It had felt impossible to say anything else. This was what she had pretended to want after all. What she’dthoughtshe wanted even. She had flirted and pouted, had spoken loudly of clandestine meetings with older boys from out of town. She had asked for this. It was unstoppable.
“No!” Fleetingly, Leo tightens his grip on her, only to release her instantly, as though scared she might break. He moves her gently away from him, holding her shoulders so she’s facing him. He wants her to look at him, but her head is heavy and her shame heavier still. She stares into the footwell and wishes she could stop her tears.
“Ffion, this wasn’t your fault,” Leo says, insistent yet patient, telling Ffion what she can’t yet believe. “You didn’t ask—youcouldn’task for it. Fourteen, Ffion. Fourteen!”
He takes a breath. He rubs his hands up and down Ffion’s arms, and she isn’t sure if he’s trying to calm her or himself, but it does both. Slowly, she lifts her head, chin wobbling, and looks at him. She swallows.
“If you dealt with this at work,” Leo says gently. “A fourteen-year-old who’d been raped—”
“He didn’t rape me.” But she remembers the torn button on her jeans, the bruises on her shoulders, her thighs.
“—what would you say to her?”
Leo waits, keeping his eyes locked on Ffion’s as she shakes her head, remembering how still and quiet she was on Rhys’s sofa, how she didn’t move away, or say no, or fight back.
Rhys had whispered in her ear, hot and damp as the pain tore through her. “You’ve wanted this all summer, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” she heard herself say.
“What would you say to her?” Leo repeats. His eyes are urging her onward, and she knows, she knows what she’s supposed to say, but she was FfionWyllt. Rhys knew that and so she had to expect—
“I’d say it wasn’t her fault,” Ffion whispers. Her voice cracks, and she’s crying again. “It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault.”
Thirty-Seven
Mid-August
Caleb
By rights, Caleb should be bored out of his skull. His mum says by next year, The Shore will have a game room, with a bar and coffee shop, and a crazy-golf course in among the trees. Right now, there’s none of that, just the deck and the lake and the shadow of the mountain. Cwm Coed village is less than a mile away, but there’s nothing to do there either.
There are hardly any people around. The morning after they’d arrived at The Shore, Caleb had taken one of the resort’s forest-green bikes and cycled around the lake without seeing a single car. He had felt his shoulders, usually hunched up to his ears, slowly returning to their correct position. He’d pedaled faster, the wind whipping a grin on his face. He’d feltalive.
“I know you’ll be missing your mates,” Mum said, but all Caleb felt was relief. Relief that when his phone beeped with a message from the lads, he could ignore it, knowing that when they came looking for him, they wouldn’t find him.
It had started when Caleb moved schools halfway through his first year at secondary. Everyone already had friendship groups, and Caleb was grateful to be taken under the wings of Brett and Jamil. It was fun at first—even the shoplifting was a laugh—but then people started getting hurt, and Caleb got scared. He took it out on his mum, knowing he was being unfair but at the same time unable to stop himself lashing out.
“They’re a bad influence,” she’d say, and Caleb would slam his bedroom door and hide from the truth.
Now, Caleb stares at his phone. Two doors down, Rhys Lloyd is singing, and even though Caleb hates classical music, it sounds right for this place, with the sun sparkling on the water. Tabby and Felicia are messing about on pink flamingos.
“Caleb!” one of them shouts. “Are you coming in?”
He ignores them. He’s scrolling through his contacts, systematically blocking each number in turn. Brett, Daz, Jamil. With each one, he feels as though he’s shedding a skin.
“Oh my God, Tabs, you just flashed a nipple, I swear!” Felicia’s voice carries through the still air. Caleb looks—he’s fifteen, after all—but sees nothing.
“Shit, do you think there are fish in here?” Tabby says. She pulls her feet onto the flamingo. “Like, actual fish?”
Caleb catches Bobby Stafford’s eye. He’s on the neighboring deck, stretched on a sun lounger with a beer in his hand.
“D’you reckon twins can share a brain cell?” Bobby says. Caleb laughs, and Bobby points his beer can at him. “East London, right?”
“Dagenham.”
“What d’ya do for kicks around there?”
Caleb shrugs, unwilling to let himself be dragged back to Brett and his crew.