Home? My throat closes at the thought. Go back to the house, to the village, to that fishbowl where everyone knows me and everyone knows what happened to Bella? I can’t be anonymous there, can’t be safe and invisible like I am here. If I go back home, will they all be there—Sean and Jack and Max and Lena? I can’t. Christ, what a reunion that would be. I can’t do it—can’t gather round Dad and Julia to watch Julia die when the last time we were all together was to watch them get married. The gap where Bella should be would be too huge and glaring. I just can’t.

“I…I can’t. I have work. It’s midway through the term and…”

“Please, Tess, she has no one else. Come for a weekend, at least. You haven’t been back here in so long. Jack and Sean…they won’t return my calls. I even tried tracking Greg down but no one seems to have any idea where he is. I’ve left messages for Max and Lena—their parents can’t get back from Spain until next month and that might be…I don’t want her to die alone.”

Jack and Sean—no, of course they wouldn’t bother, not even with their mother dying.

“Dad, I…” My voice trails off. What excuse can I possibly give?

“The doctor says she has weeks at the most.”

He doesn’t need to say anything else. Last chance, last chance for all of us to say goodbye, to say anything. What would I give for a last chance with Bella? With my mother? A last chance to say all the things I never got to say because I thought I had forever to say them.

I glance up. We’re approaching my stop. “Dad, I have to go. I’m already late.”

“But Tess…”

“I’ll call you later, okay?”

I end the call and drop the phone into my bag, getting up as the bus stops. God, I want to run back to my flat, climb into bed, still dressed, and pull the covers over my head. I force myself to take deep, slow breaths, pushing away the panic Dad’s call has elicited. Stupid to be scared of a place. My fear is irrational, but it invades my dreams at night. Not the house, but the woods, that’s where my dreams relentlessly take me. Back to West Dean, back to the woods, back to Bella’s body.