Free The Worst of Me by Kate Le Vann

I’m not going to university.” You’ll like saying it, you’ll enjoy the response and get better at shocking them with it. And then it becomes harderevery year to break free from it.’
    He rubbed his hair with his hands. ‘You’re so smart. I can see myself doing that, actually,’ he said. ‘Oh, look, sorry, I didn’t mean to make this a counselling session about me for me! Everyone talk about other things now!’
    ‘Well, now my mind’s gone blank,’ Dee said.
    ‘We could talk about Cassidy’s hot new boyfriend,’ Sam said.
    Dee started to say something and then stopped very quickly, so this weird half-word came out of her mouth but she didn’t correct it. She glanced at her sister, who glanced back.
    ‘What?’ I said.
    ‘What?’ she said.
    ‘What were you going to say? And what was with the look?’
    ‘There was no look!’ Dee said.
    ‘Oh, there was a look,’ I said.
    Dee pushed herself away from the table with both hands. ‘Pffff,’ she said.
    I just waited. Sam didn’t say anything.
    ‘Your boy and his friends making names for themselves,’ Dee said. ‘I don’t think they’re good names, and I don’t know how serious it is.’
    I felt sick to the stomach. And in her face, I recognised Ian’s expression at Isobel’s house.
    ‘Malton boys are never popular,’ Sam said. ‘It’s a jealousy thing. And some of them are hotties, so that goes double.’
    ‘What is it, Dee?’ I said. ‘What are people saying? And who’s saying it?’
    ‘There’s . . .’ She stopped, thought, carried on. ‘There’s some guys who’ve been saying they’re racists. And quite seriously. Like they’ve got something to prove. I know you, and I know you wouldn’t go out with a racist, and obviously if he was a racist, it would have come up, right?’
    I frowned. ‘This is just crazy. Of course they’re not racist.’
    ‘Look, you know them, and I don’t, Cass,’ Dee said.
    ‘But why?’ I said. I looked at my watch. The bus would be here soon, and Dee and Afiqah went a different way. I didn’t mind missing mine if I could get to the bottom of this.
    ‘I don’t know much about it,’ Dee said. ‘There’s some kind of online project some sixth-formers have been working on, including my brother. And there’s a lot of fighting on it, they’re talking about closing it down because it’s too controversial or argumentative or . . .
disruptive
, or one of those things. And your boyfriend – Joe, Jonah? – is one of the ones in the middle of it all.’
    ‘You have looked it up, then?’ Afiqah said.
    ‘Barely,’ Dee said. ‘After Nash told me about it, I hada look. I mean arguably what they’re saying isn’t racist, it’s against all religions. But you can’t decontextualise statements.’
    My head got woolly when people were using words like ‘decontextualise’, particularly when I was already reeling. I knew what she was talking about, they’d mentioned it a lot, laughing at how riled up the old school boys were getting.
    ‘Religion?’ I said, dumbly. They talked about religion all the time. They were very
very
anti. ‘What’s that got to do with racism?’
    ‘Again, this is not my opinion, I really don’t know enough,’ Dee said. ‘But what people – well, Nashriq and his mates – are saying is that they seem to have a particular problem with Muslims. And there are a lot of Muslims at our school who are getting pretty upset about the
way
they’re talking, and, well, as far as I know it’s all hitting the fan.’
    I felt my skin turn red. They did talk about Muslims with me there – it seemed like a taboo-breaking way of joking, because everyone knew Muslims didn’t let anyone talk about their religion. Was that a racist way of thinking? Was it even true?
    ‘But they’re not being racist,’ I said. ‘It’s about them rejecting all organised religion. Because it starts wars, it’s the reason almost everyone on the planet who’s fighting is fighting. The Catholic