Saving Silence by Gina Blaxill

Author:Gina Blaxill [Blaxill, Gina]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2013-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

IMOGEN

SUNDAY 17 NOVEMBER

We did it.

‘There’s no going back now,’ I said as the video I’d made of Sam deleting the footage pinged through to Ollie’s email account. Sam said nothing. He’d surprised me during the last half-hour. I’d expected him to really freak out. As for all that about right and wrong . . . I felt my throat tighten. It’s fine to lecture me, Sam. There’s not as much at stake for you. I didn’t like selling out. But I had no choice.

Sam had taken off his coat but not his scarf. It was half falling off, trailing on the floor. It struck me that I didn’t know any other boys like Sam. The ones I’d grown up with were all swagger and mouth, trying to prove how tough they were. It was interesting to get to know someone more sensitive, even if he was harder to figure out.

‘You’re a funny one.’

Sam gave me a small smile which had very little warmth to it. ‘I’m very ordinary, Imo.’

No else called me Imo. Im or Immy, but never Imo. I picked up my bowl of uneaten soup. It was still slightly warm. I started eating. Now that the adrenalin of the call had worn off, my body was sagging.

We’d sent the video ten minutes ago. What was keeping them?

My thoughts slipped back to the start of Year 11, when I’d first got to know Ollie. We’d had a Coke together after our first school-council meeting. I hadn’t known him before then, but I knew who he was. A lot of my mates fancied him, including Nadina. Funnily enough, I hadn’t. Maybe it was his haircut that had put me off. It had been longer then, with a stupid fringe he kept flicking out of his eyes. Over our drinks I’d told him he ought to cut it. He’d laughed and said he ought to turn cutting it off into a sponsored charity event. Later on he’d done just that.

I soon discovered we had lots in common.

‘Listening to you two is like two blokes,’ Nadina had huffed. ‘You must be the only girl in the school who forgets she’s female around Ollie.’

She and the other girls kept asking about us. It was clear that no one believed that we were just chatting. ‘Prefect meetings’ even became code for making out for a while. ‘My boyfriend and I are having a prefect meeting tonight,’ girls would say, nudging their friends.

I also tended to run into Ollie after school on Mondays, when the nearby sports centre admitted kids from our school for free. After a while I learned to ignore the constant questions.

When had things moved to another level? I had to think for a second. It had been right at the end of the year, almost four months ago now. We’d been chatting in the sports-centre foyer when a mate of Ollie’s passed by.

‘When are you getting together?’ he’d yelled. ‘Perfect match, smooch smooch!’

He was gone before we could retaliate.

‘Your mates too, huh?’ I asked.

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