Solitaire, Part 3 of 3 by Alice Oseman Page B

me any more.
    “Victoria, I saw you that day and thought that the person who I’d been in love with for six years was going to kill herself.”
    “Don’t touch me. Stay away from me.”
    Nobody is honest, nobody is real. You can’t trust anyone or anything. Emotions are humanity’s fatal disease. And we’re all dying.
    “Look, I’m not part of Solitaire any more—”
    “You were so
innocent
and
awkward
.” I’m talking in rushed, maniacal strings of thought. I don’t know why I’m saying any of this. It’s not really Lucas I’m angry at. “I suppose you thought you were romantic, with your books and your fucking hipster clothes. Why shouldn’t I be in love with you? All this time you were plotting and faking.”
    Why am I surprised? This is what everyone does.
    And then I know exactly what to do.
    “What,” I ask, “is Solitaire going to do tomorrow?”
    I have the chance to do something. To finally, wonderfully, put an end to all of the pain.
    He says nothing, so I shout.
    “
Tell me!
Tell me what’s happening tomorrow!”
    “I don’t know exactly,” says Lucas, but I think he’s lying. “All I know is that they’re meeting inside at 6am.”
    So that’s where I’ll be. Tomorrow at six. I’ll undo everything.
    “Why didn’t you tell me that before?” I whisper. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
    There is no answer. He cannot answer.
    The sadness is coming, like a storm.
    And I start to laugh like a serial killer.
    I laugh and run. Run out of the school. Run through this dead town. Run, and I think, maybe the pain will stop, but it keeps burning inside, burning down.

FORTY-ONE
    THE FOURTH OF February is a Friday. The UK experiences the heaviest snowfall since 1963. Approximately 360,000 people are born and lightning strikes the earth 518,400 times. 154,080 people die.
    I escape my house at 5.24am. I did not watch any films during the night. None of them seemed very interesting. Also, my room was kind of freaking me out because I pulled down all the Solitaire posts so my carpet was now a meadow of paper and Blu-Tack. I just kind of sat on my bed, not doing anything. Anyway, I’m wearing as many clothes as possible over my school uniform and I’m armed with my phone and a torch and an unopened diet lemonade can which I don’t think I’ll drink. I’m feeling slightly deranged because I haven’t slept for about a week, but it’s a good sort of deranged, an ecstatic deranged, an invincible, infinite
deranged
.
    The Solitaire blog post appeared at 8pm last night.
    20:00 3rd February
    Solitairians.
    Tomorrow morning, Solitaire’s greatest operation will take place at Harvey Greene Grammar School. You are most welcome to attend. Thank you for all your support this term.
    We hope that we’ve added something to what might have been a very boring winter.
    Patience Kills
    I have a sudden urge to call Becky.
    “… hello?”
    Becky sleeps with her phone on vibrate next to her head. I know this because she used to tell me how boys wake her up in the night by texting her.
    “Becky. It’s Tori.”
    “Oh my God. Tori.” She does not sound very alive. “Why … are you calling me … at 5am …?”
    “It’s twenty to six.”
    “Well,
that
changes
everything
.”
    “That’s a forty-minute difference. You can do a lot in forty minutes.”
    “Just … why … are you calling …?”
    “To say I’m feeling a lot better.”
    Pause. “Well … that’s good, but—”
    “Yeah, I know. I feel really, really, really good.”
    “Then … shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
    “Yeah, yeah, I will, once I’ve sorted things out for good. It’s happening this morning, Solitaire, you know.”
    Second pause. “Wait.” She’s awake now. “Wait. What – where are you?”
    I look around. I’m nearly there actually. “Heading to school. Why?”
    “Oh my
God
!” There’s some scuffling of her sitting up in bed. “Jesus Christ, dude, what the fuck are you doing!?”
    “I already told