"I need to get something for Joseph's birthday."

Ellie examined her nails as she sat back in her chair, feet propped up on the desk. "You do?"

"Well, yeah. It's this weekend." I twirled a strand of hair around my index finger. "What do you think I should get?"

Ellie sighed loudly and stretched her arms above her head. "Ana, I don't know. A nude? Some sexy lingerie?"

I threw a pen at her but snickered. "You and Sam are really made for each other."

She grinned at me.

We were lounging around in one of the study rooms in our free period together, not doing work like teachers told us we were supposed to be doing in our free periods. Instead, we'd started off by attempting to make origami out of our old worksheets. Ellie then made me plait her hair, and now we were onto the topic of Joseph's birthday.

"Well, what does he like?" Ellie began to undo the French plaits I'd done for her. "You of all people should know that, right?"

I wrinkled my nose slightly. Apart from art and the colour emerald green, I wasn't totally sure what Joseph liked. And I wasn't telling Ellie about his art, even though I knew she could keep a secret. "He likes... the colour green. And he wants to go travelling." I pointed accusingly at her hair. "Can't believe you're taking out the brilliant plaits I did for you."

Ellie just shrugged and kept undoing her hair. "They made my head hurt. And okay, wear some green lingerie then. Problem solved."

I rolled my eyes. "You're no help."

"What? I think it's a great idea."

"Yeah, but I wanna get something meaningful–"

"Lingerie is meaningful. You know why? Because it means that you'll look sexy and that's a good enough present as any."

I laughed despite myself. "You make a valid point."

"Always listen to Ellie's advice. I'm very wise." She sighed loudly and took her feet off the desk. "We should probably do some actual work. Considering, you know, this is the year of A-Levels. This shit actually matters."

It did. Our last year of school. We were only seventeen, and we had to decide what we wanted to do with our lives. I found that sort of stupid – how did anyone know what they wanted to do for the rest of their life at seventeen years old? "Have you applied yet? For university?"

"Sure have," Ellie said confidently. Ellie was even more organised than Alice, while Ry, Sam and I fell into the completely disorganised category. We were like the children of the group. "First choice is UCL baby. London, here I come."

I opened up my laptop, preparing to research universities and courses. "And your second choice?"

"Birmingham. But I'm going to UCL. I'm going to study my ass off and get the grades for it."

I believed her. When Ellie put her mind to something, she got it done.

"Have you decided what degree you're going to do yet?" Ellie asked, eyeing me.

I sighed. I was pretty much the only person in the year who didn't know what they wanted to do at university. "No." I paused. "What do you think about me doing law?" Ever since Connor had mentioned it at the wedding, I'd thought about it a lot. I'd done some research, and the idea was appealing to me more and more each day.

"Law, huh?" Ellie chewed on the end of her pen. "I can see you doing that."

"You think?"

"Yeah, actually. How come you never thought of it before?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't... I haven't exactly been focused on what I want to do for the rest of my life these past few months."

She slowly nodded. "Of course. And that's completely understandable."

Yes. It was. "But I need to focus now. I... I need to decide."

Ellie glanced at me. "The deadline's not until January, Ana. You have time."

I knew that. But I needed something to motivate me. To keep my grades up. Because at the moment, I knew that I wasn't doing too well in school. I'd thought before coming back that I needed school, I needed the routine to distract me, and I'd thought that I would focus on work. But my mind had not been focused these past few weeks. I found it difficult to write my essays, to do homework on time. The teachers were being lenient with me, but leniency wasn't going to get me into university. "No, I need to decide now. Otherwise I'll just keep putting it off."

She nodded. "Okay. Well, where are you thinking you might like to go? Any idea at all? If not, I'll help you do some research now."

I had thought about it a little, but not much. Not in terms of law. "I don't really know. What are the best universities for law?"

"I'm on it." There was the sound of Ellie typing on her laptop. "Hm... well, obviously Oxford and Cambridge are at the top–"

"No thanks. As if I could get in there."

"Fine, fine. What about... ooh, Edinburgh is good for law."

My gaze snapped to Ellie. "It is?"

"Yeah." She met my eyes. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Uh..." I looked away. "It's just... that's where Joseph is going."

"Oh. Well. That would be handy." Ellie raised her eyebrows at me.

I sighed and leant back in my seat. "I don't wanna be one of those girls that goes somewhere just because their boyfriend goes there, you know? I want to be independent and choose somewhere because I want to go there." As Ellie's eyes lit up, I realised too late what I'd said.

"Ana, did you just say boyfriend?"

"No," I said automatically. "Okay, maybe I did. But it just slipped out. He isn't my boyfriend, really." Because I wasn't well-versed in the different stages of a relationship, I didn't even really know at what point somebody becomes your boyfriend.

"He basically is, though," Ellie said matter-of-factly. "What criteria of a boyfriend does he not fit?"

"Well, he hasn't actually asked me. But that doesn't bother me," I said quickly, "what with our whole situation and all."

"Mm-hm. Okay, apart from that, he is your boyfriend. Although, not that I would know," Ellie said, a slight tone of bitterness in her voice that made me look at her sharply.

"Why did you say it like that? Because of Sam?"

She shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. It's just..." She sighed deeply and looked away. "I... I'm worried I made a mistake, starting this whole thing with him."

"How come?" I asked softly.

Ellie chewed on her lower lip. "Because I've done exactly what I swore I wouldn't do. I've... ugh, I've actually fallen for him. Like, full on, in love with him kind of thing."

I'd already guessed that. "Oh."

"And... I don't think he is in love with me. We act like girlfriend and boyfriend, but I just know he doesn't actually see me as his girlfriend. And I don't really know what to do about it."

I grimaced slightly. "You're asking the wrong person. You're usually the person I go to for advice about this stuff."

"Just give me something, Ana," Ellie pleaded. "I know I'm usually sure of myself. I know I usually seem like I don't give a shit about things, but I really give a shit about this. I don't know what to do."

I blinked at her. She was right. She was never usually like this. "Ellie, I... I just don't know either. The only thing I can think of is to talk to Sam about this. Because you don't want to continue like this if he doesn't feel the same way. You'll only be hurting yourself more."

She stared for a second, and then slowly nodded. "You know, that was pretty good." She frustratedly ran a hand through her hair. "And you're probably right. Ugh. You warned me this might happen, when I first started this thing with him."

"Well... yeah. I guess I did. Is it time to run away to the mountains to become sheepherders?"

Ellie laughed. "I think it is."

After school, I got the bus into town to try and find a present for Joseph, but nothing was catching my eye. Nothing seemed good enough for him. I took a trip into an art shop, but most of the paintings were way more than I could afford. I resigned to going home and seeing if I could buy something online.

When I got back to the Moore household, I could hear raised voices as I was about to open the door. I paused, identifying the voices as Catherine's and Joseph's. Then Alice's voice joined in, too. I didn't want to eavesdrop, but I didn't want to interrupt, either. While I lingered on the step, deciding what to do, I caught bits of their argument.

"...you owe it to us, Joseph! After what you put us through, and their family through–"

"What I put you through?" I'd never heard Joseph sound so angry. "What about what you put me through? And what you put her through? I'm not–"

"Yes you are, Joseph. They're back, which means she's back, and you need to go and see them."

"And do what? What the hell do you expect me to do?" he shouted.

I couldn't listen anymore. I opened the door, loudly jangling my keys to announce my entrance. The yelling stopped, and I looked up at everyone as I shut the door behind me. "Um, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean..." My eyes drifted to Joseph, who was standing with one hand braced on the counter and the other clenched in a fist. His hard gaze met mine and he quickly looked away.

"Oh, god Ana, no. We're sorry." Catherine's tone immediately softened and she brushed herself down. "Just a small family argument."

"Yeah, sorry Ana." Alice grimaced in my direction.

"No, no. It's fine. I'm just gonna..." I gestured vaguely in the direction of the stairs. "I've got work to do."

The fact that no one stopped me from going upstairs showed how bad the argument was. I reached my room and shut the door, hearing muffled voices being raised again.

As I started my homework, I pondered what I'd heard. 'They're back, which means she's back.' Who was 'she'? Was it the mysterious ex of Joseph's I knew nothing about? I knew it was a sensitive topic, and maybe she was the reason Joseph didn't get along with his family. I had so many questions, but I didn't want to pry.

After a bit, the shouting died down and I heard a door slam. Footsteps walked up the stairs, and moments later there was a knock on my door.

"Yeah," I called, putting down my pen and turning to face the door.

Alice stuck her head through the door, a sheepish look on her face. "Can I come in?"

"Sure."

She walked into my room tentatively, shutting the door behind her and perching on my bed. "Sorry you came home to that. We... we don't often argue, as a family, but there's some stuff which just sets us off."

"Alice, it's okay. Families argue. I really don't mind," I said sincerely.

"Yeah, but..." She ran a hand through her hair. "That wasn't just an argument, that was like a full-on fight. I'm not...I'm not really supposed to talk about why we were fighting."

"That's okay," I reassured her. "You don't have to tell me."

"I know, but I want to. You live with us. It's not really fair, on you." Alice sighed. "Joseph would be mad, if I told you."

"Alice, you don't have to tell me. Really. It's between you guys." Also, if it was about Joseph, I wanted to hear it from him. Not that he would ever tell me. Sometimes I felt like he knew everything about me, and I knew nothing about him.

Alice chewed on her bottom lip in thought for a second. "Okay, well, look. I'll just give you a little background. Joseph... has this ex-girlfriend. I'm sure you knew that already, word really gets around in this town." I gave a small nod to confirm. "Yeah. So, she was actually... a close family friend of ours. That's why it's such a sensitive topic. Because she was my really good friend, too."

I raised my eyebrows. "Oh. But... I never met her, or anything, right?"

Alice shook her head. "No. Her family lived out of town, and we would always go to them. But we've known them for years. And you know what they say about dating family friends – don't do it."

I smiled slightly. "They say that?"

"They do. Because if you break up, it gets messy since your families will still be hanging out, you know? That's why when they first started dating, they kept it a secret. When they told us, everything kind of... blew up. Their breakup was already messy. Their family actually ended up moving away, which... which really sucked. And now they're back. So you can see why it's a hard situation."

I nodded. It did sound difficult. And I'd had no idea about any of it. I knew about the ex-girlfriend, but there was so much more to it than that. And I had a feeling this still wasn't the whole story. "That does sound... shit. And she was your friend too?"

"Yeah." Alice looked down at her hands. "She's Joseph's age, but we were really close. She was just such a fun person, you know? And now, we haven't talked to each other in forever. And it really is shit."

The weight of just how badly Joseph and I could go wrong really hit me then. Because... we were doing exactly what his ex-girlfriend did. Alice was my best friend. But I loved Joseph. I didn't know if Alice would forgive me if she knew about us, not after what happened with her family friend. And if it came down to a choice, I had no idea what I would do.