him on. But I didn’t! I just… I never thought he’d get so weird.’
I tried to piece all this together. ‘Can you tell me who he is?’
‘No.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Okay. Can you tell me what happened? How far did it go?’
She flushed. ‘We didn’t…’ Her shock made her seem terribly young. Terribly innocent, after all. ‘He just, you know, he tried.’
‘Tried?’
She shuddered and fixed her eyes on the tabletop and the fingers picking at each other there. Her voice became mechanical. ‘He took me for a drink one evening. Mum doesn’t know.’
I didn’t move, frightened of breaking her flow.
‘It was a while ago. I’d just got my offer from Edinburgh.’ Her face contorted with shame. ‘He didn’t force me to have a drink. I wanted to. I was happy.’
I kept my voice even. ‘So, you went for a drink?’
‘He drove me to a pub, miles away. It was really quiet. I’d never been there before.’
I bit my lip. ‘Then what happened?’
She swallowed hard. ‘He went to the bar and came back with a whole bottle of wine but he only had one glass because he was driving.’ She paused. ‘I couldn’t manage the rest, not all of it, but it didn’t feel polite…’
She trailed off. I tried not to show how angry I was, not with her but with him, for being so manipulative.
‘So, you were pretty light-headed by the time he took you home?’
She nodded miserably.
‘And then what?’
She grimaced. ‘He parked in the next street from ours and I said goodbye and tried to get out but the doors were locked and then he leaned over and—’
She broke off.
I closed my eyes, picturing it even as I struggled not to. ‘And what?’
‘He held me down and kissed me. It was gross.’ She shuddered. ‘He stuck his tongue down my throat. I couldn’t breathe. Then he put his hand on my leg and he tried to slide it further up and I grabbed it to stop him. He only stopped when I got hold of his hair and yanked it. I kept telling him to stop. He looked so surprised and sort of hurt. He said how much he liked me and he thought I felt the same way and why didn’t we go out again, he’d take me somewhere special next time.’
Silence. I thought about Anna, asleep upstairs, and what I’d do if some boy tried the same moves on her when she was older.
Megan’s lip puckered as she started to cry again. ‘I felt so stupid! He must have thought I was such a baby… I didn’t mean to make him angry, I really didn’t. I always liked him. I just didn’t like him like that.’
‘And was that it? That one time?’
I opened my eyes to watch her. She was rummaging in her sleeve for a tissue to wipe off her face and runny nose.
‘Kind of. He kept texting. Saying he was sorry and, like, please can I see you? Just once. Just to explain. I didn’t know what to do.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Nothing. I didn’t answer. I deleted them and pretended it hadn’t happened. I kept out of his way.’
I thought, it could have been worse. Thank goodness she had such good sense. Thank goodness she’d pushed him off.
‘Is he still pestering you?’
Her eyes were fixed again on the floor.
‘Is this why you can’t concentrate?’
‘I can’t stop thinking about it.’ Her hands trembled. ‘Maybe I really hurt him. What if he meant all the things he said, that he couldn’t bear to live without me?’
‘Oh, Megan.’ I reached forward and clasped her hot hands in mine. ‘From what you’ve said, he sounds like a nasty piece of work. You did nothing wrong. In fact, you did exactly the right thing.’
She lifted her red-rimmed eyes to mine. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’ I looked into her eyes and spoke clearly and calmly. ‘Megan, you’ve done nothing to feel bad about. Absolutely nothing.’
She looked beseeching. ‘I never meant—’
‘I know. I can see that.’
Something relaxed in her face as relief hit home. Poor Megan. Had she carried this guilt for months, since her offer from Edinburgh came through? I felt badly. I’d been so caught up with my own problems, maybe I hadn’t noticed hers.
I forced myself to smile. ‘Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to let go of all this now. Right? For me. All you need to think about is your exams. And afterwards, you’re going to go out into the world and have an amazing year