I turned away from him on the bed and squeezed my eyes shut.
‘Maybe. Might just sleep.’
‘Well, suit yourself. I’ll take the girls exploring.’
I sighed with relief when they left. Silence except for the sound of Mum pottering around the kitchen. But I finally had some privacy, and now I could FaceTime Theo.
He picked up after the fifth ring, in his bedroom, trusty baseball cap pulled down over his forehead.
‘Hey, you,’ I said, smiling. ‘Well, I’m here. They actually did it. Kidnapped me.’ I rolled my eyes and then stared into his, trying to work out if he was stoned or not, but I couldn’t get a good look. He was staring at something else.
‘Hey, babe,’ he said, his voice even slower and more detached than usual. Definitely stoned.
‘How was Tina’s?’ I asked.
‘You know, same old … Ari’s fucking mental.’ He smiled like he was remembering something.
‘What did she do?’ I asked, desperate for anything to take my mind off this stupid holiday.
‘Jumped off that pipe into the sea. At midnight. Fucking naked.’ He grinned again and my stomach contracted so hard I thought I might throw up.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yeah, man, we all did. But she started it. How’s Spain?’
‘France.’
‘Oh yeah, France. Hey, babe, I better go, I’m still wrecked from last night, you know?’
‘Sure,’ I said, trying to keep the disappointment from showing.
‘Bye, Margot.’
‘Bye. The–’
But he was gone.
I felt sick. Ari was skinny-dipping with my boyfriend? What the hell?
ME: Ari wtf? Theo said you were all skinny dipping last night?
ARI: Chill, it was a bit of fun. Nothing happened. Possessive much?
ME: He’s my boyfriend Ari
ARI: So talk to him about that. People can’t be stolen Marge. Not unless they want to be
I could hardly breathe. How could this happen? Why the hell did I leave?
‘Margot, why don’t you help me clean? I’d like to give it a quick once-over before they get back,’ Mum called.
‘Nope.’ I sprang out of bed, wiped my face, opened my suitcase and took out the first thing I saw. An AC/DC T-shirt long enough to wear as a dress. I got changed and looked in the mirror. I pulled my hair out of its ponytail, and it wasn’t straight any more, but wavy in the heat. I tied it up again. I hated Mum right then.Hatedher. If they hadn’t made me leave, I’d have been at Tina’s last night too.
‘I’m away for a walk,’ I said, sniffing away tears and keeping my head down.
‘You sure you wouldn’t rather stay with me?’ Mum didn’t even look up from her scrubbing.
‘Yeah,’ I said and walked outside. I put on my sunglasses. I’d been saving up for the Ray-Ban ones when Mum and Dad stopped my pocket money a while ago after I kept missing curfew, so I had to make do with ones from Primark.
