Chapter Text
Imogen clutched Sahar’s arm. Sahar’s responding huff was softened by the fond smile she slid Imogen’s way, exasperated and knowing and familiar.
“What if we’re not in the same class,” Imogen repeated. She still couldn’t quite make it a question—it wasn’t an answer she was looking for, really, in response to the anxious energy crawling through her. She just needed some way to release it; some way to expel it into the air, to make it visible so her best friend could grasp it and pull it apart for her, as Sahar had always tended to do.
Sahar, as she tended to do, responded with the same brutal honesty she had every other time Imogen brought up the subject. “Considering the amount of people there are, it’s fairly likely we won’t be.”
Imogen blew out a breath. “Why thank you, Sahar, that’s very comforting.”
“Relax,” Sahar nudged her. Then nudged her again. Imogen looked over and found that Sahar’s grin had only grown, and that was where all the warmth and reassurance she’d been looking for had been hidden. “You’re still gonna see me everyday. We’re still at the same school.”
“But what if we don’t? What if we’re too busy?” Imogen asked, more seriously. The nerves that came with not knowing were becoming more insistent. She could deal, she was sure, with sitting in a classroom without Sahar. There were plenty of other people from their old school that Imogen could probably slip in with, and she could make enough easy conversation to bet she could gather some new casual friends where they were needed.
But Sahar was her best friend. Her only real friend, if Imogen was being honest; the only one who knew her top to bottom, who had seen her at her best and her worst and allowed her to be so, unapologetically. Imogen had spent hours per day with her for years. The thought of that time dwindling to a few passing glances in the hall and whatever they could get outside school hours was enough to have her heart heaving and twisting.
Sahar reached up and covered Imogen’s hand with her own. She squeezed as she said, “Imogen.” The lightness had gone from her tone, and when Imogen managed to draw her gaze up, Sahar’s round face was open and serious. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not going to change anything. Okay?’’
Imogen let out a breath and said, “Okay.”
She’d been right, not to quite believe it.
~^~
Without Sahar, Imogen felt out of place. She entered each class that first day with an overwhelming feeling of trepidation. She understood that friends in one classroom may not be friends in the next, depending on the layout and one’s importance within a group.
The only saving grace was that most of Imogen’s new classmates seemed to like her. The effort she made to offer a bright, friendly smile to anyone who looked her way seemed to work in her favour. Pretty girls with equally flashy grins and ribbons in their hair seemed happy to situaute themselves next to her and introduce themselves. Imogen could get away easily enough with these minor interactions; her name was Imogen; she had gone to this primary school; yes, she knew that girl, and yes, her best friend had come here, but she wasn’t in the class; I love your hair too, that pencil case is so cool where did you get it, I hope this teacher isn’t that bad but I’ve heard she’s really strict, I already can’t wait to get home, at least everyone here’s so nice.
At lunch, there was Sahar, and for almost an hour, Imogen could let herself believe everything was fine.
“See?” Sahar grinned at her. “I told you. Plenty of people would be happy to be your friend, Im.”
By the time Imogen started to believe this, she had realised it wasn’t quite the truth. People seemed happy enough to associate with her in a casual sense, but after the first week her possible pool of friends had dwindled from half of her new class to about four or five girls who seemed willing to have more than one conversation with her. She at once became more grateful for the few who still sat with her and increasingly anxious for the day to pass, to bring her to lunch and to Sahar.
Sahar seemed to be in the same boat. A few of the girls in her class were nice enough, including two from their old school, and she was never left sitting alone. But she continued to eat lunch with Imogen, alone together. Imogen always felt something light up in her in response to the way Sahar still brightened at the sight of her, shifting out of her subdued state into a familiar smile. She remained, as she had promised, a constant to Imogen’s days.
It was after the first month, when Imogen’s pool of possible friends had dwindled from four-or-five to two-or-three, that she met Nicholas Nelson.
The way it happened was a happy accident. It felt a bit more like a heart attack, at first, when she bumped into him—already almost a head taller than her—and sent her phone clattering out of her hands and onto the sidewalk by their feet.
She made an automatic noise of distress and barely catalogued the boy beyond his strawberry-blond hair and round face and round, open mouth as she stooped to pick her phone up.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry! Is it broken? I’m really sorry, I wasn’t paying any attention to where I was going,” he said hastily.
Imogen examined the small crack at the corner of her screen-protector, unlocked the phone and made a few taps and swipes, and breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s fine. Thank God, my parents actually would have killed me.” She finally took a proper glance at the offender and paused for a moment.
He, on the other hand, had seemingly brightened out of his apologetic fluster and was leaning towards her, eyes still focused on her phone. “Is that your dog?”
Imogen blinked, then glanced down, eyes fixing on her screensaver. Her good boy gazed back at her, head tilted and tongue hanging. She smiled. “Yeah. Isn’t he cute?”
“He’s adorable,” the boy gushed, eyes shining and head tilting in a way that—well, that reminded her a bit of her dog. “It’s cool he’s your screensaver. Mine is the same. Well, I mean, of my dog, obviously.”
Imogen brightened. “You have one too? What’s their name?”
“Nellie,” the boy said, shooting her a grin. “She’s the best. And she really doesn’t like my brother but I’m her favourite, so she’s really smart too.”
Imogen laughed. She couldn’t help it; it bubbled out on her breath, taken from her chest before she had time to think about it. The frustrated fury that had built in her at their initial bump had dissipated as quickly as it had appeared. She simply couldn’t convince herself this boy and his sunny smile warranted it.
His smile widened at her laughter, one corner ticking up just enough to show a hint of teeth.
“I’m Imogen,” she found herself saying.
“Oh,” he said, then laughed slightly to himself. “I’m Nick. Do you want to see some photos of Nellie?”
Imogen pulled a face at him. “Obviously.”
That was how Imogen begun to figure things out. Through Nick, she met more boys—Harry and Christian and Otis and a dozen others—and then she met more girls.
“You’ve become right popular,” Sahar said, half-teasing and half-questioning, sprawled out at the end of Imogen’s bed with their homework spread out between them.
Imogen felt her cheeks grow hot. “As if. It’s only a few people I really know properly. It’s you who needs to hang out with us more.”
Sahar smiled, but looked up at the ceiling. “They don’t really seem like my type of crowd, to be honest.”
Imogen leaned back against her pillows, tucking one leg further under the other. “I’m not your crowd?” she returned, half-teasing and half-questioning.
Sahar reached up to grab onto Imogen’s foot and shake it, rolling her eyes. “If I had a choice, you’d be the only one I’d hang out with.”
“Same,” Imogen said, instant and automatic and true. Then, because she’d been thinking about it, because it had become more and more evident, “You’ve made new friends, too.”
“Yeah, a few. You could hang out with them, too, you know.”
Imogen recognised it for the slight accusation it was, but couldn’t bring herself to any offence or defence. She could, and she had, or at least she’d tried, a few times before. The thing was that she’d tried likely too hard and still it hadn’t been enough to feel like she fit. Sahar’s new friends were too cool; they had deep interests and personal opinions and held an ease in themselves that Imogen had never quite felt. Their talk was more than casual, surface conversations, and Imogen—not from lack of interest or intent—felt easily lost and left behind when she tried to insert herself in them.
She didn’t know how to tell Sahar this, so she hadn’t tried that at all. She didn’t know, either, how to hide or express her worry that Sahar would figure it out on her own, and would leave Imogen behind too.
She let the conversation drop, and Sahar didn’t push.
Sahar spent time with her new friends and Imogen spent time playing popular, digging herself a place in with the louder crowd, who were happy to talk about school and family and pets and other girls and boys and little else. She found people she genuinely seemed to get on with, that she could speak to every day, but few of them were as bright and kind towards her as Nick and few of them she thought about or interacted with outside of school.
Outside of school, she had Sahar, and Sahar still seemed happy to have her.
~^~
By the summer, Imogen was high on the thought of things going back to normal, which was of course when she realised how much things had changed.
Her eagerness to spend as much of their free time with Sahar as she could was palpable even before classes let out, and she was sure she didn’t hide it well. It was either that Sahar was too used to her that she didn’t notice, or that she had found it so painfully obvious that she felt the need to let Imogen down, gently but quickly. She began, even before classes let out, to tell Imogen of the various things she had planned with her new friends to do over the summer.
This meant that by the summer, Imogen was still in as much competition for Sahar’s time, without the distraction of school to hide the emptiness of her own. Her new friends, as she had assumed upon meeting them, were not the kind that wished to make plans with her outside of school. She kept up with them through social media and the very occasional text.
Beyond that, she found herself spending the majority of her days on her own.
Sahar, to her credit, did her best to prevent this. She mentioned frequently that Imogen should come with her when she was going to meet her friends, trying for the first few weeks to almost physically drag Imogen there, to Imogen’s consistent refusal. Imogen did her best to do so in the politest way possible; she neither wanted to make Sahar think that she didn’t want to spend time together, or that she thought poorly of Sahar’s new friends. She begged off mostly through excuses of other commitments she never actually had, and after the first month, Sahar had mostly stopped asking.
The truth of the matter was that Imogen imagined seeing Sahar enjoy being with her new friends more than she enjoyed being with Imogen would hurt more than not seeing her at all.
This was, perhaps, an irrational fear, but while the outcome might not have been real, the fear was.
There were still the hours here and there that she and Sahar got to themselves, and the longer Imogen had them, the longer she wanted them to last. A lunch in the town before Sahar met up with her friends was better left to the confined thing it was, but a day spent in one or the other’s room could be cajoled into a sleepover and stretched into a live-in weekend.
Imogen coveted the hours she didn’t spend with Sahar and hoarded the ones she could. She hadn’t realised how important their relationship was to her before then. Having a ‘best friend’ was just something everyone said, the easiest way to describe whoever you spent the most of your time with, rather than an essential part of living in itself. Imogen didn’t know how rare it was to feel that close to someone until that closeness began to stretch and fade.
If she had, she might have held tighter to it before it slipped from her grasp completely.
~^~
Getting a boyfriend wasn’t something Imogen did intentionally.
Going back to school excited her because of the prospect of things returning to some semblance of routine. The thought of seeing Sahar daily—well, at least on weekdays—again filled Imogen with relief. It was a promise so sweet she felt giddy with it.
But before she saw Sahar, she would see Nick. Sahar had confirmed through text she would see Imogen at lunch as per their usual (her real words had been obviously). But before Imogen even entered the school grounds, she would see Nick and their ‘friends’ outside the gate, as per their usual. Katelyn and Livia—the only other girls, who were always vying for the likes of Harry and Ben’s attention and who sat beside Imogen in class but had not made any effort to see her over the summer—greeted her enthusiastically, and she felt herself shying away from them in favour of gravitating towards Nick.
Nick’s warm greeting was much easier to stomach. She had always found him to be sunshine personified when they spoke, and he had been the one to keep in contact most over the break, even though it was primarily through photos of Nellie. Seeing each other again, though, made it easy to fall into their old banter as they caught up about their respective summers. (Imogen, of course, did not have much to tell. She disguised this fact by focusing most of the attention on Nick and acting playfully secretive when she was asked anything directly.)
They were interrupted as usual by Harry calling, “Oi, Nick!”
Nick rolled his eyes—within Imogen’s sight only—then waved to Harry and the other boys following behind him. Imogen recognised one and couldn’t place the other two; they were all roughly the same stature with overly similar haircuts, and therefore hard to distinguish. Nick was a little glimmer of sunshine and stood out more, and Harry made himself impossible to miss, but the rest of the boys were just boys.
“Alright mate?” Harry thumped Nick on the shoulder and turned his grin on Imogen. “Imogen.”
Imogen smiled slightly. “Hi, Harry.” She lingered as Harry roped Nick into conversation and the other boys hovered behind. She started to feel her presence had been forgotten, but it always looked good, standing with the likes of Harry and Nick. For the moment, it seemed better than returning to the other girls and pretending they hadn’t spent the summer ignoring her.
When one of the other boys spoke, Imogen didn’t immediately realise it was directed at her. “You just starting at Higgs?”
He was taller than Harry but shorter than Nick, with hair a few shades darker than both but cut with the same swoop. He was skinny; not of the same slim, sporty build as his friends, but like he’d recently been stretched upwards and been thinned out, his limbs lanky.
Imogen had spent enough time with Katelyn and Livia to understand, when he smiled at her, that he was likely what they considered ‘cute but awkward’. Behind that understanding was the one that being singled out by such a boy would earn notice.
“Me?” she squeaked. Then, regaining control of herself, “No, I’m in Year 8. Same as Nick and Harry.”
“Same as me, too, then,” the boy said, still smiling, at least. “I just thought there was no way because I haven’t seen you around before.”
Imogen pushed her hair behind her ears. “You probably just missed me. Were you friends with Harry last year?”
The boy shrugged, eyes flicking past Imogen to where Harry was still animatedly talking to Nick. “Sort of. Think we only hung out a few times.” His eyes skimmed her. “You mustn’t have been there. I’m sure I’d remember you.”
Imogen felt her cheeks flush. Red flashed in her periphery, and she turned slightly to see Katelyn and Livia with a few other girls. They were giggling amongst themselves; they didn’t seem to remember or care that Imogen was still here.
She straightened her shoulders and gave the boy an impish smile. “I’m Imogen.”
He grinned back at her. “I’m Josh.”
~^~
By the time Year 9 was ending, Imogen was seeing Sahar less and less and Josh was seeking her out more and more.
Somewhere in the middle of Year 8, Imogen had cemented her friendships with Katelyn and Livia through the link of Gabrielle, who actually seemed to like Imogen as more than a partner-in-class. Meanwhile, Sahar’s friend group became a group, with whom she met up frequently both inside and outside of school, over the academic period and the holidays. She maintained contact with Imogen all the while, but their once daily lunch meetings became once or twice a week meetings.
Imogen’s chest hurt if she thought about it too long, but otherwise she was coping much better than the previous year.
Her friends were chatty enough to provide a good distraction, most of the time, and it helped that they’d started taking a more active interest in Imogen herself.
Even if the reason made her feel a bit weird.
“Did you see Josh this morning?” Katelyn asked, smile sly as she nudged Livia.
Imogen slipped down a little in her chair at the lunch table, shaking her head. “No, why?”
“No reason.” Katelyn shrugged, then shared a very pointed look with Livia, which meant there was a very obvious reason and that was not allowed to be the end of it.
Livia rolled her eyes. “Oh my god, you’re worse than she is.” She turned to look at Imogen. “Do you really not know or are you just pretending?”
“Leave her alone,” Gabrielle butt in, leaning forward next to Imogen. She bumped Imogen’s elbow with her own. “Ignore them. All they care about is boys, even though they don’t talk to any.”
Katelyn and Livia started defending themselves, and Imogen sat back, hoping that meant the conversation was moving on. She didn’t mind being the focus, exactly, but she would have liked it to be about her.
Was she really so uninteresting, that they only wanted to know if she spoke to a random boy?
“Oh, but come on,” Katelyn said, turning to Imogen again. “He definitely likes you!”
Imogen blushed.
“She does know.” Livia smirked.
“Oh my god,” Katelyn said, leaning eagerly forward. “Do you like him?”
“We haven’t even spoken that much,” Imogen said. “He’s just being friendly.”
Livia ate a chip. “He isn’t that friendly to us.”
Imogen wanted to say that was because they weren’t usually that friendly, but she didn’t. It’s not that Katelyn and Livia weren’t nice, because they were, or that they didn’t have any guy friends, because they did. That was how Imogen had gotten close to them to begin with, after all. It was just that, like Gabrielle said, they spent more time talking about boys than to them, nowadays.
“He’s definitely going to ask you to go out,” Katelyn said. “You could be the first one of us to have a boyfriend! Have you kissed a boy yet?”
Imogen blushed again, but simply shook her head.
“I bet you will soon,” Katelyn sang.
Gabrielle sighed. “You’re impossible.”
“I’m being encouraging! It’s, like, a compliment. It’s so exciting.”
They bickered some more and Imogen tuned them out, glad when they moved onto the next hot topic. She took the chance to look around the cafeteria, but Sahar must have been eating elsewhere today.
~^~
It was Year 10 before Josh asked her out.
“He danced around enough,” was Sahar’s response when Imogen told her.
Imogen frowned. “What do you mean?”
Sahar lifted her head from where it hung off the edge of Imogen’s bed and looked at her. “Well, you've been flirting for ages.”
“What?” Imogen’s cheeks were hot. “No, I haven't. I've never flirted with Josh.”
There were times she'd thought, maybe, that Josh had been flirting with her, and Katelyn and Livia had made enough comments about it, but Imogen had never thought to take it seriously. She only ever saw Josh outside the school gates, only ever spoke to him when her friends or his or both were no more than a few feet away. And, sure, he might have paid more attention to her than the other girls, but that was because they got along well, and they made each other laugh, and—
It looked good. Besides that, it was easy. Josh didn't seem to care what they talked about, but Imogen felt that just made him easier to talk to. She knew they tended to single each other out, but that was because it had become expected of them. If she played a little more giggly, and if she didn't stop herself from touching him casually, it didn't mean anything. Did it?
Had she been flirting, without even realising?
She'd wanted to play into their friendship. She didn't think she'd been doing more then that.
Sahar propped herself up on her elbows and gave her a look. “If you weren't, I don't think he knows that. Or anyone else in our year, for that matter.”
That seemed a little dramatic. Katelyn and Livia talked about it a lot, but that was because they were Imogen’s friends. They were the only ones who noticed or cared, at least enough to talk about it. Right?
“What? Who in our year cares about that?”
Another look. “Uh, everyone. Having a boyfriend is like, the only thing anyone cares about.”
Sahar said that as if Imogen should already know, and of course she did. She was friends with Katelyn and Livia. “Josh isn't my boyfriend.”
“Well, not yet.”
Imogen didn't know why this was bothering her so much. It must have been because she had expected Sahar to understand. Sahar knew her better than anyone. Imogen was supposed to tell her about Josh asking her out and how weird it was, and Sahar was supposed to say it was weird, and they would laugh about it together and Sahar would tease her while also telling her what to do. Instead, Sahar was acting like the whole thing had already happened, and it was of no difference to her.
Sahar seemed to notice her frustration, finally sitting up and softening as she watched Imogen closely. “What's wrong, Im? Don't you like him?”
“I don't know.” Imogen looked away. “We're friends.” They were barely even that, really. Maybe they talked a lot and got on well outside the school gates, but that was the only time they ever talked or even saw each other in passing. Josh wasn't like Nick, who sent Imogen silly photos of Nellie, or Gabrielle, who sought Imogen out even between classes, or even Katetlyn and Livia, who shared most of Imogen’s classes and a group chat with her.
He wasn't like Sahar, who was supposed to know Imogen better than anyone. Who she thought had known her better than anyone, until now.
“If you don't want to go out with him, you should probably make that clear,” Sahar said. “I don't really like him, but that doesn't mean you should string him along.”
Okay, now Imogen was a little annoyed. “I'm not stringing him along. I've just been being friendly. You could benefit from that now and again.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to take them back. She hadn't meant for it to sound like that, but Sahar’s face dropped. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” Imogen said. “I didn't mean it like that.”
“Like what?”
Anger had gotten hold of Sahar now, too, and in the face of it, Imogen deflated. She went over to sit on the bed in front of Sahar. “Please don't be angry. I'm sorry. I don't want to fight with you.”
Sahar considered her for a moment, then sighed. “I didn't mean to make it sound like you were in the wrong. I don't think you'd ever mess anyone around on purpose.”
Imogen cast her eyes down, twisting her hands together. “Thanks.”
When the silence started to grow too heavy, Sahar suggested they watch a movie. Imogen bounced on the suggestion, relieved. It felt natural, to curl up next to Sahar on her bed and laugh at the TV, the two of them making jokes back and forth, mocking the characters and cringing at the overdramatics. For a while, Imogen could almost believe things were normal, and her friendship with Sahar had never changed.
During a lull in the action, Sahar turned to her. “For the record, I'm happy for you. Maybe you weren't expecting it, but you said yes, so I'm guessing you like him a little.” She nudged Imogen. “You better tell me first when you become boyfriend and girlfriend.”
Imogen’s cheeks flushed, and she batted at Sahar with a forced laugh. She was grateful, but still neither of their smiles reached their eyes.
~^~
Sahar really didn't like Josh.
This became obvious to Imogen later than it probably should have. She should have picked up on the expressions Sahar wore when Imogen brought him up, or the slightly sarcastic tone her messages would take when Josh’s name made it into their texts. It shouldn't have taken an awkward, in-person encounter, but it had, and now Imogen was drowning in that awkwardness.
“Why did you do that?” she asked Sahar, afterwards, far enough outside the school gates that no one was likely to overhear or interrupt. Not that many others would be vying for Imogen’s attention, anyway.
Sahar wasn't looking at her. “Do what?”
“You were really rude to Josh.” Imogen crossed her arms, feeling dramatic and silly and pissed off that Sahar, of all people, was making her feel that way.
It was an aborted gesture, but Imogen caught the half-roll of Sahar’s eyes. “I didn't even say anything to him.”
Imogen’s temper flared. “That's exactly my point. You completely blanked him, and any time he said something, you were huffing and rolling your eyes and just—you were being so rude.”
Sahar stopped and turned to face her. “Really?” There was something dangerous and warning in her gaze, in her voice, that Imogen had never had directed at her before, and it was making her feel off-kilter.
“Yes, really.” Imogen crossed her arms, suddenly self-protective as well as defensive. “What's wrong with you?”
“What's wrong with me?” Sahar actually laughed. “Are you for real?”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“Your boyfriend's a prick, for one thing.”
Imogen’s mouth gaped open and closed. In all the distance and tentativity that had grown within their friendship, this was the most unsure Imogen had ever felt with Sahar. Instead of jumping to Josh’s defence, she found herself saying, “You're the one who told me to go out with him properly.”
“Uh, when did I do that?”
“When I told you he asked me on a date, you basically warned me not to take advantage of him.”
“Yeah, as in you should've dumped him then if you didn't like him.”
“It's you that doesn't like him.”
“Yeah, because he's a prick.”
Imogen threw her hands up in frustration. “You hardly even know him.”
Sahar’s gaze flicked away and she crossed her arms. “I know enough.”
“Like what?”
“Oh come on, Imogen.” Sahar met her gaze again. “You have to know what they're like.”
“‘They’?”
“All those Truham boys you hang out with? Harry Greene and all his mates?” Sahar added, quieter, “Not that the girls are any better.”
Imogen crossed her arms again, wrapping them tightly around her middle. “So now you have a problem with all my friends?”
Sahar softened, seemingly all of a sudden, lowering her gaze tiredly as she sighed. “Look, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to be rude to Josh, I genuinely didn't think he'd notice.”
Imogen was pretty sure he hadn't, but that wasn't the point. “Okay,” she said, still not sure that it was.
“It's not my place to tell you who to hang out with,” Sahar said. “So long as we're good, it doesn't matter to me. Yeah?”
Sahar gave her a tentative smile, the light in her eyes warm and familiar, and despite her mind whirring, Imogen’s heart settled. “Yeah.”
~^~
They weren't good.
Imogen didn't know what it was. She couldn't figure out what had happened—if she'd done something, if it was about Josh, if it had simply been coming all this time.
But slowly, their contact dwindled. Their meetings stopped, one of them always unable to make it or neither of them able to agree on a plan to begin with. Messages grew sparse. Smiles in the hallway became tight and fleeting, when they did manage to catch a glimpse of each other.
The tether between them stretched until it was only a thread, and it unravelled something in Imogen as it went, pulling open a hole in her chest that grew and grew until everything else fell in and disappeared.
Then the thread dissolved completely.
It wasn't a singular event. Imogen didn't think she'd even noticed when it happened. The realisation just suddenly came that it had been three weeks, and she and Sahar had not shared one word. In person or over the phone. Just like that, they were no longer talking. Just like that, they were no longer friends.
It was not impossible to feel happy, but it seemed impossible for that happiness to last. In the end, the feeling of not-quite-right would creep back in. Everything had become the opposite of rose-tinted.
Maybe it was the fact that there was nothing dramatic about it. They didn't fall out. There wasn't a moment or a reason or anything that Imogen could pin down, nothing concrete to point at and say that is where I lost her.
The process of losing hadn't even been visible, but it had happened all the same. It had to be described as loss—Imogen couldn't explain this feeling in any way other than grief.
It was clear her friends didn't understand it, and didn't care to. They could tell, but they chose to leave her to her silence rather than trying to pull her out of it. Josh had taken to calling her moody, and by now had made three complaints that she was ‘no fun’ when she had denied or cancelled their plans.
He took ammunition from it, and it was easy to weasel his way into coming over—in the early afternoon with her bedroom door kept open, of course.
She couldn't deny that he was cute. He'd gotten his hair cut shorter and kept it more natural now, faded out around the bottom but slightly curly on top. His jaw was sharp but his cheeks round, always curving above his smile. Besides that, he was easygoing. He wasn't overly interested in anything, so Imogen was never forced to feign interest in return. But he was also easily pleased, and seemed to enjoy whatever Imogen set upon him. The film playing on Imogen’s laptop wasn't one either of them had seen before, but it had been chosen without any argument.
It wasn't strange, Imogen thought, having a ‘boyfriend’ in her room. It was strange having anyone in her room who wasn't family or Sahar.
Maybe she should have been excited, but she just felt uncomfortable. Not enough for it to really bother her, but enough that she noticed it, in a way she never had with Sahar. She didn't know what to do with herself, and she couldn't tell what Josh was thinking, and while neither of these things were new feelings, their combination had never bothered her this much before. Josh had done a little chuckle when he came in, and she hadn't been able to stop thinking about it. Was he laughing at her, or did he just think she was cute, too? Her fluffy pillows and pink walls had never bothered Sahar, but why would they? Sahar had never made Imogen feel like a bother about anything. Imogen could just be with her, without worrying.
At least, that was what she'd thought. But Sahar was gone, now, and it was too much of a stretch to imagine she had reasons for leaving Imogen behind.
Imogen didn't know how to be with Josh. She was starting to think she didn't know how to be with anyone.
“Earth to Imogen.”
She blinked, looking over at Josh. “What?”
He huffed. “You proper zoned out.”
“I'm just watching the film.”
“Oh yeah? Who's he?” Josh pointed at a man on the screen that Imogen was sure hadn't been in any other part of this film.
“He only just turned up.”
“He’s been on screen for the past like ten minutes.”
Imogen felt her cheeks growing hot. “Alright, fine. Would you rather do something else?”
“It's not me. I was actually enjoying the movie.” Then he raised his eyebrows. With a slow-growing smile, Josh dipped his face towards hers. “But, if there's something you'd prefer…”
It hadn't been what she was suggesting, but she let him kiss her. She wasn't sure if he was ‘good at it’—she had nothing to compare him against, after all—but she supposed she enjoyed it okay. She spent most of the time wondering if she was good at it. If she was doing it right, or if Josh was enjoying it. But he seemed to like it, if the frequency with which he kissed her was anything to go by, so Imogen took that as a good sign.
His hand on her leg surprised her. She jerked, just slightly, but she was sure he noticed. It would have been impossible not to. Still, his hand stayed resting against her thigh, and he kept kissing her. Imogen kept kissing back, and otherwise made no movements.
Josh’s stomach growled, and Imogen laughed against his mouth, the sound bubbling out of her in mild relief. “Do you want some lunch? I could make us sandwiches.”
“Sure.” Josh smiled in a way that made him look sweet. Relief surged through Imogen again, and she swooped in for one more short kiss, then slipped off the bed.
When she came back with sandwiches in hand, Josh was up, looking at the pictures on the wall across from her bed. He looked over at her as she came in.
“Thanks,” he said as she set the plate of sandwiches on her bedside locker. “I haven't seen her around as much in a while.” He pointed at a photo. “You still mates?”
Imogen didn't have to look closer to know who he was talking about. There was only one girl in those photos besides herself and her mother. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and looked at the floor. “Not really. I haven't heard from her lately.”
She waited for Josh to question her, to ask what had happened or if she was alright. Instead, he nodded. “She definitely had something against me.”
Imogen didn't know how to respond to that. On one hand, it was true. Sahar had clearly disliked him. On the other hand, what did it have to do with him to begin with? Sahar was her friend, and her feelings should have been what mattered. She said nothing.
Josh looked around at her and caught something in her expression. “Hey, don't sweat. You were way out of her league.” He came closer, touching a gentle hand to her arm. “You're better off with your other mates.”
Imogen retreated from his touch. “She was my best friend.”
“For real?” Josh raised his brows again, then frowned, shaking his head. “Come on, then, you've definitely dodged a bullet.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
Imogen didn't know where the anger was coming from. She couldn't understand her defensiveness. Sahar had stopped talking to her. She might have been Imogen’s best friend once, but that clearly didn't matter now. Imogen should have let it go, should have agreed at the beginning.
But Sahar was one of the best people in the whole world. That hadn't changed, even if Imogen wasn't in her world anymore.
Josh shrugged, shifting on his feet. “Well, you and your other mates, you're actually fit. And like, she was kind of a bitch when we spoke.”
Imogen felt frozen. She stared at him. In all her time with Josh, she'd never heard him speak like that. He'd only ever been respectful to her, and she wasn't expecting it. Again, she found herself lost for a response.
Then it came clearly to her. “I think you should leave,” she said.
He blinked at her. “What?”
“I think you should go.”
“Imogen.” He looked at her like she was the one who'd lost her mind, then laughed, almost nervously. “Come on, you—”
“I'm breaking up with you,” Imogen said, as calmly as she could but loud enough to cut him off, loud enough that she wouldn't have to repeat it. “And I want you to leave. Now.”
Josh’s smile dropped. “You can't be serious. What the hell?”
“What?” Imogen could sense her voice getting hotter, but she didn't try to stop it. “Am I being a bitch, now?”
There was something almost like relief in Josh’s face. “Right, maybe I shouldn't have said that. I was just—”
Imogen laughed now. “Oh, my god. I actually don't care.” She shook her head. Sahar had been right. Of course, she'd been right. “Leave. Please. Now.”
Josh’s expression was shifting into a glare, even as he snatched his jacket off the end of her bed. “Have you lost it?”
“Get out!” Imogen was almost shouting. “Leave!”
Later, she would panic about what he was saying, and what he might say next, to everyone else. She would worry about the fact that she'd done it, and that she wouldn't be the girl with a boyfriend anymore, and what that would mean. But she would remember what he'd said, and how he seemed unrecognisable to her, and she would be thinking about Sahar. And instead of apologising, she would block him, and text her ‘other mates’ to give them a story of her own before he had the chance.
Now, she was waiting, heart pounding, for him to go, and he was finally getting the message. With a scoffed “Whatever,” he shrugged his jacket on, shook his head again, and was gone.
~^~
It became clear to Imogen by the beginning of Year 11 that Nick was probably her realest friend.
She still hung out with Katelyn and Livia; to be fair to them, they had kept being her friend for longer than she'd ever expected. They'd supported her, even, after the Josh breakup. It was mainly similar class schedules and Gabrielle that kept them together, though.
Gabrielle was a good friend to her, but Gabrielle was good friends with everyone. She kept Imogen included, but Imogen was always quietly aware that Gabrielle didn't need her. It was, at the end of the day, another friendship of convenience.
Being so close to the boys helped.
She'd managed to get in good with Harry, and that seemed to be enough for a large portion of them. She understood that Harry was a bit of a knob, but he had always been kind to her—when they did rib each other, it was always good-naturedly. When she realised he and Ben were friends, it made things even easier. Ben had been her friend in primary school in the way that everyone was friends in primary school, but that meant she could chat to him easily, and that further cemented her place with them.
But it was Nick she liked, Nick that made her want to spend time around them. Anytime she was with Nick, it was easy. They could talk about school and their dogs and random things like what TV shows they were watching. It was never awkward, never forced, like it was with most of the others. Anytime she was with Nick, he had a smile full of sunshine for her, and she could not help but feel brighter in the face of it.
She wasn't surprised the girls noticed and made it into a ‘thing’. She just wasn't expecting Gabrielle to be the one to mention it.
“You and Nick seem like, really close,” she said, one morning on their way to the lockers after hanging out with the boys at the gate.
Imogen shrugged, but she could feel herself blushing. It was a nice thought, that was all—being close to someone. Especially someone as lovely as Nick. “We've been friends since Year 7.”
Gabrielle eyed her. “And you're okay with that?”
“Uhm, why wouldn't I be?”
“I mean, you wouldn't like to be more than friends?”
The way she said it—so suggestive, as if they were still twelve and in the habit of teasing each other about crushes—seemed so unlike Gabrielle that for a moment Imogen didn't know how to respond. Before now, Gabrielle had never seemed to care when Katelyn and Livia would gossip about boys, despite having had a boyfriend of her own for a while a few months ago. She'd been supportive through Imogen’s relationship and breakup with Josh, but she'd never outwardly asked anything like this.
“Well,” she said, hesitantly.
They'd reached Gabrielle’s locker, but she didn't open it. “Oh my god, you so like him.” Gabrielle grinned.
Imogen swatted her arm. “Since when do you care? You never join in when we talk about boys.”
“Yes, I do.” At Imogen’s look, Gabrielle acquiesced, “Sometimes. It's not my fault the boys you're all interested in are idiots.”
“Oh.” Imogen laughed. This was why she felt more comfortable around Gabrielle than the others. It wasn't that Gabrielle liked her more—it was that Gabrielle was only ever herself. “Tell us how you really feel.”
As she was finally stuffing her books in her bag, Gabrielle nodded sagely. “That's exactly what I'm doing.” She shut her locker and turned to face Imogen, a little hesitant. “Really, though. Nick’s so sweet. I think you guys would be cute together.”
Imogen felt heat creep into her cheeks.
It was something that had entered her mind, once or twice. Nick was sweet, after all, and undoubtedly handsome (which was at least two levels better than cute). And especially to her. Yes, Nick was friendly with pretty much everyone, but he was Imogen’s friend. He spent most of his attention on the other ‘lads’, but that was a given when they were his classmates and teammates, and while he was nice to the girls in their year, he didn't treat all of them how he treated Imogen. She knew, at the least, that she actually meant something to Nick. He took time for her, he made a point of including her, he noticed and understood things about her, and so he must have cared for her.
Imogen had only felt the kind of light and peace Nick offered her once before. She knew it was special.
She also knew how easy it was to lose.
“He's my friend,” she said again, making sure to sound a little admonishing, but not withholding her disappointment entirely.
Gabrielle sighed dramatically and linked arms with Imogen as they turned to head towards Imogen’s locker. “Yes, and? He could be your boy-friend.”
Or he could ditch her completely.
Imogen didn't really think Nick would do that, but she didn't want to test it. At least not now. Some days, it felt like seeing Nick was the only reason she managed to get out of bed at all, never mind drag herself to school.
She could not imagine explaining this to Gabrielle, though—much less Katelyn and Livia. It would be easier to blush and giggle and whisper about something like a crush.
She gave a small laugh and elbowed Gabrielle’s side. “You're impossible.”
“Excuse me, I'm actually the only one with any sense,” Gabrielle scoffed good-naturedly. She nudged her elbow into Imogen’s side. “You're completely avoiding the subject. Come on, I promise I won't tell the girls. Don't you like him just a little? A teeny weeny bit?”
Imogen laughed more, and in turning her head to look at Gabrielle, bumped into someone on her other side. She gasped as books tumbled to the floor between them. “Oh my god, I'm so sorry,” fell from her lips before she even knew who it was as she crouched to pick the books up.
Tan hands joined hers in collecting the fallen pile. “It's fine.”
Imogen’s head shot up. “Sahar.”
Sahar met her gaze with a small, tight smile.
Imogen didn't know what she was expecting. She'd still seen Sahar around. She knew she hadn't changed. But they had changed, and Imogen found it hard to believe that a piece of their chemistry could be so drastically rearranged while each of them remained the same.
Maybe that wasn't true, though. She knew she didn't look any different, either, but she felt like a whole other person.
“Hi,” Sahar said.
Imogen handed her her books. “Hi.”
For a moment, they were caught in a stare-off. Imogen would never feel comfortable gazing silently at anyone like this, but Sahar had never been ‘anyone’. Imogen knew every fleck of colour in her eyes already. Looking at Sahar wasn't uncomfortable; it was as natural as breathing.
Just as Imogen opened her mouth to speak, Sahar beat her to it. “Do you mind? I've got to speak to Mr Kent before class.”
Imogen realised that between herself and Gabrielle, they'd accidently hedged Sahar in. “Oh,” Imogen said blankly. “Of course.”
She took a step back, and Sahar gave her another one of those tight smiles as she slipped past, and then she was walking away.
“Didn't you used to hang out with her?” Gabrielle asked.
Imogen was still watching Sahar disappear around the corner at the end of the hall. She turned back to Gabrielle with a tight smile of her own. “Yeah, sometimes. What were you saying about Nick?”
Gabrielle’s eyes lit up. “You do like him.”
She tucked her arm around Imogen’s again as they started down the hall. Imogen looked over her shoulder once, but she knew Sahar was long gone.