Free Follow Me Back by Nicci Cloke

drink our drinks in silence for a while, rain pattering at the window.
    ‘I can’t stop thinking about her,’I say, softly.
    Her voice is barely more than a whisper. ‘I know.’
    ‘There must be something we can do,’ I say.
    ‘I just don’t know what.’ Marnie turns to her laptop and opens a new page. My heart lurches when I realise what it is: Hal and Lizzie’s conversation.
    ‘Where did you get this?’ I ask. ‘I thought the profile had gone?’
    ‘I saved a version of it,’ she sighs. ‘I had a feeling thatmight happen.’
    ‘That was smart,’ I say, but I’m already looking past her at the screen. I skim through it; all their smalltalk, all their flirting – I can’t bring myself to do more than glance at the words as they flash by.
    haha defo
    c u soon
    bye x
    sleep well x
    you ok?
    cant talk
    i want to hear your voice
    always makes me smile
    talking to you makes me happy
    It’s all thesame – stuff about their days, their plans for the evening, stuff about things they like and things they don’t.
    ‘They never arrange to meet,’ I say. ‘He always turns her down.’
    ‘On here,’ Marnie says, shrugging. ‘Maybe they arranged it somewhere else.’
    I scroll right down to the bottom, the first message. From him.
    Thanks for accepting my friend request!
    hope you don’t think I’m weird,adding a stranger
    just saw your Potter pic on a friend’s profile
    and I knew we’d get on, haha
    Using Harry Potter to get to her. Of course.
    haha, no problem
    you like HP too then?
    It’s as easy as that. The conversation starts there, and it goes on and on, with Lizzie revealing more and more about herself as the days go by. So trusting. So happyto chat, so interested in what he has to say.
    The more I read, the more ‘Hal Paterson’ starts to annoy me. He’s so over the top, it’s sickening. Desperate.
    you’re so pretty
    you’re so smart
    i love talking to you
    can’t wait
    want to kiss you
    ‘Why did she like this stuff?’ I ask, my face twisting. Marnie shakes her head.
    ‘I don’t know. He’s such a sleaze.’
    I grit my teeth. I haveto force myself to ask the next question. ‘You said there were others?’
    She nods. ‘I’m pretty sure. Maybe she deleted them.’
    ‘Why delete them and not this?’ I ask, pushing the laptop away. I don’t want to look at the things that were said any more. The things she said to
him
.
    ‘Maybe she
wanted
us to think it was him,’ I say. ‘Maybe it’s, I don’t know, like a diversion or something.’ TheLizzie I knew would never play games with people like that. But then maybe I never really knew her at all.
    Marnie shrugs half-heartedly, like her shoulders are the heaviest thing in the world to lift. ‘Maybe.’
    I think of the rumours rushing round school, the whispered words quoted from police officers’ mouths.
Conquests
.
Partners.
    ‘Marnie,’ I say, ‘is it true what people are saying? ThatLizzie…’ I don’t know how to finish.
    She looks up, eyes flashing. ‘That Lizzie what? Lizzie got with a few people, got a bit drunk? What difference does it make?’
    My stomach drops; a terrible, looping sensation. So it is true. ‘That doesn’t sound like her,’ I say softly.
    Marnie’s eyes drop to her lap. ‘People change.’ She starts picking at the edge of the tablecloth, and for a minute shedoesn’t say anything. I watch her and I think of her by the lockers, I think of Lizzie listening to her, laughing with her, that notebook under her arm.
    Just when I think she’s not going to carry on, she says, ‘It just started in the summer. She wanted to go out all the time. She’d tell me about hooking up with people she didn’t even like, blacking out drunk –’ She stops suddenly, her eyesfilled with tears, and claps her hand over her mouth just as the first sob escapes.
    ‘Hey –’ I reach out and put my hand on hers.
    ‘And I just keep thinking,’ she says, her voice cracking, ‘I should’ve done something, I