Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill Page B

home . . . ” I turn the sound off. His lips are still moving. carrie is standing behind him, the thin straps of her cream slip dress falling off her shoulders.Her face is beautifully made up but you can see the shadowing underneath, her eyes huge with defeat.
    “Did carrie release a statement too?”
    “I doubt anyone asked her for one,” isabel says, and I nod, pushing the ePad away.
    “Are you feeling sick? Should I call chastity-magdalena?” Worry is etched on isabel’s face. Why is she being nice to me again?
    “How come you’re allowed to visit me?”
    “I’m not being chastised, am I?”
    “But you’re still breaking Isolation. Why haven’t the chastities kicked you out?”
    “Just lucky, I guess.” She picks at a spare thread in the blanket cover, avoiding my eyes. Another secret.
    “Fine. Don’t tell me.”
    “It’s not a big deal, freida. chastity-magdalena is being amazing.” She wags her finger at me. “You know, I think you’re her favorite. For some reason.”
    “Excuse me!” I can’t help but smile. “What do you mean, ‘for some reason’? Why wouldn’t I be her favorite?”
    isabel makes a grotesque face, and we start giggling again. “I’ve missed this,” I blurt out before I lose courage. “It’s been nice these last few days, sitting together at meals. Like the old days.”
    “Well, you were delirious from a lack of sleep . . .”
    “And I’m sorry about not inviting you to the garden. It wasn’t my decision.”
    “It’s fine.”
    She doesn’t offer me an apology in return or explain why she’s been pushing me away all year. I wish I knew why I didn’t say anything to her about this before now. Why didn’t I catch it at the beginning? But it all happened so gradually. A missed VideoChat request here and there, the night I lay awake sizzling in the heat and realized she hadn’t visited my cubicle in weeks . . . There was nothing you could pinpoint and say, “This is the exact moment that we stopped being best friends.” She sits back on the chair, tucking her ePad into the satchel neatly.
    “Anyway . . .” she folds over her lap like a ragdoll, wrapping her arms around her knees—“you’re just doing what you have to do.”
    “That’s no excuse.”
    “freida. That’s what we’ve been trained to do. You have to pull your rankings back up. There’s still hope for you.”
    “And what? There isn’t for you?” I ask, annoyed.
    She looks at me bleakly. “Just promise me you’ll try, freida.”
    The door opens and megan and the twins stomp in, their leopard-print platforms pounding on the wooden floorboards. They still have their hair in messy side braids, each of them in leather shorts with a marl-gray tank top and knee-high socks.
    “I mean it. Go back and get changed now,” megan barks at the twins.
    “We’ll be late for dinner!” liz and jessie whine.
    “Look at you, girls.” They turn to stare at me. “So coordinated.”
    “freida, can you just try and be normal for once?” megan tosses her head, her hair falling down her back like an ebony rope. Is it her voice inside my head all the time? She always seems to say the exact thing that I’m thinking about myself.
    “Did you visit her just to be mean?” isabel says.
    “Of course not! I was worried about you, freida, I wanted to check that you were, you know, alive.” She sits on the bed, crushing my foot beneath her. I yelp in pain, but she doesn’t move, still smiling sweetly.
    “And we were bored in Isolation,” jessie adds helpfully as she and liz sit on the other side. She pulls a bag of sweeties from her clutch, cramming one purple jelly into her mouth, then another.
    “I thought you said sugar was poison?” I say.
    “Everything in moderation,” jessie mumbles, swallowing the sweets without even chewing. “Besides,” she says, clearing her throat, “I’m only eating purple-colored food this week so these don’t count.”
    “This room is weird,” megan