Jenny Downham Before I Die

Fourteen

‘Where do you reckon he gets them from, Zoey?’

She yawns hugely. ‘Legoland?’ she says. ‘Toytown?’

‘Why are you being so horrible?’

She turns on the bed and looks at me. ‘Because he’s boring and ugly and you’ve got me, so I don’t know why you’re even interested. You shouldn’t have asked him for drugs. I told you I’d get them.’

‘You haven’t exactly been around.’

‘Last time I looked, you were flat on your back in hospital and I was visiting you!’

‘And last time I looked, I was only there because you told me to jump in a river!’

She sticks her tongue out, so I turn back to the window. Adam got home ages ago, went inside for half an hour, then came back out and started raking leaves. I thought he’d have knocked on the door by now. Maybe we’re supposed to go to him.

Zoey comes to stand beside me and we watch him together. Every time he loads leaves onto the wheelbarrow, dozens of them fly off again in the wind and settle back on the lawn.

‘Hasn’t he got anything better to do?’

I knew she’d think that. She doesn’t have much patience for anything she has to wait for. If she planted a seed, she’d have to dig it back up and look at it every day to see if it was growing yet.

‘He’s gardening.’

She gives me a withering look. ‘Is he retarded?’

‘No!’

‘Shouldn’t he be at college or something?’

‘I think he looks after his mum.’

She looks at me with plotting eyes. ‘You fancy him.’

‘I don’t.’

‘You do. You’re secretly in love with him. You know stuff about him you couldn’t possibly know if you didn’t care.’

I shake my head, try to put her off the scent. She’ll play with it now, make it bigger than it would have been without her.

‘Do you stand here every day spying on him?’

‘No.’

‘I bet you do. I’m going to ask him if he fancies you back.’

‘No, Zoey!’

She runs to the door laughing. ‘I’m going to ask him if he wants to marry you!’

‘Please, Zoey. Don’t mess it up.’

She walks slowly back across the room, shaking her head. ‘Tessa, I thought you understood the rules! Never let a bloke into your heart – it’s fatal.’

‘What about you and Scott?’

‘That’s different.’

‘Why?’

She smiles. ‘That’s just sex.’

‘No, it’s not. When you visited me at the hospital, you could barely drag your eyes from his face.’

‘Rubbish!’

‘It’s true.’

Zoey used to live her life as if the human race was about to become extinct, like nothing really mattered. But around Scott, she goes all soft and warm. Doesn’t she know this about herself?

She’s looking at me so seriously that I grab her face and kiss it, because I want her to smile again. Her lips are soft and she smells nice. It crosses my mind that it might be possible to suck some of her good white cells into me in this way, but she pushes me off before I have a chance to test my theory.