I walk around the back of the house, climbing a hill toward the rows of caravans that will soon be filled with tourists. It’s exposed and windy at the top of the hill, but the views over the coast are beautiful. The sea seems bluer. From up here, I can see all of my new kingdom, bigger but basically the same as my old one. A playground. A pool. A clubhouse. All those enticements I won’t get to use. And even when this place is filled with people, I won’t be any less lonely, because they’ll be fleeting strangers passing through and I’ll be stuck here permanently, still the weirdo, just in a different holiday park in a different town.

  I pull my phone out of my pocket and switch it on. There are four more messages from Ethan. I haven’t texted him back. I can’t get past that look on his face when he faced up to Seren and the others, how for a minute there, I genuinely thought he was going to hit one of them. Or me. I can’t be friends with someone I’m scared of.

  I hear someone coming up behind me and manage to get my phone back in my pocket before they come around the corner. And thank God I do, because it’s Mum. She’s breathing heavily after walking up the hill as she stands next to me, looking at the view.

  “You should know…” she says when she gets her breath back. “You should know it was my decision to leave Littledean and move here.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want you to think I don’t care, that I wouldn’t fight if it was something important… So if you’re going to be angry with anyone about the move, be angry with me. But God knows, that’s not what any of us should be angry about.”

  Her words burst out and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that tone from her before. She pauses, wraps her arms around herself. “I gave him an ultimatum: we all had to move or I would have taken you and left him.”

  “I don’t… I don’t understand…”

  “You father was having an affair. He ended it but I refused to stay in the same village, knowing that woman was still around.”

  I stare at her. No way. “But… I don’t… Who is it?”

  I can’t get my words out properly, because I don’t know what to say. Dad—an affair? I can’t—I really cannot—for a second imagine it.

  “One of my friends from the church group turned out not to be such a friend after all.” She shakes her head. “All the times I thought she was visiting me to talk about books or flowers…”

  I bet it was Marianne. She was always such a sneery, snooty cow. But still—Dad, seeing another woman? Kissing another woman? I refuse to let my mind go beyond the kissing part because I’d definitely be sick. Possibly explode in disgust.

  “I found out in the summer and that’s when I gave him his ultimatum,” Mum says. “He started looking for a new position then, even before they announced they were closing the holiday park. But that’s not important now. She’s not important. I know Daniel is sorry and that he regrets it. I also know it wasn’t about the affair; it was a symptom of other issues going back years. His ridiculous need for some kind of validation in life, for something more.”

  She pauses and takes a deep breath. “For some reason, it’s never been enough for him, the life we have. The life we’ve made together as a family. I couldn’t stay there any longer. It was making me miserable, worrying he was seeing her again every time he left the house or made a phone call… God, the hell I went through that afternoon you were late home because you had an after-school meeting…”

  I force myself not to react. The day Dad was late picking me up and he made me lie… Oh bloody hell, was he seeing his other woman?

  “I didn’t want to have to tell you,” Mum says. “But I don’t want you believing all of this is down to your father punishing you and blaming him forever. Or thinking I don’t care. And I don’t want your father to pretend this is all your fault either.”

  She looks at me and smiles. “I know you don’t see any similarities, but I see it. There’s a line of stubborn that passes down, from Daniel to Hanna to you. It drives me crazy, but I have loved all of you in spite of it.”

  Oh, blimey bloody squared. I can’t tell her now, can I? That Dad was the one late that day, not me. I can’t tell her now because she’ll think he’s with the other woman now, that he never ended it…

  Maybe he didn’t. Because just before Christmas—when he relented and took me into town—was he seeing her then? When he had the actual nerve to go off at me for meeting Ethan?

  And now he’s parked me and Mum here, pretending it’s all my fault, pretending to Mum he’s ended it with the other woman, when really, he—what? Was just getting us out of the way for one last hurrah? How dare he? How bloody dare he?

  Chapter 34

  February, one week earlier

  I get off the bus and start walking home, head down and shoulders hunched, ignoring the banging on the windows, the words called out as the bus starts moving again. I never thought I’d long for the days when my dad would drop me at the school gates and always pick me up at the end of the day, but getting the bus… That bus is like a zoo, Full of the worst animals, the nastiest, man-eating ones.

  School hasn’t actually been that bad. Not bad as in no one has really spoken to me, but at least no one has bullied me. But the bus is like a free-for-all, and my anonymity is picked up on like a red flag. No one gets to be invisible on the school bus and in the month and a half I’ve been riding it, I’ve had to wash spit out of my hair a million times, had to ignore having my seat kicked, had to duck to avoid things chucked at my head, had to listen to obscene songs sung with my name in them and, on one memorable occasion, had to ignore it when some total, utter dick from Year Nine thought it would be hilarious to shove his arse in my face and fart as he was getting off the bus.

  Something smacks into the back of my head and I cry out, my hands flying up to my hair to find it wet. The bus is driving past me and there are laughing faces pressed against the windows. An open water bottle rolls to a stop next to me, clearly the missile thrown by someone with good aim.

  Could have been worse, I suppose. It could have been a glass bottle and the wetness trickling down my neck could have been blood.

  It would do me no good telling Mum or Dad about any of this, because Dad isn’t speaking to me. And that was fine at first, because after Mum told me he’d had an affair… I couldn’t even look at him when he arrived with all our stuff. For that first week, I was glad he wasn’t speaking to me, because if he had… I would have had to say something. And Mum begged me not to. It was done, it was over, she’d forgiven him, that’s what she said to me. Don’t talk to him about it.

  Another thing not to talk to him about. So yeah, for a week or so, him not speaking to me was a relief. And it’s not full-on silence, he’ll answer my questions with one-word answers, but he hasn’t engaged me in conversation since we moved here. Mum referees between us, all anxious awkwardness, ready, I think, to jump in if I look like I’m going to talk about his affair, or my adoption, or Hanna, or anything of importance. We’re basically living like polite strangers. We talk about school and the weather and the latest news, and I am just so lonely. So, so lonely.

  And in that time, my bitterness has festered. It’s a weeping, pus-filled wound and it hurts. It’s like Dad’s given up on me. I alternate between being really mad and wanting to cry. It’s not even a punishment anymore; it’s like he just doesn’t care what I do. He never asks how I’m doing in school. Mum does, but he doesn’t. I tested it, two weeks into term. They gave us a math skills test, to see where we were, and I sat there for the hour-long lesson and didn’t answer a single question, fueled by my… fury. I handed in my blank paper and waited for the explosion. When the teacher confronted me, I chickened out and pretended I’d had a headache. She phoned home while I was sitting across from her in the main office to tell Dad I had to stay after school to make up the test. I know it was Dad she spoke to, I could hear his voice, if not what he said.

  I stayed after school and did the test properly, and because the bus had long gone, Dad had to pick me up. And he said nothing, literally not a word the whole way home. Not about me failing the first test. Not about me having to stay after school, my first ever detention. Not a word. He couldn’t have made it any clearer that he no longer cares. I’m tarnished now, even though I’ve done nothing wrong, nothing but made friends with someone he doesn’t approve of. And that fully dampened the fury. Drowned it, in fact.

  But then I got home, and he still didn’t speak, and I stopped being sad and miserable and got so mad. Because how dare he? How dare he take the moral high ground here? First he lies about my adoption. Then he cheats on Mum. He had an affair, for God’s sake. A dirty affair with one of Mum’s friends. All I did was make the wrong friend—wrong in his eyes, anyway.

  So really, why am I bothering? It’s exhausting, this whole rollercoaster. Why am I still trying to be the good daughter? The revelation stops me in my tracks fifty yards from the gate to the new holiday park, adorned with the big OPENING EASTER WEEKEND! sign.

  Why am I still doing this? Still putting up with all the crap when Dad doesn’t even care? Next time someone hassles me on the bus, I should just punch them in the face. Dad won’t care. He won’t do anything. No, scrap that, why am I even getting the bus at all?

  The forbidden idea sets my heart racing, but that’s nothing to the overwhelming cold spill of relief at the thought of not having to get on that bus tomorrow morning.

  It’s easier, in the end, to miss the bus than I thought it would be. I mean, of course I know it’s physically easy to miss the bus. If you’re deliberately trying to miss a bus, you just get there late, or don’t go to the stop at all. But I thought I’d have to wrestle with my conscience a bit, or a lot. That I’d have to fight the panic at the thought of the school ringing home when I don’t turn up. But it’s easy. Maybe I’m more Hanna than I thought. I stroll right past the bus stop just before eight, stopping around the corner to use up some of my precious credit, leaving a message on the school answerphone, pretending I’m Mum calling in sick, just like Ethan advised me to way back when all I had to worry about was a few anonymous Facebook messages and those stupid girls at school. It might not work, it’ll probably be obvious it’s me and not Mum, but actually, right now—who cares?

  I step under the cover of the trees at the side of the road as the bus comes around the corner, raising a hidden middle finger to all the idiots inside. I watch it disappear into the distance. Well. That’s it. Bus well and truly missed.

  Now what?

  I ask myself that question, but I already know the answer. I knew what I was going to do as I lay awake last night thinking about this. I text Ethan. I haven’t spoken to him since we moved here. I didn’t even answer his texts for a long time, but I caved a couple of weeks ago. All I sent was a message saying keeping in touch wasn’t worth the risk, but it opened the line of communication again like I knew it would, and as soon as I switched my phone on to make that call to the school, there was a string of new texts from him.

  Im sorry.

  How many times do I have to keep saying it?

  Look—heres the truth. Remember that woman I said wouldn’t leave me alone? Shes been giving me so much hassle. It made me lose my temper that day.

  I shouldn’t have taken it out on you and those kids.

  Its not an excuse I know, but im getting it sorted now.

  I chew on my lip as I read through the messages. I don’t—I won’t—believe Dad is right about him being a violent criminal. And I could forgive him for losing his temper. I’ve been so damned lonely here I think I would forgive him even if he’d shoved me rather than Seren. It’s not that that’s making me hesitate…

  Was it the truth—what you said about Owen? About just talking to me to wind up my dad?

  I type it quickly and press send before I can chicken out and watch the dots that tell me he’s typing a reply…

  At first. Not now.

  I knew Owen hated us—it was so obvious, even if Mum and Dad never saw it. I’ve spent ages looking at that picture of him when he was a teenager, but I can’t see any familiarity there. He can’t be my birth dad, he just can’t. And he’s a long way out of our lives now. I can leave Ethan behind as well… or I can believe that “not now.”

  I don’t want to see him again, I’m not ready for that, but I still have credit left on my phone. I could call him. I could go into this new town, find a takeaway hot chocolate, and call him if he’s not working. I could walk brazenly around town in my school uniform when I should obviously be in school and dare anyone to call me out on it. Go on, I’ll say, in this imaginary confrontation. Do your worst—my dad won’t care. Even the school won’t care that much. I’m the unproven new girl who’s bumping along in the middle because I can’t be bothered to try for straight As anymore. I’m no longer the great Oxbridge hope.

  I’m not in school today, I text Ethan. Want to talk?

  I keep walking toward town, staring at my phone, waiting for his reply. When it comes, I stop.

  Hey. I’ve got a better idea. I’m not working tomorrow. Let’s meet.

  Oh God. Oh no. That’s not what I wanted. Not at all. I text back.

  No. you can’t. I’ll be in school tomorrow. Will text instead.

  And then I switch off my phone before he can text me back.

  Chapter 35

  It’s actually a relief to go to school the next day. After all my bravado in missing the bus, all I ended up doing was hiding in the town library, doing homework and cringing every time someone walked in in case they asked why I wasn’t in school. I waited in dread when I got home for a call from the school asking why I hadn’t been in that day, but there was nothing. When I got on the bus this morning, it was easy to ignore the idiots at the back. Maybe because I was too worried about Ethan knocking on the door, or maybe I was past caring, but the dicks on the bus were suddenly nothing. I didn’t even try to keep my head down, I responded to the verbal crap with an unflinching cold glare that seemed to work as I was subjected to nothing worse than a couple of kicks to my seat. Perhaps they’re getting bored. I get a week off for half-term after today and when we’re back, maybe if I carry on ignoring it and giving them Paddington Bear Hard Stares, it will get easier. Dad will start speaking to me again eventually and things can get back to normal.

  But when I’m waiting for the bus at the end of the day, I hear someone calling my name and realize I’ve just been kidding myself. Ethan is walking across the car park toward me. The bus still hasn’t arrived, so I can’t escape unless I go diving back into the school building and how will that look? People are already watching, probably wondering who the sketchy-looking guy shouting my name is. I feel bad then, because Ethan doesn’t really look like a dodgy ex-offender, he just looks like a normal twenty-something. It’s my imagination, at peak freak-out after yesterday, painting him as suddenly sinister.

  The easiest thing to do is to go over to him, away from the others waiting for the bus, far enough away that they can’t overhear our conversation.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He grins. “You said you were in school, so I waited until the end of the day. I did text to tell you, but I think your phone’s off.”

  “I said I’d text. I said not to come…” I pause and frown. “Wait—how did you even know this was my school?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “It wasn’t hard to figure out. There’s not exactly a million schools in this area, you know.”

  But it’s not actually the nearest school to the holiday park. Dad got me in this one, a few miles farther away, because it had better exam results.

  “Look,” he says, running a hand through his hair, “I wanted to say sorry. Again. Properly and in person, not by text. I know I lost it at Christmas, and I wanted to explain.”

  The bus goes past, trundling round the turning circle to the pickup point.

  “Let me give you a ride home, and we can talk,” Ethan says.

  I don’t want to. I’d actually rather get on the hell-bus.

  “Please?” he says. “Come on, Sash. I don’t want to have to turn up at your house to get you to talk to me.”

  He says it all casual, but it comes across as a threat. The thought makes me want to vomit. Turn up at the house? Dear God, no.

  “Okay. But you’ll have to take me straight home—Mum and Dad need to believe I got the bus, so I can’t be late.”

  “Sure, no problem,” he says, smiling. “Come on—the car’s over here.”

  We’re two miles out of town, me sitting with my hands tucked under my thighs, so Ethan doesn’t see the clenched fists I can’t seem to relax, when I realize I haven’t given him any directions.

  “So, I guess you figured out where I live as well?”

  He glances across at me. “I used to work in computers, before I got sent down. A stint in prison hasn’t got rid of all my skills.”

  I know he’s right—it would be easy for someone techy to find out where I was at school, which holiday park had new management. It doesn’t make it less unnerving.

  “Look,” he says with a sigh, “I just wanted a chance to explain why I got so angry. It’s not you, okay? The woman giving me hassle… she’s been accusing me of stuff that could get me in trouble. I’ve been trying—working, saving, following the rules—and she’s threatening to ruin it all for me.”

  I think of him “borrowing” cars to meet me, finding out who was sending me those messages, offering to “scare” Hanna. Even this, turning up here today… does he really believe he’s been “following the rules,” whatever that means?

  I wait, but he doesn’t say anything else. He says he wants to explain but telling me some random woman is giving him hassle isn’t explaining anything.

  “Dad said… he said you were violent. A violent criminal.”

  He shakes his head. “Is that why you’ve been giving me the silent treatment? Sash, he’s just trying to get you to stay away. I went to prison for computer fraud. A white-collar crime I didn’t even do. No violence—I swear.”

 

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