Red rose and beaded chain on the hand

"You still owe me a rose," she says. "Don't pretend you forgot."

You had bought one from the florist on Mill Lane with your paper round money, a single bloom in cellophane, and given it to her behind the science block in the drizzle. She pinned it to her blazer, then dropped it in the bin by the gate when the bell went, because boys were watching. You fished it out again after she had gone. The petals were bruised by then, but the outer ones had held their shape, and you pressed the flower between the pages of a hymn book you never returned to the chapel.

Now she opens her clutch and draws out a thin gold chain with a small oval locket hanging from it, the school's fleur-de-lis stamped on the front in enamel worn the colour of marmalade. "Prefects' medal," she says. "Mr Hadley gave it to me for the swimming gala, and I never gave it back, so technically it's yours to return."

You turn it over. Inside, in pencil, someone has written your initials, which you do not remember doing. Across the room the headmaster taps a microphone and asks everybody to find their old form for the photograph, and Dessa lifts the chain over your head before you can argue, the locket settling against your chest as the flash goes off.