Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

young woman. I was twenty-seven. I lived with my boyfriend. I had a
responsible job. I was a different person.
I turned, went straight on, and turned again.
And then, almost from nowhere, the panic rose within me like bile. I thought I
saw a man darting at the end of the hedge. Even though I told myself it was just
my imagination, the act of reassuring myself made me forget my reversed
instructions. Right. Left. Break. Right. Right? Had I got that the wrong way
around? My breath caught in my throat. I forced myself onwards, only to realize
that I had completely lost my bearings. I stopped and glanced around me at the
direction of the shadows, trying to work out which direction was west.
And as I stood there, it dawned on me that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stay in
there. I whipped round, and began to walk in what I thought was a southerly
direction. I would get out. I was twenty-seven years old. It was fine. But then I
heard their voices, the catcalling, the mocking laughter. I saw them, darting in
and out of the gaps in the hedge, felt my own feet sway drunkenly under my
high heels, the unforgiving prickle of the hedge as I fell against it, trying to
steady myself.
‘I want to get out now,’ I had told them, my voice slurring and unsteady. ‘I’ve
had enough, guys.’
And they had all vanished. The maze was silent, just the distant whispers that
might have been them on the other side of the hedge – or might have been the
wind dislodging the leaves.
‘I want to go out now,’ I had said, my voice sounding uncertain even to me. I
had gazed up at the sky, briefly unbalanced by the vast, studded black of the
space above me. And then I jumped as someone caught me around my waist –
the dark-haired one. The one who had been to Africa.
‘You can’t go yet,’ he said. ‘You’ll spoil the game.’
I had known then, just from the feel of his hands on my waist. I had realized
that some balance had shifted, that some restraint on behaviour had begun to
evaporate. And I had laughed, pushed at his hands as if they were a joke,
unwilling to let him know that I knew. I heard him shout for his friends. And I
broke away from him, running suddenly, trying to fight my way to the exit, my
feet sinking into the damp grass. I heard them all around me, their raised voices,
their bodies unseen, and felt my throat constrict in panic. I was too disorientated