The horror on her face makes me scrabble for other words, something to undo what I just said. I wanted to make her jealous. I thought…I thought she liked him, but she’s looking at me in a way that makes me feel dirty. “I tried to stop him like you did but he wouldn’t stop. I didn’t want to, but he made me…” I want to scrub at my own skin, sew my mouth shut. I’m saying this, spilling lies, none of it true. Greg never once looked at me in that way. Why did I say it? Because I wanted to punish him for pushing me away? Punish Bella because he wanted to kiss her?

Bella is breathing fast. She jumps up, starts pacing around. “We have to go to the police, tell them what he did to you. We have to—”

“No!” I get up and grab her arm. “I can’t. I can’t go to the police. Everyone would find out. I can’t do it.”

“Tess—we can’t let him get away with this. He’s a rapist, a pedophile…”

I shake my head, my lies blooming, building into something awful as Bella paces around. “What if it’s him?” Bella says. “What if he was Nic’s secret boyfriend? He tried to kiss me too and…the way he was, it was inappropriate. And Lena says he was the same with her. She thinks that’s why Julia left him, not because of Ellie.” She stops pacing and stares at me, her eyes huge. “What if he killed those girls? What if you’re next?”

Her words turn my stomach and I push past her to lean over the stream, only just making it before adding a splatter of vomit to the rotting trickle of brown water. Oh God, oh fucking hell, what have I done? I’ve started something and I don’t know how to stop it. I can’t tell her I was lying. Why would someone lie about that? I start crying and sink down onto the bank as she sits next to me and strokes my hair.

“No—stop it. It’s not…he’s not a bloody murderer. He’s Julia’s ex, Jack and Sean’s dad.”

“He raped you,” she says, her voice so damned cold.

“It wasn’t like that! You have to promise me you won’t say a word. To anyone. The wedding’s in three days—if you say anything, it would kill Dad and Julia. And I can’t…I won’t say anything. God, you know what this village is like.” My panic grows as my lie takes root and spreads. I can see it in her face, filling her up, eating her up. “Please, Bella—promise me you won’t say a word.”

She pulls me toward her and I bury my head in her T-shirt.