Chapter Forty-Two

‘One down,' I sigh. ‘Two to go.' I turn to Theo. ‘Would you mind waiting for me in my room? I need to sort this mess out.'

Theo hesitates, looks like he's about to say something, but then he nods. ‘Sure, I'll wait for you.'

‘Theo—' Serena starts, but he holds up his hand, his face steely.

‘I'll wait for you,' he says once more, the words unyielding, not up for debate. It's that stern voice again, the one that I feel everywhere, and the squeak that Lil makes tells me that I am not the only one vulnerable to its effect. With that, Theo stalks off.

I turn slowly to face Sam. It feels like the moment in a film where the hero confronts the big, bad baddie. Only, the man in front of me isn't the villain in my story; that's giving him way too much credit. Standing here, shivering and wet, his artfully mussed hair plastered to his head, his expression like a toddler on the brink of a tantrum, he looks like what he is: pathetic.

‘Sam, what you did, all those years ago…' I take a deep breath, ready to say the things I've wanted to say for such a long time. ‘It honestly felt like you broke something in me. You hurt me so badly that it took me a really, really long time to get over it. And not because you were particularly special, or because our relationship was that great, but because your actions were so selfish, so needlessly cruel, that I still cannot even process how you looked at yourself in the mirror afterwards. Why did you do it? Why did you sell me out to the papers like that? Was it all just a big lie?'

He finally has the decency to look embarrassed. ‘Clemmie, no,' he says awkwardly, lifting his hand to push his wet hair back from his face. ‘It wasn't like that. You've got it all wrong.'

‘You mean you didn't sell stories about me to the press, or arrange for them to take pictures of me?' I ask.

His eyes dart to Ripp, who is standing like a statue.

‘This is all a big misunderstanding,' Sam says nervously. ‘I might have reached out to some contacts when I was trying to get the band off the ground, but it wasn't about you, Clemmie. I was as horrified as you were when they turned their attention on you, but you know what they say… all publicity is good publicity, right?' He gives me a smile that I think is supposed to be charming. ‘What we had was real, the feelings I had for you were real. I didn't know what was going to happen. It just got a bit out of hand.'

As the words come out of his mouth, I realize how little I care about them. It doesn't matter to me anymore why Sam did what he did or how he wants to justify things to himself. It doesn't even matter if our relationship was a lie, or if at some point he really did have feelings for me. For a long time I let myself think those things were important – that understanding the whys and hows of it all would help to fix something inside me that was broken. Now, I realize that Sam didn't break me. He hurt me, and I protected myself the best way I knew how: by folding myself up as small as possible.

Over the past few months, I've had to face up to a lot of things. Splitting up with Len, losing my home, losing my job, meeting Theo, going to Northumberland and being forced to confront all the ghosts there, learning the truth about my mum's decisions, dealing with the press again… every single thing has been like a crack in the protective shell I built around myself, letting the light pour in. It's been messy and painful but things have changed. I've changed.

‘I think if we could just talk about it,' Sam continues, clearly feeling like he's back on solid ground now, ‘I could explain. I never wanted to hurt you.'

‘Sam,' I cut him off. ‘I don't need to hear it. The past is the past, but a few weeks ago you were talking to the papers about me again. It's enough. We're done. You're not welcome here.' I take a step towards him, because apparently I'm getting a lot of closure in the space of ten minutes. ‘And if I ever see or hear from you again, then I'll be the one to go to the press. The world is a different place now, and I think people would be really interested to hear my side of this particular story. I mean it. Go away, and stay away.'