"Leave me alone, Josh. Go away."

"I would," he said, stepping inside anyway, closing the door behind him, "if I weren’t sitting on something that’s about to ruin a boy’s entire future. I’m not his biggest fan, Justina, believe me. But is that actually what you want? Before you answer, I already know you’ve been seeing him for weeks. Don’t bother lying about it. Lucy told me everything." He held up his phone, the photos still open on the screen.

"Think hard, and go tell Mum yourself. Or I will."

Justina opened her mouth, some protest half-formed, and then nothing came out at all.

She’d known, somewhere underneath the crying and the fear, that this moment was always going to arrive eventually, had known it the second the lie left her mouth in that upstairs bedroom, had felt it sitting there ever since like a stone she couldn’t put down.

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