She might have buried her only child, but Lorna was still such a good mum, Olivia thought with a pang. And as someone who’d been feeling as if she could really do with a compass and set of directions when it came to motherhood, this offer couldn’t have come at a more welcome time. A huge tide of emotion rose over her. Gratitude that both Lorna and Mack were reaching out to her, offering their hands to haul her up from the depths. She’d even go as far as to say she felt the first glimmerings of hope. ‘I would really like that,’ she said.

‘Good,’ replied Lorna. ‘Because I would really like that too.’

Chapter Thirty-Two

Izzie had muted the notifications from her group chat for this long, but now she took a deep breath and braved herself to take a look at how the others had responded to her confession. Just to get the recriminations and probable banishment over with. Opening up the chat, though, she quickly realized that she hadn’t been the only one who had embellished details of their wild summer.

While it was true that Lily was going to the music festival, her boyfriend couldn’t afford a ticket after all, so her mum had arranged for her to tag along with her older cousin’s crowd instead, which was going to be way less fun.

Miko had noticed plenty of hot boys at the lido, but she hadn’t dared chat any of them up and she definitely hadn’t flashed anyone in the changing rooms.

Tej had crashed a party, but in truth had spent most of her time there vomiting in the upstairs loo after too much vodka. Then she’d fallen over in the garden, right in front of the girl she fancied, and some of the sixth-form boys had taken photos of her and laughed at her, so she’d gone home early.

Ruby had ended up kissing the gorgeous boy she had a crush on, but he’d made a horrible comment about her braces and she’d been so embarrassed she’d hit him, then he’d walked off without saying another word. She’d seen him in town the day before yesterday and he’d totally blanked her.

Out they all came, one confession after another, points knocked off each girl’s totals until they were all rubbishly low. Somehow or other Ruby was even on minus figures. This is exactly the sort of thing that Miss Crowley used to go on about in PSHE, Miko had said, with several eye-rolling emojis. Peer-pressure meltdown!!

New hashtag: Summer of Fail, suggested Tej, deadpan.