Henry looks up at me anxiously. ‘What do you think, Mummy?’
A small cloud begins to pass over the sun and a shadow crosses the grass towards us, turning it darker green as it moves across. I have a choice. I can stay in this limbo for ever, sitting frightened in the dark, or I can take control and move on. I can let what I did, and what Sam did to me, define me, or I can try to learn from it and live a better life as a result.
The cloud passes and the sun re-emerges. I sit down at an outside table, placing Henry’s hot chocolate carefully opposite me. He sits down too, and if anyone is watching us, they will see us together, smiling at each other here in the sunlight.
A note from Laura Marshall
Thank you so much for reading Friend Request. If you enjoyed it, I’d love to hear what you think.
As a debut author, it’s still astonishing to me to think that real people are reading this story that for so long existed only in my head. Although none of the characters are based on real people, I did use a lot of my own experiences at school to inform the 1989 chapters, so it would be great to hear if they resonated with your own teenage years. Did that pressure to fit in with the cool crowd feel familiar to you? Did you know a Sophie? (Who didn’t?!).
If you have any thoughts on the book that you’d like to share with me, you can find me on Twitter @laurajm8, on my Facebook page LauraMarshallAuthor or on Goodreads. You can also sign up for my newsletter on my website www.lauramarshall.co.uk, for news, giveaways and updates on my next book, which I’m working on now. If you have a moment, it would be wonderful if you could leave a brief review online, to help other readers discover the book.
I’d love to hear from you and thanks again for reading.