Tomorrow's Blues

38. Disclosure

"I need to get something for Joseph's birthday."

Ellie examined her nails as she sat back in her chair, feet propped up on the desk. "You do?"

"Well, yeah. It's this weekend." I twirled a strand of hair around my index finger. "What do you think I should get?"

Ellie sighed loudly and stretched her arms above her head. "Ana, I don't know. A nude? Some sexy lingerie?"

I threw a pen at her but snickered. "You and Sam are really made for each other."

She grinned at me.

We were lounging around in one of the study rooms in our free period together, not doing work like teachers told us we were supposed to be doing in our free periods. Instead, we'd started off by attempting to make origami out of our old worksheets. Ellie then made me plait her hair, and now we were onto the topic of Joseph's birthday.

"Well, what does he like?" Ellie began to undo the French plaits I'd done for her. "You of all people should know that, right?"

I wrinkled my nose slightly. Apart from art and the colour emerald green, I wasn't totally sure what Joseph liked. And I wasn't telling Ellie about his art, even though I knew she could keep a secret. "He likes... the colour green. And he wants to go travelling." I pointed accusingly at her hair. "Can't believe you're taking out the brilliant plaits I did for you."

Ellie just shrugged and kept undoing her hair. "They made my head hurt. And okay, wear some green lingerie then. Problem solved."

I rolled my eyes. "You're no help."

"What? I think it's a great idea."

"Yeah, but I wanna get something meaningful–"

"Lingerie is meaningful. You know why? Because it means that you'll look sexy and that's a good enough present as any."

I laughed despite myself. "You make a valid point."

"Always listen to Ellie's advice. I'm very wise." She sighed loudly and took her feet off the desk. "We should probably do some actual work. Considering, you know, this is the year of A-Levels. This shit actually matters."

It did. Our last year of school. We were only seventeen, and we had to decide what we wanted to do with our lives. I found that sort of stupid – how did anyone know what they wanted to do for the rest of their life at seventeen years old? "Have you applied yet? For university?"

"Sure have," Ellie said confidently. Ellie was even more organised than Alice, while Ry, Sam and I fell into the completely disorganised category. We were like the children of the group. "First choice is UCL baby. London, here I come."

I opened up my laptop, preparing to research universities and courses. "And your second choice?"

"Birmingham. But I'm going to UCL. I'm going to study my ass off and get the grades for it."

I believed her. When Ellie put her mind to something, she got it done.

"Have you decided what degree you're going to do yet?" Ellie asked, eyeing me.

I sighed. I was pretty much the only person in the year who didn't know what they wanted to do at university. "No." I paused. "What do you think about me doing law?" Ever since Connor had mentioned it at the wedding, I'd thought about it a lot. I'd done some research, and the idea was appealing to me more and more each day.

"Law, huh?" Ellie chewed on the end of her pen. "I can see you doing that."

"You think?"

"Yeah, actually. How come you never thought of it before?"