Sorry, I … I’m getting ahead of myself again. It’s so hard keeping everything straight in my head.
No, I’m … I’m just tired, that’s all. Just really, really tired. My head’s fine. It’s just a scrape. It was only ever really a scrape. I made it look worse than it feels, I promise. What I want is for it all to be over. For everything to be out in the open. Finally.
So where was I? Where should I …
Yeah. Yeah, OK. That’s the point it all came out anyway. When we reached the farm buildings and … and just before it happened … For all of us, that was when we finally realised what had actually been going on.
So we’re outside the barn. And Mason’s refusing to let us use the phone. The one we found. Sadie’s phone. You know about that, right?
Right. So we’re standing there arguing, and Mason’s got the phone in his pocket, and the broken bottle in his hand, and Abi is so scared by this point, she can’t keep it in any longer.
‘Just tell him!’ she said to Cora. ‘Tell him what you did! He’s not going to let us go until you do!’
‘Me?’ said Cora. ‘What about what you two did? Both of you!’ At which point, not only was she looking at Abi, she was also glaring at Fash. Who looked more afraid than either of them.
And what it all came back to, I suppose, was the night we went down to the sand dunes, right back at the start of the summer. We lit a fire, drank some wine, listened to music. At first it was all really chilled out. But I think we got more pissed than we realised. In fact, I know we did. And there were all sorts of things simmering. Little … tensions. You know? End-of-term stuff. Stuff between Cora and Sadie. Because of Mason, which had basically been going on all year, and which made it kind of awkward for the rest of us. Particularly whenever Mase and Sadie argued. Which is what happened that night. I can’t even really remember how it started. Sadie was anxious about exam results, and Mason was telling her to chill out, and she was going, That’s easy for you to say, and it started building from there. And Fash … Fash was on one. On a mission, I mean. To get wasted. Because he was nervous about exam results, too – about what his mum would say if he didn’t get all nines. About what she’d say if she caught him drinking wine in the sand dunes, come to that. And Cora wasn’t helping. She was calling him a pussy, just joking around but also basically winding him up, getting him to drink more and more. As for me, I was worrying about Dylan, because he never liked it when me and Sadie were out of the house at the same time. So I wasn’t planning on staying that long anyway. In fact, I left not long after Mason stormed off. I kind of took it as my cue. Maybe if I’d’ve stuck around, none of this would have happened. Maybe …
Maybe all sorts of things, I suppose.
But the woods. What it all led to.
‘Tell them, Fash!’ Cora was saying. ‘Go on! Tell them about you and Sadie in the sand dunes!’
It wasn’t fully light at this stage, but the night was becoming greyer. We could see each other, basically. Meaning there was no more hiding in the dark.
‘What?’ said Fash. ‘I … I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
But Fash has never been a very good liar. I mean that in the nicest way possible. I’m guessing he’d only managed to keep the thing with Sadie quiet for so long because it was the first time anyone had actually challenged him about it.
Mason had been pointing the bottle at Abi. His hand fell to his side. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ he said to Cora, but his eyes were locked on Fash.
Abi, meanwhile, was crying and shaking her head, as though she was already beginning to wish she hadn’t said anything. Or maybe that she’d had the guts to say something earlier.
‘Mate,’ said Fash. ‘Listen …’ He held up his hands, and his eyes kept flicking to that broken bottle. ‘Nothing happened, Mase, I swear it. It’s just … What Cora’s saying, it’s …’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Fash!’ said Cora. ‘Grow a fucking scrotum, will you?’
‘Me?’ said Fash, rounding on her. ‘What about you? What have you been hiding, Cora? You –’ And then I guess he must have realised. ‘Wait, you … you came back? That night. You saw?’
At which point, Cora looked at Abi.
You see, at the dunes, after I’d left, and after Mason had stormed off, Cora tried to catch him up. And Abi went after Cora because Cora had all her stuff. Which left Sadie and Fash on their own. And they were both pissed. A-bottle-and-a-half-of-wine-each pissed. Not to mention pissed off. Sadie, in particular. Even before I’d left, she’d started badmouthing Mason. Him and Dad at the same time, actually. Our dad, I mean. Sadie’s and mine. Again, it was all to do with it being the end of term, I reckon, and the pressure coming out of the exams, but what she said was, she was sick of being stuck on a fucking pedestal. Of everybody always expecting her to be perfect. And she said that sometimes she’d just get this urge to do something really awful, just to see everybody’s faces. And all I can imagine is, somehow it went on from there. Fash agreeing, saying he was sick of the expectation, too. Of people like Cora calling him
