Page 156 of Pull Me Under

Get out.

I’ve been told to leave plenty of places in my life. Flats I couldn’t afford. Jobs that didn’t work out. My father’s hospital room, at the end, when he didn’t recognise me anymore and my presence only agitated him.

This is different.

This is Jude looking at me like I’m the enemy. Like everything we built was a lie.

And the worst part? He’s not entirely wrong.

I should have told him. The moment I sat up in the dark with his mother’s name ringing in my ears, I should have shaken him awake and said, We need to talk. Instead I let him make me pasta. Let him take me to bed. Let him stand in that boat shed and tell his brother he was in love with me while I stood there knowing – knowing – that everything was about to fall apart.

One day. I had the truth for one day and I couldn’t find the courage to speak it.

Now here I am. Sixty miles from Sea Salt Bay with no car, no plan, and a man on the other side of that door who won’t even look at me.

A nurse pauses by my chair. ‘You all right, love? Visiting hours are nearly over.’

‘I’m waiting for someone.’

She glances at the closed door. ‘The gentleman in Room 4?’

‘His son.’

‘Ah.’ There’s sympathy in her expression, or recognition – she’s probably seen this before, family members shut out during a crisis. ‘He’s been in there a while. Might be staying the night.’

Staying the night. Of course he is. His father just had a heart attack and he found out his whole life is built on lies. Why would he leave?

‘Is there someone who can collect you?’ the nurse asks.

I think about calling Nina. Cassie. Anyone.

I think about explaining why I’m stranded at a hospital in Truro at nine o’clock at night while the man I love refuses to speak to me.

‘I’ll get a taxi,’ I say.

She nods, pats my shoulder in that way medical staff do – comfort without attachment – and moves on.

I sit there for another twenty minutes. Watching the door. Willing it to open.

It doesn’t.

I can’t afford a taxi back to Sea Salt Bay so I get the train to the nearest place and then call Dot asking if she can organise me a cab. It’s not easy, but I swallow my pride and admit I can’t pay. She tuts and tells me I’m a silly girl. My eyes don’t just sting. I fucking cry.

The driver makes small talk about holiday traffic, weather, the air ambulance that passed overhead earlier (he saw it from his garden, he says, wondered where it was going). I make appropriate noises. Nod in the right places. Stare out the window at the dark hedgerows flashing past.

Eventually he gives up and turns on Radio Cornwall. Some phone-in show about local planning disputes. I let the voices wash over me without listening as I wait to get home.

Home.

Is that what this is now?

Home?

With Jude.

Jude, who looked at me like I was a problem to solve and then like I was something precious. Who told his brother he was in love with me while I stood there holding a grenade with the pin already pulled.

The taxi turns down the lane toward the cottage.