“Ha, sorry! Too much champagne, I think. Ignore me. Forget this ever happened.” I turn to go so he can’t see my eyes filling with stupid tears and my back stays rigidly straight as I walk away, wanting him to call me back, wanting him to bloody kiss me back.

But he doesn’t and I speed up, walking through the garden, right to the back where I can hide my humiliation in the shadows of the overgrown fruit trees, still clutching my empty glass, the front of my dress sopping wet.

“Need a top-up?”

I glance back to see Sean behind me, a full bottle of champagne in his hand.

“Oh no, not you. Seriously, why don’t you just fuck off?”

He stiffens and turns away but I grab his arm. “Wait—I’m sorry. Ignore me. And yes, actually, I do want a drink.” I hold my glass out.

He stares at me with a frown on his face and I think he’s going to walk off, but then he shakes his head and half smiles. “I don’t get you sometimes.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t get me, either.”

“I never thought they’d actually go through with it,” he says as he fills my glass to the brim. “Cheers.” He clinks the bottle against my glass and tilts it back to drink.

“Neither did I,” I admit. “But…they look happy, don’t they?”

“Do you think so? I think they’re fooling themselves.”

I frown. “Do you have to be so bloody bitter all the time?”

He looks at me and laughs. “Says the girl who just told me to fuck off.”

He sighs and takes another swig of champagne. “Everything’s just so weird—Dad’s gone, Julia’s got a new family. I haven’t…it doesn’t feel like I’ve got a home anymore.”

“Aren’t you back at boarding school next month?”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want a home to come back to.”

I don’t tell him he could come back here. I don’t want him coming back here. Right now, with humiliation filling my veins instead of blood, I don’t want any of them coming back here.

“I guess it’s like that for you as well. Bella will be off to college. It’ll just be you left.”

My glass is empty again and the world is starting to look fuzzy. “It’s felt like it’s just me left for a while now,” I say. “Bella’s been acting so weird, spending all her time with Max and Lena and Jack.”

“You could always visit me at school—I’m not that far from here,” Sean says after a pause, filling my glass again, watching as I take a massive swig.