‘I used to get the same thing.’

‘Really?’

Lily nodded. ‘For about three years after, I would have nightmares maybe, three, four times a week? They were exhausting and awful and traumatic,’ she said and sighed. ‘I’d never be driving, though. But sometimes, Dad would be in the car with me. They were the worst, because I got to see him, only to know that I would lose him all over again each time. Though admittedly sometimes there was a cat.’

‘A cat?’ Henry asked, half laughing.

‘A massive cat. It would just be attacking me and I was constantly trying to fight off the cat without hurting it. But V would swerve because of the fight, and the car would fall off the side of the road and just keep falling and falling and falling.’

He might have laughed about the cat, but he knew that it wasn’t funny. Not really. She’d felt that same sense of building horror, one that never seemed to reach its climax. But perhaps that was because they already had experienced it. Maybe it was their minds protecting them from the memories of the real trauma they had shared.

‘When did they stop?’ he asked, hoping that Lily might somehow hold the magical key.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, shifting beside him on the bed, unaware that the hem of the T-shirt had ridden up just a little. ‘Maybe three years after? I think it happened as I realized that V and Zo were out there, living their lives. That Malie was doing amazing things on the surfing circuit. They had managed to move on and with that came a kind of peace. There was nothing holding them back anymore.’

Henry’s thoughts stopped.

He knew what had been holding him back all these years, he’d just never really wanted to admit it. To say it out loud. Because that would mean that … it would mean that they would all see, all know. But for the first time in ten years, Henry thought that Lily might be the first person who would understand. She’d known Claudia, been involved in the accident. Perhaps he could trust her.

Of course he could trust her. But he’d never told anyone and that secret had been a heavy burden. Because he’d always wondered – believed – that the entire accident had really been his fault.

He swept aside the covers on the opposite side of the bed to where Lily was sitting, switching on the small light on the table. If he was going to do this, he didn’t want it to be in the shadows, he wanted to see Lily. See her reaction. And for her to finally, really, see him.

‘I … I don’t really know where to start.’