was all over, the drama had brought us together.
As we spill out into the hallway, Kira says, “Celebratory burgers at GBK? We’re all going there before we head to the concert. You must be so excited to see Noah again.”
A familiar flutter rises in my stomach. I’m excited—of course I am—but I’m nervous too. I haven’t seen Noah since the Easter holidays, when he spent my sixteenth birthday with me. Now we’re about to spend two weeks in each other’s company. And even though that’s the only thing I want—and the only thing I can think about—I can’t help wondering whether it will be the same.
“I’ll catch you at the restaurant,” I say. “I just have to pick a few things up from Miss Mills’s office and then head home to change.”
Kira squeezes my arm. “Oh god, I have to figure out what to wear too!”
I smile weakly as she rushes off, but the elation of finishing my exams has given way to a new set of nerves. The will-my-boyfriend-still-like-me kind. I know I should feel more confident that Noah likes me just the way I am, but when your first boyfriend is currently one of the most famous new musicians on the planet, that’s easier said than done.
The hallways are almost deserted and the only sound is the squeak of my Converse trainers on the linoleum floor. I can’t believe this is my last catch-up with my photography teacher, Miss Mills. It feels like she’s been there for me a lot this year—she’s probably the only person I’ve really opened up to about what went on last Christmas and New Year, other than my parents. Even with Elliot I sometimes hold things back. Having a set of impartial ears was something I never wanted—but also never knew I needed.
It didn’t help that I had a panic attack in the small cupboard Miss Mills converted into a makeshift darkroom. It was only a couple of weeks after the news “broke” online about Noah and me. Normally I find the darkroom soothing, but whether it was the fumes or the enclosed space—or the fact that the picture I was developing was of Noah’s handsome face, a face that I wouldn’t be seeing for ages—I almost passed out into the chemicals. Luckily it was after school, so no one had to see “Panicky Penny” in action all over again, and Miss Mills made me a cup of tea and fed me biscuits until I started talking and just couldn’t stop.
She’s helped me ever since, but I knew what would’ve helped the most: my blog. Blogging had always been so liberating. Even though I had set all future posts on Girl Online to private after posting my final blog, “From Fairytale to Horror Story,” I couldn’t ignore the familiar itch that I wanted to scratch—that urge to share my thoughts with the world. Girl Online had been my creative and emotional outlet for over a year, and I missed it—and the community of online readers I had come to call friends. I knew, if I had just reached out to them, my blog readers would have supported me through this, just as they supported me through the early stages of my anxiety.