Free Lies Like Love by Louisa Reid Page A

once. Audrey had seemed fine to him at the fair though. Better than fine: lovely, like Sue said. He felt his heart, pierced a little with last night and now the disappointment of not seeing her. Leo followed Lorraine, trying to catch everything. Shebustled into the kitchen, put down the tools and grabbed the kettle.
    ‘Do you want a drink? Something to eat? Peter’s watching a DVD. You can sit with him if you like, or stay and chat to me.’ She looked at him, slowly, waiting, her hands stuffed into the tight pockets in her jeans. When he didn’t answer she gabbled on: ‘I’ll understand if you’re busy. I’ve had to take the day off work myself to stay home and look after Aud.’
    Lorraine offered him a chocolate biscuit. He took one. It seemed best to be polite.
    ‘Can I see her?’
    ‘Better not, love, not till she’s feeling brighter. She won’t want you seeing her in the state she’s in.’ She pulled another strange face, as if she had a series of masks, he thought, and this one made her neck tighten, the veins standing out like ropes. Under her make-up her face was pale; there were bags under her eyes.
    ‘Is she really unwell?’
    Lorraine nodded slowly, but he didn’t want to pry.
    ‘I’d better go, then. But will you tell her I called? Say, when she’s ready, if she still wants me to help …’
    ‘Sure. And give my love to Sue, won’t you? Tell her I’m still on for Wednesday. Looking forward to it.’
    Leo walked away from the Grange and paused as he crossed the moat. The water levels had crept higher and a rank smell rose from the surface, which was clouded with weeds and leaves. Something was rotting down there, he thought, and even the vaguest reflection was obscured bythe thick black sludge. Glancing back at the house, he stared at the window he thought might be Audrey’s, but the curtains were closed and the window was shut. Even if he called, she wouldn’t hear. He hoped Lorraine would give her his message.

Audrey
    Mum sent him away; she thought I didn’t hear. This was the start of it. I was a fly in a bottle, a rabbit trapped in wire, and the shine of the fair was dying like a cheap glow stick run dull. I should never have said anything to Leo about coming over, that was the problem. That and the Thing. I paced the room, three steps forward, three steps back, touched the walls with cold fingers, feeling the slick damp slime of water on my skin.
    It had been waiting for me last night. Mum had put me to bed, my head still pounding, and then it had started. The thud in the back of my neck, the rumble in my brain, like a train, like a lorry, out of control, veering off edges, ploughing from high bridges and sailing into deep water. The sink and pull of the beat, metronomic, impossible, forced me out of bed and I marched to its tune, rubbing my arms, twisting my fingers, and tried not to hear the stories that bubbled in my brain. Stories of girls who would come up from the water, of how they were pushed, and how they died down there and how I would too: choking and strangled by weeds and the will of invisible hands.
    ‘Why did you have to spoil it?’ I whispered. ‘Why?’
    The Thing had gone, but my head was hungover with those dreams. I watched Leo walk away. We weresupposed to have changed; Mum said this was home. But I was frightened and alone again and everything was as it always had been.
    I shut my mouth and lay back down and listened to the water. It lurched and churned and everything I’d nearly had was sinking deep and under.

Leo
    Audrey came back to school the following Wednesday. Leo had been looking out for her and when he saw her in the corridor she seemed different. He almost hadn’t spotted her, if he was honest. The fire had gone; in its place a pale shadow, dark circles under her eyes.
    ‘Hey.’ He walked over and stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm. She flinched and stepped back as if to skirt round him, then seemed to reconsider.
    ‘Are you OK?’ Leo