We lay down in the grass, regardless of the wet. He on his side, resting on one elbow; I on my back, with one hand behind my head—and he touched me so delicately that I could hardly tell if it was his hand gliding over my skin, or the breeze. I was an amateur in comparison, skidding and fumbling inside his clothes, but the sounds he made gave me courage. I half opened my eyes at one point, glancing down at the ditsy old sundress that had so embarrassed me earlier in the evening. It was getting grass-stained now, screwed up, soaked and twisted round my hips—but I was grateful to it and to myself for choosing it. It didn’t seem too small, or at least not in the childish way I’d feared.

I kissed the old razor-blade wounds on his wrists, and wished that he would kiss me on the lips. For some reason I wanted him to do it—as he’d done everything else—without my having to ask; without my having to manoeuvre my mouth onto his.

“What are you thinking?” he said after a while. I swept my fingers over the dewy grass and brought them to his face, moistening his eyelids and the side of his nose. I thought of Stella: of how Cory had seen her but never known her; of how she was a sad, faded story for him, rather than a person. The limelight was mine. Look at me, I thought. For once, Stella, look at me.

“What are you thinking?”

I was thinking of Tom, the other night, and the longed-for kiss that went wrong. Whenever Tom looked at me or spoke to me—even when he kissed me—there was a weight attached that spoiled everything: a weight of sadness and knowledge, of Stella loved and Stella gone; a weight of history, and shame, and might-have-beens.

When I didn’t answer straight away Cory darted at my thumb, catching it between his teeth, holding it to ransom.

“I’m happy,” I replied, laughing, and he released my thumb. His face was shining with rain. “I’m happy because you don’t know me.”

“You’re not used to being happy,” he observed. After a moment’s pause I shook my head in agreement, and the grass filled my hair with delicious, cold rain.

“Neither are you,” I ventured, and just like me he waited for a second before shaking his head.

The thing is, Tom, I’ve hardly been away from home twenty-four hours, but I feel changed. It’s like I’m looking down on myself from a hot-air balloon and understanding the lie of the land in a whole new way.

If you think I’m being overly dramatic then say so, but my life—and Dad’s as well, for that matter—has been shaped by death—first Mum’s, then Stella’s—and guilt, and I’ve just realised, in a kind of flash, that this is wrong. Don’t you think it’s wrong? Before Stella died I had plans for my life—detailed plans about university and careers and travel and friends and marriage and kids—and I’m not saying those particular plans hold appeal anymore—because they don’t—but even they would be better than nothing; better than the life I left behind yesterday. What have I been doing for the last five years? Making up for what happened by acting like I’m dead too?