"You knew?"
                          
"It was just a feeling. Something shifted. I don't know if I thought it was just the murder taking it's toll on us but... it seemed more than that."
                          
"I should have spoken to you about how I felt, how confused I was."
                          
"It was on both of us," Lexi says.
                          
"No, I was the one-"
                          
"I know you cheated. But you should have been able to trust me enough." She put the bottle of water on the table again. "I know it's not my place to ask, and you can tell me to fuck off, but when did you realise you liked Brett?"
                          
"I didn't." I'm not about to tell her about the video - but I'm ready to confide in her about everything else. "Everything had got on top of me by the party. It felt wrong to come to you with my problems, especially with what had happened to Rob" - Lexi shuddered when I mentioned her brother - "and Brett just noticed. He almost senses things, have you noticed that?"
                          
"Yeah, it's weird."
                          
"He came to me before the party, and we talked about everything. Then I had a drink and it all came back to me, and I went to his room to see him, and it just happened."
                          
"How long have you thought you were bisexual?"
                          
I exhale. Tears start to come to my face, and I look away out of her bedroom window. Her view is the same as mine, just slightly to the right. You can still see across the campus, but the browning leaves on the trees seem to brighten her view up more than mine.
                          
"It was years ago. I was 16, maybe 17? When I realised that I found boys attractive. Not that I could say anything. I would have got bullied to hell on the team. I'm not from a liberal city like you are." Lexi nodded. "Malton is very conservative, very rural, and the kids are bought up like it too.
                          
"It's a cliche, but I noticed I was looking too closely at this guy in the changing room after games. Alex Goulding. That was his name. I just noticed too much about him, his lopsided grin, his perfect body... anyway. Then it got stuck in my head. I was confused. I read everything I could find about it, checked my own behaviour way too much. But it's not easy to open up and say you're someone different when you've been told from when you're born that the right way to live is to get married to a woman, by about 25, then have some kids and get a well-paid career. I wanted to break the cycle, get into a different world."
                          
"So, that was why you came to Dermouth? A city where you felt you could express yourself and live how you wanted to live." Lexi nodded her understanding.
                          
"And then I met you, and I put the rest of it in the back of my head. Maybe it was just a phase, maybe it didn't matter any more. And it didn't."
                          
"Why didn't you just tell me about it then?"
                          
"I didn't know how you'd react," I admit.
                          
"That I wouldn't accept you? Because Brett must shit rainbows, and-"
                          
"It was different though." I turn to look her in the eyes now. "You weren't sleeping with Brett."
                          
Lexi laughs, and I do too, a little. "Imagine that," she says. "Look, you had your reasons, I get that. I wish we had been able to talk about it together sooner. But I understand."
                          
"Thank you." I exhale loudly, and relax my shoulders.
                          
"For the record," she begins, taking a few steps across the room towards the bed, "If you want to move things on more with Brett, it doesn't bother me."
                          
"Really?" I didn't think she would even be able to think about him tonight, let alone make that jump.
                          
"He's a good person. You're a good person. You'll be happy together, if you think of him that way." She smiles at me. "Do you?"