Page 51 of The Bridesmaid

‘You were right. What you said back then,’ I tell her. ‘I shouldn’t have arranged a big party in the middle of your court case.’ I’m staring straight ahead. ‘Karma. I got what I deserved.’ I try for a wry smile but it goes weird.

Silky puts a hand on mine. ‘No you didn’t. No one deserves what happened to you. But, no one deserves what happened to me either, at school.’

I feel the familiar emotions detonate. Sympathy. Confusion. But mostly I wish Silky could just forget about it, like the rest of us did.

Three years since she took Kensington Manor School to court. It feels like yesterday when Silky brought all that stuff up.

‘And,’ her voice softens, ‘I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I wish just one of my school friends had stood up for me in court. Told the truth about how they treated us at school.’

I can’t meet her eyes.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she says. ‘What good would it have done? School is over. Just petty revenge, right? But … more girls will get sent there. The cycle continues.’

‘Just don’t send your kids there,’ I tell her, trying to lighten the mood.

It works. Kind of.

‘None of us will,’ she says. There’s a pause. ‘You wouldn’t, would you?’

I chew the edge of a nail, then lower my hands self-consciously. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. I mean. It wasn’tsobad. It taught us stuff. Survival.’

Silky is looking straight ahead again. ‘Guess you got treated better than I did. The Kensington heiress. I was just a nobody.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I tell her. ‘I know Petra was mean to you at school …’

Silky’s eyes widen in shock. ‘Dri! Petra was a lot more thanmean. Didn’t you read the court documents?’

‘I … No, I didn’t.’ I catch her expression. ‘I couldn’t. It was hard for me too, Silks,’ I say quietly. ‘I didn’t want to go back to that place either.’

‘Can’t you see that Petra is still doing it? To all of us?’ says Silky. ‘All the sick power games she played at school. Saints and Sinners. She’s still playing them.’

I hesitate. Work on getting something bright into my tone. ‘Look, the wedding will be over in a few days. You’ll never have to see Petra again.’

‘You said that before,’ says Silky miserably. ‘At your twenty-first birthday. But look how good she is at worming her way in.’ She hesitates, cutting me a glance. ‘Did you see Petra’s face when Simone was revealed as your bridesmaid?’

I nod my head slowly.

‘They knew each other, didn’t they?’ says Silky. ‘From school.’

‘The timings fit,’ I shrug. ‘Simone is ten years older than you. Five years older than Petra. What does it matter?’

Silky turns the full lamp-like gaze of her dark eyes on me.

‘Because what Petra did to us,’ she says slowly, ‘someone did to her first.’ There’s a burning quality to her eyes that makes me want to step back, but I restrain myself with effort.

My last therapy session in New York leaps to mind. The psychologist. Red-lipsticked and power-dressed, she was firing questions about Silky.

‘You say boarding school wasn’t a trauma for you,’ she mused. ‘But I think you have a lot of guilt, for not doing more for Silky. You mentioned before that you thought the school deliberatelykept pupils in a state of fear. In the weekly chapel visits.’

‘The headmistress would tell us all these stories,’ I agreed. ‘Like all the terrible things that were done to the saints. How they had their skin torn off, or were pulled apart by horses.’

‘That frightened you?’

I nodded. ‘I remember really clearly this thought process,’ I told her. ‘Like, if this can be done to adults, if all these awful things can be done to adults, then what chance do we little kids have? Little kids with no parents to defend them.’

She had nodded sympathetically. ‘It felt threatening?’

‘To a bunch of seven-year-old girls …? We took it as a warning.’