And he has to remind himself that he is safe. His friends are safe, although Ryan isn’t solely his friend now, is he? He’s his half-brother and that’s been a lot to get his head round. They hadn’t spoken for months after it all went down, but lately they’ve been gaming online together again, though not speaking about what happened. He hopes someday that they will, but slowly, they are repairing their broken relationship. Ryan and Melissa live in Scotland now, not with, but near Fergus. Fergus had rushed back the minute he had heard what happened, assuring Ryan that he couldn’t love him any more if he were his biological son. Realizing he should never have left him.

Connor pulls open his door.

‘Want to play Forza with me and Kieron?’ Tyler asks.

‘Nah. I’m going to FaceTime Hailey.’

The past eight months, Hailey has made so much progress in her recovery. She’s still weak, particularly on one side, but she can walk now, although only with a stick. Her speech is returning to normal. She told Connor that it wasn’t exactly that she couldn’t speak, she didn’t want to. Couldn’t face the questions she knew she’d be asked. Had wanted to protect him.

They’re not back together. Connor wants to be but he knows he has a lot of making up to do first. He deserted her, his first love, when she got sick. Although they’ve spent hours talking it through and Hailey understands that it wasn’t her being ill that had turned him away but the guilt he felt that it was his fault.

He’s not worthy of her.

Yet.

He visits her several times a week and talks to her most days.

Mr Marshall is so grateful about her progress he… not exactly welcomes Connor in with open arms, but he makes him tea and offers him the odd biscuit. It’s a start.

He’s about to call Hailey when there’s a knock on his door again, this time Aidan.

‘Time to go and visit Mum,’ he says.

Connor doesn’t want to go and see her – she just isn’t the same.

She frightens him. She frightens Kieron. And… that place. It has a smell, a taste, it seeps into every pore so that long after he’s arrived home and scrubbed his skin in the shower, it’s still with him.

She’s still with him

It hurts to call her Mum after what she did but he can’t call her Lucy.

He just doesn’t know who she is anymore.

Dad calls him again and his legs tremble as he stands. Still, he has to be the strong one. He has to be the one to stand by Kieron’s side and reassure him that everything is all right.

But it isn’t all right at all.

Chapter Ninety-Three

Aidan