"Nope."

He finished writing and studied me over his notepad. I wished I could read it.

"And why do you think that is?"

Honestly. Maybe I should do a psychology degree. All you have to do is ask questions in a nice calm voice and you get a hundred and fifty quid an hour.

I shrugged my shoulders, playing the nonchalant teenager role. "Dunno."

This prompted another burst of notepad scrawling and I fidgeted as I waited for him to finish. I crossed my legs and uncrossed them.

"Your mother," he began, finally taking the initiative. "When she rang this morning she said you had your first of these attacks at a gig. Is that right?"

How did Mum know that? Dad must have told her. I cursed him under my breath.

"That's right," I said. "It was horrible. I puked and everything."

I didn't like the way the word "puked" sounded. It was crass. But it made Dr. Ashley flinch and I enjoyed that. I wasn't sure why.

"You were sick?" he asked, his hand picking up pace again across the secret notepad. "Hmmm, that's not happened before has it?"

"Nope."

"And the other attack? What was that like?"

"No puking. The usual. I think I'm going to die. It's horrible. Then I don't die."

Dr. Ashley was deep in thought, chewing the top of his pencil. This obviously wasn't part of his plan. I'd been getting better. I was a "success".

"And when the panic attacks happened...you did all the techniques I've taught you?"

I nodded.

"And you've been practising your mindfulness of breath?"

I nodded again. "Every morning."

He looked stumped. Maybe it didn't pay to go private after all.

We fell silent again. I shook my foot about and let him think things through. I was a little unimpressed. Usually he was so...sorted. He usually had all the answers.

"Has anything changed in the past week? Have you done anything differently that might have brought this on?"

My mind immediately went to Noah and I welled up again. But it was stupid. Noah couldn't be causing this. It didn't make sense. Anyway, even if he was, I couldn't tell Dr. Ashley about a boy. It would be too embarrassing.

He had caught the change in my face though. Dammit. I was going to need a cover story.

"Poppy, you know you can tell me anything. It's a safe environment here. I'm not here to judge you."

I knew he was right. I wanted to tell him. I wanted to make Mum's money worthwhile. But how could I? How could I honestly tell him I think I'm going crazy because I fancy a boy. It was laughable. Stupid.

So I took a deep breath and let the lie fall out of my mouth effortlessly.

"...Well..." I stammered, thinking of Noah and letting the tears come. "It's my mum...I just worry about her so much. I think we're in an emotionally exploitative relationship..."

He handed me the box of tissues and the session went on as normal.

The days passed, as they have a habit of doing. Weeks passed without anything of real note happening. Summer became autumn. It got cold. Only the most determined show-offs (Ruth) were still parading around in a skirt, showing off their blue legs. We finished Romeo and Juliet in English and moved onto World War I poetry. My panic attacks stopped. Whether they were Noah-related or not, I had no idea. All in all, life returned to normal. Whatever that was, anyway.

I still thought about him. Far more than was appropriate. During the daytime I was okay. I filled my days with seeing friends, doing coursework, helping Mum cook dinner normal boring teenage stuff. But at night-time my body physically ached for him. I would climb into bed, determinedly telling myself I wouldn't think about him, and yet the moment I turned out the light, he was there. I replayed every moment I'd spent with him, analysed every word he'd said. I trembled with humiliation when I remembered my behaviour.

I knew it was just a crush. I knew it would pass. Well, I hoped it was just a crush. I hoped it would pass.

On one not particularly special day, Ruth dropped the bombshell.

The four of us were sitting round our favourite table in the canteen. It was next to the windows and radiators so we could keep toasty while perving on the footballers outside. Prime college real estate. It was pretty dismal outside, the usual English crappy day. The drizzle was constant, mixed with the sort of wind that immediately blows your hair onto your lip gloss. I was snuggled in my favourite hoodie and we were playing Cheat.

I was doing quite well, with only five cards left, when I heard Ruth speak.

"Growing Pains are playing Band Night tonight," she said, putting two cards face down on the table. "Two sixes," she added.

Noah's band was playing tonight. I was too stunned to call Cheat. "What?" I said.

The other two looked up in vague interest.

"They're on at nine." Ruth ruffled her hair with her hands. "They've made it a Friday because someone's renting out the place tomorrow for a Super Sweet Sixteenth. Will told me you should all come along."

Ruth and Will had been "seeing each other" since the infamous night at the Lock and Key. God knows exactly what that meant in Ruth terms, but we knew she had slept with him numerous times as she had bored us with all the disgusting details afterwards. She didn't seem to realize, a), how uninterested we were in her sex life, and b), how intimidating it was to hear about when the rest of us hadn't slept with anyone yet.

I'd been using their developing relationship to spy third-hand on Noah, but it seemed Ruth spent most of her time "alone" with Will rather than hanging out with the band.

"I'm up for going," Amanda said, surprising us all. We looked at her, shocked. "Well, Johnno is going," she muttered, before retreating back behind her cards.

I turned, open-mouthed, to Lizzie. I didn't want to go. Surely Lizzie wouldn't want to go?

Well, okay, of course she would want to go.

"I'm in," Lizzie said, confirming my fears. She put down a card rather sheepishly. "One six."

I looked at my hand and saw I had two sixes, meaning either Ruth or Lizzie was cheating. But I was still too shell-shocked to call it. I couldn't go. I couldn't see Noah.

"Well, I'm going," Ruth said. "Will's always on such a sexual high after playing a gig. It's amazing."

She didn't say it with the slightest bit of irony, and I wondered for the millionth time why we were friends.

They were all now looking at me, so I returned my eyes to my hand.

"Poppy?" Lizzie asked.

"Mmm?" I peeled off two random cards and slapped them down. "Two sevens. Amanda, your turn."

But she didn't play. I could feel all their eyes on me.

"Poppy, are you coming?"

Quick, brain. Think of an excuse. Anything.

"I can't, guys," I said. "Tonight I'm making a cherry pie from scratch."

What the hell? That was the worst lie I'd ever heard.

"You're what?" Ruth looked mildly entertained. She leaned forward over the table. "I didn't know you baked, Poppy."

I nodded manically. Well, I might as well run with the lie now I'd started it. Anything to get me out of going. "Yeah, I love baking, you know that. I'm really excited about trying out this new recipe I got in a newspaper supplement."

"You're lying," Lizzie declared.

I switched from furious nodding to furious head shaking. "No I'm not, honest," I said, wide-eyed. "I just really enjoy baking. You guys don't know every little thing about me. There's loads you don't know." I thought of Noah and all the feelings I'd carefully secreted from them. I wasn't lying there. Not entirely.

"Poppy, I've seen you burn a frozen pizza," Lizzie said. "You hate cooking! Why don't you want to come to Band Night? You're usually really up for it."

I needed more lies. "I just don't feel like it, that's all."

"But it's Friday night. It's live music. It's the only half decent thing to do in this stupid town."

"Yeah but..." I was out.

Ruth was watching me critically. "Are you sure it's not because you're scared to see a certain someone?" she asked, flicking her cards out one by one.

I felt myself flush. "What?" I said, feigning ignorance. "What are you talking about?"

"Noah," Ruth replied. "It's obvious you had a little thing for him a while back."

God, I hated her. "Huh?"

"You don't want to go because he didn't fancy you and it broke your heart."

I pushed my chair back to give myself enough personal space for a rant.

"What. The. Hell?" I said. "I never fancied bloody Noah. He's a complete loser and if you don't believe me I'll go to this crappy Band Night. You're COMPLETELY wrong about me fancying him-"

"CHEAT," Lizzie yelled triumphantly.

Seriously? There was no fooling that girl.

"I'm not lying, Lizzie. I don't fancy Noah."

She shook her head. "No, cheat as in Cheat," she said, pointing at the cards. "You don't have two sevens." She flicked over my fraudster pair. "Ha ha. Now you have to pick up the whole pile."

I sighed and scooped them up.

I agonized over my appearance that evening. I tried on outfit after outfit, discarding them one after the other. I really didn't want to go and wished I'd thought of a legitimate excuse. After a painstaking hour, I finally decided on dark blue skinny jeans, a black strappy top and lashings of silver jewellery. I spent another half-hour attempting to create something exotic with my hair, before giving up and wearing it down around my shoulders.

Dad was at the bottom of the stairs when I left my bedroom.

"You look nice, dear," he said, shuffling past with the newspaper. "You going anywhere special?"

I shrugged. "Only Band Night...again."

"Well, you're very dressed up. Are you trying to impress a certain someone?" He looked at me with genuine intrigue.

"Eww," I said, making my way down the stairs. "No way. You know all the boys here are uber-losers. They're either posh grammar-school rugby snobs or whingey immature acne-ridden idiots."

"Of course, of course, how could I forget?" He began to shuffle towards the living room to scout out his favourite armchair. "Well, you look lovely."

I chewed a piece of hair. "Thanks, Dad."

"Be back by twelve or your mother will worry."

"Yeah yeah."

I grabbed my bag and let myself out.

I wrapped my leather jacket tightly around myself as I walked to meet Lizzie at the corner. It was darkish already and the wind was cold. Summer was definitely over. It was that twilight time when it's dark enough to see inside people's houses, but they haven't thought to close the curtains yet. The road I met Lizzie on was called Park Drive a private road where only the wealthiest could afford to live. I walked slowly, dawdling outside the particularly massive houses, trying to get a look at the people living inside them.

Lizzie was waiting for me impatiently, tapping her toe with annoyance. It was just us two walking tonight. Ruth was "going with the band" she'd been boasting about it the whole afternoon. And Amanda had stunned us all by saying her and Johnno were walking there together.

"You're late, fellow spinster," Lizzie yelled, her arms tightly crossed against her chest to keep the cold out.

I jogged up to her. "I think we're a bit too young to be calling ourselves spinsters." I gave her a quick hello hug. "Sorry for being late. I was rich-people perving again."

Lizzie shook her head. "Again? We need a new meeting spot so you might be on time for once."

I hooked my arm through Lizzie's. She looked pretty. She'd kinked her blonde hair and was wearing electric blue eyeliner, the sort I couldn't pull off in a million years. "You look nice."

"Cheers, m'dears. I nicked the eyeliner off my sister."

As we walked, I thought about Lizzie calling us spinsters. She'd never really showed any interest in boys, though she got plenty of attention.

I wondered. "Lizzie?"

We stopped to cross a road.

"Yes?"

"Why don't you have a boyfriend?"

I wasn't sure why I'd asked. We didn't often have in-depth talks about guys. Weird, I know, but Lizzie seemed to be as picky as me, so neither of us had ever really had a boyfriend. Boys were a topic we laughed about, discussing who was and who wasn't fit, but we'd never really deeply discussed our shared single-status.