Chapter 4 #2
The thought actually relaxes the knot in my stomach a little. That would explain the damned note. I know what you did. The words have dinged around my skull like a pinball for days.
‘Earth to Kat,’ Ellie says. ‘You’re doing it again.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Disappearing into your head. You’re always away with the fairies these days.’
I force a smile and take another sip of coffee.
‘I’m fine.’
Ellie narrows her eyes.
‘Sure you are.’
‘I’m just tired. Classes and everything.’
‘You fucking hate your classes.’ She has a point. But I haven’t told her about the note. How can I? Then she’d know what I’d done too. Losing her isn’t an option.
‘True. But I still need to pass them.’
My fingers drift to the stone heart lying against my chest. I still remember the day he gave it to me. Standing ankle-deep in the stream, both of us soaked to our underpants, while I lectured the frogs about holy matrimony.
The boy was silent, as always. That dark hair was wet and sticking to his face, which for once was remarkably dirt-free.
He’d clapped in excitement before shoving a hand into the stream, before holding out the dripping wet stone.
At first, I’d thought it was a regular stone, until he’d placed it in my hand.
My eight-year-old heart had fallen in love just like a little penguin gaining her first love pebble. The rock was pearly white and roughly heart-shaped. Surrounded by my favourite place, filled with birdsong and flies lit up by the late afternoon sun. A truly magical moment.
He didn’t say anything, just looked at me with that intense stare of his.
Ellie follows my gaze to the necklace before shrugging.
That unsettling feeling of being watched drags me right back into the present. Ellie is flicking through her socials, and the barista is busy serving someone. Glancing around, I try to find the source of my discomfort.
You’re being crazy, Kat.
I glance toward the window again, and just for a moment, I think I see a tall figure at the edge of the window, staring straight at me.
My stomach dips.
‘Ellie,’ I say, leaning over to push her phone down. ‘Who’s that?’
But by the time I look back up, there’s no one there.
‘What?’ Ellie’s brows scrunch.
‘I thought I saw someone staring.’ I scan for any sign of the tall guy in black, but I can’t see him.
‘Babe, you’re getting paranoid. Do you need me to get hold of some chill pills or something?’
God. Maybe she’s right. I’ve been looking around me like I’m an escaped convict being hunted for days. I need to calm the fuck down.
‘I’m okay,’ I say. ‘Just being silly.’
I’m still feeling antsy by the time I get home, skipping my afternoon lecture with the sole intention of wallowing in my bed.
The key slides into the lock, but as I push open the door, I spot a stone by my foot.
A near-perfect heart in a bit of shiny black rock.
The alley that leads to our home is nothing but brick, concrete and weeds.
I bite my bottom lip as I stare at the tiny rock, unease creeping through me.
Glancing both directions, I freeze. It’s just a coincidence. You’ve seen lots of these over the years, and this is no different.
Shivering, I stoop to snatch up the small stone and get inside, locking the door behind me before I take a closer look at it. It’s not a perfect heart, a little too big on one side, and too angular on the other.
Could someone have placed it there? Or was it just picked up on the postie’s shoe? That could happen, couldn’t it?
God, I even sound delirious to myself.
I go around the small flat, pulling the curtains and checking the old window latches.
When I get to my room, I pull out the upper drawer in my desk, the tiny one that’s useless for much of anything, and I look at my secret collection.
The stone the boy gave me, I wear around my neck, on the cord I found in my nanny’s sewing kit.
But there are many more treasures there.
Twenty small stones littered the drawer, all in varying colours and degrees of heart shapes.
As well as a heart-shaped piece of bark and a conjoined pinecone.
Some we’d found together that summer, but many more I’d found in the years since.
They always remind me of him, so I collect them, imagining them to be left there by a happier version of the skinny boy.
I’m thrown back into that memory of him in the stream, giving me a gap-toothed smile. His hand was cold when I threaded my hand through his and squeezed it tightly.
For that afternoon, it felt like all the world didn’t matter, and that no one could ever intrude on our bubble of happiness.
I’d been a foolish child.
And I’d learned soon enough.
Closing the drawer, I spot the note stuffed beneath a notebook, one cream corner poking out.
I shove it fully under the book before collapsing back onto my bed and splaying out amongst my sea of duvet and cushions.
It’s a pebble, nothing to get worked up over.
And the note was just someone being mean.
But even the oodles of cushions on my bed can’t lull me into believing myself.