‘I’m going to stay with Mum and Dad for a bit,’ I said, failing to blink back the tears.
‘What? Why? I thought we were finally becoming half-decent housemates. Have we done something to upset you?’
‘No surprises that it’s me,’ Elliot said, his face hidden in shadow. ‘Jessie, I’m sure if we talked about it…’
‘No,’ I answered, needing to move things on before my courage scuttled back off to where it usually hid. ‘It’s not you. It’s me.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I can’t keep living here with this secret. I never would have moved in, only I didn’t realise it was Elliot’s house. Then I tried to come up with a plan to leave, but then there was the energy bill and I started to really love my job and, honestly, I love living with you guys. I feel safe here. Happy. I feel likemefor the first time in forever. My therapist said I should put the past behind me. But I’ve tried and I can’t. Then Elliot and I kissed so I need to tell you the truth. I’m so, so sorry that I didn’t before.’
‘Jessie.’ Isaac moved forwards to put his arm around me, but I stepped back.
‘No. Let me do this.’ I looked straight at Elliot as I carried on. ‘I was with you at the prom. When you were walking home, we were messing about and then I distracted you and you got hit. So. All of it. Everything you have to live with. Nearly dying. The times you wished you had. None of it would have happened if it wasn’t for me. In answer to your question last Sunday, I wouldloveto kiss you again, Elliot. I have wanted it since I saw you walk into the kitchen the day I moved in, and every day since. So, that’s why I have to go, because now you’ve heard what I’ve done, I know the last person you’ll want to kiss is me. All I can say is that I’m sorry. I’m sorry it happened and I’m sorry I never told you and I’m sorry if me trying to put it behind me has only ended up hurting you again.’
Then I turned, and did what I always do – I ran. Right into Dad’s car, waiting at the end of the drive.
* * *
For the next couple of days I hid, of all places, in the Chicken Coop honeymoon suite at the Barn. There was no one booked in that week, and the couple getting married on Saturday had chosen an expensive hotel in Nottingham for their wedding night. I turned off my phone, tried to eat the food Mum pilfered from Wendy’s fridge, lay under the luxury bamboo duvet or curled up in the hammock, and wondered what on earth I was going to do now.
Telling Elliot hadn’t miraculously made everything feel better. It still didn’t change what I’d done, or who I’d been ever since. But, I thought that somewhere deep inside, a tiny version of me had begun to open her eyes and stir. The me who I would have been if none of this had happened. The me who didn’t feel the need to keep ruining her life, to pay for ruining his.
For the first time since the night of the prom, I felt a glimmer of genuine hope.
* * *
On Sunday afternoon, after failing to convince me to join Arthur’s party, the sounds of which had started drifting over the hedge, Mum blabbed to Isaac.
‘I’ve been sent to fetch you to the party.’ He came and sat on the spare lounger, holding out a tissue when I immediately started crying again.
‘Not happening,’ I hiccupped, after he’d given me a long, twinly hug.
‘Come on, can we skip you listing all the reasons why you don’t want to, and me explaining why you need to come anyway, and you eventually giving in and agreeing to come for half an hour, just while Arthur makes his speech, and you just come now? I’m on adate. WithConnie. And it’s actually going okay. I don’t want to waste it arguing with you.’
‘Then go,’ I said, half-annoyed, half-laughing through my tears. ‘I didn’t ask you to come.’
‘No, but now I’m here you know I can’t go back without you.’
‘Is he there?’ I asked, my voice quavering.
‘Of course he’s there. Most of the village are there. But you really need to talk to him, sis.’
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’
He stood up, the heartbreak scrawled across his face. ‘Okay. But will you talk to me? Not today, but soon? It kills me that you kept this from me.’
‘I couldn’t bear you blaming me,’ I sobbed. ‘I couldn’t take the look in your eyes when I told you.’
‘And you think I’ve been able to bear the look in your eyes ever since it happened?’
* * *
He left a couple of minutes later and I crept back inside and folded myself into one corner of the bed, trying to convince myself that Arthur wouldn’t mind me missing his big moment. Isaac started sending me photos, of the gravestone chair covers and urns stuffed with flowers.
Elsa’s arriving with her family in fifteen minutes. At the very least you could spy through a hole in the fence.
I was contemplating this while standing in my flip-flops in the doorway when the gate opened again. Expecting my parents checking up on me, I’d not moved when the figure stepped through, a slight list to the left as he closed the gate behind him.
‘Isaac told you,’ I mumbled, when he’d come to a stop a couple of metres in front of me.
‘We agreed there’d been enough secrets for now.’
