‘Why on earth would you want to stay with me, Luke,’ she said, ‘when I was clearly never enough? When you slept with Sadie behind my back?’

‘But you are enough!’ he cried. ‘I don’t know, I can’t explain it … Clara, I’ve always known that I’m a selfish idiot, that I do the wrong thing, that I hurt people. And then there you were, always so good, so decent and honest, and I wanted to be like you. I thought maybe I could learn to be a better person if I was with you. Sadie was a mistake, a stupid one-off mistake. Please, Clara, give me another chance.’

‘But it wasn’t one-off!’ she said.

‘I slept with her once, I swear, Clara. I know that doesn’t make it OK, but it was a terrible, stupid mistake that I regretted immediately.’

She thought about this. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said simply. ‘Mac told me it went on for a while.’

Luke shook his head, his face desperate. ‘But that’s not true, I don’t know why he would say that. I told him it was only once and that’s the truth!’

But she had pulled her hand away. ‘And then there’s Amy, Jade, Ellen – the way you treated them.’

His eyes widened. ‘I admit I behaved terribly to Amy. I was so scared of letting my parents down, they were still so devastated over Emily. But Ellen was a complete nutcase. She lied, Clara, she fucking lied! I kissed her once, when I was drunk, when Jade and I were going through a rough patch. She wanted more, she wanted me to stay the night with her, and when I said no, she just … I don’t know, she started this vendetta. She made the whole thing up.’ His face was pleading. ‘For God’s sake, Clara, I’m telling the truth!’

Clara looked at him sadly. ‘But that’s the thing, I have no idea whether to believe you, and I don’t want to live like that, wondering whether I can trust you or not. I just can’t.’

A miserable silence fell between them. At last Luke spoke. ‘Do you think I’m like him?’ he asked quietly. ‘Because of what happened with Sadie. Do you think I’m as bad as my father?’

‘I don’t think your father has anything to do with the mistakes you made, Luke,’ she replied. ‘But I do think you can change, I think you can learn from this. I hope you can.’

After a while they got up and continued walking, and by the time they started to make their way back towards The Willows, they had both known it was over.

When they got to her car, they stopped and faced each other.

‘I have something to tell you,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a letter from my sister, from Emily.’