He nods. I remember now. I remember his cheek brushing mine, the satin of my bridesmaid’s dress against the wool of his suit. I remember pressing myself against him, his arm around me. I remember my head swimming with unfamiliar alcohol, reaching up and brushing my lips against him, how his arm tightened around my waist and we kissed.

“Why?” I whisper. This is what I don’t remember. I hated him then, didn’t I? Him and Jack with their hostility and bristling anger, didn’t I hate them both like they hated us? But Bella had told me Sean liked me. Was that what made me do it? After the sting of what she said about Max, was it that I wanted to kiss someone who liked me back?

“You were angry,” he says.

“At you? I kissed you because I was angry?”

His smile fades. “Not at me. You were angry with Max. You’d drunk nearly a bottle of wedding champagne and you were looking for a fight. Instead we talked and we kissed. Then you basically passed out, so I helped you upstairs and that was it. I didn’t see you after that.”

I shake my head. I don’t understand how that day ended up so fragmented. I’m sure, after they found us in the woods, I’m sure the day was complete in my head. It was what happened in the night that’s gone from my memory. It’s like the insomnia is stealing old memories as well as sleep from me.

“Why would I be angry at Max?” Max was my friend, my crush. I should have been kissing him. I thought I was. Didn’t I keep that memory, precious and soft until it got tainted by Bella’s death and the aftermath? I thought…Bella told me Max didn’t want me, but my anger never got directed at him. I resented Bella, not Max.

“Because of what he was up to with Bella,” Sean says, and there’s a roaring in my ears and it’s like an alarm. No, I don’t want to hear this. I’m actually shaking my head and Sean steps back into the room, puts his mug on the table.

“It was never me. She never looked at me. But I don’t think she would have done it if she’d known how much you liked him.”

Not Bella and Max. No, it wasn’t true. I push past Sean, out through the front door, not caring that it’s raining. Bella walks alongside me as I march into the rain, arms folded, stamping through puddles, head down.

“You knew I liked him. Don’t tell me you didn’t know,” I shout into the wind. “I told you. All those nights you couldn’t sleep, all the secrets we whispered to each other. I told you that night in the woods.”