“Tess—wait up!”

I glance back. Max is jogging toward me.

“Where are you going?”

“Only into the village. The tension in the house is getting a bit much.”

He slows to a walk next to me. “Tell me about it. Understandable, I guess. First Julia, now Greg…”

“I just wanted to get away for a bit. Not talk about Julia or Greg or the police investigation.”

“Suits me. Mind if I tag along? It seems like forever since we’ve talked.”

I do mind, really. Max is as much a part of the tension as any of the others. More so, really, with the elephant in the room that is our night in my flat. We walk in silence for a while.

“Look—I’m just going to say it, okay?” Max says, breaking the silence. “I’m sorry I was such a dick after the night we—”

“Oh, please don’t. Let’s agree to not talk about that as well, shall we? I think we both know it was a big mistake.”

“Wait,” he says, touching my arm. “Was it? I guess the timing was a disaster, but it’s something I’ve thought about for a long time. Haven’t you? And it was good, right? Maybe, after all this…we could go out, try again.”

I’m floored by his words. He’s been thinking about it, about me? That’s not how I remember it. I remember him treating me like a kid sister. I remember him mooning after Bella, definitely not me. And good? That night was awkward, weird—and by no stretch of the imagination good sex.

It throws me, this reversal. My crush on him was so all-encompassing and now, ten years later, he’s looking for—what, a relationship? And I’m scrabbling for excuses. A way to let him down gently, because it’s Max, who I used to think I loved when I was sixteen and he was eighteen.

But when I look over at him, his self-conscious half-smile, the awkward arm on mine, I think again that it’s like he’s playing a part. I don’t believe what he’s saying—I don’t think he believes what he’s saying. So why is he doing this?

“Shit,” he says, stopping dead as we turn the corner near Dean House.

There’s a camera crew and a TV news van outside the walls.

“I think we should go back,” he mutters.

My chest feels tight. It’s like I’m being forced to stay trapped in my old house with everyone. A week, two weeks ago, I thought I wanted that. Because I wanted to remember all the things that are lost. But I’m no longer sure that’s what I want. What I do remember is already so awful; how bad are the memories my mind is suppressing?