Yes, that’s how I’d justified it, too. She’s just grieving, I told myself when she avoided me at the funeral. She needs space, I reasoned when she kept to herself throughout the end of the school term. She’s distracting herself, I rationalized when she started posting on social media again while ignoring my messages over the summer holidays.

There does come a point, I think, where denial starts to feel an awful lot like lying.

“You should just ask her what’s going on,” Eleanor says when I don’t reply, and I give a curt nod.

“I will,” I say. Unlike Eleanor, I’m well-practiced in the art of sounding just as convincing as I mean to. “Just not here. There’s no reason to ruin her party.”

Of course, I know deep down what the matter is, even if I don’t want to know. She blames me for what happened in Amsterdam in June, and so she should. I would hate me too if I were her.

By the window, Harriet Tomas grabs onto Danni’s arm as she and Molly pass, tugging them into the group conversation. Harriet was there that night, but Molly seems perfectly amiable when she says hello to her.

Something acidic and dark bubbles in my core, and I shove it back down before the emotion fully announces itself.

Alfie, who’d been watching us from afar with a measure of curiosity, saunters over to join Eleanor and me once more.

“Who’s that, then?” he asks, without any other indications. It’s obvious enough who he means.

“Her name’s Danni,” Eleanor says.

“Right, but who is she?” Alfie presses.

And Molly thought my surname advice was mere snobbery. I have half a mind to reach out to Molly later and tell her what Alfie just said, to prove my point. Only, she wouldn’t reply to my message, would she?

Danni glances over and catches the three of us staring at her. She tears her eyes away while her long piano fingers fiddle with the cuff of her sleeve.

“Nobody in particular, apparently,” I say to Alfie.

As though she somehow hears me across the din, Danni looks back. This time, her eyes land on mine.

I hold her gaze until she tears it away only a heartbeat later.

Poor little blossom. Our world is going to break her.

THREE DANNI

When Mom and Dennis finally drop me off at Bramppath, I’m surprised at the lump that keeps forming in my throat. I’ve been so busy thinking about what life at Bramppath will hold in store for me, I forgot one of the things that’ll be missing from it. Family.