I heard she just gave him a BJ, Denise says.
You can’t get pregnant from a BJ, Janine says.
I know this girl whose sister’s friend gave this boy a BJ and then she got pregnant even though she was a virgin.
Did she spit it out? Janine asks.
I don’t know, Denise says.
And it’s so weird, one moment Lori’s listening to her friends and the next she’s on the ground and the shops on the mezzanine are whirling around her head like bluebirds in those old cartoons when the coyote gets whacked with an anvil or something.
Oh my God, oh my God, Denise flaps above her like a skinny bird. Janine is crouched down beside her. Oh sweetie! A security guard appears and looks down with dark-brown hair and a kind stupid face. Is she OK? he asks in a voice like Lilya’s. She’s fine, Janine says, she just needs some air. He moves in closer. She’s fine, Janine snaps and the guy cringes away like a dog you’ve thrown a stone at. Sweetie, she murmurs again and hugs her and for a moment Lori can hide in the warm friendly darkness, the Janine-smell she knows so well. But then everything comes down on her again, the day the night the Plan, she knew it wouldn’t work the moment she called him, the moment Daniel answered the phone she knew it was a bad idea, lying to him like that felt wrong, it made her angry, and he kept asking her questions – What’s wrong? How long have you had it? Do you have a temperature? – so she had to lie more and more when she just wanted him to go, and she felt so awful but she is a terrible person because then the second Carl appeared she forgot about Daniel completely, everything that usually made up Lori like memories and things she liked was instantly washed away and it was just her and Carl walking through the park, he looked so sad I missed you he said it was the first time he’d ever said anything like that she started to cry and then when he held her to cry and laugh at the same time I missed you too and that was just the beginning because then next he started to talk like really talk in a way he never did before like about how he didn’t think she cared about him he thought she was in love with Daniel How could he think that when he knew about Janine’s Plan but he did he thought she didn’t love him not like I love you he said oh my God but I do love you I love you I love you but he didn’t think she did because she wouldn’t have sex that doesn’t have anything to do with it she said but he wouldn’t believe her that’s why she did it the doughnut shop roof was sore against her knees the doughnut was like a giant halo round his head he kept saying I love you she felt like she was drunk with happiness his thing tasted strange but not terrible but it was weird the way it moved in her mouth like it was alive a little blind creature she liked the feel of his hands in her hair but then he shot the stuff and he wouldn’t let her take it out and it was going down her throat it kept coming not letting her breathe it was like she was drowning and then she saw what he was doing oh my God why Carl why she couldn’t get the phone from him he was shouting she broke free and jumped down from the roof she twisted her ankle and had to run all the way home on it she was crying and when Mom asked her why she had to say Amy Doran’s cat got run over and when Mom tried to hug her she wouldn’t let her because she was worried she might smell the stuff she couldn’t get the taste out of her mouth she could feel it on the back of her teeth all slimy she used up a whole bottle of mouthwash it didn’t do any good and the next thing Mom calls her down from her room and Daniel is there holding a frisbee why did he bring a frisbee in winter he always did everything weird like that like texting her poems that don’t even rhyme but anyway he’s looking at her all white with big round eyes and she knows that he’s seen the video and maybe she could have just pretended nothing happened he would have believed her but before he can even say anything before she even knows what she’s doing she starts screaming at him, screaming at the top of her lungs Get out, get out, fuck off, what’s your problem, I never ever ever want to see you again, screaming and screaming the most horrible things that came into her head loud as she could till Dad came out and put his arms around her and told him it was probably best if he went and he was looking back at her dad like he didn’t know where he was and she turned round and ran up to her room and next thing Kelly-Ann is calling her crying from the doughnut shop and then there are police cars outside her house and I am so sorry, I am so sorry, Daniel I am so so sorry! But she still knew in the middle of everything she wasn’t going to tell them about Carl.
And now Zora Carpathian is calling her the Death Girl and all over the school someone keeps writing LORI L’S DANIEL 4 EVER it must be Tara Gately, she copies everything Lori does, she has all of her things, bangles, hairbands, BETHani badge on the strap of her schoolbag, she’s probably never even kissed anybody herself well if she wants to be her so much Lori wishes she could just let her, say to her okay you can be Lori and see how you like it and I’ll be nobody I’ll just be some air in the sky up where nobody can breathe it but then what would she do about CarlCarlCarlCarl
They are back in the toilets in school. Janine is wiping Lori’s eyes and cheeks. Denise and Aifric Quinlavan are smoking cigarettes and talking about boys. Would you do it if you really liked him?
I wouldn’t ever like someone who would want me to do something like that.
They all want to do it, Aifric says, they see it on the Internet and then they want you to do it. You should see the stuff my brother has on his computer, it’s totally vile.
Like what sort of stuff?
Like, you know, men spraying their, you know, on girls’ faces? Like their semen?
Ewww, that’s so gross!
Or sticking their thing up your arse.
There’s no way I’m ever doing that, Denise says. Like why would anyone want to do that?
You can’t get pregnant, Janine says. If they shag you up the arse it means you can’t get pregnant.
How romantic, Denise says.
It’s like going to the toilet in reverse, Aifric says. It’s fucking sick, I don’t care.
He tried to talk to Lori at the graveyard but she ran away from him. She blocked his calls from her mobile and he hangs up whenever Dad picks up the house phone. At night she can feel him outside in the dark under the trees looking up at her window, and a part of her wants to go out to him in spite of everything. But Janine says, Stay away from him. She says he tried to talk to her too, after school one day. What did he say? I didn’t listen I just blanked him. And you should too, Lori. There’s something wrong with that guy, I’m serious.
And it’s true, what kind of psycho would do something like that? When he knew about the Plan, when she’d explained that it wasn’t real! But inside she knows why he did it, it was because he was jealous of her and Daniel. If only he hadn’t been jealous, if only he’d believed she just loved him! (Though then she thinks of Daniel’s hand on her breast…) And she thinks of him hanging around with all those weirdo knackers selling drugs, they give her the creeps, and of his horrible dad who had sex with a girl in sixth year and his mom wandering around the house stinking of drink and chain-smoking and listening to Lionel Richie, and Carl says he doesn’t care if they split up but that’s why he’s acting weird even for him, it’s got to be, and she knows what he really needs is someone to care for him?
Janine says, He’s a bad guy, Lori, I mean it. There’s something missing from him. He’s dangerous.
You don’t know him like I do, Lori says.
Janine thinks for a minute. Maybe not, she says. But I can still tell.
And she’s right, Lori knows it, he’s bad, he’s all fucked up, you can see it in the marks on his arms, and if her dad ever had a clue that a guy like him had gone near her she’d be sent off to boarding school in a split second because you can tell he’s never going to be all right or good, and he swears and he’s always in a bad mood and all he ever talked about was wanting to have sex with her like does he even really care about her but then she thinks of his teeth that are just the right amount of crooked and she thinks of his body crushing hers like a door into a world of mmmm and stuff she had never thought about before not really and now she can’t stop lying in bed and her mom came in I was thinking of you I had my eyes closed oh my god I’ve never done that before and when you press against a body did you think it could get so hot like your skin’s in flames and everything underneath like a volcano and even when you’re not touching me it’s like you are it’s like I can see the secret fire beneath everything even if we’re just standing outside McDonald’s or on the roof of Ed’s that time you were setting the paper planes alight and throwing them at the guy down on the ground I’d drunk a can my head was spinning I never laughed so much and then I stopped laughing and I lay my head down and looked at you and the black sky and I loved you and the air was full of burning full of sparks coming off the fiery planes full of candybursts of sugarflames of honey-fire of dreamruindisobey, I am never going home…