Layla runs towards us just as the bus pulls up, her jumper inside out. She looks so tired. Everyone is weighted down today. And suddenly, like an unexpected dick pic, there Lon is, spread across the back seat of the bus, reading Bukowski. Prince Charmless. How did they even let him on? It’s highly inappropriate. I glare at the bus driver, who stares blankly at me, as if I’m being unreasonable somehow. I start to say something, but Catlin, lit up with her Christmas-morning smile, pulls my arm. I find a seat, and she walks right down past me, loops her hands around him, snuggles in. I don’t know whether or not to text Mam about it. What can he do? I think. We’re on a bus.
The mountains roll on by, as I sit by myself, eyes out the window, panicking and wondering what to do. I wish there was a bell that you could ring in this situation. For the unsexy sort of forbidden love. But suddenly it’s hard to think about Catlin and Lon because Oona has returned, and is curled up on the seat beside Charley, flicking through something on her phone. I wonder what. I hope it’s a YouTube tutorial on fancying me back.
I feel a sigh welling up inside me, and swallow it down. I have enough on without being visibly lovelorn on the bus.
‘Welcome back, Oona,’ I say.
She smiles at me. I’m glad she’s reappeared, but I wish she’d chosen the seat beside me. We haven’t really spoken since that night. I wonder if she feels that tension too. I open my mouth to say something, but Charley gets there first. Which is probably no bad thing, in fairness.
‘Were you not well?’
‘My mother needed me at home,’ she says.
‘For what?’
‘Family things mostly. We painted the sitting room. It’s blue.’ She gets her phone to show us.
‘Look,’ says Fiachra. ‘Your sister’s letting Lon go under the blouse.’
‘Catlin!’ I say, and I have never sounded more like a middle-aged nun. I am a pleated midi-skirt and a sensible cardigan away from a bossy, lonely future, and everyone can sense it. My face flushes. But also … I am right. Brian and Mam would lock her in the dungeon if they knew. I should tell them. I should. I will. Just not right now. Ringing your mam because you are your sister’s designated sex police is not a good way to impress a girl. I know because I am a girl and it would not impress me.
‘Sorry, Maddy,’ my twin calls, giggling. ‘It’s just that ours is a forbidden love.’
Lon doesn’t even move his head to look at anyone. His eyes are fixed on Catlin, following her every little jolt.
School passes in a fugue.
‘I thought they were supposed to be forbidden,’ Layla says to me at break time. ‘They don’t look even a little bit forbidden.’
‘It isn’t really working out that well,’ I tell her. ‘Catlin doesn’t like rules.’
‘And Lon makes his own. But the rate she’s going, she’ll probably have a family of five before her eighteenth birthday. Brian won’t like that at all. Not that I’m judging.’
She totally is judging. I am too. People always are, and we can’t help it. I don’t like her saying that about Catlin though. I’m kind of perturbed by the idea that everyone assumes they’re at it. I mean, it hasn’t been that long. Enough time to fall in love, I know. But what about falling in trust?
Oona sits with Cathal in double Irish. She looks tired. I hope that she has got a broken heart. I know you probably shouldn’t wish sadness on people that you fall for. But I want her to be free to be with me. To like me back.
Catlin hops the fence at lunchtime – off to Donoghue’s to look for Lon. I have a weird feeling she’s going to end up pregnant out of spite. My fingers twist at loose strands of dark thread on my sleeves, and I think again about throwing Mam a quick message. Nothing alarmist. Just a quick ‘So Catlin’s off looking for her boyfriend the former murder suspect who was by the way on the bus this morning and I didn’t contact you about it because I was worried about not seeming fun to this girl I can’t stop thinking about. I am the sensible twin. Thank you bye.’
But I don’t want to worry her.
Or to get in trouble.
Or be yelled at by Catlin.
I push my hair behind my ears, and plaster on a smile as though I have been paying attention to what was going on around me, instead of having a head-debate. Everything is quiet at the desks we’ve pushed together into a mega-desk so we can eat our sandwiches while staring at each other. I feel like I am auditioning for Strictly Come Friending. Say something, I think. Make it less awkward. Long car journeys. Questions in the back.
‘If you could be any kind of animal, what would you be?’ I ask, thinking of Button. Small, innocent Button who has also managed to annoy Catlin by just existing.
‘What does that have to do with anything?’ snaps Eddie. Layla, Cathal and Fiachra glare as well.
‘Jesus, Madeline.’ Charley rolls her eyes, like I’m the worst.
‘Sorry?’ I offer. It was a little random, I suppose.
Layla touches my arm, lowers her voice.
‘Those kinds of questions don’t go down well here, Madeline.’
‘Um … thanks for telling me?’
‘You’re welcome. Do you have any pictures of Button on your phone?’
OF COURSE I do. It’s fine again – we’re off. Charley has some photos of Button from when he was even littler than he is now, and I have some from when he climbed into a teacup and just sat there for a while, chilling out.
‘He would bring a tear to your eye,’ says Cathal.
‘We only have outdoor cats at ours,’ says Charley. ‘And they can be really mean. Like Catlin.’
‘What?’ I ask. ‘What did she say to you?’ But before I get an answer, a smooth voice rings through the classroom.
‘Madeline?’ I hadn’t heard him creep up behind me. It is Lon. He’s slouching in his battered leather jacket. I square my shoulders. ‘We need to talk. Come with me, little one.’
‘Don’t call me that.’ I feel as if he is trying to lessen me. I am small, but I am big enough to hurt him if he does anything to her that I don’t like.
‘It’s accurate.’ He grins and shrugs, like it is no big deal.
‘Shut up, Lon.’ I rise to my full height. ‘Why are you even in school? Aren’t there, like, rules about this sort of thing?’
‘I play by my own rules,’ he says with a little laugh, but then his voice loops into something deeper, more serious. ‘Look. I wanted to –’ he sighs, like the effort of talking to a girl he doesn’t want to grope is a 200lb dumb-bell – ‘explain some things to you. For Catlin’s sake. She asked me to. So, please?’
I sigh back, like I am doing him a massive, massive favour, which I am, and follow him around the back of the school building. We sit on the lip of an abandoned prefab.
He smiles at me. The chasm of his mouth. His coin eyes cold.
‘I wanted to apologise. If we have gotten off on the wrong foot,’ he offers.
I glare at him. ‘Lon. I don’t care.’
‘It was ages ago,’ he says, ‘and it didn’t happen like they said. I broke her heart and she told loads of lies. Unrequited love can do things to a person’s soul.’
He looks at me. I think of Oona’s face. The moonlit lake.
‘It can,’ I say. ‘But can you see how I would be worried for Catlin? I don’t want to see her hurt.’
‘Listen,’ he says, and I can see the ropey muscles tensing in his neck. His long arms covered with thin black cotton fabric, fingers twining round his ribs like vines of flesh. ‘Listen to me, Madeline. I love your sister. I love her. I will keep her safe. I love her.’ He stares at me, as if he’s willing what he’s saying true. He has moved closer to me, close enough that I’m beginning to feel cornered. I square my shoulders and inhale sharply. I will not be intimidated by someone who regularly wears an ankh.