One Perfect Summer

and things kind of got out of hand.’ She blushes again with embarrassment.
    ‘How was he with you the next day?’ I feel like I’m on Trisha .
    She screws up her nose. ‘It was really awkward. Like, really awkward. He barely spoke to me.’
    ‘Oh.’ Now I feel a bit sick for her.
    ‘Well, I barely spoke to him, either.’
    ‘Well, in that case . . .’ I try to make her feel better.
    ‘I should think he’s shagging all and sundry now.’ Her tone is bitter.
    I shake my head. ‘Jessie’s not like that.’
    ‘Isn’t he? I mean, look at me.’ She points to her face. ‘I’m hardly Blondie, am I?’
    ‘That didn’t exactly pan out well, though, did it?’ I say reasonably. ‘And he wouldn’t keep snogging you – or go to bed with you – if he didn’t fancy you.’
    ‘Beer goggles,’ she says simply.
    ‘No.’ I brush her off.
    ‘He hasn’t even texted me.’ Her eyes fill up. Uh-oh.
    ‘Well, then, he’s a shit,’ I say crossly, hoping to snap her out of it. ‘All men are bastards, right?’
    She nods, but doesn’t smile. Bloody Jessie. There goes our happy household.
    ‘Mind you, have you tried to contact him?’ I ask.
    ‘No,’ she admits.
    ‘Maybe you should?’
    ‘No,’ she replies resolutely. ‘No.’
    Not much I can say about that.
    The days and weeks tick by. I’m conscious about not leaving Emily out, so Lukas and I don’t hole ourselves up in my bedroom as much as we’d like to. She continues to refuse to contact Jessie, so finally I do, mainly because I’ve grown worried about him. I needn’t have been. He sends a jovial text back a whole two days later saying he’s having a whale of a time. No mention of Emily. I’m so not impressed with him.
    She’s a bag of nerves the night before he returns home. We sit in the living room, just the two of us, and have a few drinks to take her mind off things.
    ‘I’ll have to move out,’ she says simply at one point.
    ‘No, you won’t,’ I reply with dismay. ‘It will be fine.’
    ‘How could it possibly be fine?’ she asks flippantly, buoyed by the alcohol she’s consumed. ‘This is a no-win situation.’
    ‘Don’t say that. Do you still like him?’
    She stares straight ahead and doesn’t reply. I’ll take that as a yes, then.
    ‘I can’t believe he never contacted you. I didn’t class Weasley as a proper bastard.’
    ‘Me neither. Should have learned my lesson by now.’ She downs her drink in one.
    I know she’s been hurt badly before, but she’s never spoken about it. ‘I’m guessing you’ve known a few bastards in your lifetime,’ I say.
    She hesitates. ‘One in particular was worse than the others.’
    ‘Who was he?’ I pick up a half-full can of lager on the table and empty it into her glass.
    ‘A guy I used to know in Irvine.’ That’s where she’s from in Scotland.
    ‘What was his name?’
    ‘Anthony. He’s in his early thirties now.’
    ‘Really?’ I ask with surprise. Hang on . . . ‘How long ago—’
    ‘I was fourteen,’ she interrupts.
    My mouth drops open.
    ‘He was twenty-eight,’ she continues. ‘Nice, eh?’ She downs the rest of her lager.
    I’m lost for words. Eventually I discover my tongue.
    ‘Were you together long?’ I ask.
    ‘Long enough,’ she replies bitterly. ‘He wasn’t a very nice man.’
    I gather this is an understatement.
    ‘Was it serious?’
    She knows what I’m trying to ask her.
    ‘Oh, yeah,’ she replies sardonically. ‘And he was quite persistent.’ She folds her arms across her chest.
    ‘Shit.’ I exhale loudly. ‘He should be in jail!’
    ‘He’s far too clever for that. When he’s with you he makes you feel like the luckiest girl in the world. He told me that he loved me, that he wanted to marry me, but he’d get into trouble if anyone found out, so it had to be our little secret. He cried when he broke it off with me. Said he was heartbroken, but that he had to do the right thing by me. I was crushed. I felt like Juliet.’ She laughs cynically. ‘Later I found out he’d done the same thing to another girl from my school. God knows how many other girls there were.’
    ‘You should go to the police!’ I cry.
    ‘No. I have no proof.’
    ‘I bet there are other girls you could track down.’
    ‘I can’t.’ She shakes her head fervently. ‘I can’t go through that again.’
    ‘Did he rape you?’ I whisper.
    ‘No.’ She pauses. ‘But he didn’t exactly ask me, either.’
    ‘So it was rape!’
    ‘Well, it