Something else for me to share with Collette. Knowing that everything I said was in confidence made it easier to eventually open up and speak the truth that even Libby wasn’t aware of. The truth about the fear that still lived within me, sometimes pressing so hard against my chest that I could hardly breathe. I should’ve fought back harder when I was bundled into the back of that van. My depression at how helpless and hopeless I’d been when alone with Libby in that basement was all I deserved – at least that’s what I told myself. And yes, I wanted to rage at Libby for what her family had put us through, rage that I’d fought hard to bury while we were in the basement, but which sometimes overtook me when I was alone. I’d started boxing lessons at my local gym and bought myself a free-standing punchbag for my bedroom that I used every day – but combined they weren’t enough. Some days it felt like there was something inside me just waiting to explode and then God help all those around me when it did.

That’s what terrified me the most.

Only last week, Ayo had snuck up behind me and put his hands round my neck, something he’d done a hundred times before. Instinctively, I’d turned and swung at him, knocking him to the ground. It took Mr Brewster and my friend Zane to pull me off. And then I saw what I’d done … the blood pouring from Ayo’s broken nose … Mrs Paxton had informed me that I was lucky not to be permanently excluded from school. Any other head and I would’ve been.

Flashbacks of the basement haunted me. Collette warned me it would take a while to be OK with that.

‘Memories of what you went through will be with you for the rest of your life and, if you expect otherwise, you’re going to be disappointed,’ she said. Not what I wanted to hear, though I appreciated the honesty. ‘But you will find a way to live with those memories, to manage them. And, most of all, you need to tell yourself every day that what happened to you and your mum was not your fault.’

So that’s what I did each and every morning before I got out of bed. And there were some days, the odd day, when I almost believed it.

I looked up from kicking at the snow to find Libby watching me.

‘D’you ever think about the two of us trapped in that basement?’ I asked.

‘Just all the time,’ Libby said with a shrug.

‘I still can’t believe we were in that hellhole for less than forty-eight hours. It felt like … an eternity.’

‘Maybe the further in time we get away from it, the more it will fade?’ said Libby.

I sighed. ‘D’you believe that?’

‘On good days.’