Free Casting Shadows by Sophie McKenzie

Mum or Stone and, anyway, I had the thought of
next weekend and Flynn’s return to keep me going.
    As soon as he arrived the following Friday evening, I took his hand.
    ‘Come up and see what I’ve done,’ I said.
    ‘Dinner in an hour,’ Gemma smiled, as we rushed through the kitchen.
    I’d worked hard on our room since he’d been gone and was proud of the result. The floor gleamed and the walls sparkled and all the little ornaments and photos I’d set out made
the place seem really cosy.
    Flynn wandered from the bed to the chest of drawers, lingering over the array of bottles and bowls that sat on its surface.
    ‘What do you think?’ I asked. ‘Does it feel like home?’
    He turned to me and nodded. ‘It’s brilliant, River.’ He held up a chain from one of the bowls. It was broken at the catch, but the tiny blue ‘R’ still dangled from
one end.
    ‘I’ve never seen you wearing this,’ he said.
    I stared at the necklace. ‘Grace gave it to me,’ I said. ‘The first birthday I had after starting at Langton and meeting her and Emmi. The catch broke ages ago. I forgot I had
it until I was going through my stuff from Mum’s.’
    I held up my wrist, from which the silver heart Flynn had given me dangled on its slim bracelet. ‘To be honest, I forgot I had any other jewellery apart from this.’
    Flynn smiled. ‘I’ll mend the necklace for you, if you like?’
    ‘Thanks.’ I looked around the room again. It felt so grown-up, so romantic to have a place of our own. ‘So you really like what I’ve done in here?’
    ‘It’s amazing, Riv,’ Flynn said, pocketing the broken chain. ‘Home.’
    Leo and his dad were at our evening meal that night. Flynn hadn’t really spoken to Leo last weekend but this time he took the trouble to chat, asking him if he was looking forward to
starting at Norton Napier in September, and whether or not he played football. Leo didn’t play. In fact, he seemed very subdued throughout the meal and answered Flynn mostly in
monosyllables.
    ‘Leo’s really weird, isn’t he?’ Flynn said later, when we were up in our room. ‘He didn’t seem to want to speak to me.’
    I sighed, remembering how quickly Leo had spilled all that stuff to me, about his mum dying and his dad freaking out.
    ‘Maybe you frightened him,’ I suggested with a smile.
    ‘Maybe he’s gay and finds me so devastatingly attractive that he doesn’t know
what
to say to me,’ Flynn said with a grin.
    I rolled my eyes at him but the truth was that this possibility had occurred to me too. It might explain why Leo had been so awkward around Flynn.
    I went back to London that week, to see Mum. Not that she and I really talked anymore. She’d already let Stone take my bedroom – it was unrecognisable, the walls
covered with posters of indie bands and girls in bikinis. I spent my second evening out with Emmi and Grace. Emmi was full of questions about life on the commune.
    ‘How do you cope, River?’ she asked, wide-eyed. ‘All that mud and the wild animals and the cold water.’
    I rolled my eyes. ‘There isn’t any mud in the middle of summer and, for your information, hens aren’t wild animals and the water is perfectly hot – at least it is in the
mornings and evenings.’
    Emmi was going to France for a month – she was clearly totally over Alex already and massively excited about all the gorgeous French boys she was hoping to meet.
    ‘But I’ll come and visit when I’m back, River,’ she grinned. ‘Check out the commune. Plus your Leo sounds sweet.’ She winked at Grace, who blushed.
    ‘He’s not “my Leo”.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘And I’m not letting you anywhere near him.’
    The thought of predatory Emmi trying to get her claws into poor, anxious, possibly gay Leo was more than I could stand.
    Emmi raised her eyebrows. ‘You sound possessive, River.’
    ‘No, I’m not,’ I protested. ‘It is possible to get on with a boy without wanting to do it with them, you