I open my eyes. When did Max come back for the weekend? I assumed when he came to the house that he’d just arrived, that he was in his flat in the city, nursing his own wounds from our disaster of a night together, but maybe…maybe he was in town a day or two earlier, visiting Dean House with a dead girl’s shoes.

I hear a noise in the trees behind us and jump up off the bench. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter,” I say to Max.

THEN

Chapter 30

Chapter 30

August 2008

Wake up, Tess.

I open my eyes and Bella’s sitting on the edge of my bed, fully dressed and smiling. She’s smiling but there’s tension there; she’s practically vibrating with it. I can smell alcohol and cigarette smoke.

“Where have you been?” I whisper.

“Out.”

“Well—duh. I know that,” I say, sitting up. I look at my clock. It’s two in the morning. “What were you doing?”

Her smile widens. “Not sure you’re old enough to know all the details of what I’ve been doing.”

As my eyes adjust to the dark, I can see her makeup’s smudged, her top is half-buttoned. Her lips look swollen and bruised, there’s a red mark on her neck.

I look away, feeling the distance, almost like a physical thing. I know Bella’s had sex before, but I’ve never asked her about it. Sex still scares me. I haven’t even had a proper boyfriend, haven’t come anywhere close to wanting anything more than a kiss off anyone.

What was it like? I want to ask, but I don’t. I’m curious, but my fear of it is greater than my curiosity.

“Who were you with?” I ask instead.

“You don’t know him,” she says, but her smile fades and her gaze flickers away from me.

She’s lying.

“Do you want to see a photo of him?”

I don’t want to—what if it’s Max? But she’s already opening her faded suede bag and she pulls out a battered photograph. She laughs as she hands it to me. I recoil and drop it. I was expecting a snapshot, the two of them arm in arm, maybe. Instead it’s a close-up of a boy’s torso and he’s clearly naked. His face isn’t in the shot and it’s blurred, obviously a sneaky shot taken as he lunged for the camera, but it’s intimate and it hits my hidden fears full-on—a nipple, a smattering of chest hair, a snaking line of darker hair leading downward. Nothing pornographic, only the chest, but I swear I can see what they’ve just been doing, I can smell the sweat and…other things and it totally freaks me out.