Alex messaged every day for the next week – at the same time, every single day. It was pretty freaky – like an automated service. I was on the verge of just throwing the phone away, but realised, if I did that, I’d have no proof whatsoever and some sort of instinct told me evidence might be a useful thing to have, even though all she put was ‘Hi! How are you?’ Over and over again. I just kept on not replying, hoping she was eventually going to get the message, but on Thursday, 20 July, shit got real.

I’d been at home since lunchtime as school was more or less done for summer and I had free study periods every Thursday afternoon anyway. It was hot, I’d had enough, and the teachers had stopped caring if we were there or not. Angel had started barking, I’d gone to the door and there she was, just standing there on the doorstop.

I hadn’t known what to say at first, partly because I was pissed off to be caught looking a sweaty mug, still in my uniform, but also because she looked amazing. I’d forgotten how blatantly sexy she was. She was wearing a bright red dress that made her waist look tiny and sort of stuck out above her knees, and some cream coloured heels, while holding her doctor bag. The hot sun was shining right behind her and I was literally dazzled.

‘On your own?’ she asked.

‘Yeah – but, what if I hadn’t been?’ I opened the door, and she walked into the cooler hall. I looked at her, exasperated. ‘Is this because I haven’t texted you back? Is that why you’re here?’ Then another, much more worrying, thought occurred to me. ‘How did you know I was here? Have you been following me?’

She looked at me like I was mad and said crushingly: ‘Jonathan, I like you, you’re very sweet and we’ve had fun, but things have moved on now. I’m not actually here to see you.’ She reached into a pocket in her dress and pulled out a slim, small rectangle and passed it over to me. ‘Could you give this to your father for me, when he gets back?’

I took it and stared at her name in shiny black letters. ‘What do you want with my dad?’

She looked at me, slightly irritated. ‘I heard on the grapevine your parents are looking for a Botox doctor for their new club and spa. I appreciate it’s all maybe a bit close to home, but we’re both adult enough to put everything behind us, aren’t we? Your parents’ new facility is going to be a captive audience of some pretty wealthy people and I’m good at my job. There’s no reason why this shouldn’t be a very successful partnership.’

I looked at her in disbelief but tried to play down my panic. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea really, do you?’

Alex pretended to look confused. ‘I don’t see why not?’

I shoved the card in my pocket, closed the door and turned to her.

‘Don’t do this. This is about us. If you really wanted to work with my parents you’d email like a normal person, you wouldn’t come round to their house.’

She frowned. ‘That’s exactly what I did. Sorry, I don’t think you understand. Your dad called me back, and I was supposed to meet him here this afternoon for a preliminary chat before I go and pick up my daughters from school. He’s obviously got caught up or something, and I don’t feel comfortable waiting here with you alone, for obvious reasons, so if you could just give him my card so he knows I did come, that would be great.’

‘Wait.’ I reached out and grabbed her wrist. ‘Dad arranged to meet you here? Why not at the new site?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he just liked the sound of my voice?’ She smiled sweetly at me.

I saw exactly what she was up to, instantly. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree there,’ I said coldly. ‘My dad can be a right arsehole, but he loves my mum more than anything in the world.’

‘Oh, I’m sure,’ she said innocently. Then she stepped closer to me, pressing her body up against me. ‘Don’t you think you better let me go? He could be back at any moment.’ She looked at me and smiled.

I swallowed. I wasn’t going to do this. Not again.

She didn’t take her eyes from me, just took my free hand with hers and put it up the skirt of her dress. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw but I could already feel her hand moving to the button on my trousers.

‘Just quickly,’ she whispered.

---

We did it on the stairs. I knew I shouldn’t – and I didn’t even use anything. She got up carefully afterwards and went straight to the downstairs loo.

‘Well, I think I’d better go now anyway,’ she said, re-emerging to find me dressed and sitting on the stairs with my head in my hands. ‘I’ll see myself out.’ She paused and sighed. ‘Look, just don’t give my card to your father if it’s a problem, Jonathan. I understand.’

I didn’t look up, just waited until the door had closed and I heard her car leave. Then I started to panic. I’d never not used anything before. Ever. She was too old to get pregnant though – surely? And what was SHE thinking? She was married. My blood ran cold. What if she was actually proper mental and tried to say she’d come round here to see Dad – which he’d back up – and I’d forced myself on her? There’d be stains all over her dress. She was a doctor. No one would believe me and not her. I felt sick and I didn’t know what to do.

I waited for Dad to arrive, but he didn’t, and it was only after I called him on his mobile – something I never do – and he picked up sounding all concerned, saying ‘I’m in a meeting, but are you all right?’ that I realised that Alex almost certainly wasn’t telling the truth about having contacted him at all.

‘Yeah, sorry, Dad. I’m fine. I’ll see you later. Don’t worry.’

When he did come home, I had to make up something about my car breaking down to explain why I’d called him, which, in true Dad style, he then didn’t let go, wanting to get to the bottom of it.

‘You’re sure you didn’t leave your phone charger plugged in again, because that can drain the battery?’ He looked up at me over jacket potatoes and ham at dinner, as Mum passed me the salad bowl, and Ruby put some butter on the side of her plate.

‘Like I said,’ I repeated for the hundredth time, ‘one minute there was nothing there, the next it just started again. I thought I was going to have to jump it and if you were at home you could come over with some leads.’

‘At home? At two o’clock in the afternoon? I was at the site. But Mum could have come out if you’d needed one of us?’

I looked at him carefully. Was he lying or not? Had he been planning to meet Alex and got delayed? ‘Are you looking for any new staff at the moment?’ I said. ‘Beauty stuff I mean?’

Ruby sniggered. ‘Think you should do that instead of vlogging then, J?’

‘He knows vlogging isn’t a career,’ Dad said sharply. ‘Don’t you, Jonny boy?’

And now was he trying to change the subject and turn the focus on to me instead? I thought about him opening the front door to Alex, her smiling at him and walking into our house, clutching her black bag in her short red dress – and put down my knife and fork.

‘Let’s not start all that again,’ Mum said. ‘Jonny knows he needs a backup in case vlogging, or modelling, doesn’t take off. He’s still doing his exams, and he’s still going to apply for university.’

‘Which really is a waste of time,’ Dad said. ‘I know that school says you’re a bright little bunny, but neither them or you seem to be able to work out that thirty grand of debt for three years getting pissed when you could join the family business and start making money straight away isn’t the smartest idea.’

‘That school gets a lot of kids into the top universities,’ Mum said pointedly.

‘I should bloody hope so, the amount they charge each term.’

‘They’ve got Oxford in mind for Jonny.’

‘You might want to tell Miss Healy that’s the plan, then,’ I said. ‘She asked me where I was thinking of in English and when I said, Oxford, she got all sniffy and “oh no dear, I don’t think so”. She hates me. They all do.’

‘No, they don’t. Elsbeth Healy wants to spend a little less time staring at that engagement ring of hers and a little more time actually teaching,’ Mum snapped. ‘You leave her to me, the stuck up cow. Are you not hungry, love?’ She nodded at my untouched food.

I shook my head.

‘I really would like you to try and eat.’

I sighed and did as I was told.

Dad pointed his knife at me. ‘I want you to do that Personal Trainer module over the summer holidays. I know you’re thinking it’s all fatties you’d be training, but it’s not,’ he continued. ‘And with your looks you’d get all the mums shoving their kiddies in the crèche. Two birds with one stone.’

I thought of Alex and her stained dress. ‘Can I leave the table please, Mum?’

‘You have gone a little bit pale all of a sudden.’ Mum was frowning. ‘I think someone’s had a bit too much sun today.’

I stood up suddenly, jolting the table and making all the knives and forks jump. ‘Sorry, I need the loo.’

I hastened to the downstairs cloakroom, closed the door and leant my forehead on the cool of the mirror. I didn’t know what to think. My proper phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out.

Cherry. She was right, I needed to get updating. I tried to take a few deep, calming breaths. Alex had not been going to meet Dad. Even if she had, she said she’d leave it – about the job – if it was going to upset me. I slid my hand into my other pocket, pulled out her card and ran my finger over the letters.

Fucking me in the back of her car one minute, crying on the carpet in her dark sitting room the next, and now turning up on the doorstep in no underwear.

If only I’d not gone to football for Dad that night.

I tore the card into tiny pieces and flushed it down the loo. At the very least, if she had been going to meet Dad here, he must have come home, seen my car and driven off again. I’d achieved that if nothing else. I hesitated, went upstairs and fished out the pay-as-you-go mobile.

She came straight back to me.

Was she high? What kind of message was that? I stared at it and realised it was deliberately written to give me the information I needed while looking like it was meant for a friend of hers. What was the point in that – unless she was trying to say that her husband had found her pay-as-you-go phone? Warning me that things were becoming too obvious, as well as dismissing me for the next two weeks? Who did she think she was? She was controlling everything, blowing hot and cold. I felt suddenly very angry. I was at her mercy, and I didn’t like it.

I was starting to dislike her. And yet I couldn’t stop thinking about her. That didn’t make me feel so good about myself, either.

---

True to her word, she didn’t contact me for the next two weeks. Not even once but, weirdly, it was a relief. I hadn’t enjoyed her turning up at the house unannounced. The prospect of being caught on the stairs didn’t feel exciting, even in retrospect, it just made me feel a bit sick with stress, but the more time passed, it started to feel like a nightmare that wasn’t so bad after all, now the lights were on.

Aside from the rare amazing day here and there, the weather had predictably turned shit as it was the summer holidays, but I didn’t even really care. We had a family holiday to Ibiza coming up, so I’d get a tan regardless; I was getting on much better with Cherry – everything felt like it was finally getting back to normal… Alex still lurked in the back of my mind – pretty much always appearing when I was doing it with Cherry, which was both confusing and unsettling – but I felt things were under control again.

So when Mum asked me to drive her to the doctors on Monday, 7 August, I desperately tried to persuade her I couldn’t. I didn’t want to go anywhere near the surgery – but she ignored me.

‘I don’t think I’d be safe to drive myself over there, love. I feel hot, knackered – everything aches and I feel sick as a dog.’

‘I don’t feel well myself, Mum. I think I’m coming down with it too,’ I lied. ‘Can’t you get a taxi?’

Mum gave me a hard stare. ‘Well unless you’re also menopausal, I’d say you’re all right. I’m aware it’s the first nice day in forever but I’m not getting a taxi just so you can get Cherry round here while you’ve got the house to yourself, then hit the sun-loungers. We’re leaving in ten minutes.’

I saw Alex’s black car the second we arrived in the car park and tried to swing right off to the back, out of the way, but Mum wasn’t having any of it.

‘What are you doing? There’s a space right there, in front of the chemist! There! Get in it quick before someone else does. Why do all men have to drive past spaces that have nothing wrong with them?’

‘It’s shadier at the back over there under the trees while I wait,’ I grumbled and parked up nervously where I was told. ‘That’s all.’

Mum gave me a look. ‘Keep the air con on. I’m sure you’ll survive. Or come in with me.’

‘No thanks,’ I retorted.

Mum sighed and, with an effort, opened the door and winced as she eased herself out, closing the door behind her and walking, hunched over, to the double doors. She obviously was in a bad way. I felt bad for being arsey with her but, the truth was, I was properly stressed out.

After I’d sat there for about twenty minutes, however, I began to relax in the heat and had leant back with my eyes closed, when there was a knock on the glass. I jolted awake, expecting Mum, but it was Alex, standing by the door dressed in a sky-blue sundress, looking very tanned.

Eyes wide, I undid the window all the way down.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Someone reported a young boy passed out in his car to the receptionists. I said I’d come out and have a look.’

I had no idea if she was telling the truth or had just seen me and come out using any old excuse.

She lingered for a moment. ‘Anyway. I’d better go back in now I know you’re OK.’ She crossed her arms. ‘Um, why are you here, by the way?’

‘I’ve brought my mum down for an appointment.’

‘Oh, fine.’ She looked relieved and went to step away.

‘I’m not stalking you.’ I sat up a little straighter, feeling annoyed. ‘You look good though.’ I’ve no idea why I said that. No idea at all. It was asking for trouble. ‘Nice holiday then?’

She nodded. ‘You off anywhere soon?’

‘Ibiza, on the 27th, for two weeks.’ I didn’t mention it was with my parents and sister, obviously.

She paled. ‘Not really? I’m going to be there on the 8th, on a girl’s weekend.’

I laughed nervously, waiting for her to tell me she was joking, but she didn’t.

‘It’s almost as if the universe is determined to push us together,’ she said. ‘Perhaps that’s where we were supposed to meet properly for the first time, not here with me cutting your trouser leg off.’ She gestured behind her at the surgery. I couldn’t believe she was standing in the car park having a friendly chat with me about it all. ‘I think I would have preferred that actually – not knowing who you were; a handsome stranger in a hot country and all that. I like that fantasy.’ She mused over it for a second and smiled, before turning on her heels and walking back to the surgery without another word.

I stared after her, mouth slightly open. As usual with Alex, I had no idea what to think.

It’s really hard to explain how she does it. She’s like one of those pictures where you can only see a horse head but you’re meant to be able to see the duck too, then suddenly you get it and then you can’t see the horse head, even though you know it’s there and you try really, really hard. You only see what Alex wants you to see, her version of reality.

I expected to hear from her later that night after the fate comment, but, disconcertingly, I got nothing. I waited for a summons at the weekend. Silence again. The whole of the next week I kept checking my phone, but she was never there.

I came to the conclusion she’d meant what she’d said at my house. It was over. We’d had fun but moved on. I found myself feeling disappointed and even wondering if maybe I would see her in Ibiza, before I realised what she was doing to me again, that this was exactly how she worked: getting in my brain and eating away at it like a worm, destroying my ability to function normally and altering my behaviour.

Even though I KNEW all of that, I still felt rejected that she hadn’t called, which was insane. I began to dream about her at night, waking up suddenly, covered in sweat – or worse, my own spunk. I started to wonder why I’d got so worked up about her being weird, when in reality, wasn’t it every male wish come true to have a woman who wanted sex and nothing more? What was wrong with me that I’d wanted to walk away from that? I was a mess. I didn’t know if I was coming or going. I almost needed to be told what to think and do. I couldn’t make sense of it for myself any more.

---

So, when she texted me again, on Saturday, 19 August, at ten p.m., asking me to meet her, just like the second time, at the bottom of the hill by the park entrance, I didn’t think twice. I just did it. I imagined we’d drive off to the farm shop car park again. I pictured myself putting my hands all over her. I as good as ran down the hill from the pub when I saw her car parked up at the bottom. Olly and the others were already busily getting lashed up. Cherry was on holiday at her parents’ villa in Spain. I had no one to please except myself.

But when I climbed into the passenger seat, I knew something was wrong. Even in the dark I could tell she’d been crying. She didn’t look at me as I clipped my seatbelt in and waited for her to start the car and drive off; she just looked out of the window, one elbow resting on the doorframe, fingernails between her teeth, and tears started to run silently down her face.

‘What’s wrong?’ I said, foolishly, and she didn’t answer. Confused, I just sat there for a moment, like a puppy waiting for its owner to tell it what to do next – but she didn’t and eventually I asked again. ‘Alex, what’s the matter? Are you hurt? Has something happened?’

She frowned as if in pain, at that point and, eyes closed, just nodded, apparently trying not to cry some more. I started looking around me for some tissue but stopped suddenly. Oh my fucking God – she was about to tell me she was pregnant. I sat up so fast I banged my head on the glovebox. My whole life literally flashed before my eyes. Dad going ballistic, Cherry screaming at me, Alex’s husband coming round to our house and trying to kill me, then a baby being born. An actual baby. I knew it. I bloody knew it!

‘Can you please just tell me?’ I stammered.

‘You’re going to think I’m mad,’ she whispered, looking down, ashamed.

‘No, I’m not,’ I lied. ‘Just say it.’

She turned her head slowly. ‘Do you think I’m pretty?’ she asked desperately. I could see the tears glinting in her eyes as she waited for my answer.

What? I was momentarily thrown. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘You don’t ever find yourself thinking “urgh, she’s really old?”’

‘No,’ I said. Where the hell was this going?

‘So if you saw me in the street and you didn’t know me, you wouldn’t walk straight past? You’d notice me?’

‘Yes. Alex, what’s wrong? Could you please just tell me?’

Her eyes welled up again. ‘I know how this is going to sound – to you, of all people – but my husband told me this morning…’ She trailed off.

I waited, now really worried. That he’d found out about us? Was coming looking for me? ‘Told you what, Alex?’

She was crying again and shook her head. ‘Nothing – forget it. Forget I said anything. It’s nothing to do with you, really. I’m sorry.’

So she wasn’t pregnant? I began to exhale slowly with relief, like the gasp of air releasing from a pinprick hole in a balloon. Thank you, God. Oh, thank you so much.

‘You won’t know this yet, Jonathan, but you can be with someone all day every day and be the loneliest you’ve ever been,’ she said suddenly. ‘They don’t touch you, they don’t kiss you – you try so hard and it all just dies anyway.’ She closed her eyes again and leant her head back on the headrest tipping her face up to the car roof. ‘You wish you could go back in time and make different decisions. Be the person you were then and start all over again.’ She breathed in deeply like she was trying to get herself under control.

I remembered her lying on the carpet in her house, sobbing, and not letting me go upstairs. I didn’t know what to say. ‘I’m really sorry.’ It was about the best I could do.

She exclaimed. ‘Don’t you apologise! I shouldn’t be telling you this! You’ve done nothing wrong, not once!’ She turned to me suddenly and her voice cracked completely. ‘I’m so sorry, Jonathan! I’m sorry for what we’ve done and why I did it. It was complicated, but I’m sorry that I’ve even brought you here now. I was trying to prove things to myself that involved me using you to do it. It wasn’t that I wasn’t genuinely attracted to you. Of course I was! Even though I shouldn’t have been. This is all such a mess. Such a sad, stupid and dangerous mess.’ She let her head hang. ‘Just get out of the car, Jonathan. You’ve got such a good heart and you shouldn’t be near me. I’m toxic. I’ve lied, I’ve tried to hurt people, to make them see that they’re losing me, and none of it has worked. I’ve just done more and more damage. Please!’ She begged. ‘Throw away your phone. I won’t ever contact you on it again, and I’m so, so sorry for dragging you into this. It’s all so wrong! I don’t even know who I’ve become any more.’

After that little speech, I knew I wasn’t even slightly equipped to deal with whatever she was talking about. I hesitated after I’d unclipped my seatbelt. ‘Are you going to be all right?’

She nodded, silently, but she looked broken.

I slowly reached out my hand to hers, took it and held it tightly for a moment. She gripped it back.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and then let go of me, gently.

I opened the car door to the sounds of happy and drunken shouts from people starting to make their way down the hill running parallel to us, on their way to the local nightclub, and climbed out.

I started to walk back up to rejoin Olly and the others, turning at the sound of her car starting. I watched her pull away and drive off. I tried hard not to mind about her being so blatant about having used me – it wasn’t as if I’d got nothing out of the experience after all, she didn’t force me to do anything, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her saying it was wrong.

I walked back up to the pub feeling suddenly really unhappy in a way that I couldn’t put my finger on and went off to find my mates, to get as pissed as I could. Later on that night, I got into my first fight in a club. I threw a punch at someone because I thought they’d shoved into me on purpose and it kicked off. I remember being really angry – a rage I’d never experienced before. The bouncers chucked me out, and I tried to get back in again. Olly and Rufus managed to stop me, and I flounced off to the park apparently. Ol messaged Ruby, who came to pick me up with her new boyfriend, Matt. He was really good about it and they took me home.

What is clear in my mind is that the exact word Alex used was ‘wrong’ – and she definitely told me to throw away the phone. But I didn’t, I kept it. By that point, I was actually a bit worried about her.

I didn’t hear from her for another three whole weeks after that. If Ibiza hadn’t happened, I like to think that would have been the end of it – but it did happen, and she lost control completely.