“Eva,” I said.

The thought of sex with him repulsed me. I didn’t know him. I didn’t want him. But I reasoned it was because I still loved Nick, and I had to make myself stop loving him. I grabbed Reuben’s hair and crushed my lips to his. He made a noise and pulled my legs around him.

A little quiver shot through me. I’d never actually done it before. Wasn’t it meant to be special, the first time? But I couldn’t stop. I had to do this.

The streetlamp shone with a fitful light, blinding me. Reuben placed his hands against the brick wall. I had no idea what to expect. It was exhilarating.

Then pain. Explosive, stunning pain. Like a fist had done a cruel uppercut into my stomach.

Reuben had no idea what had just happened. I waited for it to pass, but it didn’t. He noticed my tension.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I whispered.

“This your first time?”

“No, of course not.”

He bent his head to my neck, kissing from my shoulder to my ear. Before he even tried to move, the pain came again, worse this time, a vicious racking pain. Rueben drew back. “It is,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Look, I just don’t think I should—”

“Fine.” I shoved him away. “Just—just leave me alone, then. I don’t want you. I don’t want anyone.”

I pushed off the wall and stumbled back into the flash house, pulling down my dress. I only just made it to the toilet in time to throw up. Pain lashed through my thighs and stomach. I curled myself around the toilet bowl, coughing and sobbing. Never in my life had I felt so stupid.

I thought of Nick. I thought of all the years I had spent thinking about him, wondering if he would ever come back to me. And I thought of him now, pictured his smile, how he looked after me, and it was useless: I just wanted him. I put my head in my arms and cried.

26 Change

26

Change

The intensity of the memory knocked me out for a very long time. I had relived every detail of that night, down to the faintest tremor. I woke up to total darkness, with no idea what time or day it was. “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie” strained softly from the gramophone.

There were so many memories I could have shown him. I had lived through the Molly Riots, through my father’s bereavement, through years of cruelty at the hands of Scion schoolgirls—yet I’d shown him the night I was turned down by a boy I loved. It seemed so little and so insignificant, but it was my one normal, human memory. The one time I had given myself to a stranger. The one and only time my heart had ever been broken.