Free I Could Love You by William Nicholson

complain when iPods have their volume turned up too high. How about children with their volume turned up too high?
    Outside the train window darkness has fallen, and it’s not yet half past four. Short days, long nights. Chloe hates winter. She sees herself reflected in the carriage window, and unthinkingly adjusts her lips to a slight pout, a moue her mother calls it, and passes a hand through her blonde hair. She’s wearing her hair partly pinned at the back to make it fluff out on top, the bed-head look. She’s an extremely pretty girl, in a style that’s no longer fashionable, pink cheeks and blue eyes, petite and curvy, reassuringly feminine. Not looking her best right now, she needs at least forty-eight hours sleep, the end of term has been murder. To her expert eye her skin lacks lustre, her hair is drooping. Also she’s just started her period. She wants to be home where she can shut herself in her room and have no one bother her.
    The fat mother cracks. She pulls out a bag of Celebrations and lays it on the table between the fat children. The children stop whining and fall to an absorbed concentration of the choice before them. Mini-Mars Bars, mini-Snickers, mini-Bounties, mini-Milky Ways. Then they begin to eat. Steadily, crackling the wrappers, they suck and chew their way through Celebration after Celebration. The fat mother produces a bag of smoky bacon crinkle-cut crisps for herself. Chloe is no stranger to junk food herself, but this is a horror show. This mother is murdering her children.
    Her phone pings. A text from Hal.
    Sorry sorry sorry
    Now he’s sorry. What happened to ‘You fucking slut I hope you die’? It’s not as if she didn’t tell him. It’s not as if she didn’t feel bad. He’s the one chose to turn it into the biggest betrayal in history. Everyone cheats from time to time, boys most of all. What matters is what you do afterwards. So she had a fling with Robbie, these things happen, it didn’t mean anything, and she told Hal right away. He was cool about it, she cried as she was telling him, he held her in his arms, he said, ‘Hey, no big deal.’ And then that same evening, that very same evening, he goes crazy. Talk about Jekyll and Hyde. You fucking slut, you make me sick, I hope you die, and all the rest.
    Robbie is a bit of a twat to be honest, one tab of E and he thinks he can fuck for England. ‘You want more? You want more?’ No more, thank you, Robbie. If I start moaning now will you get the fuck on with it and come so I can get some sleep? Oh-Oh-Oh! No one’s made me come like that before! You’re the one! Whoop-de-doo.
    Now Robbie’s following me round like a sodding puppy. What is it with boys? You go for them because they’re mean and dangerous and next thing they’re all over you like a wet duvet. The fun all happens at the beginning, when they’re not sure if they want you, and you say to yourself, I’m going to make that boy crazy about me. But then it happens and you’re screwed. Like every way. Who wants a boyfriend for life when you’re nineteen? Can’t I just have one for Christmas? That way I can throw him away on Boxing Day when I’m bored with him.
    Chloe giggles to herself. I’m such a cow. But why not? Why does everyone get so stressy like I’ve married them or something? It wasn’t my idea to break up with Hal. I didn’t have to tell him about Robbie. It’s not like I did it to hurt him. What difference does it make anyway? Seriously. I’m not Hal’s wife. He doesn’t own me. It’s not like Robbie’s stolen something from him. It’s only sex, for fuck’s sake.
    So he dumped me and now he’s sorry and what am I supposed to do?
    She texts back: Me too. Call later .
    Hal’s sweet really. She remembers how crazy she was about him in the first week of term, with his long curly hair and his bobble hat and his acoustic guitar. Back then she felt almost shy with him because she had rich parents and had been to private school and he was