No. For me it ended in the woods with my sister dead next to me. But he’s right about it all starting here. I should want to run now—it could well be Sean sending texts, planting the shoes. But…I no longer feel that edge of fear round him, like I do with Jack. And the longer I think about those long-ago days, I wonder if I ever really did feel that about Sean, or if he was just tainted by the danger I felt emanating from Jack.

He likes you, Bella whispers in my head.

Sean was always quieter than Jack, a bit awkward. Stilted. A bit hostile and grumpy, yes, but no more than I used to be. Most of his hostility resulted in me attacking first. In the midst of the glamorous confidence of the others—Bella and Lena, Max and Jack—we stood out. Was I blinded by his status as one of the “insanely hot” boys? Did I always mistake shyness for arrogance, misery for hostility?

When I stand up to carry on gardening, he stands next to me, pulling up weeds, clearing brambles from the hidden roses. He doesn’t have gloves to protect him from the thorns and his hands are soon scratched and bloodier than mine, leaving smudges of dark red on the gray stone wall we’re slowly uncovering.

He doesn’t stop, doesn’t speak, not even when the blood starts trickling down his hands and dripping onto the ground. I look at him and realize he’s crying, silent tears streaking his cheeks. I don’t know if his tears are for Greg or for Julia, but he works relentlessly, attacking the weeds like this is a battle, and maybe to him it is, pulling away the killing weeds to let the plants breathe and grow again.

It starts to rain, but we continue working side by side, working our way along the wall until it’s clear; no more weeds, no more brambles, just crumbling gray stone and climbing roses. Sean stops then, at the corner of the wall, breathing hard, his hands a bloody mess. He seems calmer and I am too, the coiled anxiety I hadn’t even realized I was carrying gone, the ache in my shoulders now from the exercise rather than tension.

I still have the sense that something is coming, something is going to happen. I know this is pointless, that there are only days until the bulldozers crush all this to dust, but it feels important. It feels right to be doing this.

“The doctor came again,” Sean says. “I knew, of course I knew, that there wasn’t going to be any happy-ever-after for her. God, I can see her deteriorating every time I step into the room. But still, I hoped…”

“Of course you did. We’re here tending a garden that’s about to be demolished. Aren’t we always hoping for a miracle?”