Over the next few days, things went back to normal, but at the same time they didn't. Finn and I had been stripped in front of each other in a way that went beyond physical nudity. Our relationship – whatever it was – had been shaken, badly, but it hadn't collapsed.

But I couldn't dislodge the lingering tension from everything that had happened. The initial rumour storm might be over, but I had the sinking feeling that another one wasn't too far off.

It came sooner than I'd expected.

One morning, while I was snuggled in bed with Finn, his arm slung over me in that way I liked so much, our arms clasped, my phone exploded with notifications.

"What the hell?" I mumbled.

I should have known better than to open them, but I'd only been awake a couple of minutes and my brain was still sleep-fogged, common sense lagging behind.

My thumb tapped my DMs, even though a voice in my head screamed, No! Don't!

An icy fist clutched my heart.

You fucking whore.

That was all the message read. I blinked at it, my mouth opening and closing, then I opened the next.

You're so fucking ugly. Finn doesn't really want you. You should kill yourself.

The next message just said, Die.

They went on and on.

I'm going to fucking find you, bitch.

You'd better hope you never meet the Pinn army in real life.

BITCH!

Leave Finn alone. He's with Penny.

How big is Finn's dick?

I know where you fucking live.

Stupid bitch whore, just like your sister.

Fucking hang yourself, bitch.

My eyes swam with tears and the messages went blurry. There were still so many I hadn't read, and these were just the DMs. I didn't dare read the comments.

"Finn?" I whispered.

He sat up. "What's wrong?"

I handed him my phone, and Finn silently read the messages while I tried to calm my racing heart. Those weren't comments about me upon posts or threads that I'd stumbled upon. Those had been sent directly to my personal socials.

"The fuck is all this?" Finn said, his voice rough with anger.

"They know who I am," I said dully. "Someone's leaked my identity."

Finn went rigid. "If Lily –"

"She wouldn't," I said at once. "I trust her."

He laughed darkly. "I trusted Justina and Suzanne and look how that turned out. Jude and Camden trusted Elle."

"It's not Lily. She wouldn't do something like this," I insisted.

Right on cue, my phone pinged again, this time with texts from Lily.

The fuck's going on? she said. My inbox is full of fucking weirdoes asking for dirt on you.

Someone leaked my identity, I texted back.

Motherfucker! she replied.

Yep.

Finn watched me text, his jaw working with barely restrained fury. "Who the hell else would know about this?" he said.

I deeply exhaled. "Izzy fucking Rollins."

I got dressed before I called her. What I wore shouldn't have made a difference for a phone call, but I felt too vulnerable in just shorts and my bra. I needed something more, even if it was only a T-shirt.

Finn sat on the edge of the bed, his expression dark, muscles tense in his arms.

Izzy took a while to answer, and her voice was wary when she did. "What do you want?" she said.

"I begged you," I said. My voice cracked before I could stop it. "I fucking begged you not to tell anyone, Izzy."

She sighed. "I didn't."

That brought me up short. "What do you mean?"

"I didn't tell anyone." She repeated herself slowly and loudly, as if I were a small child.

"Then how does everyone know?"

"Maybe you let it slip to someone else? How the fuck would I know?"

I raked my fingers through my hair, my mind racing. No, I hadn't screwed up again, I couldn't have done. There was no one else I could have told.

"Although," Izzy said, and there was something in her voice that I really didn't like, "the secret being out changes things, doesn't it?"

"What does it change?" I asked.

Izzy hung up.

"Shit," I breathed.

She was planning something and I had no idea what.

My phone was still blowing up with notifications, and I knew I shouldn't look, but some perverse part of me needed to. Like a car wreck, I couldn't look away.

It's called makeup, bitch. Learn to use it.

Why are your tits so small?

"They're not. They're a completely normal size," I muttered with dignity.

Oh my God, you need to sort out your hair.

Who the fuck do you think you are?

Back the fuck off, bitch. Pinn is life.

PINN FOREVER.

No one will miss you when you die.

You're not even hot.

Kill yourself.

Kill yourself, bitch.

Have you thought about killing yourself?

Why are you so ugly?

Okay, that was enough. I deleted every unread DM, and made all my socials private. My hands were shaking, and Finn covered them with his, steadying me.

"Shit, Tash, I'm so sorry. This wasn't meant to happen," he said.

"No, but I'd guessed it was coming, sooner or later." Tears welled in my eyes. "I didn't think it would be this ugly though."

"It can be a shock if you're not used to it," Finn said.

I wiped my eyes with the hem of my T-shirt. "How can anyone get used to that?"

Finn shrugged. "Sometimes you have no choice. You have to let it fade into background noise otherwise it'll drive you mad."

"But why are they so angry? I've never done anything to these people; I don't even know them," I cried.

"And most of them would never say any of this shite to your face, not just because they're cowards but because they wouldn't think to talk to a person like this. But they forget that you are a person. Shite like this on social media – people see it like a TV show, like you're a character that they can hate because you're not real and nothing they say can really hurt you," Finn explained.

"That doesn't make me feel better," I mumbled.

He gave me a one-armed hug. "I know."

"Is this the kind of stuff that Camden faced?" I said, anger gripping me.

"Probably. Are you surprised?" Finn said.

"I don't know. I mean, she downplayed it when it was all happening because she didn't want to worry me, but even when she fully explained it, I didn't get it. Not like I do now."

"It's very different when you're on the receiving end of it," Finn confirmed.

"Do you get the same sort of shit? Or is it different because I'm a woman?" I asked.

"There's not much in your DMs that I haven't had in mine too," Finn said. "Only mine are usually sprinkled with a few more crazy marriage proposals."

"Do you still get those?"

He offered a hard little smile. "More than ever. Sometimes, if I'm really lucky, I'll get a proposal and a death threat in the same message."

"How the hell does that work?"

"If I reject the proposal, they'll hunt me down and cut my throat," Finn said.

It seemed too absurd that anyone would say that to another person, especially one they'd never even met, but Finn's face was deadly serious.

I climbed onto the bed, pressing myself against the headboard.

"Do you ever get scared?" I said.

"Of the threats? Not really. Like I said, most of the people who say that crap are cowards hiding behind a screen. No way would they say it to me in real life," Finn said, sitting on the side of the bed.

"Most," I repeated.

Finn lifted an eyebrow.

"You said 'most'," I pointed out. "Not all."

Finn's eyes slid away from me and his back stiffened. "Well," he said slowly. "As anyone in my position, or Jude's position, or Camden's, or anyone else like that knows, there's always a small percentage of people who would say that to our faces."

"Which means they could follow through on their threats," I said.

"Not necessarily," Finn said, wrapping one large hand around my ankle. His touch was warm and comforting, but not enough to chase away the fear-chill spreading throughout my chest.

"But they could. It does happen, doesn't it? Sometimes celebrities get attacked, even murdered, by their fans," I said, hugging myself.

Finn moved his hand up my calf, gently rubbing. "And sometimes non-famous people get attacked, even murdered by random psychos in the middle of the street."

"Maybe it's not as scary for you because you're a guy. You have more chance of fighting off some lunatic."

"Hand to hand, maybe. But if said lunatic had a gun, then I'm going down the same as anyone else," Finn said.

I blotted my eyes with my T-shirt hem again. "How fucking reassuring."

Finn sighed. "I'm not trying to scare you, Tash, but I don't want to lie to you either. Yeah, there are fans who completely lose their grip on reality, and some of them go on to do some evil shite, but that is rare. And I appreciate that's not very comforting for the people who die because of those occasions, but that doesn't change the fact that they are rare."

"Don't you ever worry about being so isolated up here though? What if one of the crazies found you?" I said.

"Jude's loft was in the heart of London and that didn't keep out the woman who murdered his best friend and tried to kill his wife," Finn pointed out.

"Elle was Jude's best friend. That doesn't count."

"I think it does, actually. It shows that you can't protect yourself against everything that life might throw at you."

I rested my chin on my knees while I contemplated his words.

"And in answer to your question, no, I don't worry about the crazies finding me up here. I've got security fencing around the whole perimeter, cameras in the woods, and fucking good locks on the doors and windows," Finn said. He closed his other hand around my other ankle, like he was physically anchoring me in place.

"We're safe here, I promise," he said. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

"I wasn't worried about myself," I said, leaning forward and grasping his wrists with both hands.

We gazed at each other across the barrier of my knees, and I felt again the great swell of an emotion that I didn't dare think about.

Finn talked as if he was going to protect me forever. But neither of us had addressed what exactly our relationship was, because we both knew that this wasn't forever. One day the snow would melt, reality would start up again, and both of us would have to return to how things were before. Finn had told me weeks ago that he wasn't going to fall in love with me, and I didn't expect him to.

Here in his house, surrounded by a frozen forest, we were in our own little dreamworld, but every dream eventually ended.

I just didn't know when.

"What do you think Izzy meant by this changing everything?" I asked.

"I have no idea," Finn said.

"It didn't sound good though, did it?"

He grimaced a little. "Not really."

I didn't point out that, despite his promises, there were some things he couldn't protect me from.

"She's planning something," I said, my stomach knotting.

"It did sound like that." Finn sighed, his voice growing serious. "This will pass because everything like this always does, but I'm still not going to lie to you. Things will probably get worse before they get better."