Forget Me Never

wasn’t that.
    ‘I know I have something to answer for,’ Aiden continued. His voice had a slight accent to it – Midlands, I thought. ‘I’m guessing the police didn’t tell you too much.’
    I took a quick look around the park. There were several parents sitting on benches just metres away, watching their children clamber on the monkey bars, and there were dog walkers and cyclists passing by. There was no way Aiden could try anything. Slowly I sat back down on the swing.
    ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’m listening. But take your sunglasses off. I don’t trust people when I can’t see their eyes.’
    Aiden flipped the shades on to his head. His eyes were very blue. I started to swing back and forth.
    ‘So . . . how long had you been seeing my cousin? She never mentioned you to me.’
    ‘Six months. We worked together. If I’d known she was going to freak when I went to Bournemouth, believe me, I wouldn’t have gone. Suppose I was being selfish; just wanted to leave things in a happier place, be friends, something like that. You know what it’s like.’
    Suddenly I felt very self-conscious. Aiden evidently thought I was older than I was, and I wasn’t sure I was comfortable with that.
    ‘You ended up having an argument. That’s what the police said.’
    ‘I guess she couldn’t stand the sight of me. She gave me a huge slagging off; not gonna deny I deserved it. Dani was really rattled. And then she went back to the flat . . . you know the rest.’
    ‘So it’s your fault she died.’
    ‘Me turning up maybe had something to do with it. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t.’
    He didn’t say sorry again, which was just as well. If he had, I swear I’d have punched him.
    ‘How does that make you feel?’ I asked in a hard voice.
    ‘Crap,’ Aiden said. ‘How would it make you feel?’
    ‘Why didn’t you go to the police earlier?’
    ‘Why d’you think? If you suspected someone might’ve killed themselves because of you, would you go around telling people?’
    Grudgingly I admitted that it made sense. I felt deflated, like the fight had left me. I kind of wished Aiden hadn’t come. He seemed so reasonable. It was hard to hate him.
    ‘Any more questions?’ Aiden said when I’d been silent a while.
    ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘They all seem to have been answered.’
    ‘I’ll leave you alone then.’ The swing chains jingled as Aiden got up. ‘You think of anything else . . . just send me a message on Facebook.’
    I heard his footsteps on the soft tarmac and the squeak of the gate. As soon as he was out of sight I realized that I hadn’t really asked him anything, but it didn’t matter any more anyway.
    My mobile buzzed. Reece was trying to call me, and I could see that Julie had earlier too, but I didn’t feel like speaking. I turned my mobile off and wandered about the streets with my headphones on. My music player seemed to sense my mood; even though I’d set it on shuffle mode, it seemed to be picking out all the most angst-filled tracks. It was time I accepted it – Dani had killed herself and now I had nothing and no one left. I tried to fall into a zombie-like state and switch my brain off, but it was impossible . . .
    Running through my mind were all the times I’d lost people. Not just Dani, but my mum, my aunt . . . and perhaps the most painful memory of all, my ‘almost adoption’. I’d been nine years old. The Wilsons had been the kind of couple I’d never thought would go anywhere near me – they had lovely clothes, a nice clean house in a posh area and good jobs, the kind of parents every kid in care dreams of. The bedroom I’d had when I stayed with them on trial was like heaven to me, big, spacious, a lovely bouncy bed and lilac walls – even now I can never see that colour without feeling a little sick. As for why it all went wrong – well, I just wasn’t good enough for them. Two months in, they had second thoughts, and that was it. It took me completely by surprise and it’s difficult to describe how crushing that had felt. If I’d done something specific wrong it would be easier to deal with, but apparently I just wasn’t ‘the right girl’.
    The really bitter blow had come two years later, when I’d secretly found my way to their house after school one day. I don’t know what I’d been hoping to find. The house looked exactly as it had when I was there, except the door had been painted black. While I was standing taking it in, the Wilsons had