Watching You: A Novel

Jenna hadn’t recognised him at first. He’d had all his hair shaved off and he looked slightly alarming, like the sort of person who might snatch your phone out of your hand and run. For a moment she thought about pretending she hadn’t seen him. He was such an awkward boy and his awkwardness made her feel uncomfortable. But she allowed him to catch up with her and he arrived a moment later at her side, breathlessly.

‘Jenna,’ he said. ‘Jenna Tripp.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s me.’

‘I need your advice.’

She looked from left to right to see if anyone else was witness to this strange exchange. ‘Right,’ she responded cagily.

‘I want to ask a girl to a ball. It’s not you, so don’t panic. Although you are pretty. But you’re too old for me. And too tall.’

‘Right …’ she said again.

‘I wanted to ask you, in your experience of being an attractive girl, how would you like someone to invite you to a ball?’

She narrowed her eyes at him, gauging if she was perhaps being pranked in some way. But he looked back at her guilelessly and so she sighed and considered his question. ‘That depends if you know if she likes you or not.’

‘She doesn’t know I exist.’

‘Right. So she won’t be expecting it?’

‘No. She won’t be expecting it.’

‘In that case,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t ask her face-to-face. I’d text her. Or message her. Give her a chance to find a nice way to say no. If she wants to say no.’

He nodded, frantically, his eyes wide and unblinking. ‘Great,’ he said, ‘that’s absolutely great. You’ve been … great.’

‘No problem,’ she said.

He turned away from her and then back again. ‘I’m going to school now. I’ll see you around.’

She watched him for a while as he walked double pace up the hill towards the city. She smiled.

Jenna wondered if the rest of their friendship group knew about Bess’s ‘pregnancy’. She wondered if they even knew about her having sex in the first place. Maybe it wasn’t Mr Fitzwilliam after all? Maybe it was just a boy? A boy from this school or maybe a boy from another school, a posh school, maybe, like Freddie’s? Maybe it was Jed? But no, Bess had said she thought Jed was an idiot. But still, if it was just a boy and she’d had sex with him and now she was potentially pregnant, why had she chosen to shut Jenna out at this point of her life, the point, surely, where your best friend was the person you wanted to keep closest?

Maybe Bess thought that Jenna was a prude; maybe she was worried that she’d be judgemental, that she would disapprove somehow of the choices she was making?

Maybe Bess had outgrown her?

But the idea was preposterous. Jenna had always been the ‘grown-up’ one in their friendship. She’d always kept Bess afloat, stopped her from getting into trouble, explained things to her about the world and how it worked. And Bess, with no siblings and a mother who was more like a fun-loving big sister than a mum, had needed that in her life. There was no way that Bess was emotionally ready to step outside of Jenna’s influence. There was no way that she could make good decisions without Jenna’s guidance. Surely.

Jenna saw Tiana and Ruby coming out of the girls’ toilets after lunch on Thursday.

‘Is Bess with you?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Tiana, ‘haven’t seen her since food tech.’

‘Did you not have lunch with her?’

‘No.’

‘What’s going on with you, Jen?’ Ruby laughed. ‘Why are you stalking her?’

‘I’m not stalking her. It’s just, you do know there’s stuff going on with her, don’t you?’

Jenna watched their reactions for a glimmer of understanding or subterfuge in their facial expressions or body language. But they both stared at her blankly and Tiana said, ‘Like what?’

‘Nothing,’ Jenna said. ‘Just personal stuff. I thought she might have told you. Don’t worry about it.’

Ruby’s eyes widened. ‘Tell us! What? What’s going on with her?’

But Jenna headed away from them, leaving Ruby and Tiana standing staring after her, eyes wide and hungry for scraps.

It was almost worse, Jenna thought, that the people Bess had been hanging out with for the past few weeks didn’t know what was going on with her. It meant, she theorised, that things were clearly at the worse end of the theoretical scale. If it was just a boy, and Bess was simply too embarrassed to tell Jenna that she’d had her sexual awakening two years earlier than planned, she would have told her other friends. The fact that she hadn’t set alarm bells jangling in Jenna’s mind.

She went to her locker to collect her books for double geography and then she headed towards room 138. She passed the offices on her way there and peered surreptitiously, as she always did, towards Mr Fitzwilliam’s door at the far end. As she did so the door opened and there was Bess leaving his office, smiling brightly, Mr Fitzwilliam’s hand upon her arm.

‘I will,’ she heard her saying. ‘You know I will.’

‘That’s my girl,’ she heard him reply, ‘that’s my girl.’