Maybe, just maybe, it was time to smash down some of those self-built high walls and reintroduce herself to the rest of the world, she thought, as she got back into her car. Her blood was racing like a warrior’s. Her heart was thudding. Then she pulled down the sunshade and flipped open the little mirror there, staring at herself as if seeing herself for the first time. The question was: who did she want to be? And what was she going to do about it?

Chapter Nineteen

Izzie flopped onto her bed, smarting as she heard George’s voice through the wall. He was talking to his ex-wife, Charlotte, she could tell, because Seren was clamouring to speak too, like the annoying little brat she was. George sounded a bit irritable, she thought, and then, leaning closer to the wall, Izzie heard him ushering the little girl out of there so that he could talk to his ex in private. Oh, great. No doubt they were giving her a good old slagging. Just what she needed!

Okay, so she probably shouldn’t have spoken to the woman quite so rudely earlier, but when she’d answered George’s phone she’d been feeling so damn angry about everything that this sharp burst of nastiness had just spiked up through her. Your girlfriend’s daughter sounds a right charmer, she imagined Charlotte bitching to George. What the hell’s wrong with her?

Good question, Charlotte. The question, in fact.

Rolling over, Izzie put her face in the pillow, feeling confused and tired, wishing she could start the day all over again. But how did you spool backwards from a bust-up like that when your own feelings were balanced so precariously? George was probably waiting for her to say sorry, but why should she, when she hadn’t even done anything wrong? He should be the one apologizing to her, thank you very much – he and his crummy daughter. He had really pissed her off!

She reached for her phone and clicked on the Summer of Yes group chat to see what her friends were up to. Maybe they would distract her. Lily was swooning about her boyfriend as usual, Ruby was wanging on about some party or other at the weekend – great, another thing Izzie was going to miss – and all of a sudden she was utterly fed up of being the only one with nothing interesting to say for herself. Being the boring one of the group totally sucked.

‘Fake it till you can make it,’ she remembered Olivia saying and then, in the next moment, her fingers began to fly unprompted over the keyboard. Forget your party, how many points do I get for some hot naked action with an older man then?? she typed. While my mum was in the next room!