The tears appeared before she even had a chance to think about it. It meant something to hear those words from his fiancée, a woman who had no reason to be nice to her at all.

Maybe she was wrong; maybe people didn’t blame her. Maybe she didn’t understand people and she was actually projecting her own fears onto them. She was exhausted. She had spent the last hour and ten minutes paranoid that this woman hated her and it wasn’t the case at all. Were other people good at this stuff? She decided to go home. She could call Felicity when she got there, as she didn’t fancy drawing attention to herself by shouting out to the sea. It was too hot to stay out in the sun for any longer. Even though she was wearing factor fifty she could still feel her skin burning on her knees and shoulders. She grabbed her things and walked back up the slope, through the back gate onto the main road towards home.

She didn’t want to be around anyone right now. But that wasn’t entirely true. She felt like the only person on her side was Tim. He didn’t tell her parents about what had happened at the fair even though it had got him into trouble. He had saved her from Mr Morrell. He was the only person she felt safe with, which was strange because she could tell he was dangerous. She couldn’t understand why she wanted to see him when she thought he might have killed someone for her. Deep down inside him there was a big secret, and though she could see that it was there, she couldn’t see what it was. She wanted to know though; she wanted to know him better. She could feel him pulling her towards home, towards him. No one else made sense right now.

Chapter Twenty-One

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