"I just left."

Everyone blamed him, after it happened, and everyone thought it was so much worse than it was. They thought worse of Peter, too, which hurt; thought him far more guilty than her. It was the unfairness of this that really killed her, that drove her away. She ran from the hopelessness which she was left with when her frustration burned out, after she had explained and argued and shouted and screamed at them all and still no-one had listened. Nothing happened. It wasn't his fault. Nothing happened. But he had always been the one to come up with mad ideas. He had always been the one who got wild enthusiasms and carried everyone else along with him. She was the hanger-on. She was the sensible one. The voice of reason who saved him from his own excess. Nobody could believe it when it got out. She ran from the one thing she couldn't say because it was the one thing that might have got through to them. She ran from her own shame.

It was me. I love him. It wasn't him, it was me.

...

'What you doing tonight Ruthie?' Peter swung into her room, leaning on the door handle, eyes automatically swivelling to the desk where she was hunched over and open book. Ruth looked up, twisting to meet his laughing dark eyes.

'Studying.' She ducked her head again, brushed an invisible crumb from the page, then looked back. He had an odd expression on his face.

'Want to come to a party?'

'Me?' Ruth raised her eyebrows. 'You're asking me to a party? I just want to make sure I've got this absolutely clear.' He had the grace to look sheepish and she couldn't quite keep the smile out of her voice as she continued. 'Aren't you scared I'll cramp your style?'

Peter bowed his head and looked up at her through the curtains of his ridiculous floppy fringe. He put on his best pleading face. He used it on teachers trying to give him detention, the female ones, and on girls he wanted to go out with. The wretch. He was awfully cute when he did that and he knew it.

'You look like a stoned spaniel,' Ruth said harshly, turning away, biting her lip.

Peter laughed and shook his hair back. She watched the flick of it out of the corner of her eye.

'Go on Ruthie, it could be fun.'

'Huh.'

'You could have fun, y'know. It is allowed.' He was advancing on her now. 'A bit of fun won't kill you.' Long slow strides across the carpet, pretending to creep up on her. She bent over her book. 'You have heard of fun, haven't you? People, drink, talk, laughter...' She put her hands over her ears and he prised each one off to whisper '...dancing? Bit of snogging?'

'Peter!' She lashed out, struggling to extract her hands, face burning. She pushed at the desk to stand up, collided with him leaning over her and sat back down with a bump.

'Get away from my desk.' Her voice was suddenly serious. He leaned back, the teasing smile faltering slightly.

'What?'

Ruth swallowed. 'No.' She said it firmly. She hoped she said it calmly. 'I don't want to go.'

'Awww Ruthie.'

'And don't call me that.' Ruth knew she sounded a bit pathetic, childish even. It was aggravating that she had been battling the family's use of her nickname for months and her protests only made her sound less and less mature. And Peter persisted in using it at every opportunity. Almost as if he knew that, in spite of herself, she liked it when he did. It sounded different, somehow, in his mouth and, now that their parents were finally catching on, soon he would be the only one using it. That gave it an intimacy that she could barely stand.

Ruth clenched her jaw, pretending to read, trying not to think. Peter flopped back onto the end of her bed, watching her. She refused to look.

At last, her heartbeat returned to normal and her cheeks cooled. She sighed, knowing what she was about to do and almost hating herself for it, especially as she knew he knew it too.

'What's this party then?

'Ruth you are the best!' Peter leapt up. 'Be ready at eight. It's posh, wear something nice.'

He threw a casual one-armed hug round her from behind, ruffled her hair and shot out the door.

Ruth put her head on her desk. I am not going to cry. I am not going to cry. I am not going to cry.

…

"I suppose it's been staring us in the face all along."

There were things that Ruth did not think about. She had a list of them, in her head of course, committing things to paper was dangerous. When she couldn't sleep at night, she went over the list, rhyming them off to keep herself from actually thinking about them. These things were – what if she got rejected from Oxford, what if she did badly in her A Levels, the fights between her mum and her step-dad that were getting worse every week, and... the other thing. Peter. She listed them off 1, 2, 3, 4, but she hardly ever named the last one. These were the things she was not allowed to think about - not at all during the daytime; only a little when she turned out the light and lay watching the room do nothing all around her. Even then, it was only to swallow her panic, to repeat over and over I will make them want me... I will do all the work... It will be ok... And never the other thing. That wasn't allowed, even at bedtime. Especially not then.

So it was that thing which lay in wait for her at four in the morning, those thoughts that crept into her dreams and drew her out of sleep confused, frustrated and angry, to struggle with herself and toss and turn and hate her own brain, her own body. Because the last, unnameable, unthinkable thing was how I feel about my step-brother.

...

'What am I doing here, Peter?' Ruth muttered out of the corner of her mouth as they approached the entrance to a rather large and grand looking hotel. He had taken her arm when they turned the corner and she had been wrestling with the feelings of pleasure and pain that this gave her. Seeing several bouncers round the doorway only increased her nervousness.

'Well first of all, you're getting me in. Well, both of us.'

'I'm what?'

'Everyone knows girls always get in.' He gave her a charming smile.

'Peter.' She stopped dead. 'Are you out of your mind? I look about twelve!'

'Not dressed like that you don't.' He gave her the once-over as if that proved his point. Ruth closed her eyes.

'I'm serious Ruthie. You look dead grown up. Really nice.'

'Do I?' Ruth couldn't help her response or the lift of hope in her voice although it sickened her the moment she heard it.

'Yeah.' Peter took her arm again. 'Anyway, it's not about age, although I think you're supposed to be twenty-one, it's about classiness. So come on, just do a bit of Lady Macbeth on them.'

'I thought you wanted them to let you into this party, not murder all the guests.'

…

"Just leave it as something that was never said."

He was charming, Peter was, in a sort of hopeless way. Ever since he was little, his dad said, he just had a way with people, could get extra pocket money out of anyone, especially women. And so good looking. Even if he hadn't be her step-brother, Ruth knew she never would have stood a chance with him. None of the boys looked twice at her, except maybe to laugh when she tripped over her own feet, or maybe to hate her for out-ranking them in school exams again. If they hadn't been brother and sister, step brother and sister, they probably wouldn't have even known how to be friends. As it was, they had always been close, always got on. Right from that very first day when their parents tried to introduce them. Ruth had hidden behind the sofa in a paroxysm of shyness. Peter, two years older, had spent a whole hour pretending that the room was full of invisible people and that she was one of them; he had talked nonsense loudly for so long that she had started giggling and come out to tell him he was wrong about the Tropic of Capeppercorn; they had ended in a pitched battle with the cushions; by the time they had shared the punishment for creating such a mess and breaking three ornaments they were firm friends. You and me against the world. One of the reasons Ruth hated herself so much for what she was feeling now was that she was breaking their pact. She was betraying him.

But I'll never tell him. I'll never do anything. I'll never let him know.

She swore it fiercely into her pillow, at the end of those wretched nights, blind to the grey light reaching in round the window-curtains.

...

'Ruth?' The door opened soundlessly and the whisper came through the crack. She stared at the sliver of different darkness and wished that he would go away.

'Ruthie?' She squeezed her eyes shut. If she could pretend she was asleep, maybe.

'Are you awake?' The catch in his voice made her open her eyes again. She could see him now, a shadow in the narrow gap, hunched over.

'Yes,' she croaked. Her stomach lurched.

'They're at it again.' Peter paused to listen. Ruth nodded, her head heavy against the pillow. She already knew that. The open door made the quarrelling voices of her mother and his father louder, more distinct, but she had been able to hear them anyway, through the door and her duvet and the wall and the dark. Peter had too.

He stood in the doorway, looking out, although all the house was dark. Ruth shivered.

'It's really late,' he said. 'We didn't get in till two and that was ages ago. Did they wake you too?'

'Yes.' In the darkness, Ruth hoped that she could conceal the lie. Her mind had been too full for sleep, whirling the images of their night out like a demented kaleidoscope.

'It's bad when they row this late.' Peter's voice shook. He closed the door very quietly. 'Can I stay here for a bit?'

Ruth's heart stood still. Thank God he couldn't see her face. She forced herself to breathe.

'All right.'

Peter padded over and hunched himself on the bottom of her bed. Slowly, Ruth sat up. Closer to, she could see him a little more clearly. Not a shadow any more but a whole person.

'Do you think they're going to get a divorce?' he whispered.

'I don't know.'

He held out his hand and Ruth took it, surprised when she felt its clamminess. She peered forward at his face then, unable to see clearly, reached out her other hand to touch his cheek. Tears. Very slowly, she brought her hand back, clenched it against her chest to stop herself from pulling him to her. She didn't know what to say, didn't dare say anything in case all the wrong, not-allowed words came out in shock.

Peter dragged his free hand across his face and sniffed.

'I'm sorry Ruthie. I just... I don't want them to split up. I don't want to split up our family.' He sniffed again. 'I don't want to lose you.'

Ruth felt her heart swell, she was sure. It was like something she had read in a novel. Her heart was swelling, it was pushing out against its own walls, it filled her whole chest, stopped her breathing. It hurt like hell.

Peter squeezed her hand and she gripped it fast. She had to keep her senses. She had to remember the rules.

'Listen.' His head turned to the door.

Ruth realised she could hear her heart thumping in a sudden, unsettling silence.

'They've stopped.'

Peter gave her watery smile. 'Sorry for being such a fool.'

'No, no, it's fine.' Ruth shook her head hard. 'I don't want... either. It's like you said. We're family.'

He didn't notice the strangeness with which she pronounced 'family', nor could he have understood it if he had. Peter only smiled.

'I'd better go. Giz a hug, sis.'

...

"Self- control, self-denial. These are the things which keep us together..."

The worst thing was feeling so out of control.

Ruth had always been an ordered being. She was tidy and logical, she liked to study things until she understood them deeply, she liked to learn by heart, she liked to discover structures, follow routines. She liked to be in control.

But this, this thing. These feelings. They crept up when she wasn't aware of them, they leapt out when she wasn't expecting them, they overwhelmed her. So that an innocent touch of a hand could send shocks of sensation racketing through her; a brotherly hug could make her burn to her core; a careless smile could rock her in wave after wave of confusion. She hated her body for turning against her reason. She hated her mind for betraying her sense with wild imagination.

It was worst at night, in the dark, on the shores of sleep or plunging its depths, facing new dragons which returned to prowl round the edges of her waking life, temptatious smoke and dangerous breath of fire. Oh she hated it, that she could not control the images, the imaginings, the desperate sensations of want that gnawed at her in the dark. Nameless, shapeless wants that she did not fully understand, that she could not satisfy, that she could not allow herself to feel. Wants that she could not deny or control.

Ruth tried to keep Peter out of her room because his presence there was a breach of her dream territory, a blurring of boundaries that were too fragile to be risked. The physicality of him was often too much for her to bear and when he sat on her bed she thought her mind might finally start to unravel. Go away go away go away she screamed in her head whilst a voice from a deeper, treacherous place pleaded, or come here, close, tight, right here, don't let go. After he left, the smell of him sat on her duvet for hours. She gave up all hope of sleeping and rolled herself up in it, aching. One night to be selfish. Nobody would know. No one would get hurt from it. One night of pretended delight in the cocoon of the smell of him. After all, how much longer would she even have the possibility of this closeness to him? She couldn't think about them being parted. The terror that welled up at that idea made her shake from her hands right in to her stomach.

She couldn't help it, any of it, but she hated herself, just the same.

...

'I've got it,' he said, first thing next morning, busy buttering toast at the table. 'I'm going to run away.'

'No.' Ruth froze, only one word possible.

'No.' She said it again, oblivious to the milk dribbling from her half-lifted spoon, staining the table cloth.

Peter's eyes were almost feverishly bright; he did not see the awful shade of grey that she had turned.

'It's the best thing, Ruthie,' he hissed. 'I've got it all worked out.' He glanced towards the door, listened for their parents, still upstairs, then leaned towards her, lowering his voice conspiratorially.

'I'll run away and they'll get all worried and panic a bit and they'll have to stick together and help each other out and then they'll get mad at me and they'll do all their shouting at me instead of each other and they won't think about splitting up cause they'll have other things to think about instead. Don't you see?'

'No Peter.' The words tore out of Ruth so harshly that they cut through his frenzy. He stopped, shocked.

'It's the only way. I thought about it all night.' The hope and faith that shone out of him bit into Ruth so hard she couldn't think.

'I can't. I can't bear it.'

'I'll come back,' he said. 'It's only for a week or so. Just to make them realise.' Peter sat back. He looked hurt now and less certain of himself. 'Don't you think it's a good plan?' She realised that he needed her approval. She couldn't stand it.

'Let's go together.'

They both stared, amazed. Ruth's hand flew to her mouth then she clenched it in her lap again.

'Ruthie you can't,' Peter started but she cut him off, a tinge of fever catching in her own eyes as she started to process the words that had come out of her mouth without her even meaning them to.

'No no it's perfect. It's just the thing, see. If we both go, there's a lot more worry and bother to distract them, and... and we'll be an example, we'll be making a point about sticking together, and wanting to be a family. See?'

Ruth was eager to the point of desperate, clutching reasoning out of thin air. Peter gaped at her. Then, slowly, he started to grin.

'Ruth Evershed. You are a genius.'

Ruth gripped the table as she felt the floor sway beneath her. Her spoon clattered down, totally forgotten. Who could think of breakfast when your world might be ending, or might be beginning? The surging relief made her laugh breathlessly.

'So. What shall we do?'

Peter leaned forward again, eager to share the plans that had kept him happily awake.

'I reckon, go to the station and just get on the first train that comes. That way, there's no trail, no notes for them to find, no psychology to it. And,' he smiled his most winning smile; Ruth's stomach somersaulted, 'it will be fun. A real adventure.'

...

"There's no choice, really, is there?"

Left alone, a few minutes later, Ruth held out her hand, half-expecting to see it shake, but it did not. She was always surprised, at moments like this, that she was able to cope, that it did not show. People thought of her as mousy – quiet, diligent, skittish. She was nervous in new situations, clumsy when she felt herself observed, sensible, reserved. Very few of them ever noticed how well she performed under pressure, or the fact that she would stick to her principles no matter what the opposition, fight for her ideas against any derision. She could stare her own fears in the face, clear-eyed and in full knowledge of the consequences, she could act without shaking.

To Peter, she was an unswerving comrade, but always the second to his leader. He thought, as much as he ever thought about such things, that she needed his impetus and encouragement to act. But even he, who felt deeply that she could be trusted in every eventuality, would underestimate her in a crisis.

To Ruth, it was simple. You did what you had to do. When there was only one thing possible, you did it, no matter how awful. No matter what the cost.

...

'Have you ever been drunk Ruth? Really really drunk?'

'No.'

They lay on top of their twin beds in the dingy little room they had secured in the Blackpool B&B, looking at each other across the twelve-inch gap in between. Blackpool in late January – bleak, boring, frozen – a body in a coma. But it was all theirs. Nothing could chill their enthusiasm; not the fraught departure from home, the long draughty train journey, nor the hour's tramp around boarded up streets to find an open boarding house, and certainly not the cramped room. In fact, the opposite was true. With each new stage, they had grown wilder and more delighted with themselves so that by the time they reached the room they had leapt about, shrieking, glorifying the peeling woodchip and black-spot mould, the skimpy, chipped corner-sink and the narrow dampish beds. Peter had opened a bottle of vodka that he had brought along and they had swigged from it, raising toasts to everything from family to the bare swinging lightbulb, bouncing from one place to the next, hugging each other and laughing until they had collapsed.

Now they sprawled, still in their coats, heads turned sideways, speaking quietly. Ruth looked steadily into Peter's eyes. Her breathing slowed. She felt totally calm, perfectly content. She wondered if she was going to wake up from this any time soon.

'You should try it,' he said.

'I'm not sure.'

'Why not?' He watched her, his gaze gentle and open, taking her seriously, waiting for an answer. She took a deep breath.

'I suppose, because I'm scared.'

'Scared?' He looked genuinely puzzled.

'Of... losing control.'

Peter nodded slowly, digesting what she said. She watched him closely for his response. Somehow, it mattered so much what he thought about this in particular, what he thought she should do. Whatever it was, she decided, would shape this whole week. He reached across the gap to take her hand in his.

'It's ok Ruthie, I'm here.'

Euphoria rippled through her, inwards from the hand he held.

'Ok.' She nodded. 'Ok.' A little frenetic, nervousness adding an edge to the excitement that began to build again. She reached for the vodka bottle and tipped it back, swallowing large gulpfuls, screwing up her face against the awfulness of the taste.

'Ok,' she said again.

Peter laughed. 'Ok. Let's go.. We are going to paint the town red!'

Ruth giggled, drunk already on her own daring, even though the alcohol hadn't hit her bloodstream yet.

...

"We were never meant to have those things."

Ruth resolved to enjoy everything about that week. It would be their week, one perfect week of madness and joy and love without guilt. She wouldn't do anything bad, she promised herself, but she would enjoy whatever she had of Peter without feeling guilty about it, the way she had for months. After all, there was nothing wrong in him taking her hand to run down an empty street into the wind, nothing wrong in smiling with him, enjoying the way his mouth curved open and his laughter rippled through her, and she couldn't help seeing his arm, his legs, as he was changing sometimes, the open space of his chest as he buttoned his shirt. It hadn't been her idea to share a room. So it wasn't her fault if she lay awake and listened to his slow sleep-breathing, feeling happier than she had ever felt in her life.

...

'Bluuuue Moooon. You saw me standing A-Lone, without a Drream in my-yy heart, without a love of...hiccup.'

Their warbled duet ended abruptly when Peter hiccupped and Ruth dissolved into giggles which rapidly grew into loud gales of laughter as she pointed to the expression of offended confusion which he adopted.

'What?' he protested. 'What!'

'You... you... oh you...' Ruth waved an arm at him, drew herself up in an attempt to be serious, made a complex gesture intended to explain, and collapsed again into weak laughter. Peter regarded her for a moment then joined her. In seconds they were holding each other up, nearly crying on each other's shoulders, the origin of the joke forgotten, laughing for the sheer hell of it.

'Oh I love you,' Ruth murmured, as they each slung their arms round the other. Peter smiled through a blur of alcohol.

'Of course you do. Everyone loves me. It's the law. Or... it should be.'

Ruth clung even closer to him, utterly lost.

'You know what else I love?'

He stopped, turned carefully to look at her.

'What?'

'Drink' she said solemnly. Peter nodded gravely, then he uttered a woop of delight and took off running, clutching her hand and dragging her along with him. Down the broad empty sea-front they ran, the wind sharp in their faces, coats flapping, oblivious to the cold. At last they staggered to a halt against the railing, gasping. Ruth leaned against Peter and he put his arm around her, shielding her slightly. They gazed out to the black emptiness that was the sea - shifting movement and the white lick of waves visible for a hundred yards or so, a few bright dots of ships tracking an indistinguishable horizon, and masses of darkness. The tide was in close, the sky overcast, the famous lights behind, above, around them, all unlit. They had been drinking for days, barely giving themselves time to feel hungover before they opened the next bottle. Even as they stood looking out, Peter reached inside his jacket and groped out a half-bottle of whiskey which he passed silently to Ruth. She sipped from it briefly and handed it back, watched him drink deeply.

'I wish this could go on forever.' He was facing her but his eyes were hazy, incapable of focussing. All the same, she felt her heart swell and sing.

'Yes,' she breathed. And she rested her head against his chest, breathed deeply until her head swam with the smell of him, the warmth and closeness.

'It's time to face the music Ruthie,' he slurred over her head.

'Not yet. Tomorrow.'

She felt his chin rest on the top of her head, hugged him tighter.

'I'm sorry,' he said, so softly that she almost missed it on the wind. Ruth dragged her head upwards. Sorry? How could he possibly be sorry for giving her the best week of her life? She peered through her own rapidly increasing haze, trying to read his face. She reached a hand up and found warm wet tears running over her fingers.

'Oh Peter,' she breathed, her hand cupping his jaw, thumb stroking his cheek. She didn't notice that she herself was crying.

'It will be ok,' she whispered. There was so much she wanted to say that she had never said, so much comfort she wanted to give him that she hadn't been able to before, so much between them. And he was so beautiful in the half-light, so open in his pain that made her whole body ache, so real in her arms that, without meaning to, she kissed him.

It was a firm, definite, longing, reaching kiss that went on and on.

It ended in quiet.

Peter turned to stare out over the railing again. Ruth watched him, her hand covering her mouth.

After a long while he pulled out the bottle again, swigged deeply, held it out without turning. She took it, their fingers centimetres apart.

'I think I'm going to be sick.'

Peter doubled over the railings and heaved violently.

Ruth tipped back her head and drank to the end of the bottle.

...

"I sold myself, my feelings."

Nothing ever compared to that journey home for Ruth. It was the low point against which she measured all others. She huddled in the corner of the seat, wrapped in her coat, shivering from cold, anxiety, alcohol withdrawal and a week's worth of self-loathing. Peter leaned against the window, jerking with the swing of the train, not seeming to notice when his head thudded against the glass. She was certain that he hated her. Nothing else mattered, she thought. She had let herself down and she had betrayed her best friend, the person she loved most. She had broken the rules. It didn't matter that it was only once. It didn't matter that it was only a little break. It didn't matter that he could barely even remember the beginning of the night and seemed to have no memory whatsoever of the kiss. Something was wrong between them. She had poisoned it. They could both sense that.

In the light of this particular day, colder and harsher than any other, Ruth knew too that they would not get away with what they had done. For the first time, she allowed herself to see the holes in the plan that had been gaping at her all along. The whole mad caper had only been held together by their furious optimism and wilful blindness.

She had ruined everything, Ruth thought, by giving in to her feelings. From now on, she swore, she would know better. There must be something wrong, very wrong, with them, with her. Never, never again would she allow them to govern her. She knew the devastation they could cause.

...

'Did you hear about Ruth Evershed?'

'What about the little freak?'

'Oooh yeah, I heard too.'

'What?'

'Tell her Bex.'

'Shh! Give me a light first.'

'Here. Now go on.'

'Well, you know last term when she was off school for a whole week?'

'Err yeah, sort of.'

'Well, what I heard wast that what really happened was... she ran off with her step-brother. You know Peter Haig, he was in the same year as my cousin, the gorgeous one with the big black coat.'

'Oh my God! Ruth Evershed? You don't mean...?'

'Mmmhmm.'

'Oh my God.'

'Isn't it sick?'

'They tried to get married, I heard, up in Scotland but someone caught on and they got sent back here.'

'They're not actually related are they?'

'Yeah, but it's just the same.'

'No but, not like blood related? That makes it a bit better.'

'Are you sticking up for her?'

'No!'

'Eww are you trying to tell me you fancy your brother?'

'Ewwww no! You're disgusting.'

'They're disgusting. Can you imagine? I heard she's been screwing him for months.'

'You know, I've always thought there was something weird about her. You could see the way she looked at him that there was something funny going on.'

'As if you knew.'

'What I can't work out is why he'd want to mess around with such dumb cow as her anyway. I mean, he's fit, everyone fancies him. She's...'

'I know.'

'Maybe she did something to him.'

'No!'

'She could have. She's clever enough.'

'And weird enough.'

'I'm not going to go near her from now on. She freaks me out.'

'Yeah. Come on, let's go. Miss Smithson's going to eat us for being late again.'

'God I hate her.'

'I can't believe all this. Evershed!'

...

"I can't be talked about like that."

As the clatter of three pairs of teenage heels disappeared round the corner and down the side of the gym, Ruth hunched even tighter behind the low wall which sheltered her. Her face was grey and drawn but her eyes were dry and hard. So they all knew. They all understood her for what she was. Ruth had no idea how the story had got out. Their parents had agreed an official version to tell the world; after a weekend of screaming almost constantly at both of them, they had informed them what they were to say and, more importantly, not to say. Still, Ruth wasn't surprised. The girls had struck nearer the truth than was comfortable. And if that was the version going around, then that might as well be the truth, it would become the truth for the whole school and Ruth would be treated accordingly.

Ruth stared blankly in front of her. School was her place. A place where she could try to go almost completely into her mind. A place with no Peter and no memories of Peter. She was constantly on display but only to anonymous eyes that didn't care about her. She could hide in their indifference better than she could hide in her own room, a place which had become a torture chamber to her. Here, at least she wasn't being watched, judged and assessed every second. Until now.

Without crying, without shaking, Ruth stared into nothingness the before her and began to count the days until her last exam. She had to get out.

...

"I just left

. . .

I sold myself, my feelings

. . .

I can't

. . .

Maybe I broke me too."