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Chapters (86)
  1. Title Page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. Love
  4. Before
  5. One
  6. ONE
  7. Two
  8. TWO
  9. Three
  10. THREE
  11. Four
  12. FOUR
  13. Five
  14. FIVE
  15. Six
  16. SIX
  17. Seven
  18. SEVEN
  19. Eight
  20. EIGHT
  21. Nine
  22. NINE
  23. Ten
  24. TEN
  25. Eleven
  26. ELEVEN
  27. After
  28. One
  29. ONE
  30. Two
  31. TWO
  32. Three
  33. THREE
  34. Four
  35. FOUR
  36. Five
  37. FIVE
  38. Six
  39. SIX
  40. Seven
  41. SEVEN
  42. Eight
  43. EIGHT
  44. Nine
  45. NINE
  46. Ten
  47. TEN
  48. Eleven
  49. ELEVEN
  50. Twelve
  51. TWELVE
  52. Thirteen
  53. THIRTEEN
  54. Fourteen
  55. FOURTEEN
  56. Fifteen
  57. FIFTEEN
  58. Sixteen
  59. SIXTEEN
  60. Seventeen
  61. SEVENTEEN
  62. Eighteen
  63. EIGHTEEN
  64. Nineteen
  65. NINETEEN
  66. Twenty
  67. TWENTY
  68. Twenty-One
  69. TWENTY-ONE
  70. Twenty-Two
  71. TWENTY-TWO
  72. Twenty-Three
  73. TWENTY-THREE
  74. Twenty-Four
  75. TWENTY-FOUR
  76. Twenty-Five
  77. TWENTY-FIVE
  78. Twenty-Six
  79. TWENTY-SIX
  80. Twenty-Seven
  81. TWENTY-SEVEN
  82. Twenty-Eight
  83. TWENTY-EIGHT
  84. Eleven Months Later
  85. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  86. Copyright

When Alice lifts her chin to look me in the eye for the first time since she found me standing here, I wait and wonder if this is it. She knows and it will all come out in a rush. All the things she should have done. The lies she told and secrets she kept. She can’t take it with her, so she’ll leave it with me. Everything she wished for when she blew out her birthday candles. I’m there and this is it, her last chance to say I’m sorry or I love you or Forgive me.

All the times she should have jumped and didn’t. All the people she should have kissed and didn’t. All that time she wasted being too careful or too polite or too scared when, in the end, nothing is as scary as watching your whole life narrow to a single moment that’s about to pass, whether you’re ready for it to or not.

Maybe I’ll see it then – the regret – burning off her, right through her clothes, and she’ll never look so alive. She’ll laugh and cry and scream, exhaust every emotion until there’s nothing left and it will be like watching a light bulb flare then burn out.

But Alice doesn’t do any of that though. She doesn’t tell me her secrets, doesn’t tell me about her dog, Chester, who sleeps at the bottom of her bed at night. Or about the lipstick she stole from Boots last year, the red one that wouldn’t come off, even when she scrubbed it so hard her mouth felt bruised for days.

I should be OK with that because it means that I don’t need to explain, we can just go. But I want to. I want Alice to ask me who I am. If she did, I’d tell her that I’m Ashana Persaud and that I’m sixteen. I’d tell her that my favourite song is ‘Rock Steady’ because it always gets my parents on the dance floor at weddings and my favourite film is Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, even though I tell everyone it’s The Shining because it’s easier. I’d show her the scar on my chin that I got falling off a slide when I was six and tell her about the tattoo I was going to get on my eighteenth birthday. I’d tell her that I’m scared of open water and clowns and being puked on and that from here, you can see where I had my last kiss, a couple of weeks ago, right there on the beach. And most of all, I’d tell her that it’s not fair.

It’s not fair that she gets to go, when I have to stay and do this.