The phone rang three times and then a person called Brenda, who sounded like a receptionist, picked up the phone. I asked if Dr McGraw was in the practice at the moment and the lady said she was, so I asked to speak to her.

"To make an appointment you need to go through me," Brenda said.

"No, it's not… I don't need to make an appointment. I'm her sister," I said. It was kind of the truth, or I hoped it would be in the future.

There was a pause on the other end and then in a clipped tone, Brenda told me to hold the line. I waited, feeding more coins into the machine.

It can't have been more than a minute before Molly came on the line, saying a very confused hello.

"Molly, it's me, Heidi!" I said quickly.

"Heidi? Is everything okay? Is Crane okay?"

"He's fine, I just…"

I went on to explain to Molly why I was calling. If I had called Hannah or someone at home, they would have either told me I was making a poor choice, yelled or me or told me to get on back to school, but Molly didn't. She listened patiently and pointed out, non-judgementally that Olivia might not even be at home.

"I know, but I have to try, Molly," I said.

"I understand," Molly said, "And I'll call the ranch for you no problem-"

"Thank you so much!" I said, relief flooding me.

"Wait, I'm not done talking," Molly said. It was the first time I had heard her voice coming even a little bit close to stern.

"Okay, sorry," I said, subdued.

"I'll call the ranch for you and explain what's happening on the condition that after you see Olivia, you call home yourself to update them and if you don't manage to see her, you use a call box to call them."

I was silent. I really didn't want to do what Molly was saying.

"Heidi? You still there?" Molly said.

"Yes," I said, sighing heavily.

"Do we have an agreement?"

I was silent again and again Molly asked me if I was still there.

"Okay," I agreed.

I really didn't have any other choice.

"I think it's important you take some responsibility for this," Molly said, though not unkindly.

"But you understand why I'm doing it though, right?" I asked, desperately. For some reason it was really important that she didn't think I was crazy.

"I understand," Molly said calmly. "But I'm trusting you'll keep your word. You promise you'll stick to your end of the bargain?"

"I promise."

/

My heart beat wildly as I rang the bell to Olivia's front door. Not only did I not know if she was home, but if she was home, I didn't know if she would agree to see me. She might hate my guts for all I knew.

There were footsteps approaching and then the door swung open and Ella, Olivia's older sister was standing there.

"Hi," I said, giving an awkward wave. Although Ella was only Ford's age, she had always seemed so much older than us, maybe because she acted that way towards Olivia and me.

"Oh, hi, Heidi," Ella said. She looked taken aback to see me and then confused. "What are you doing here? Isn't today a school day?"

"It is, but I wanted to see Olivia; is she here?"

Ella hesitated.

"My mom and dad are out- I don't know if it's okay to-"

"So she is here?" I interrupted. "Please Ella. I just want to talk to her."

"Alright," Ella relented. "But you'll need to be quick. She's not okay and I don't want anything upsetting her more."

My heart broke a little a that. To be considered as someone who would hurt Olivia when I cared about her so much. Loved her even.

Ella held open the door for me and I stepped inside. The house, which had always been in such good order every time I had been there was now in disarray, with items half packed into large moving boxes.

"Are you moving?" I asked, gesturing to the boxes around us.

Ella nodded. "Yea, we're going back to San Francisco."

"San Francisco?" I repeated, horrified. My first thought was that they'd just be moving to another house nearby.

"You hardly expect us to stay here with everything that's happened, do you?" Ella said. She sounded accusing, as though I were part of the reason for Olivia's hurt.

I felt tears rise and I didn't want to cry in front of Ella, so I swallowed them and pointed to the stairs to signal I was going upstairs.

Outside Olivia's bedroom door, which was firmly shut, I took a couple of moments to breathe the way Julia had told me to. I was there to see Olivia was okay, so it wouldn't do to present as a blubbering mess.

I knocked on the door and then, when I didn't get a reply, I opened the door gently and stepped into the room.

Olivia was sitting on the floor cross legged, her back against her bed, sorting through a pile of what looked like photographs. It looked like she was separating them into two different piles. I was shocked when I took in her appearance. Olivia had always been so well put together, so fizzing with life, but now she looked like a shadow of her former self. Her hair, normally shiny and full, looked lank and flat and her skin was sallow. She had lost weight too; I could see the bones of her.

"Hi Liv," I said, softly, closing the door behind me.

Olivia looked up, surprised, as though she had been oblivious to me knocking and entering the room. She looked at me with dull eyes.

"Oh… hi, Heidi," she said flatly, as though it hadn't been a few weeks since she'd seen me. To me it seemed like a different lifetime.

"What you doing?" I asked, going to sit down next to her on the floor.

"Just looking through old photos. Remember this?"

She held the picture in her hand up so I could see it.

It made me smile.

"Sure," I said.

It was a picture of the two of us taken at Olivia's 9th birthday party. We were both wearing tiaras; her party had been princess themed and as best friends, we had worn matching ones. We were grinning cheesily into the camera and had our arms wrapped around each other.

"My mom says I should be packing, but I came across them," Olivia said.

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

"Ella said you're moving to San Francisco," I said.

Olivia looked at me, her eyes shining with tears.

"Yea… I can't… I can't stay here after…" Olivia paused, seemingly searching for words before settling for, "… this."

I nodded.

"Did you speak to the cops?" I asked.

"My mom and dad did, but they said there's no evidence. It's my word against theirs and they're saying I wanted to."

"That's ridiculous! So they're just going to get away with what they did?" I spluttered.

Olivia shrugged and wiped her eyes.

"It's my own fault anyway. I shouldn't have been so drunk."

"It's not your fault, Liv!" I protested. "Even if you were drunk, no one was the right to touch you like that."

"It doesn't matter now anyway," she said.

"It does matter! They can't get away with… with… raping you!" I said.

Olivia winced, as though I'd hit her.

"I'm sorry," I said softly.

"How come you're here?" she asked me then, "Isn't it a school day?"

I didn't want to tell her that I'd raced over after hearing that the three boys who had hurt her had been questioned by the cops, so I just said, "I missed you."

"I missed you too," Olivia said, "You've been my best friend for so long."

"Me too," I said, and this time, I couldn't help the tears falling.

I moved closed to her, so that we were sitting side by side.

"I'm so sorry for telling what happened to you, Livvy; I should have kept my mouth shut!" I cried.

"I'm glad you did," Olivia said, out and out crying now too. "I needed to, but I didn't know how."

And then we were hugging, holding onto each other for dear life and sobbing into each other's shoulders. My heart felt like it was breaking; the kind of hurt I had felt earlier in the year when I was grieving for my parents.

"I don't know what I'm going to do without you," I sobbed into her. And truly, I didn't. It was starting to hit me what Olivia moving away really meant. She had introduced me to so much, given me so much.

"Me neither; but we'll write and call and you can come visit me in San Francisco," Olivia said, or I think that's what she said since we were both crying so hard it was hard to talk and to understand what each other were saying.

The two of us sat there, just hugging and crying for a while longer, going through pretty much half a box of Kleenex that Olivia grabbed off her desk at one point. Then we sat, looking through some of the photographs together, reminiscing. There were many of Olivia and her family on vacation, in family events, just day to day photographs as well, but there were also a surprising number of ones with me and her in them together. Pictures from when we'd first met at 8, all the way up to recent days. Ones of us at Sports Days at school, more ones at Olivia's other birthday parties, Olivia on a horse at our ranch; Brian had taught her how to ride and her parents were so proud of her. Ones of us getting ready for the dances at middle school; ones of us on hot summer days, just hanging out at Olivia's house; ones of us on vacation the time Adam had let me go with her family. It made me realise how much of our lives we had shared together. And all of it was about to be taken away: the end of an era.

"Do you want to keep some of these?" Olivia asked me.

I said yes and then chose 7 pictures of us, one for each year we had been friends.

"I'd better call home," I said after I'd slipped the photos into my school planner to keep them flat. "I kinda just left school to come here."

"I'm gonna miss your family, Heidi," Olivia said with a watery smile.

"Come to the ranch before you leave; they'd love to see you," I told her.

Olivia shook her head, tears falling again.

"I'm too embarrassed to see anyone," she said.

I tried to persuade her that no one in my family thought it was her fault or that she had anything to be embarrassed about, although I'll admit that I privately didn't know that. I hadn't really talked about it in detail with anyone there. The only people who I was sure would agree with me were Molly and Hannah. Olivia wouldn't be budged though.

It was nearing lunch and I knew that it would have been a few hours since Molly had called home for me. While I would rather have avoided it, I knew I needed to keep my promise to her. And I knew I couldn't avoid it forever.

Ella was in the living room watching TV when I went down to the kitchen to use the phone and paid me no mind. I don't think she even knew I was there.

"Please be Daniel, Hannah or Crane, please be Daniel, Hannah or Crane," I prayed silently as I dialled. My hands were sweating.

"Hello?" a voice said into the phone after the fourth ring.

My stomach dropped with relief.

"Hi, it's me," I said.

"Hi Heidi," Hannah said. She sounded tired but not worried, so I knew that Molly had been successful in getting through.

"I'm at Olivia's."

Hannah sighed.

"I know. Molly called earlier and told us what happened. That you took matters into your own hands and left school. Again."

I could hear the accusation in Hannah's voice. She was ticked off; I could tell.

"Hannah," I said, my voice cracking, "Olivia's moving away; she's going to San Francisco for good."

Before I could stop myself, I was sobbing again.

"Oh honey; I'm sorry," Hannah said, sounding much more gentle now.

"I want to come home," I sniffed.

All I wanted was to be at home, in my room where I could lie down and sleep and escape reality for a few hours.

"I'll send someone to pick you up," Hannah said.

"Not Adam or Brian!" I pleaded.

"Heidi, I can't dictate who comes to get you."

"Please Hannah, I can't take being yelled at right now," I said.

"No one's going to yell," Hannah admonished.

"They will Hannah! I took off again without permission and I know I shouldn't have but I had to and now everything is so messed up."

"Well, I-"

"Please, Hannah, please! I want Crane or Daniel to pick me up. Please!"

I guess Hannah could hear my desperation because she said, "Alright, Heidi, I'll see what I can do."