I get to school at seven thirty, getting off the bus with Taylor Swift blaring through my headphones. This whole thing was agreed upon officially last week, that we'd get here ridiculously early to blow up all the balloons and fill the canteen with them. But now we have photos of Josh in our bags instead of balloons, Blu-Tac and tape instead of pumps to blow them up.

"Eve!"

My head snaps up as I walk through the gates to see Inez running towards me. She tackles me in a hug, her soft brown hair tickling my nose and her very presence bringing tears into my eyes.

"Oh, Eve," she murmurs. "I'm so so sorry."

I pull away from the hug and wipe my eyes. "I'm okay, I promise."

"Okay, so Edie and Cerys are already inside," she says, linking arms with me. "We've got the Humanities block with Ravi, Kylie and Steven. I think Eden's there too? I'm not too sure, she'll never like make herself known or anything."

I freeze for a fraction of a second. There's a hint of scorn in Inez's voice when she makes that comment about Eden. We've never been the biggest fans of her, our little gang, and I'm always glad when they pretend to forget the fact that I grew up in the same part of the city as Eden. We played in the same playground, had the same teachers, did the same school plays, won the same awards, ate the same shitty hot meals at school.

So how come I turned out relatively okay and she turned out a raging psycho who killed someone?

"How's Ravi?" I ask instead, letting the Eden thing float out of my mind.

Inez shrugs, swiping her keycard to open the door nearest the Humanities block. "He looks really sad. Everyone looks really sad. Like even Chantelle looks like she's been crying."

I snort. "We finally grew hearts, huh?"

Inez stares at me with sad eyes. "Oh, Eve." And she hugs me again outside the Music Room.

We clatter up the stairs to the Humanities classrooms which are also our form rooms. The Year Eleven block (it's barely a block, a floor of classrooms, but still) is isolated from the rest of the school, barely any of the classrooms down here have forms in them at lunchtime. It's nice in a way.

But it isn't nice today.

Cerys is stood on top of a chair, sticking photos of Josh on top of the Geography posters. Edie is sat cross-legged beside her, busy scrawling things on the backs of worksheets she found in the recycling. When they hear us coming, they both stop. Cerys gets off the chair, Edie stands up and they both stare at me.

"Can you stop looking at me?" My voice is tiny.

"Oh, yeah, of course," Edie says, words rushing out and tumbling over each other. "Want to write some stuff?"

She holds out a neon blue highlighter and I take it gratefully, joining her on the ground. Inez and Cerys take my photos of Josh out of my bag and wander off to plaster them over the walls. The sheets Edie's already done are covered with his name and RIP JOSH in bright coloured inks bleeding through onto whatever's printed on the back. I start tracing the letters of his name, biting back the tears even just the shape of it cause.

I almost don't notice Eden staring at me from Room 35, eyes blank and unfeeling.

Almost.

double update just because