‘Oh right. Yes. Your crap number – three six one.’ He held her gaze, blinking quickly, cottoning on to the message she was sending. His expression was soft, his lips pressed together, curving into a slight smile of support that was a balm to her brain in turmoil. ‘Well, Mum’s right. Don’t worry about anything.’

It was easier said than done, but she gave a subtle nod, her heart bursting with gratitude and relief.

‘I think I might go up to bed,’ she said.

She slipped from the table and tramped up to her room with the weight of her family’s stares on her back.

‘Sleep well and have good dreams, sweet one!’ her dad called out. Bessie felt like a fraud – there was nothing sweet about her; she was dirty, sluttish, easy. She clamped her teeth down over her lips to stop from yelling this to her dad.

Michelle’s words played over and over in her mind. He said I was special and not like anyone else he had been out with and that we have a connection. We really do and I just want you to be happy for me!

The tears fell down Bessie’s cheeks from eyes that were now puffy and sore. Looking over to her dressing table, she spied the pile of notelets her mum had left along with two pens. She would write to Lawrence! It might not change anything but it would at the very least help clear her muddled thoughts to tell him just how she felt and how much of a shit she thought he had been.

Trying to ignore the strips of her torn Duran Duran poster that hung forlornly on her wall, she slumped down on the chair at which she had sat only hours earlier to put on her make-up and picked up a pen. She opened the packet of notelets and, caring less about legibility and penmanship, she wrote to the boy who had taken her heart, her virginity and her reputation, leaving all three in tatters.

So, Lawrence,