Page 3 of Take Me Away

Maggie’s handwriting: Kit’s wife is very ill. He could use a friend.

I read it three times. Four. Like the words might rearrange themselves into something that doesn’t feel like a knife between my ribs.

Kit had a wife.

Kit had a wife and she was ill and Maggie thought I should know. Thought I might … what? Come back? Write? Call?

Three years ago. The postcard is three years old. Returned to sender because Marcus had moved me – moved us – without telling anyone. Not even my own grandmother. I’d been grateful at the time. The New York penthouse, the packed schedule, back-to-back press tours. Busy meant successful. Busy meant important. Busy meant I didn’t have time to miss home or wonder why Maggie’s calls went unanswered or notice I hadn’t spoken to anyone from Sea Salt Bay in months. I didn’t realise I was already gone. Already erased.

Kit’s wife.

He got married. Married. My bones are aching and I shift my weight from foot to foot. There’s a tight band around my ribs. The start of a heart attack? Then I take a deep breath. Hauling it in, greedily taking the oxygen, focusing on the exhalation. Be in the moment, that’s what that therapy app says. Of course he got married. He was twenty-one when I left, whole and golden and good, the kind of good that belonged in Sea Salt Bay, belonged to someone who would stay. Not like me. Never like me.

But ill.

The word sits heavy on my tongue. Ill. Not sick. Not unwell. Ill. The kind of word Maggie would use when something was serious. When her cat stopped eating. When Mrs Trethewey’s husband went into hospital and didn’t come back out.

Is she better now? Is she…

My stomach turns over.

I don’t even know Kit anymore. Don’t know if he still takes his tea with too much sugar or has that scar on his thumb from the fishing hook that got lodged when I distracted him with a breathless kiss. Don’t know his wife’s name or if she has dark hair or light or if she makes him laugh the way I used to.

Don’t know if he hates me for leaving.

The postcard trembles in my hand. Not known at this address. Like I’d been erased. Like I’d never existed at all.

Maybe that’s what I deserved.

Kit. Kit, Kit.

His name rattles around my skull like a stone in a tin can.

My phone buzzes. My stomach clenches on instinct.

Third message from Simone today.

The most recent headline ticker-tapes across my screen: ‘ISLA QUINN: HERO OR ACCOMPLICE? Vale lawyer suggests Quinn knew all along…’ I turn the phone face-down. My throat closes.

A crash of waves in the distance makes me jump. I realise the sea’s closer than I remembered. Or maybe I’ve just been too far away for too long. The sound is melodic, familiar yet foreign all at once. Part of me wants to squelch in the mud down to the sea, but the other part of me, the part that is hypnotised by the sound of the waves, wants to hide. Sleep. Curl into a ball and maybe get forgotten about in this place, covered in a fine layer of dust that time will preserve.

I curl up like Maggie’s old cat, Percy.

Tug the purple blanket loose. Dust rises, but the smell settles deep in my bones.

I’ll just sleep.

No one knows I’m here.

For just one moment, I can sleep.

Chapter Two

ISLA

Iwake up in the middle of the afternoon, creased into Maggie’s sofa like a hungover ghost with a crick in her neck.

Fuck. I try and pull myself up, but I’m wedged. I roll myself off, landing on the floorboards with my hands and knees first. Sand grinds into my palms.