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Chapters (44)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  3. CONTENTS
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. Chapter Eleven
  16. Chapter Twelve
  17. Chapter Thirteen
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Chapter Fifteen
  20. Chapter Sixteen
  21. Chapter Seventeen
  22. Chapter Eighteen
  23. Chapter Nineteen
  24. Chapter Twenty
  25. Chapter Twenty-One
  26. Chapter Twenty-Two
  27. Chapter Twenty-Three
  28. Chapter Twenty-Four
  29. Chapter Twenty-Five
  30. Chapter Twenty-Six
  31. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  32. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  33. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  34. Chapter Thirty
  35. Chapter Thirty-One
  36. Chapter Thirty-Two
  37. Chapter Thirty-Three
  38. Chapter Thirty-Four
  39. Chapter Thirty-Five
  40. Chapter Thirty-Six
  41. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  42. Epilogue
  43. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  44. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

‘Of course,’ I said. And I stood up too, and we walked to the door, shoulder to shoulder.

Epilogue

Epilogue

The For Sale sign swung in the breeze that had picked up round the house. The summer was on its way out – in a week or two Benji would start school, and Cassie sixth-form college. Neither of them in Bishopsdean, however. We were leaving the town behind, and hopefully, with the proceeds from the house, we’d be able to buy a more modest flat or terrace before Christmas. For now we were moving into a rented flat in London, not far from the one Cassie had been born in. Benji had grumbled about leaving his friends, but he understood, I think, the need to get away. For Cassie it would be life or death. A chance to start again, to outrun that picture and the pills she’d swallowed. A place where no one knew what kind of family we were.

She came up behind me as I stared out the kitchen door at the sign, past the spot where Karen had been assaulted. ‘Are you sad we’re selling?’

‘Not really. I don’t see how we can live here now.’ My dream house – a pipe dream, one I never truly thought I deserved – was tainted for ever by what happened to Karen here. And Cassie, swallowing those pills. By everything.

I had given up my dreams of Aaron ever being punished for spreading the picture. I knew he wouldn’t have thought he even did anything wrong, and lots of people would agree. Even Cassie wasn’t convinced the whole thing hadn’t been her fault – she’d sent it in the first place, after all. At least if we left town I wouldn’t have to bump into him and his awful mother in Waitrose. The more I thought about it, the more I marvelled that I’d ever lived in a place like this.

Cassie nodded, and let me slip my arm around her shoulders without pulling away. ‘Will Granny come and stay when we move?’

My mother had stayed for a month in the end, and although it was too simplistic to say we’d put the past behind us, she’d grown close to Cassie and Benji, and seemed able to show them affection in a way she never had with me. Guilt, maybe, had shadowed all of our encounters. I didn’t forgive her entirely for never standing up to Dad. But I would try to understand, now I had faced the lengths a person would go to so they could hang on to their life.