Where I Stand

For two weeks Liv ate alone. She had thought she could endure it. She found, day by day, that *enduring* was not the right verb. There was no triumphant clarity. There was only a long, cold lunch hour, and a long, quiet bus ride, and a long, awkward gap in her phone where the group chat had been. Her old friends did not approach her. She did not approach them. The school had had a quiet meeting, in which a designated counsellor had spoken to the group, and a series of consequences had been handed out. Liv's own role had been counted in the consequences; she had been issued, like the others, a formal warning, although the headteacher had also said, in private, that she had done the right thing in coming forward and that this would be remembered. Esin did not, in those two weeks, talk to Liv. In the third week, Liv was sitting alone at her usual seat by the window, reading, when Esin sat down opposite her. Liv looked up. Esin had Liv's letter in her hand. She put it on the table. "I read it eight times," Esin said. Her voice was careful, very level. "I want to say a few things back." "Okay." "I am not going to tell you it's fine. It is not fine. The last term has been the worst term of my life. I had to talk to a doctor. I had to talk to my mum about — things she should not have had to know about my year. You did not personally cause that. But you also were one of the