‘I think she’d be happy with whatever she was doing,’ Twiggy said softly.

  ‘She’d be a good person,’ Mitchell said, his head down. ‘A kind person.’

  Will slid an arm around my waist. ‘I think we should all share a good memory we have about Sophie A. To remember her. Here, I’ll go first.’ He inhaled. ‘I remember when she got the giggles in assembly in year nine, and made everyone else start laughing hysterically too, including half the teachers.’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Mitchell brightened. ‘Peter wet his pants.’

  ‘I did not wet my pants,’ Peter protested. ‘I spilled my water bottle.’

  ‘Sure, Schmiddy.’ Twiggy flipped her hood up. ‘OK, here’s my best memory — the time she danced with Thomas Star at the school disco at intermediate school, because she knew he was in love with her.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said, remembering the sleepy-eyed boy with Down syndrome. ‘He had the biggest smile. What’s your favourite memory, Peter?’

  ‘The shopping-trolley race,’ Peter said. ‘Except for when she broke her arm. How about you, Mitchell?’

  ‘Hmm.’ Mitchell cleared his throat. ‘I guess, I don’t know, I always remember her smile. It was … big. And always so genuine.’ I wondered if that was really his best memory. I suspected his best memory of Sophie A was a secret he had kept from everyone, apart from me.

  I must have zoned out for a minute, because suddenly everyone was looking at me.

  ‘How ’bout you, Mac?’ Will asked. ‘What’s your favourite memory?’

  And I thought of a girl crying over her second-hand shoes, and another girl with baby-blonde hair.

  Are you the new girl?

  ‘She was the first person to make friends with me when I moved here as a little kid,’ I said. ‘She rescued me from the bullies. Her and Twiggy, of course.’

  I’m Sophie A, and she’s Sophie T, but everyone calls her Twiggy.

  ‘Of course,’ Twiggy echoed, her eyes dark.

  Will kissed my cheek and raised the bottle of Coke.

  ‘To Sophie A,’ he said. ‘Alive in our hearts.’

  ‘Alive in our hearts,’ we chorused, raising our own drinks.

  PART III

  DAY 28

  Today is day twenty-eight of my new life. My new life started on January 1. Last year is something I want to put behind me, most of it.

  Not Will. We’ve had a good time this summer. I even went away to his family’s beach house with him. His parents made us sleep in separate rooms, but we managed to get some time alone together.

  Today could well be one of the best days of my life. My exam results came out today, and they were better than I expected, especially considering how distracted I was. I got Excellence in all my subjects, and Scholarships in Biology and Chemistry.

  Will passed all his subjects with Merit, apart from an Excellence in English.

  Twiggy passed three subjects with Merit, and Achieved on the other two. She was happy with that.

  Mum was so excited she took me out for dinner. She said, ‘Great things are coming your way, Sophie, you just wait and see.’

  I think she’s right.

  DAY 30

  This has been one of the most stressful days ever, apart from the day that Sophie A went missing.

  I’m a rat in a maze again, running for my life.

  DAY 40

  Today is the first day I can stand to string my thoughts together about what happened ten days ago.

  I’ve been questioned three times, and each time I’ve said the same thing.

  There’s nothing else to say. My story is etched into my brain.

  Memory is fallible, and malleable.

  This is my memory.

  Twelve days ago, a surfer came back to New Zealand after almost seven months working in the US. Eleven days ago, when reading the local newspaper, he stumbled across an article about the mysterious disappearance of North Shore teenager Sophie Abercrombie.

  When the surfer looked at the photo, he recognised her immediately. He remembered Sophie A’s face, because he’d wondered why such a nice-looking girl looked so sad.

  The surfer had just finished a last ride of the waves at Muriwai Beach. He’d seen Sophie Abercrombie when he was sitting in his VW Kombi van, smoking a cigarette before he drove home. Sophie A was getting out of an orange Mini Cooper, and she wasn’t alone. She was accompanied by a girl with silver-blonde hair. He couldn’t see so well in the fading light, but he remembered thinking Wow, they’re hot. He remembered thinking that it was a pity his mate was still out on the water, or they could have tried to hook up with them. But then he’d looked closer and, seeing their school uniforms, had concluded Damn, too young for us then.

  It didn’t take the cops long to add that one up. That’s what they’re paid for, obviously. The next day, I was asked to come to the police station. In my gut, I knew something was up. They told me to bring a support person. Of course, I brought Mum, even though I was really worried about what she was about to hear.

  Jesus. I can hardly bear to think about this.

  Fowler and Watkins sat me down in a really sterile-looking room with a table and uncomfortably hard chairs, and asked if I wanted a glass of water.

  I didn’t want a glass of water. I wanted a fricking cyanide tablet.

  Mum sat next to me. The detectives sat opposite us. There was a clock on the wall behind them. It was ticking really loudly.

  Sharon Fowler’s nose was really red, as if she’d been out in the sun for too long. Troy Watkins was his usual pimply self.

  ‘Sophie, we want to ask you about your trip to Muriwai Beach on Friday, June twenty-ninth last year,’ Fowler said.

  I ran my palms across the tops of my thighs. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘I want to ask you again who you saw out there.’

  ‘I told you. I saw a surfer.’

  ‘A surfer.’ Fowler picked up a pen. ‘Did you speak to him?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. He was in the water.’

  ‘Did you see anyone else? How about in the car park?’

  I thought back, my heart racing.

  ‘No. I mean, there were two cars in the car park. I didn’t see anyone in them, but it was starting to rain. I wasn’t really paying attention.’

  I’d thought those cars were empty. Because if they weren’t, then—

  The realisation hit me like a bullet train. I began to shake. No, no, no.

  ‘And you went out there by yourself?’

  ‘I told you I d-did.’ Tick, tick went the clock. Thud, thud went my heart.

  ‘Look,’ Mum interrupted. ‘How many times are we going to go through this?’

  Watkins spoke for the first time. ‘Until Sophie tells us the truth. Sophie, who else was in the car with you?’

  They knew. Somehow, they knew. Or maybe they were just trying to call my bluff? Should I keep denying it?

  That was when Fowler decided to put me out of my misery and tell me about the surfer. The other surfer, the one I hadn’t seen, because he’d already exited the water. But he’d seen me. He’d seen me, and another girl.

  ‘A girl that matches Sophie Abercrombie’s description,’ Watkins said.

  Mum made a small noise. I thought I was going to vomit, or pass out, or both. I lowered my head, until it was hanging between my knees.

  ‘Please,’ Mum said. ‘Can we have a break?’

  ‘No.’ I took a couple of deep breaths, and raised my head again. ‘I need to — I need to—’

  I started to cry. Watkins passed me a box of tissues. Mum asked for a break again. I said, No, no, I need to talk, please let me talk.

  So I told them my story. And as I spoke, I knew this had to be the truth, the best truth I knew.

  I was very, very scared. I just have to let you know that, before I start. And I kept thinking about coming forward, but as the days and months went on, I knew how bad it was going to look.

  I told you I saw Sophie A and Mr Bacon kissing in the car. That was true. It did happen. Mr Bacon saw me, but Sophie A didn’t. I ran off. I went to Twiggy’s house to feed her cat, and while I was there I got a text from Sophie A. She wanted to talk. I figured it was about her being pregnant. She’d sworn me to secrecy, which is why I couldn’t tell anyone. She’d told me about it two nights earlier, but she wouldn’t tell me who the father was. But I thought I knew.

  ‘Who did you think it was, Sophie?’ Watkins leaned forward, his expression intent.

  I met his gaze. ‘I thought it was James Bacon,’ I said, ‘after what I’d seen just before.’

  I didn’t look at my mother. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to look her in the eye again.

  I picked her up outside the public toilets by our local beach. She was really upset. She wanted to go for a long drive, to clear her head. When I asked her where, she said, I want to go to Muriwai. I tried to get out of her what was wrong, but she couldn’t talk for all the crying.

  Mum made another strangled noise. I tried to pretend she wasn’t there.

  When we got to Muriwai, we went along the rocks, until we reached the base of the steps that go up to the gannet colony. That was when I asked Sophie A how long she’d been sleeping with James Bacon, and she got really upset. She said, what makes you think that? And I told her what I’d seen. She was shaking her head and backing towards the edge of the rocks. There were waves, big waves.

  I stopped, gulped.

  When I realised what she was doing, why she’d wanted to go there, it was too late.

  ‘What was she doing?’ Fowler asked.

  I clenched my fists.

  She said, I’m so scared, Mac. I told James I was pregnant, and he said he’d help me. He said he’d give me money to get rid of it. But when I said I didn’t want to get rid of it, he lost it.

  I asked her what she meant by ‘lost it’. She said, he threatened me. Said he’d kill me if I didn’t do what he said. And I’m freaking out so bad. I don’t know what to do.

  She was shaking and crying. The waves were so big and so close. I was worried she was too close to the edge, but I didn’t want to move, in case she did something stupid.

  Sophie, walk towards me, I said. Please, we can work this out. But she just shook her head at me, and spread her arms, and then she stepped back and a huge wave broke over her and then she was gone, and I wanted to help her, I did, but there was no way I could jump in there. I knew I’d be dead too. And when I went to call for help, there was no one on the beach, and my phone was flat, and I know I should have told someone, but I was so worried everyone would think I’d killed her, and maybe I did, I shouldn’t have driven her out there, I shouldn’t have let her go so close to the edge—

  I began crying again, snot and tears running into my mouth, crying until I began to dry retch.

  This time when Mum said, ‘We need a break,’ I was incapable of arguing.

  The detectives have questioned me twice more since then. Twice more, and I’ve told them the same thing.

  Ten days later, and I still can’t look my mother in the eye.

  Because this is what happened when I got home after that first interview. And perhaps if the events had been reversed, if I’d opened that envelope before I talked to the cops, then my story might have been different.

  Then again, maybe not.

  When we got home, I went straight to my room. I didn’t know what to do with myself, but I knew if I sat still I’d go crazy. So I began cleaning up my desk, which was still covered in folders and study notes and screwed-up pieces of paper. I threw lots of stuff in the bin, but I stacked the study notes and folders in the bottom of my wardrobe. I’d almost cleared the top of my desk when I spotted an envelope with an Eastbrook High coat of arms on it beneath my pencil case.

  Figuring it was old, I went to throw it in the bin — then hesitated. The envelope was unopened, and had a postmark dated in mid-September. The name on the front was mine. Probably it was some kind of end-of-school newsletter that I hadn’t wanted to read. It’s a miracle I opened it at all.

  Yet when I took out the piece of paper, I saw it was a handwritten note on a piece of A4 refill. My chest lurched as soon as I saw the writing. I couldn’t believe James had dared make contact with me.

  I read the note at least ten times, and each time I read it I felt a physical pain in my chest.

  To Sophie,

  I know you hate me, and believe me, part of me hates you too. But no matter what happens, just remember this: no one will ever love you like I do.

  J.

  Something in my chest melted a little when I read that.

  I asked him if he was still in love with you … he just looked really upset.

  But then I remembered how he’d pursued Twiggy anyway, remembered how he’d driven my head into a lamppost.

  I could have sent him a note back. It would have been one word, and one word only.

  But even I’m not that hard-hearted.

  Instead, I took the note to the cops.

  And there it was, I’d trapped him once and for all, no way to turn.

  Checkmate.

  You’re welcome.

  DAY 64

  Today is the fifth of March, and my eighteenth birthday. A year ago, my boyfriend gave me a diamond belly-ring and told me no one would ever love me the way he did.

  I think he was right.

  This year, my boyfriend gave me a pot plant, an anthurium with pretty heart-shaped flowers, and told me he’d love me no matter what happened.

  James loved me so much, he risked his job. He loved me so much, he risked his freedom.

  Now James is facing a prison sentence, and in doing so, he has set me free.

  It’s not all plain sailing. Ellen Abercrombie hasn’t been able to bring herself to speak to me yet, although I’ve written Sophie A’s family a long letter of apology. I could still be punished for withholding information about her death, but apparently that’s unlikely. As long as I don’t end up with a criminal record, then there’s no reason why I can’t be a forensic pathologist.

  As for Mitchell, I apologise to him in my head all the time. But Sophie A wasn’t his girlfriend. She was free to have sex with whoever else she wanted. Maybe she did, and maybe she didn’t.

  All I can do is carry on and try to put this behind me. One day at a time.

  There’s just the troublesome nature of my dreams. Perhaps they, too, will disappear in time.

  I don’t believe in repressed memories. So this dream, well, it can’t be true … can it?

  Dream diary: It’s raining. It’s raining, and I’m standing on the black-black rocks at Muriwai. Sophie is standing with her back to the waves, and she’s asking me why I’m so angry.

  And I’m yelling at her, asking her how she could sleep with James, didn’t he tell her about me? And she’s denying it, denying to my face that she ever kissed him.

  But I saw you, I say. I saw you in his car this afternoon.

  She says, Mac, he was just being nice to me. He saw me crying when he drove past me walking home, and asked if I wanted to talk. So I got into his car, but we were just talking.

  And I’m screaming, Liar, you’re such a liar, you’ve always been the pretty one, I should have known you’d steal him off me.

  Her eyes are deer wide. Mac, oh my God, I had no idea you guys were together, but I’m past listening.

  And I shove her, hard, because I’m not thinking, and all I can see is bright flashes, white-hot fury.

  And I don’t think I mean for her to slip, and I don’t see the huge wave looming up behind her until it’s too late

  And then

  And then

  She’s gone

  And I run and run and run, but no matter how fast I run, I’m not moving and I open my mouth to scream

  And then I wake

  Always, I wake

  Sweat-drenched and I think

  Her schoolbag! and then I remember

  I took care of that. Yes, I did.

  But it’s just a dream. Only a dream.

  That’s not what’s in my fallible, malleable memory.

  Not even close.

  WILL

  Can this be for real?

  I shouldn’t have read her diary. Shouldn’t have, but it was hard to resist when it slipped out from beneath her mattress this morning. I started reading where it randomly fell open, at day sixty-four. I read the entries backwards at first, intending just to dip in and jump around, but I was hooked. Jesus, when I read what happened on day zero, the day Mac started the diary, I had to read it again. And again. Now I’ve read it all twice, and I’ve realised the girl I’m in love with is …

  Is someone I don’t really know at all.

  It’s March the sixth, the day after Mac’s eighteenth birthday, and I’m holding a grenade.

  Will I pull the pin? Or will I put the grenade back where I found it?

  Perhaps I’ll start by talking to Mac.

  Then again, maybe I won’t.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Firstly, thank you to the usual but very important suspects: my husband Grant and beautiful children, Lachie and Maisie, along with the rest of my family. Thank you once again to my wise friend and critique partner, Nod Ghosh, for your valuable feedback. Thank you to my publisher, Harriet Allan, for helping make this novel shine, and to the rest of the amazing team at Penguin Random House. Thanks again to Sergeant Adrian Ross, one of my oldest friends, for your advice on all matters criminal (you are getting used to my dodgy questions by now, I think!).

  Thank you to the booksellers, teachers and librarians who tirelessly pass on the power of the written word to the next generation.

  And last but not least, thank you to my readers — for all your messages and emails, for letting me know that my books have touched you in some way, and for just being your own unique selves.

  Eileen Merriman works as a consultant haematologist at North Shore Hospital. Her first novel was Pieces of You, with reviewers calling it ‘compulsively readable’ and ‘compelling, challenging, and heartbreaking’. Both Pieces of You and her second novel, Catch Me When You Fall, are Storylines Notable Books. A third YA novel, Invisibly Breathing, was published in 2019 and, along with her first two novels, was short-listed for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.