‘That’s utter crap!’ Becky yelled, voice trembling as she turned to look at me, her expression pleading with me to deny the whole thing.

‘I think you’d better go,’ Luke said to Nora. I could barely hear him. It felt as though the bees had come back to life and burrowed into my brain.

I forced myself to drag my head up and find Daniel, standing off to one side with Hope, staring at me with a look of utter horror.

‘No.’ I don’t know how I managed to speak, but instantly everyone whipped their heads around to focus on me. ‘I’ll go.’

Before anyone could try to stop me – not that anyone did – I turned and ran.

35

Stumbling, wheezing, I found myself in the farmyard. My first instinct was to head inside, and bury myself under my duvet until I was in a fit state to start packing. But it would be the first place Becky or whoever else came looking would expect me to be.

Instead, spying the barn, I lurched over to it, before veering off around the corner to where I remembered there being a smaller, ramshackle outbuilding that as far as I knew was in disuse. It took a few moments of working at the rusted latch before I could push the rotting door wide enough to slip inside. In the muted evening light I could still pick out several old farm implements and shelves lined with huge cider jars thick with cobwebs. I pushed past a wooden sledge, a ride on lawnmower with only one wheel, and stacks of splintered pallets. Spiders scurried into the shadows, and I heard a scuffling that could definitely have been a rat. I squeezed into a gap behind a large crate and the back wall, and sank to a squat, hoping that I could stay undetected long enough to unscramble my thoughts and collect my breath. Dropping my head onto quaking hands, I tried to piece myself back together so that I could begin to figure out what I was going to do next.

Despite every effort to the contrary, I had now become the tawdry talking point of Damson Day, contaminating the best moment of the day – of over thirty years – with my disgusting secret.

Crap.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but it failed to dam the torrent of tears.

It must have been twilight, judging by how the light had dimmed through the cracks in the roof, when I finally made my decision. As tempting as it was to sneak inside, pack up my bags and flee before anyone noticed I’d gone, that was not how this was going to go down.

Whatever anyone might think of me, thanks to Nora’s revelations, I was done with running away. Daniel and Hope meant far too much for that. I was worth more than that. It was time to own up to who I was, who I’d been and what I’d done. Daniel would either still love me, or he’d find me utterly repugnant, but at least it would be the real me.