Free Solitaire, Part 2 of 3 by Alice Oseman

update, yeah?”
    “Yeah.”
    She sighs and puts her hands on her cheeks. “I’m just so happy! I can’t even believe it! He’s like the nicest guy I have ever met.”
    I nod and smile. “I’m so happy for you!” I keep on nodding and smiling. I’m like that Churchill Insurance bulldog.
Oh, yes
.
    “Like, on Saturday, I texted him, like, did you mean all the things you said at my party, or was it just the drink talking, and he was like, no, I meant everything, I really like you.”
    “That’s cute!”
    “I really like him as well.”
    “Good!”
    She takes out her phone and scrolls through it and then waves it around and laughs. “I haven’t been this happy in ages!”
    I hold my hands together in my lap. “I’m really glad for you, Becky!”
    “Hehehehehe, thanks.”
    We don’t say anything for a few seconds. We just smile.
    “What did you do this weekend?” she asks, out of obligation.
    I run my hand through my hair. A strand had been flicked over the wrong side. “Nothing. You know me.”
    She keeps eye contact. “I think you could be a lot more outgoing than you are. You just, like, don’t try. If you tried, you could get a boyfriend really easily.”
    “I don’t really need a boyfriend,” I say.
    After a little while, the pips go for form. I’ve finished and printed that essay. Everyone goes off to their form groups except me. I start walking to my form room, but when I turn right Michael walks past me and seeing him makes me want to start kicking and punching things. He stops and asks, “Where are you going?” but I just walk out of the school gate and keep on walking. There is barely anyone in our dying town and it’s literally Arctic temperatures, but I left my coat at school and when I finally get home I am totally alone so I get into bed and sleep until Mum wakes me for dinner, not having any idea that I ran away from school.
    That evening, Charlie has an appointment with his psychiatrist at the hospital, and we all decide to go – Mum, Dad and me – so we leave Oliver at home with Nick babysitting. Mum and Dad go in for a meeting first, leaving Charlie and me in the waiting room. This is the first time I’ve been to the hospital since Charlie stayed here last year, and it’s still just as creepily optimistic. On the wall, there’s a big painting of a rainbow and the sun with a smiley face.
    The adolescent ward has patients with every type of mental illness. Currently with us in the room is an anorexic girl reading
The Hunger Games
and the irony of this is too cruel to laugh at. There is also a younger boy, perhaps thirteen, watching
Shrek
and cackling manically at everything Donkey says.
    Charlie has not talked to me since Friday. But I haven’t talked to him either. After several minutes, he breaks our silence.
    “Why haven’t we been talking?” He’s wearing a loose-fitting checked shirt and jeans. His eyes are dark and dead.
    “I don’t know,” is all I can say.
    “You’re angry at me.”
    “I’m definitely not.”
    “You should be.”
    I fold my legs up on the sofa. “It’s not like it’s your fault.”
    “Then whose fault is it?” He leans on one hand. “Who is responsible for this?”
    “
No one,
” I snap. “Shit happens. Shit happens to the wrong people. You know that.”
    He looks at me for a long time, head slightly lowered. He’s holding on to his shirt sleeves so I can’t see his wrists.
    “What have you been up to?” he asks.
    I pause before telling him. “I was with Michael Holden all weekend.”
    He raises his eyebrows.
    “Not like that,” I say.
    “I didn’t say anything.”
    “But you were thinking it.”
    “Why were you with him all weekend? Are you friends now?” His eyes glimmer. “I didn’t think you did that.”
    I frown. “He told me I was a ‘manically depressed psychopath’. I don’t think he …”
    The water machine bubbles. The windows are open a crack and the breeze is rattling the 1980s blinds. Charlie looks at