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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

Why him? Why did he stab that guy? Did they know each other? Did he try to snatch the guy’s phone out of his hand as they were getting off the train, but the guy wouldn’t let him? Something similar happened to my mother at the bus stop outside the hospital last year and my father told Rosh and I that if anything like that ever happens to us, to give them what they want and let them go. Don’t cry out for help or tell them to get a job (which my mother did and the bloke was so stunned, she was on the bus before he recovered) just give them our phone or our purse or whatever they’re demanding, because it isn’t worth it.

Everything can be replaced.

It’s stuff like that scares me. Really scares me. Not serial killers or axe murderers or those things that go bump in the night. But those senselessly random things you can’t avoid or prepare for or even ask yourself why because you just happened to be there, on that street at that time, and there’s no explanation other than that.

Maybe that’s what happened to the guy who was stabbed at the station. Maybe he wouldn’t let the other guy off the train first or looked at him the wrong way and that was it. Maybe if he’d sat near us on the train and thought Poppy’s laugh was too loud or if she hadn’t insisted we sit in the first carriage so we were the first ones to get off, it could have been one of us.

The thought makes every muscle in my body clench as I wonder if the guy who was stabbed is OK. If he’s in A&E right now and my mother will tell us about him when she gets home from work. Tell Rosh and I to be careful as my father gives us the lecture again, telling us not to do anything stupid, that everything can be replaced.

‘I thought he stabbed you,’ Poppy says then, still playing with her ring.

‘Pop, I’m fine.’ I wait for her to look up at me, then smile. ‘See? All in one piece.’

‘Yeah, but what if you weren’t?’ she asks with a furious frown. ‘There we were, coming home from the most amazing day, and just like that,’ she stops to click her fingers, ‘you could have died and for what? Because we got that train and not the one after it? Or because you didn’t tell him to watch it when he barged into you?’ She finally meets my gaze, her eyes wet. ‘That’s the trouble, Ash, we’re sixteen and we think we have time. We think we have our whole lives ahead of us, years and years, but what if we don’t? Something like that could happen at any moment.’