was angry with all of us. With the world.”
“With you?”
“With me.”
With everything .
W H E N K A Y L A G O T back to the house, she felt a little deflated. Empty. Even Shepherd, the guy who was meant to be leading the investigation on UK soil, hadn’t seemed all that invested in Sam’s case. After and twenty minutes of lackluster debriefing, he’d let her go. His questions had seemed vague and disjointed. His eyes betrayed his exhaustion—his desire to be anywhere but in that room, talking to her.
She’d expected—hoped, maybe—to meet someone as desperate to find Sam as she was. Okay, so maybe he already had all the detailed notes he needed from her interviews in Phuket. Or maybe he thought finding Sam wasn’t possible. Maybe he thought finding him would just mean finding a beaten body. The Thais could do that.
Maybe he just didn’t care.
She slung her handbag—a knitted, rainbow-colored hobo bag she’d bought in Bangkok—onto the breakfast bar. It clashed horribly with everything in the sleek kitchen, which made her love it even more.
She looked around the room. In the middle of the oversized oak dining table stood a big glass vase holding cream-colored lilies, which had bloomed a couple of days ago and were now a little droopy. The chrome tap dripped water every few seconds, the sound of fat droplets hitting the sink echoing around the silent kitchen. Her breakfast bowl was still abandoned on the counter above the dishwasher—opening the door and putting it in had seemed like too much effort—and the TV remotes were strewn across the breakfast bar from when she’d angrily punched the off buttons that morning.
Nobody had been here since she’d left. Kayla swallowed down the lump rising in her throat—the hard knot of loneliness and grief she’d been desperately trying to bury—and grabbed the kettle, filling it too full with water from the dripping tap. She plonked it on the stove. Coffee would help. Coffee always helps.
On autopilot, she clattered around with expensive mugs and the secret stash of instant coffee she’d hidden in the back of the cupboard. Her dad abhorred her preference for cheap coffee (“We have a thousand-pound espresso machine and you choose that crap every time!”), which, again, made her like it even more. Some teenagers rebelled with drugs and tattoos—she chain-drank Nescafé Gold Blend.
After spooning granules into the biggest mug she could find, she leaned back against the counter, the ridge digging into the bottom of her spine. The water in the kettle was just starting to whir and bubble, wisps of steam pouring from the spout. The scent of freshly cut grass and lawn-mower fuel drifted through the open window, and a few patches of sunlight were beginning to break through the fleecy clouds. It was an ordinary June day.
And yet the normality of the day felt suffocating. How dare I live through these blissfully average days when my brother is dead and my best friend is gone? The sheer absurdity of the idea pierced her chest. How can the world keep turning as if nothing has happened when everything, everything, has changed? How can I be making coffee and smelling freshly cut grass and feeling the warmth of the early summer sun when so much blood has been shed?
Time kept ticking relentlessly forward.
Her throat felt thick and her lungs tight. She cranked the window open even farther, struggling to gulp in enough fresh air. Her limbs were heavy and her stomach was hollow, hollowed out by grief and longing, longing for everything to be back to normal. There was a ringing in her ears—or was it the kettle whistling?—and she was being crushed, crushed by the weight of a depression so dense there was no way to escape. She slid to the floor.
With her legs twisted awkwardly and her head tilted backward and resting on the cupboard, Kayla breathed deeply, laboriously, trying to escape the helplessness enveloping her. They’re
“With you?”
“With me.”
With everything .
W H E N K A Y L A G O T back to the house, she felt a little deflated. Empty. Even Shepherd, the guy who was meant to be leading the investigation on UK soil, hadn’t seemed all that invested in Sam’s case. After and twenty minutes of lackluster debriefing, he’d let her go. His questions had seemed vague and disjointed. His eyes betrayed his exhaustion—his desire to be anywhere but in that room, talking to her.
She’d expected—hoped, maybe—to meet someone as desperate to find Sam as she was. Okay, so maybe he already had all the detailed notes he needed from her interviews in Phuket. Or maybe he thought finding Sam wasn’t possible. Maybe he thought finding him would just mean finding a beaten body. The Thais could do that.
Maybe he just didn’t care.
She slung her handbag—a knitted, rainbow-colored hobo bag she’d bought in Bangkok—onto the breakfast bar. It clashed horribly with everything in the sleek kitchen, which made her love it even more.
She looked around the room. In the middle of the oversized oak dining table stood a big glass vase holding cream-colored lilies, which had bloomed a couple of days ago and were now a little droopy. The chrome tap dripped water every few seconds, the sound of fat droplets hitting the sink echoing around the silent kitchen. Her breakfast bowl was still abandoned on the counter above the dishwasher—opening the door and putting it in had seemed like too much effort—and the TV remotes were strewn across the breakfast bar from when she’d angrily punched the off buttons that morning.
Nobody had been here since she’d left. Kayla swallowed down the lump rising in her throat—the hard knot of loneliness and grief she’d been desperately trying to bury—and grabbed the kettle, filling it too full with water from the dripping tap. She plonked it on the stove. Coffee would help. Coffee always helps.
On autopilot, she clattered around with expensive mugs and the secret stash of instant coffee she’d hidden in the back of the cupboard. Her dad abhorred her preference for cheap coffee (“We have a thousand-pound espresso machine and you choose that crap every time!”), which, again, made her like it even more. Some teenagers rebelled with drugs and tattoos—she chain-drank Nescafé Gold Blend.
After spooning granules into the biggest mug she could find, she leaned back against the counter, the ridge digging into the bottom of her spine. The water in the kettle was just starting to whir and bubble, wisps of steam pouring from the spout. The scent of freshly cut grass and lawn-mower fuel drifted through the open window, and a few patches of sunlight were beginning to break through the fleecy clouds. It was an ordinary June day.
And yet the normality of the day felt suffocating. How dare I live through these blissfully average days when my brother is dead and my best friend is gone? The sheer absurdity of the idea pierced her chest. How can the world keep turning as if nothing has happened when everything, everything, has changed? How can I be making coffee and smelling freshly cut grass and feeling the warmth of the early summer sun when so much blood has been shed?
Time kept ticking relentlessly forward.
Her throat felt thick and her lungs tight. She cranked the window open even farther, struggling to gulp in enough fresh air. Her limbs were heavy and her stomach was hollow, hollowed out by grief and longing, longing for everything to be back to normal. There was a ringing in her ears—or was it the kettle whistling?—and she was being crushed, crushed by the weight of a depression so dense there was no way to escape. She slid to the floor.
With her legs twisted awkwardly and her head tilted backward and resting on the cupboard, Kayla breathed deeply, laboriously, trying to escape the helplessness enveloping her. They’re
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