She’s still a damned teenager then, isn’t she? Her laughing words reignite the anger that built when I saw Lena in Rebecca Martin’s face. All that teenage angst, all the turmoil stirred up by the arrival of Julia, her family, and Max and Lena. I forgot, for a moment, seeing Max again. I forgot he was never really my Max—they formed a gang: Bella, Max and Lena, Jack and Sean. And then there was me, forever on the outside.

She’s still drunk; I can see that as I look back at her and she takes her sunglasses off. Her pupils are so huge that her eyes look black, so maybe she’s more than drunk. She’s wearing that curling half-smile that used to scare me when I was a kid. Back then she seemed so big, bad, and dangerous. She’s lightened her hair since last time; streaks of blond run through it. Last time I saw her, she had dyed it black to go with the black clothes she wore, even on the hottest, hottest days. It doesn’t surprise me, what Max told me, about the disaster of her life. I never could imagine Lena doing anything more than smoking, hiding out with Bella in the village, swigging stolen vodka, and flirting with anyone who stopped by, for all the outrageous future plans she used to make.

And Max…Max has done just what he planned. Back then he’d constructed nothing more than sandcastles, but he had his architect’s dreams. He’d sketch glorious buildings in the ground with a stick. Fantastic, impractical buildings that belonged in a sci-fi film. I used to pick flowers and make gardens for his houses. We were going to meet up at Chelsea Flower Show the year I won my first award there.

“So what’s it like back there?” Lena asks. “Still the same? And how’re Julia and your dad doing? It’s so shit, what’s going on.”

“I…don’t know. I haven’t been back myself for a long time.”

“Seriously?”

“Lena—shut up.” Max’s voice is sharp.

“No way. Goody-goody Tess takes over my role as bad girl by failing to visit her dying stepmum. Halle-bloody-lujah, Lena is not the worst person on stage.”

“You don’t know anything,” I burst out, twisting in my seat to look at her, getting a faceful of her stale, boozy breath. “I’m not ‘goody-goody Tess,’ I never bloody was. It’s been ten years, so shut your drunk mouth and stop acting like a child, okay?”

Lena lapses into silence and, in my mind, Sophie lets off a tiny confetti cannon.

I can do this. I can.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7