In the chap­ter of The day before: OLIVIA: The Brides­maid, In the cave the sea has come in, so it’s prac­ti­cal­ly lap­ping at our feet, the water black as ink. It makes the space feel small­er, more claus­tro­pho­bic. Han­nah and I have to sit near­er to each oth­er than we did before, our knees touch­ing, a can­dle we nicked from the draw­ing room perched on the rock in front of us in its glass lantern. Now I under­stand why it’s called the Whis­per­ing Cave. The high water has changed the acoustics in here so that this time every­thing we say is whis­pered back to us, as though someone’s stand­ing there in the shad­ows, repeat­ing every word. It’s hard to believe there isn’t. I find myself turn­ing to check, every so often, to make cer­tain we’re alone.

I can’t make Han­nah out all that well in the soft light of the can­dle. But I can hear her breath­ing, smell her per­fume. We pass the bot­tle of vod­ka between us. I’m already a bit drunk, I think, from din­ner. I couldn’t eat much and the booze went straight to my head. But I need to be drunk­er to tell her, drunk enough that my brain can’t stop the words. Which seems sil­ly, as recent­ly I have been need­ing to tell some­one about it so bad­ly that some­times I feel like it’s going to erupt out of me, with­out any warn­ing. But now it has actu­al­ly come down to it, I feel tongue-tied.

Han­nah speaks first. ‘Olivia.’

The cave replies in a whis­per: Olivia, Olivia, Olivia.

‘God,’ Han­nah says, ‘that echo. Did your ex … did he do any­thing to you? Some­one I know—’ She stops, starts again, ‘my sis­ter, Alice. She had this boyfriend when she was at uni­ver­si­ty. And he react­ed real­ly bad­ly to the break-up. I mean, real­ly real­ly bad­ly—’

I wait for Han­nah to say more, but she doesn’t. Instead she takes the bot­tle from me and has a very long drink, about four shots’ worth.

‘No, it wasn’t any­thing like that,’ I say. ‘Yeah, Cal­lum was a bit of a shit. I mean, he wasn’t very sub­tle about hook­ing up with Ellie straight after. But he was the one who broke it off, so it wasn’t that.’ I grab the bot­tle from her, take a big gulp. I can taste her lip­stick on the rim. ‘It was in the sum­mer hol­i­days after term had end­ed. I was stay­ing at Jules’s place in Isling­ton, while she was away for work for a few days.’

I speak into the dark­ness, the cave whis­per­ing my own words back to me. I find myself telling Han­nah how lone­ly I felt. How I was in this great big city, which I’ve always found so excit­ing, but realised I had no one to share it with. How it was Fri­day night and I’d gone to the Sainsbury’s down the road from Jules’s flat and bought myself some crisps, milk and cere­al for the morn­ing, and how my walk home took me past all these peo­ple stand­ing out­side pubs, drink­ing, hav­ing a laugh in the sun. How I felt like such a fuck­ing sad­do, with my orange car­ri­er bag and a night of Net­flix to look for­ward to. How it was at times like that that I always thought of Cal­lum, and what we might be doing togeth­er, which made me feel even more alone.

I still can’t quite believe I’m telling her all this, when I hard­ly know her. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe, of all the peo­ple here, she’s the one per­son I can tell, because she’s basi­cal­ly a stranger. The vod­ka def­i­nite­ly helps, too, and the fact that it’s so gloomy in here that I can hard­ly see her face. Even so, I don’t think I can tell her all of it. The thought of doing that makes me feel pan­icky. But maybe I can start at the begin­ning and see if, once I’ve told her most of it, I’m brave enough to tell her the whole thing.

‘I was on my phone,’ I say, ‘and I could see that Cal­lum was with Ellie. She’d shared all these pics on Snapchat. There was one of her sit­ting on his lap. And then anoth­er one of her kiss­ing him, while she held one mid­dle fin­ger up to the cam­era like she didn’t want any­one to take the pic­ture … except then she went and shared it for the whole world to see, for fuck’s sake.’

Han­nah takes a drink from the bot­tle, breathes out. ‘That must have made you feel pret­ty awful,’ she says. ‘See­ing that. Jeez, social media has a lot to answer for.’

‘Yeah.’ I shrug. ‘It did make me feel a bit … shit.’ In case I sound like a total stalk­er I don’t tell her how many times I looked at those pho­tos, how I sat there clutch­ing my Sainsbury’s bag and cry­ing while I did it. ‘My mates had been say­ing I should have some fun,’ I say. ‘You know, like show Cal­lum what he was miss­ing. They kept telling me to get myself on some dat­ing apps, but I didn’t want to do it at uni, where it was all so inces­tu­ous.’

‘What, apps like Tin­der?’

I think she’s try­ing to show she’s down with the kids.

‘Yeah, but no one real­ly uses Tin­der any more.’

‘Sor­ry,’ she says. ‘I’m ancient, remem­ber. What do I know?’ She says it a bit wist­ful­ly.

‘You’re not that old,’ I tell her.

‘Well … thanks.’ Her knee bumps against mine.

I take anoth­er swig of vod­ka. And remem­ber how that night in Jules’s flat I drank some of her wine, which made me realise how all the stuff we drank at uni for £3 a glass in the local bars tast­ed like absolute piss. I remem­ber how I felt quite sophis­ti­cat­ed walk­ing around in my pants and bra with one of her big glass­es. I imag­ined it was my flat, that I was going to go out and find some man and bring him back here and screw him. And that would show Cal­lum.

Obvi­ous­ly I didn’t actu­al­ly plan to do that. I’d only had sex with one per­son before, with Cal­lum. And even that had been pret­ty tame.

‘I set up a pro­file,’ I tell Han­nah. ‘I decid­ed in Lon­don it was dif­fer­ent. In Lon­don I could go on a date and it wouldn’t be all over the whole of cam­pus the next morn­ing.’

‘I’m kind of impressed,’ Han­nah says. ‘I’d nev­er have been brave enough to do some­thing like that. But weren’t you, you know … wor­ried about safe­ty?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m not an idiot. I didn’t use my real name. Or my age.’

‘Ah,’ Han­nah nods. ‘Right.’ I get the impres­sion she’s not con­vinced by that and is try­ing very hard not to say any­thing else.

I put my age as twen­ty-six, in fact. The pro­file pho­to I put up didn’t even look like me. I ran­sacked Jules’s clos­et, did my make-up per­fect­ly. But it was kind of the point not to look like me.

‘I called myself Bel­la,’ I say. ‘You know, as in Hadid?’

I tell Han­nah how I sat there on the bed and scrolled through pho­tos of all these guys until my eyes burned. ‘Most of them were rank,’ I say. ‘In the gym, like lift­ing up their shirts, or wear­ing sun­glass­es that they thought made them look cool.’ I almost gave up.

‘But I did match with this one guy,’ I tell Han­nah. ‘He caught my eye. He was … dif­fer­ent.’

I made the first move. So unlike me, but I was a bit pissed from Jules’s wine.

Free to meet up? I wrote.
Yes, his reply came. I’d like that, Bel­la. When suits you?
How about this evening?
There was a long pause. Then: You don’t hang about.
This is my only free evening for the next few weeks. I liked how that sound­ed. Like I had bet­ter places to be.
Fine, he mes­saged back. It’s a date.

‘What was he like?’ Han­nah asks, her chin in her hand. She seems fas­ci­nat­ed, watch­ing me close­ly.
‘Hot­ter than his pho­to. And a bit old­er than me.’
‘How much old­er?’
‘Um … maybe fif­teen years?’
‘OK.’ Is she try­ing not to sound shocked? ‘And what was he like? When you actu­al­ly met up?’

I think back. It’s hard for me to see him as he appeared at the begin­ning. ‘I guess I thought he was hot. And … he seemed like more of a man. He made Cal­lum look like a boy in com­par­i­son.’ He had broad shoul­ders, like he worked out a lot, and a tan. In com­par­i­son, Cal­lum was a scrawny lit­tle pret­ty boy. Prop­er men were my new thing, I decid­ed. ‘But,’ I shrug, even though she can’t see me. ‘I don’t know. I sup­pose how­ev­er hot he was, at first, a part of me would have pre­ferred him to be Cal­lum.’

Han­nah nods. ‘Yeah,’ she says sym­pa­thet­i­cal­ly. ‘I get that. When you’ve got your heart set on some­one Brad Pitt could walk in and he wouldn’t be enough—’
‘Brad Pitt is real­ly fuck­ing old,’ I say.
‘Um – Har­ry Styles?’
That almost makes me smile. ‘Yeah. Maybe. Or Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met.’ I always thought Cal­lum looked a bit like him.
‘But Cal­lum prob­a­bly hadn’t thought about me for a moment, espe­cial­ly not while Ellie’s stu­pid big tits were in his face.’ I told myself I had bet­ter stop fuck­ing think­ing about him.

‘And did this guy … what was his name?’
‘Steven.’
‘Did he say any­thing? When you met, about you being so much younger?’
I give her a look. That sound­ed a bit judge‑y.
‘Sor­ry,’ she says, with a laugh. ‘But, seri­ous­ly, did he?’
‘Yeah, he did. He asked me if I was real­ly twen­ty-six. But he didn’t say it in a sus­pi­cious way, more like it was, I dun­no – a joke we were both in on. It didn’t real­ly seem to mat­ter to him, not then. And he was nice,’ I say, though it’s hard to remem­ber that now. ‘I was hav­ing a good time. He laughed at all my jokes. He asked me loads of ques­tions about myself.’

I cast my mind back to that night. Being in that bar with the drinks going to my head – I was drink­ing Negro­nis because I thought that would make me seem old­er. ‘My orig­i­nal plan was to get a pho­to,’ I say, ‘post it to my Insta­gram.’ Let Cal­lum see what he was miss­ing.

‘I’m guess­ing …’ Han­nah looks at me, ‘a bit more than that hap­pened?’
‘Yeah.’ I take a gulp of vod­ka.
There was this moment, I remem­ber, when I thought maybe he was going to say good­bye, but he opened the door of the cab and turned to me and said: ‘Well, are you get­ting in?’ And in the taxi (not even an Uber, a prop­er black cab), how this lit­tle voice kept pip­ing up: What are you doing? You hard­ly know him! But the drunk part of me, the part of me that was up for it, kept telling it to shut up.

We went back to Jules’s place, because he’d just moved house and didn’t have any prop­er fur­ni­ture. I felt a bit bad about it, but I told myself I’d wash the sheets.
‘Wow,’ he said. ‘This is impres­sive. And it all belongs to you?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, feel­ing like I’d got a whole lot more sophis­ti­cat­ed in his eyes.
‘And then we had sex,’ I tell Han­nah. ‘I guess I want­ed to do it before the booze wore off.’
‘Was it good?’ Han­nah asks. She sounds excit­ed. And then: ‘I haven’t had sex for ages. Sor­ry. I know that’s TMI.’

I try not to think of her and Char­lie hav­ing sex. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It was a bit – y’know. A bit rough? He pushed me up against the wall, pushed my skirt up around my waist, pulled my knick­ers down. And he— Can I have a bit more of that?’ Han­nah pass­es me the bot­tle and I take a quick slug.
‘He went down on me, even though I hadn’t had a show­er. He said he pre­ferred it like that.’

‘I got a bit ner­vous,’ I said. ‘Espe­cial­ly of hav­ing to intro­duce him to Jules. And there were all these free drinks. I had way too many of them, to try and feel more con­fi­dent. I made a total twat of myself. I had to go and be sick in the loos – I was a state. And then Steven put me in a cab back to Jules’s, and I couldn’t even ask him to come with me because she would be there lat­er on. I remem­ber him count­ing out the notes to the cab dri­ver. And then ask­ing him to make sure I got home safe, like I was a child.’

‘He should have gone with you,’ Han­nah says. ‘He should have made sure you were all right. Not left it to some taxi dri­ver.’
I shrug. ‘Maybe. But I was such a fuck­ing embar­rass­ment. I’m not sur­prised he want­ed to be rid of me.’

I remem­ber watch­ing him out of the win­dow and think­ing: I’ve blown it. And think­ing, if I were him, maybe I’d just go back inside and hang out with peo­ple my own age who could hold their booze.

‘After that he start­ed ghost­ing me.’ In case she doesn’t know what that means I say, ‘You know, like not reply­ing? Even though I could see the two lit­tle blue ticks.’
She nods.

‘I went back to uni. One night I got a bit drunk and sad after a night out and I sent him ten mes­sages. I tried to call him on the walk to Halls at two a.m. He didn’t answer. Didn’t reply to my texts. I knew I’d nev­er see him again.’

‘Shit,’ Han­nah says.
‘Yeah.’
‘So was that it?’ she asks, when I don’t say any more. ‘Did you see him again?’ And then, when I don’t answer: ‘Olivia?’

But I can’t speak. It’s like I was under some sort of spell before, it was so easy to talk. Now it feels as though the words are stuck in my throat.

There’s this image in my brain. Red on white. All the blood.

When we get back to the Fol­ly, Han­nah says she’s knack­ered. ‘Straight to bed for me,’ she says. I get it. It was dif­fer­ent in the cave. Sit­ting there in the dark with the vod­ka and the can­dle­light, it felt like we could say any­thing. Now it feels almost like we over­shared. Like we crossed a line.

I know I won’t be able to go to sleep, though, espe­cial­ly not while all the blokes are still play­ing their game out­side my room. So I stand against the wall out­side for a bit and try to slow down the thoughts rac­ing round my head.

‘Hel­lo there.’

I near­ly jump out of my skin. ‘What the fuck—’

It’s the best man, John­no. I don’t like him. I saw how he looked at me ear­li­er. And he’s drunk – I can tell that, and I’m pret­ty drunk. In the light spilling from the din­ing room I can see him give a big grin, more of a leer. ‘Fan­cy a puff?’ He holds out a big joint, sick­ly smell of weed. I can see it’s wet on the end where it’s been in his mouth.

‘No thanks,’ I say.

‘Very well-behaved.’

I make to go inside, but as I reach for the door he catch­es my arm, his hand tight about it. ‘You know, we should have a dance tomor­row, you and I. Best man and the brides­maid.’

I shake my head.

He steps near­er, pulls me clos­er to him. He’s so much big­ger than me. But he wouldn’t do any­thing right here, would he? Not with every­one upstairs?

‘You should think about it,’ he says. ‘Might sur­prise you. An old­er man.’

‘Get the fuck off me,’ I hiss. I think of my razor blade, upstairs. I wish I had it with me, just so I knew it was there.