Page 50 of The Book Swap

James is probably the only and the best male friend I’ve had, until he wasn’t. His one moment of betrayal destroyed three years of good, but before then, he was up there with Bonnie. Seeing his face out of the blue on the bus like that put him back in my thoughts, and while at first all of those were bad, flashes of good keep coming through. Especially now, after Callum. James would never have spoken to me or Bonnie like that. He used to say things that made me believe I could do anything. He’s the one who convinced me, at the start of year ten, that I could stand up in front of the whole school and read an excerpt from The Hunger Games in an assembly. I was obsessed with those books. It was the bit about hope being stronger than fear. He read it and I thought for a second he’d welled up. He handed it back to me.

“Do it,” he said. “It’s powerful. It could change someone’s life without you even knowing.”

“He’s right,” Bonnie said. “Giving someone hope is like giving them the wings they need to fly through life.”

“All right, Bon. No need to take my words and shit all over them with your poetry,” James said and the three of us burst out laughing.

When I stood on the stage at school and read it, there were the two of them, in the front row, mouthing along to every word.

It’s been too painful, ever since, to remember those times. But now the good memories keep appearing. I can’t even fight them, because having them back is like having more of my best friend back too. When James told everyone about my mum, I didn’t just lose him. I lost all the moments that also included Bonnie.

In the afternoon I make the short walk to Savannah’s house, my stomach fluttering. Ever since I wrote the words “I want to be a teacher” in the back of the book, I’ve been unable to stop thinking about it. I’ve googled courses. But I haven’t gone any further, because what if these sessions with Savannah are a total fluke?

She lets me in and for the first time she leads me down the hallway and into the kitchen, instead of up the stairs.

“Was just making a squash. Do you want something? An old-person drink? Like tea?”

I roll my eyes and smile. “I’d actually love a tea.”

“’Course you would.” She busies herself at the kettle and I look around, seeing this part of the house for the first time. There’s a corkboard covered in photographs, and drawings curled at the edges, some of the ink faded. It looks like it’s been there for years, and judging by the age of Savannah in the photos, it hasn’t been updated in quite some time.

“So, did my dad tell you?” she asks, barely allowing the teabag to touch the water before she removes it and flings it in the sink. Quite a good shot, actually. She’s grinning at me, and I don’t know why.

“Your dad’s a man of few words on email.”

She nods. “Figures. Well, you know that essay I had to write on Pride and Prejudice?”

“Of course.” It was Savannah’s last essay before the exams start. I’ve been helping her with preparation work for questions that might come up, but she has to write all the essays herself.

“I got my first C+. It was about what qualities Jane Austen seems to value in a person, based on the book.”

I want to pick her up and hug her, but I’m aware, even with such an unofficial arrangement, that it would be unprofessional.

Instead I break into a huge smile. “Oh, Savannah, that’s amazing. Congratulations,” I say, my voice a higher pitch than I’ve heard it in quite some time. “I’m so proud of you.” I’m proud of myself too.

“Thanks.” She hands me the tea, keeping hold of the handle so I have to burn my fingertips, gripping it by the middle. The color of it is so pale I swallow down a lump in my throat. This would for sure win the “monstrosi-tea” competition Bonnie and I started, where we’d send each other photos of terrible cups of tea other people had made for us. “Didn’t realize I ordered a cappuccino,” she’d send, with an accompanying photo of a tea with white frothy milk. I loved it. I always felt like I was part of even the smallest moments of her day.

“That’s my mum,” Savannah explains, nodding toward the photo I’m staring through while I think about Bonnie. I squeeze my eyes to focus on it. Savannah’s about...ten-ish, grinning with braces on her teeth. Her mum’s hair is blowing across her face as she laughs, one arm around Savannah and another held out toward the camera.

“She’s beautiful.”

“She was. She died six years ago.”

I haven’t ever seen Savannah’s mum or heard her mentioned, but I didn’t want to presume something bad had happened to her. I’m more upset than I expected to find out that something has.

“I’m so sorry.”

Savannah shrugs, but the nonchalance of the action doesn’t match the expression in her eyes. “It’s shit, not having her around.”

“I bet.” For the first time in a long time, I experience a small rush of guilt, that my mum is around, but that I choose to act as though she isn’t. There are similar photos of us together. Hundreds of them, like the one Georgia gave her for her birthday. Ones where I’m looking up at her in total admiration, back before I realized she could do anything wrong.

“Oh, before I forget,” she says, turning to me, her mum seemingly forgotten. “A few of the girls in the year below are doing their year ten mock exams. I told them about you and loads of them want to book you in. My school’s in East Dulwich so I told them you charged one hundred quid an hour. Believe me. They can afford it.”

My eyes widen at the prospect of making that amount of money for talking about books.

“Wow.”

“Shall I give them your email? Dad said I should check with you first.”

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