I tried to call Rosie that same evening, but it wasn’t until the next day that I managed to get a hold of her.
‘Look at you, calling to give a heads-up,’ was the first thing she said. She sounded impressed. ‘Way to be on the ball.’
‘An ineffectual heads-up,’ I replied.
‘Yeah, but still. Suze loved that you tried.’
‘She told you all about it then?’
‘Of course.’
‘Did she happen to tell you where she actually was?’ This was still bothering me. If she wasn’t with me or Rosie, where else did she have to go?
‘She was with Dylan.’
A pause. ‘Who?’
‘Dylan. Dylan Evers.’
‘Who the hell is Dylan?’
‘Calm down. He’s the guy from our form that Suzanne’s been . . . what’s the nice word? Seeing? Hanging out with? You know, whatever.’
Despite the cold I felt a strange heat at the back of my neck. How could I not know about this? ‘How long has that been going on?’
‘Oh, since before Christmas?’
‘Before Christmas?’ I repeated, my voice coming out high-pitched.
‘Well, yeah. Didn’t she tell you?’ Rosie’s upbeat tone had changed to one of slight concern.
‘No, she did not.’
‘I guess she thought it wasn’t important enough to say anything. She does talk about it like it’s nothing. Don’t be upset or anything.’ There was an anxious thread in her voice now. ‘You’re not upset, right, Cads? I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Have I messed up?’
‘No, of course not.’ I was the idiot who went to a different school. I was the moron who called to tell her to get home without even bothering to ask where she was. I was the one who thought I’d made myself matter.
‘They aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend,’ Rosie offered, like this made a difference. ‘They don’t even see each other much, outside of school.’
I tried to think of the times Suzanne and I had seen each other since before Christmas, and the number of opportunities she’d had to tell me about this Dylan, boyfriend or otherwise. There were plenty.
‘What’s he like?’
‘Dylan?’
‘Yeah.’ Obviously.
‘He’s OK,’ she said off-handedly.
‘Well, that was informative, thanks.’
She laughed. ‘Sorry. I don’t really know what to say about him. I mean . . . I kind of liked him.’
‘What do you mean? Before Suzanne did?’
‘Not before. More at the same time.’
‘Did she know?’
‘Oh yeah. But he liked her, so . . .’ She let the sentence die. ‘She’s welcome to him anyway. I’m not sure he’s that nice. I think he talks about her with his friends, and it gets around.’
I’d phoned Rosie feeling relaxed and happy, ready to share my story of attempted rescue, but the conversation hadn’t gone how I’d expected, and now I felt lost in it. The image of Suzanne I’d had in my mind felt suddenly distorted. Had I got her all wrong?
‘Are you two OK, though?’
‘Oh, completely. We didn’t fight about it or anything. I mean, it was kind of a surprise when she first went off with him, but that’s just her. I love her, but she’s a bit of a slag.’
‘Roz!’
‘What? She is! I don’t even know how many boys from our year and above she’s got off with since she been here. And it’s only been, what, five months, if that.’
‘You can’t go calling her a slag though.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say it to her face. But it’s you. I can talk to you, right?’
This usually went without saying, and for some reason it bothered me that she’d voiced it this time. ‘Of course you can talk to me. About anything.’
Rosie abruptly changed the subject, as she tended to do when the conversation veered towards the sentimental. She started telling me about two guys in her form who’d been caught smoking weed behind the science block – ‘I mean, the science block, Caddy, what morons’ – and then launched into a rant about Animal Farm, which she was trying to write about for English. This started with complaining about her essay topic – something I didn’t catch about propaganda and parody – but she soon lost track of literary criticism and instead gave me a longer-than-Cliff-notes version of the story. Around the time she said, with impassioned outrage, ‘and then they killed the horse!’ I stopped trying to follow what she was saying and just listened to her voice, her familiar cadences, the lilts and jolts of a friend in full conversational flow, talking about anything.
It was closing in on 10 p.m. when I forced myself to click on Suzanne’s chat icon on Facebook.
Caddy Oliver Hey
Suzanne Watts Hey! :)
Suzanne Watts What’s up?
Caddy Oliver I have to ask you something Suzanne Watts I’m all ears
Suzanne Watts Or hands.
Suzanne Watts All eyes?
Caddy Oliver Why didn’t you tell me about Dylan?
Suzanne Watts Oh.
There was an agonizingly long pause. The text kept switching from blank to the tell-tale ‘. . .’ that meant she was typing a message. My stomach was starting to knot.
Suzanne Watts There’s not much to tell?
Caddy Oliver Really?
Suzanne Watts It’s not like I actively didn’t tell you. He just never came up.