I asked, “And was it a problem after that?”

“No. Never. None of us ever said anything about it. Conor was extra nice to me for a while, like maybe he was trying to make up for things going wrong—except he always was nice to me anyway, so … And I got the feeling he was keeping his distance from Jenny—nothing too obvious, but he made sure it was never just the two of them going anywhere, stuff like that. Basically, though, everything went back to normal.”

Fiona had her head bent, picking bobbles of fluff off the sleeve of her cardigan, and the residue of that blush was still on her cheeks. I asked, “Did Jenny find out?”

“That I’d broken up with Conor? She couldn’t exactly miss it.”

“That he had been interested in her.”

The tinge of red deepened again. “I think she did, actually. I mean, I actually think she might have known all along. I never told her, and no way would Conor have, or Pat—he’s really protective, he wouldn’t have wanted to worry her. But one night, a couple of weeks after that stuff with Pat happened, Jenny came into my room—we were getting ready for bed, she was already in her pajamas. She was just standing there, messing with my hair clips, sticking them on the ends of her fingers and stuff. In the end I was like, ‘What?’ She goes, ‘I’m really sorry about you and Conor.’ I said something like, ‘I’m fine, I don’t care’—I mean, it had been weeks, she’d already said it a load of times, I didn’t know what she was getting at—but she went, ‘No, seriously. If it was my fault—if I could’ve done anything differently … I mean, I’m so, so sorry, that’s all.’”

Fiona laughed, a small wry breath. “God, we were both dying of embarrassment. I was like, ‘No, it wasn’t your fault, why would it be your fault, I’m fine, good night …’ I just wanted her to leave. Jenny—for a second I thought she was going to say something else, so I stuck my head in the wardrobe and started throwing clothes around, like I was getting out stuff for the next day. When I looked around, she’d gone. We never talked about it again, but that’s why I figured she knew. About Conor.”

“And she was worried that you felt she’d been leading him on,” I said. “Did you?”

“I never even thought about it.” Fiona caught my questioning eyebrow, and her eyes skipped away. “Well. I mean, I thought about it, but I never blamed her for … Jenny liked flirting. She liked getting attention from guys—she was eighteen, of course she did. I don’t think she encouraged Conor, exactly, but I think she knew he was into her, and I think she enjoyed it. That’s all.”

I asked, “Do you think she did anything about it?”

Fiona’s head snapped up and she stared at me. “Like what? Like telling him to back off? Or like getting together with him?”