‘Reverse cowgirl. Hop on. I’m ready.’

Voices wafted over from the scrub. Couples, frolicking. Phony Braxxton swinging a vuvuzela. A woman in an orange bikini running to the lake and filling up a bottle, sprinting back into the grass, presumably to chuck it over someone. Liam’s arm was over his face and his breathing grew laboured.

‘Are you all right?’ I whispered.

‘I dunno.’ He tried to sit up but collapsed back down. ‘Fuck.’

He got to his knees before stumbling forwards onto his face before twisting around violently, eyes rolling back to the whites, fitting fully and bodily, like I’d plugged him in to a socket.

‘Gnnnnnnnnnnnn,’ he went, on and on, like a washing machine on spin.

‘Oh shut up,’ I seethed, climbing on top, pinning him down, legs to legs, arms to arms, face to face, as he shook rigidly beneath me, foam seeping from his mouth, eyes wide, pupils at full stop. I held myself hard against him and willed that rush into my bones – the surge. The magnificence. He was dying. He was dying and I was on top of him, all powerful. Taking his life.

‘Gnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn,’ he growled.

‘Die against me, you pig, fucking die against me,’ I muttered.

His death rattle spluttered out as his last breaths released into my hair. And his whole body stilled, one limb at a time. And his heart ceased to thump. And his eyes stayed wide.

But I didn’t get it – the surge. That expectant cliff edge before the almighty orgasm. I strained and I shuddered and I willed that delicious surge of adrenaline to come until sweat beaded on my forehead. But it was not there. I did not fall. I did not cum. ‘Ugh.’

I got to my feet, yanking out my towel from under him. ‘You can’t even fucking die properly,’ I hissed, tucking the towel beneath my arm. I checked around for detritus, submerged Liam’s phone along with the lager cans in the lake, and walked to the bus, shaking. Like a normal person.

Who the hell was I? This wasn’t Hilary and it definitely wasn’t the old Rhiannon. I was stuck in some hellish limbo where nothing felt good. I’d never felt this way before, even when I was pregnant and stymied by Ivy’s little do-gooder voice – I’d still wanted to kill. I’d been desperate to. Now, I didn’t even want to kill. I didn’t know what I wanted. It was all Ivy’s fault. She’d done this, trying to make me a good person. Now I was neither one thing nor the other.