It was two months before I was the other side of the door again, however hard Mum tried to bribe me to 'go out and play for a while' when she brought Carl back with her. I hated that guy, but that's for another story, so after eight solid weeks of being cooped up in my room with only my tape player for company, leaving the flat was terrifying, but oddly welcomed.

I didn't tell anyone I was scared though. I had this horrible nightmare time and time again about being stalked in endless corridors where I could only go forward, knowing somebody was behind me and I couldn't turn around. So when I stepped foot outside the flat door into floor 9's corridor, the blood drained from my face. I could hardly even bring myself to close the door behind me, as if to do so was to seal my fate.

But today was Tisha's birthday, and I'd made her a birthday card.

I'd asked Mum to do it on her way to Trinity's, but she coyly told me that if I wanted Tisha to like me (as a friend!), I had to do it myself.

I crept around every corner, remembering what Darren had said about the shadowy ones. I tiptoed into the stairwell, silently descending four floors. Every step seemed to echo louder than the last and my nerves were getting the better of me. Any moment I expected the loud chomping of chewing gum in my ear, or the next shadow to be Darren's. Floor 7's window was boarded. I swear I nearly turned back at that point.

But with one hand clutched white-knuckled around the railing and the other clamped around the birthday card, I made it to door 513; approximately one million miles away from home.

I knocked.

And waited.

And wanted to throw up.

There was this creeping feeling of dread taking up residence in my stomach that Darren knew it was Tisha's birthday and knew I would be here. It wasn't impossible. Tisha had never made any indication she knew Darren, but then, Darren himself knew everyone.

When the door opened and her mother, Trinity, answered, I mumbled something and thrust the birthday card in its paper bag envelope towards her. I didn't want Tisha to see me looking so disgusting lately, but I wanted to see her, and so I had mixed feelings when Trinity called her daughter from her room.

I found fascination in a small nick in the door as soon as Tisha appeared. She smiled so easily, like she'd been practicing it all her life, and I didn't like to think how awkward and wonky my smile looked when I returned it. Tisha lit up a room when she walked into it; that's the only way I can describe it. It was almost hard to look at her, because I'd always tense up and become conscious of whatever it was I was doing.

She no less made me feel the same when she arrived at her front door. She was already half-dressed for her birthday party that afternoon despite it being only 11am, with her striped crop top under a denim jacket and her afro parted into two adorably effortless buns. She looked cu—nice.

"Hiya, Rain!" she said. Her smile burned bright and my fears melted. "Haven't seen you for a while. Jonty Wickens said that you'd been moved schools, but I didn't believe him."

"I..." I gave the card in my hand a wave and held it out for her. "I... um... just remembered it was your birthday."

"Oh, cool! Thanks!"

I checked over my shoulder. "Don't open it here. I-it's really lame. I mean, I can't really draw or anything, but... I thought... Well, you said you liked Centre Parcs when you went on holiday there, so..."

I sighed as she peeled back the paper bag envelope anyway.

"I-it's meant to be a forest, a-and that's a deer, but it kinda looks like a fat moose from this direction..."

"No way! It's wicked. And a fox! I see it. And some rabbits! I love rabbits. You're really good at drawing rabbits, aren't you? They're so cute. You could be an artist if you tried, like Mr Lockley always says."

"Y-yeah. Guess so."

"And you wrote my name in the leaves! T-I-S-H-A. There. Did you mean to do that?"

"Yeah. That's what makes it kinda lame though."

I met her gaze for the first time. Her eyes were impossibly dark and beautiful.

Beautiful. Yes, whatever, I said it.

"Rain, I mean it, this is amazing. You're really good at drawing." She fanned me with the card. "Almost as good as you are at blushing."

Taking compliments was always hard. That didn't help. "I'm not blushing. I'm warm."

"In March?"

"It's left over Christmas cheer."

"Sure, I believe you," she scowled. "Not."

"So... anyway, you like the card then?"

"Sure I like it. You spelt birthday wrong, but that's okay."

"Oh... I always spell stuff wrong."

She traced her name on the front with her finger. "Don't worry about it. My dad's dyslexic too. Or as he calls it: diddlestick. This card is dead cool though. You remembered I liked the forest, too."

"Course I do, I remember everything you..."

"Everything I what?"

"You know. The things you tell me. I learn stuff way better when you tell it me. I've never been to the forest but I remembered there are rabbits there, right?"

"Do you remember my favourite kind of cake?"

"Chocolate fudge."

"And you like it too. Which is just as well, really, because we're having some later at my party and I wondered..."

My breath hitched. My first party invite.

"...If you would like me to bring you some over tomorrow? If you want?"

I hid my disappointment with my wonky smile. "Yeah, I love cake."

"Chocolate fudge."

"The best." I subconsciously tidied my hair with my fingers to fill the pause. "So... Enjoy the... uh, birthday party."

"I will." She beamed at me again and I felt my cheeks flush hot. "And you, with whatever you're getting up to."

"Nothing," I blurted. "I mean, I'm not doing anything today."

"Oh, cool. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, see you tomorrow." I turned as she began to close the door. I've probably never sighed so hard in my life. How could I have spelt birthday wrong for the one person who mattered? I must've looked such an idiot!

"Bye," she giggled, and I swivelled around just in time to catch a final glance at her spying at me from around the door before it clicked shut.

"Um... Bye," I said into the empty corridor. And that was it. I might have to wait a whole 36 hours just for the chance to speak to her again for another 2 minutes.

I hoped in that time she wouldn't tell anyone I drew her a birthday card, because it would just be something else for Jonty and his stupid loser friends to tease me about. But then I considered how much it really mattered, because Jonty could pick on me about it all he wanted, but it wouldn't change the fluffy lightness in my chest at the thought of giving it her, for want of a better way to describe my first cru-- whatever.

I hoped more than I'd ever hoped anything she had felt the same, and if she didn't already, that now she would think of me as more than just the kid in her class who happened to live on the same estate.

Or, at the very least, she'd learn I'm not as bad as people say.