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Prologue

“If you could see the future,” Sam asked her, “would you want to?”

It was the end of the day, and they were sitting outside the school building. There was a roundabout there with a stone edge and a circle of flower beds in the center, and Sam and Katie met there every afternoon at the end of lessons. They were seventeen years old. As teenagers do, they sat and gossiped. They complained about her parents.

They asked each other questions.

If you could see the future, would you want to?

Katie thought about that. It was exactly the kind of question that had made her fall in love with Sam in the first place, but in that moment it made her uneasy. Sam was handsome and charismatic—full of talent and ambition—and for some unfathomable reason, he seemed to be in love with her as well. That made her happy, of course, but she was also frightened of losing him. Next year they would both be going away to different universities, and that upcoming separation felt like a threat looming on the horizon.

What was going to happen to them then?

“Katie?” Sam prompted.

“I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

“Because what if you saw something you didn’t like?”

“Then you’d be able to change it.”

“Maybe.”

It was a warm afternoon with only the slightest of breezes. She watched as a group of kids drifted past them, hitching their bags up on their shoulders, talking and laughing. They were heading down the sunlit drive that led to the nearby village, while others were wandering away toward the bus stop. It was a reminder that she and Sam would have to part ways shortly. Katie lived close to the school, whereas his house was a bus journey away.

For a long time, Katie had felt like a spare tire in her family; it was her younger brother, Chris, whom her parents doted on. But over the last year, Sam had made her parents alotmore interested in her life than they had been previously. Her mother, especially, was suspicious of him and overly keen to monitor their relationship and keep it from going too far. If Katie was not home on time after school, there would be questions. At weekends, she and Sam were not allowed to be alone together. If Katie went to his house, her mother was always careful to ensure his parents were home too.

The resentment that caused had been growing steadily, simmering away inside her, a little hotter every day. What shewantedto do was to spend as much time as possible with Sam before they were separated, and it seemed desperately unfair that her mother believed she was entitled to intervene.

“Couldyou change it though?” Katie wondered.

“What do you mean?”

“Well—if you just saw the future, you wouldn’t know how you got there. So anything you did to avoid it might actually be what led you to it all along.”

Sam considered that.

“You’re so clever,” he said.

“That’s why you love me, right?”

“No. It’s justoneof the reasons.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he kissed her hair.

They sat like that in comfortable silence for a few seconds, and she closed her eyes, enjoying the sunlight on her face.

But then Sam started to say something and stopped.

She opened her eyes.

“What?”

He hesitated, which made the familiar anxiety flare up inside her. They hadn’t spoken about what was going to happen next year, but she was sure university must have been on his mind as well—that he might be worrying about what was going to happen too. Perhaps that had been what had prompted his question. Maybe he’d decided it was better to end things now.

Katie leaned away and looked at him.