Rebecca is Always Right by Anna Carey

they would stay together forever and get married or something. Well, maybe not get married – as someone, possibly my mother in one of her rare moments of wisdom, pointed out when Paperboy went off to Canada, most people do not stay with their first boyfriend or girlfriend for the rest of their lives. But I really couldn’t imagine them breaking up. I mean, they’ve been together for nearly two years! I was barely thirteen when they got together and now I’m practically grown up. I just can’t believe it. But it’s definitely true.
    I don’t know exactly how or why it happened, or anything like that, because I haven’t actually seen Rachel yet. I was in Cass’s house this afternoon and stayed there for dinner, so it was quite late when I got home – her mum gave me a lift. As soon as I came in the door, I just sensed something was wrong.I called ‘Hello?’ and no one answered, but Mum and Dad were in the kitchen talking quite seriously when I walked in.
    ‘Oh, hi love,’ said Mum, in a distracted sort of way. ‘I thought I heard someone come in.’
    ‘Is everything okay?’ I asked, because she didn’t look upset enough for, you know, a sudden death, but she did look a bit stressed. ‘Where’s Rachel?’
    ‘She’s in her room,’ said Dad. ‘But she’s quite upset.’
    ‘About what?’ I said, starting to feel nervous. All sorts of things immediately sprang into my mind (though not the actual truth, as it turned out – the thought that Tom might have dumped her didn’t even occur to me). What if Rachel had a terrible illness or something? But I knew surely if she did, my parents would look more worried themselves.
    Mum and Dad looked at each other.
    ‘It’s Tom,’ said Mum. ‘He’s, well, he’s broken up with her.’
    ‘Tom?’ I said, and I must have kind of shrieked it because Mum immediately went, ‘Sssh! Not so loud.’
    ‘But why? How?’ I said. I felt stunned, and I still do, really. Tom and Rachel were (and even writing ‘were’ there looks weird. Like their relationship is now officially in the past) so … solid. One of those things that never change, like Miss Kelly going on about natural disasters in geography class, onlymore boring and less scary. I just took them being together for granted. I never actually thought about it much, apart from when Rachel was annoying me (like last week) or when I was feeling bitter after Paperboy went to Canada. Rachel going out with Tom was always just … there. A fixed thing in my world. And now it isn’t.
    ‘I don’t know any details,’ said Mum. ‘I just know she was meeting him this afternoon and she came back in a bit of a state.’
    ‘But what did she say?’ I said.
    ‘Not much, Bex,’ said Dad. ‘And we really didn’t want to push her. So don’t go up to her. She’ll talk to us when she’s ready.’
    ‘But why?’ I said again. An awful thought struck me. ‘Is there someone else?’
    But they really didn’t know anything more. And there wasn’t anything I could do. I went upstairs and I was going to knock on the door, but I could hear her crying and it made me feel all weird and awful. I’m used to Rachel being, well, sorted, especially in comparison to me. In fact, sometimes it’s kind of annoying, when she’s being all wise and sensible. But her being really upset is much worse. I feel terrible for her. I’m almost taking it personally, in a strange way – like, how dare Tom do this to her? Who does he think he is?
    Oh God, I can’t just ignore her, even if she wants me to. I’m going to go and knock on her door and see what happens.

    Well, not much happened. I could hear Rachel sniffling in there when I knocked on the door, and then the sniffling noises stopped and she said ‘Go away!’ in a choked-up voice.
    ‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’ I know it was a stupid thing to say because clearly someone who has shut herself up in her room and is still crying is not okay, but I couldn’t think of