Neither I nor Sonia is enthusiastic about taking the plunge from the edge of the grass to the sand where the rest of our classmates are gathered. Several people have brought portable speakers and clusters have broken up along the shore based on different genres of music, but from our position, they all blend together into a many-headed monster.

Sonia winds her hands into the wide strings of her hoodie. 'I've never been to a party before.'

'Me neither.'

I wheel my cross on its chain as I scan the crowd. Miles is seated on his jumper in the group nearest to us. He laughs, though his eyes don't squint and his head doesn't fall forward, and soon he's back to tugging at his earring whilst he curls and stretches his spine as if doing seated cat-cow yoga.

He wipes the undersides of his eyes to sweep boredom from them only to flinch when he's spoken to. At Tristan's command, he turns to his Astros bag to pull out a bottle of Grey Goose and hands it over. His hands are empty until he digs out his jar of coconut lip butter, then a bag of liquorice Fisherman's Friends to pop one into his mouth — a ritual. I crave to be the only person to ever notice it.

'If you're so in love with him then tell him that.'

I snap my head to Sonia, struggling to remember how to breathe which makes my response belated and spluttered. 'I'm not in love with Kilometres. All he does is play football and run, it's disgusting, innit.'

She purses her lips so that her cheeks round. 'I wouldn't describe you as disgusted. I'm autistic, not stupid.'

'Those can mutually exist independent of each other.'

Sonia sighs sharply but turns back to the lake. Squaring her shoulders, she steps onto the sand with her right foot and shivers but gathers the courage to follow with the left. Then she continues on. The thought of being left alone here is more horrifying than bracing the party with her and I hurry to catch up.

I'm not sure where exactly we're headed, nor is she, I assume, as we trudge through the sand. Maybe one of the clusters will simply open up and absorb us once we're near enough, like protein into a transport vesicle.

We've barely passed the first group when David breaks out of the one to our left and throws up onto his trainers.

I clamp a hand over my mouth to stifle a shriek and keep down my own sick. My teenage experience will definitely be complete without any of this. Too bad if it proves Dr Colas right about me running away, this isn't worth any kind of recovery.

'Can we leave?'

The question is high-pitched and muffled against my palm but Sonia must decipher it because she nods rapidly. We spin around and stride back, kicking sand behind us, but we haven't made it halfway when a voice calls for us to wait.

I turn to watch Miles jog after us. The moment his scent of pomelo and agarwood touches me, my mind blurs out the entire football team staring at us behind him. He must be wearing cologne, and though I usually find fragrances distracting, I want nothing but to sink into his.

'Are you leaving?' His tone intricately weaves together panic and disappointment.

It's not really our... scene.' Does that sound condescending? 'You have a good time though.'

Sonia smiles at him. 'Thanks for the invite.'

When several seconds pass and he doesn't say anything, we awkwardly twist around to head for the grass. Tristan's voice is so full of contempt that it rings above the noise and I halt again. 'What are you doing?'

Unable to resist, I turn to watch Miles drop another bottle of vodka and one of Bacardi spiced rum onto the sand before he hooks his now-empty bag onto his shoulder. He picks up his jumper and shakes it clean. 'I'm actually gonna go with them.'

Lysander laughs against the rim of his beer, a cold burst of amused disbelief. 'You're going to hang out with the retard and the queer.'

'...Aye.'

He jogs up to meet us, zipper pull-tabs clinking. A smile breaks out on his face before it forms into something more awkward once he's caught up. His eyes dart from me to Sonia and he forces the smile to stay up as if to ask for permission.

I stare at him, my thoughts overheating until I'm certain my ears emit smoke.

The noise of heavy brakes snaps me out of my agony and I twist to the bus stop at the corner of the car park. 'That's our bus.' I bolt for it without explanation. Two sets of footsteps follow me nonetheless.

I wouldn't normally take the bus but it's an hour's walk from here. Besides, tomorrow is the last day our student cards work so might as well get a final use of it.

Both Sonia and I are out of breath when we jump through the door whilst Miles isn't slightly flushed. 'Where are we going?'

'Trust me.' I lead them up the aisle. 'It's way better than Vicky.'

'Who's Vicky?'

I stare back at him and gesture at the shore through the window. 'Vicky. Victoria. The lake. Where we are right now.'

'I've never heard anyone call it that,' Sonia says, her voice a little shaken. She slides into the chair opposite mine whilst Miles sits next to me.

'Aye, I'm pretty sure you've dead just made that up.'

Sonia picks the butterfly clips from her afro puffs, takes off her glasses, then her watch, and stuffs them all into the pouch of her hoodie. Rocking slightly, she taps her thighs and counts every third one aloud. Clearly, she heard Lysander too.

Miles digs out his iPod, earphones wrapped around it, and offers it to her. 'D'you wanna listen to music?'

Thanking him, she sticks the buds into her ears and resumes tapping, though no longer counts out loud. Since she's been clear before that she prefers to be left alone when distressed, I turn to Miles as the bus doors squawk shut.

He's already looking at me, his face curdled with shame. 'Are you okay?'

'Are you?' I counter. 'What did you do that for? You know they'll hate you now.'

'School's over anyway.'

'What about football?'

His eyes lose focus on the arrow pattern of the vacant chair opposite him. 'I can quit if it gets bad.'

'But you love football.'

'I dunno. It's the only thing I'm good at but... do I love it?'

Miles sinks in his seat.

His arm presses into mine. Have his shoulders always been this broad? Why am I not annoyed? Normally, I'd despise this breach of personal space and his lack of common decency to keep on his side, but there's nothing I want more now than for him to keep leaning closer until I'm crushed against the window and will have no choice but to osmose into him.

He's wearing a sleeveless tee and the only barrier keeping our skin separate is the cotton blend of my Spice Girls t-shirt. My whole arm is tingling. Soon, so is the pit of my stomach.

I almost flinch when he speaks even though his voice barely rises above a whisper. 'Forgetting money and all that, where would you actually wanna be in five years?' What an odd question to ask out of nowhere.

'I'd like to be in charge of my own drug cartel and use the money to assassinate Justin Timberlake and his fricking s-shaped eyebrows.'

Miles exhales a laugh but then he shakes his head. 'Can you say summat that's not a lie for once in your life?'

'It's a joke, not a lie.'

'Same thing.'

I stare at him, expressionless. Stop exposing my skeleton like this. Do you know that you alone are responsible for the alertness of each of my nerve endings? Do you know that I can hardly sit still for the fluttering turning my body inside out?

Do you know I'm not a stranger to the question?

Like a school assignment, I had to write an entire page about where I wanted to be in five years at Edenfield. It's a favourite of all the councillors who've run the groups after. They think it's a flawless way of tricking us ill ones into accidentally setting goals and reminding us of all the things we have to live for.

I've always lied, just as I've always lied when it's asked in school or a job interview. I have no idea why I decide to tell the truth to Miles on a bus driving down Hastings Road on some random Thursday.

'I want to have an apartment somewhere close enough to here that I could still go to Jummah with my dad and church with my mum at least once a month. I'd take the train so that I can read at the same time, and on the way back, Baba would force me to take three boxes of leftovers with me cause he's always afraid I don't eat enough.

'The flat would be nothin fancy, but it'd have an east-facing balcony where I can watch the sunrise and eat fruit. Even in the winter, though then I'd have a blanket and tea. The balcony would be big enough for me to grow my own herbs and tomatoes.

'I'd have days when I can't do much but I would never forget to wash my face or brush my teeth. And I'd never leave my braids in too long. And I'd live with someone who'd remind me to... who'd make sure I'm doing all the things I'm supposed to be doin. They'd show me new books and new food and sometimes we'd argue about whose turn it is to take out the rubbish or whose fault it is that we're late to a party, but nothin we couldn't come back from. They wouldn't mind that I cry a lot.

'And I'd know it's all worth it, life.'

My throat closes up and I turn to the window. Why couldn't I tell him the therapist-slash-teacher-slash-employer version?

He didn't ask for this. He wanted casual small talk. Why have I decided to cut my own ribcage open, unprompted, to tear out my very soul, the feeble and ill spectre that's left anyway, and throw it to him?

Catch, or it'll be lost. Catch and do as you wish with it.

Laugh at me. Please. I need someone to be honest. Laugh.

But he doesn't. Just like everyone else in my life, he refuses to rip off the plaster and insists instead to pick at it in an attempt to be gentle or to pretend it's not there at all.

'You've never been to juvie.' It's not even a question.

'No.'

'Why d'you tell everyone that you have then?'

I sigh, still looking out the window. 'It wouldn't make a difference if I denied it. People are gonna believe what they're gonna believe, innit. Might as well have a bit of fun.'

Miles is staring at his hands as he repetitively interlocks and pulls apart his fingers. I can see him in the reflection on the glass. He nods silently. He got more than he bargained for and now doesn't know what to do with himself.

'You then, in five years?'

'Be less afraid, I s'pose.'

Though a tenth of my words, his confession is equally vulnerable. Without touching, I know every phalange in his hands, every muscle that summons them to movement, each tendon like a spear stuck into a knuckle.

Forget strings, we've bolted chains to connect us, stitched not into the flesh, but into our bones.

With the gentle clatter of the plastic casings, Sonia pulls out the earbuds and wraps them around Miles's iPod. I blink rapidly as if trying to adjust to the light as she thanks him and hands it back.

'Wait up.' I pry the iPod out of his fingers before he can pocket it and scroll through the contents. Paper Bag by Fiona Apple, Joey by Concrete Blonde, and Trouble Me by 1000 Maniacs. I don't know what I expected but it wasn't all the nineties teen angst hits we thought we understood when we were eight.

My thumb jerks as if shot by electricity through the button when I reach Me by Paula Cole, and my heart turns wholly inside out at Going to Your Funeral Part I by Eels. He knew my soul long before we met.

I cram the iPod back into his fingers, earbuds tangled in mine like a fishnet. 'How do you have so many songs? Do you shoplift iTunes gift cards or somethin?'

'Download them from YouTube, me. Sometimes they've got snippets of other songs at the end which is infuriating, but it is free.'

Sonia draws out an um as she returns her octagonal glasses to her nose. 'And illegal.'

His face drops. 'Really?'

'Haven't you seen that Piracy is a Crime ad at the start of DVDs? "You wouldn't steal a television".'

I hum sceptically. 'I would steal a television,' I joke. 'My parents' telly's older than I am. "If it works, it works," apparently.'

Sunlight floods the bus as the short cluster of woods comes to an abrupt stop to be replaced by oat fields. Bright yellow lines the horizon to the right where the crop changes to oilseed, the train tracks gleam not far to our left, and the glimmering surface of Salver Waters peeks out beyond them.

'This is our stop.' I reach across Miles to press the button next to his head.

'We're in the middle of nowhere.'

I ignore him.

Notes

Jummah: Friday prayer