49. Before

The lane, the grass verge, the hedge are a blank, black void, the sky a river of stars. I limp towards my front gates. They stand propped open.

I'm so cold I can't stop shaking. All I want is my mum. She'll curl up with me and stroke my hair and get Dad to make us hot chocolate.

We can leave this place. I don't even have to tell her why. If I say we have to move, she'll listen to me, because she always does – she always has. It's just that I've stopped telling her things.

At the gates I stop. The house lights are all still on, and parked in front is a white police car. My stomach flips.

They must have called the police. I didn't come home after school and they panicked. It's late, after all. My mum will be pacing and crying; my dad will be by the fireplace, biting his thumbnail.

Guilt fills my stomach. I must've been lying on the grass for hours. I'm hurt, but it's not exactly terminal. Why do I have to be so dramatic and make people worry about me?

This is it. I really will have to explain now. And the police – they're going to want to know who did this to me. I touch my nose. It's still tender, but it's not so bad.

The security light comes on and I look in the window by the front door, studying my reflection. My nose looks slightly swollen, but maybe you wouldn't notice if you didn't really know me. There's a graze on my cheek, but it's nothing spectacular. My clothes are damp, but you'd probably have to touch me to know it.

I drag my fingers through my hair to take out the grass and leaves and pull my shirt straight. I force myself to stop shaking.

Sure, I'd love to get my own back on my friends, but the police – that's going a bit far, isn't it?

Unless you count the attempted rape.

No. That's not what happened. I could make it sound like that, by describing what happened, but what actually happened is that they decided to scare me. It was all planned. He would never have gone through with it.

And if I had just let him, if I had just let myself have sex with the hottest guy in school, who anyone in their right mind would die just to get near, I'd be sneaking in right now, feeling guilty with a different kind of secret.

Except he was never going to have sex with me. I'm ugly and pathetic. And who would believe me, anyway? Don isn't the kind of guy you say no to. Especially if you're someone like me.

I lean on the door, bumping it open with my hip, and wipe my shoes on the mat before kicking them off into the pile next to the door.

It's weird that my mum hasn't come running out.

‘Were you aware of your wife – sorry – partner's behaviour?' says a deep voice. ‘Did you know about any… unusual relationships?'

For a moment I feel like a stranger in my own home.

I don't understand these questions. Why are they talking about my mum?

I pad across the tiles to the door and peer in. My dad is sitting in the armchair by the fireplace, his face in his hands, while one policeman stands looking at the ornaments on the mantelpiece and another sits on the sofa, leaning towards Dad, talking in a low voice.

‘Please, sir, I know this is difficult, but our questions need answering.'

Dad nods but doesn't take his face from his hands.

The policeman by the mantelpiece steps over to me, knocking the coffee table with his shin and grimacing. He has dark brown hair, a fuzzy beard and long, lanky arms.

Dad looks up at me and his face folds and he drops it in his hands again.

I feel like I'm being held in a giant slingshot, being pulled back and back and back.

The policeman on the sofa looks at me with a sympathetic smile. He has grey hair and a squashed nose.

Where's my mum?

‘Georgia, is it?' he says.

I nod.