Page 141 of Our Secrets and Lies

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Dylan and Jenny burst through the door of the family waiting room and looked around wildly. ‘Where is she?’ Dylan shouted.

Lucy threw her arms around her son. He held her tight. ‘Is she okay, Mum?’

Lucy was crying too much to speak. Dylan held her and began to cry too.

‘They’re working on her now,’ Darren said. ‘She’s in Intensive Care. They think she’s going to be all right.’

‘Think?’Jenny looked at Billy.

He put his arm around her. ‘We don’t know much yet. We’re hoping and praying. They think we got to her in time. Jesus, Jenny, if you’d seen her.’ Billy covered his eyes and began to weep.

She pulled him to her. ‘It’s okay, Dad, she’ll make it.’ She looked around at the others. ‘What happened?’

‘She did it in the bath,’ Sarah said softly. ‘Cut herself. She’s lost a lotof blood.’

Jenny shook her head. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘That she could do this to herself. Why didn’t she come and talk to me? To any of us? We could have fixed whatever it was.’

Dylan paced the room. ‘It’s my fault. She told me she was being bullied, but I didn’t think it was this bad.’

‘No! It’s my fault,’ Shannon said, sniffing. ‘I knew how bad it was, but I didn’t say.’

‘Shannon,you saved her life,’ Sarah said. ‘You saved her.’

‘She’s right,’ Lucy said.

‘None of this would have happened if I’d told you howbad things were,’ Shannon sobbed. ‘I begged her to tell you, Lucy, but she was too afraid to upset you or to mess up the scholarship. She was so worried about everyone else – she never put herself first. But I should have told you anyway.’

‘That’s so Kelly,’ Jennysaid. ‘Always thinking about other people’s feelings.’

Billy wiped his eyes with a large handkerchief. ‘Poor little mite. To think she was suffering so much and we didn’t see it. How did we miss it? How?’

Lucy went over to sit beside Shannon and held her hand. ‘Tell me everything. All of it. Don’t spare me any details. I need to know what she’s been going through. I need to know what I missed.’

They all sat down and everyone looked at Shannon, waiting. Darren sat on her other side and put his arm around her as she sobbed and spluttered her way through the last few months of Kelly’s life.

‘… and then today they send this video out of a girl that looked like Kelly doing … well … doing something …’ Shannon looked at her dad.

‘Doing what?’ Lucy asked.

‘Just say it, love,’ Billy said.

‘I can’t,’ Shannon said.

‘What was it, Shannon?’ Jenny asked. ‘It’s okay, you’re not in trouble. We need to know.’

‘It was … she was … the girl in the video was …’

‘Kicking?’ Ollie asked.

‘No.’

‘Punching?’

‘No.’

‘Stabbing?’

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