‘And just keep taking this kind of crap. Sounds great. Anyone got any more genius ideas?’

‘Maybe that’s not why,’ Becca says, wishing she had kept her stupid mouth shut. ‘Maybe I’m totally wrong. Maybe he was trying to text someone else with a J, Joanne or someone, and he hit the wrong—’

Julia says, ‘When I snogged James Gillen.’

The dark condenses, under the cypresses, at her voice.

‘He tried to put his hand up my top, right? Which I was expecting – I swear, I don’t know why guys all have such a fixation with tits, did their mommies not breastfeed them enough or something?’

She isn’t looking at the others. The clouds move faster, setting the moon speeding across the sky.

‘So since I’m not actually interested in James Gillen feeling me up and let’s be honest I’m only even snogging him because he’s cute and I want the practice, I go, “Whoa, I think this is yours,” and give him his nasty clammy hand back, right? And James, being a total gentleman, James decides the appropriate thing to do is to shove me back against the fence – like an actual shove, not just a little nudge or whatever – and stick his hand right back where it was. And he says something incredibly predictable along the lines of, “You love it, don’t act so pure, everyone knows about you,” blah blah whatever. Prince Charming or what?’

The air feels chilly and searing all at once, feverish.

They’ve had it spelled out a dozen times, in cringey classes, in cringey parent talks: when to tell an adult. The idea never comes near any of their minds. This thing opening in front of them is nothing to do with those careful speeches. This mix of roaring rage and a shame that stains every cell, this crawling understanding that now their bodies belong to other people’s eyes and hands, not to them: this is something new.

‘The little shit,’ Holly says, through her heartbeat and her breath running wild. ‘The little prick. I hope he dies of cancer.’

Selena stretches out a leg so that her foot touches Julia’s. This time Julia jerks her foot away.

Becca says, ‘What did you do? Did you, did he . . . ?’

‘I kneed him in the balls. Which actually works, just in case you ever need to know. And then when we came back here I showered the living shit out of myself.’ They remember. They never thought to connect it up with James Gillen (Julia offhand, flipping a shoulder, Shouldn’t have bothered, like snogging a Labrador). Now, in the seething space of their new knowledge, it feels slap-in-the-face obvious.