Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
KAT
I’ve only just got Liam out of the flat when Ellie comes home after staying out for the night. Not a wholly unusual occurrence, but she doesn’t usually come home with flowers.
I’ve been so wrapped up in everything going on with me that I’ve barely asked about her. She swishes past me, looking for a vase, which we definitely don’t possess, and smells like unfamiliar washing powder.
‘Did you have a good night?’ I ask, pulling out a lemonade bottle and cutting the top off for her. She stands across from me and unwraps the flowers, looking a little bashful.
Very unlike her.
‘I’m seeing someone,’ she says.
‘Who?’
‘Well, don’t laugh, because he’s not my usual type, but it’s Sam.’
‘Coffee shop Sam?’
What the fuck?
I can’t exactly lead with What the hell are you doing with him when I’m banging a guy whose face I haven’t seen in years. But Sam?
‘Yeah. Don’t look at me like that. I know he’s not my usual type, but maybe that’s not a bad thing.’
‘He watches you like a hawk. And he’s rude to me.’
‘He’s just shy. But he’s so present. Like he actually cares about what I think and how I feel. That’s not how guys normally leave me feeling.’
‘I…’ Well, what can I say? I don’t like him? Bar pouring me coffee, I don’t even know him. ‘As long as he’s good to you, then I’m happy for you.’
She smiles while popping flowers into the makeshift jug as I pour a few mugs’ worth of water into it to weigh it down.
‘You seem different too,’ she says. ‘These last couple of weeks, you’ve not been yourself.’
I think about the right way to answer that.
‘Essays, you know.’ I say.
‘Maybe we need to go out and get you laid.’
She clearly hasn’t noticed the vast uptake in my cleaning of the place. Every time Liam comes over, we find new ways to end up with cum or sweat on something. I’m going to need shares in bleach at this point.
‘I’m okay,’ I say. ‘But thank you.’
‘I’m going to grab a shower,’ she says, and I watch her go, trying to imagine her and Sam even conducting a conversation, far less ending up in bed…
I can’t see it, but he must be special to have hooked Ellie, the original single and proud party girl.
Ellie and I take a walk in the park in the afternoon, wrapped up to our ears in coats and scarves to fight off the biting chill.
It’s worth the two buses and the busy station in between to get to the park across the city. In the leafy suburbs, surrounded by people walking sausage dogs and ruddy-cheeked children rather than the far less cheery-looking people in the park close to the university.
Liam messaged twice to ask where I am, and I’ve told him I’m at the park with Ellie and I’ll be back soon, ignoring the message asking which park.
Am I looking for breathing space or for him to break me in two for slipping his watch? Who knows….
I know. And it’s definitely the latter.
We stop at the coffee shop, sitting at one of the wonky little tables while blowing steam off our hot chocolates. Extra cream and marshmallows, of course.
‘It feels like forever since we were last here,’ I say, watching an elderly set of women sitting on a bench nearby. ‘Do you think we’ll be like them one day? Shooting the shit at eighty, moaning about our husbands and the fact our grandkids never call?’
‘You bet. But maybe on a beach rather than in a cold park. The arthritis I’m bound to end up with will require sun.’
‘And cocktails too, I hope. At eighty, we may as well be half-cut all day.’ I laugh, but a twinge of actual worry is behind my question. ‘But seriously, will we still see each other after university?’
‘Of course we will. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.’ Ellie rolls her eyes at me. ‘Don’t go getting all soppy, I don’t want to cry in the park.’
A movement in my peripheral vision catches my attention. There, among the trees, is a black figure with pink heart eyes. My pulse thumps as I stare. Taking out his phone, he types.
You ignored me.
How did you know where we went?
I followed you.
Bullshit. We took two buses and went through a busy station, there’s no way.
The trees are nothing but green when I look back.
‘All okay?’ Ellie asks, tipping her head at my phone.
‘Just my mum, you know what she’s like. Can you watch my drink? I’m going to pop to the toilet.’
I pass the toilet and head for the trees where I saw him lingering.
‘Liam,’ I say through my teeth. ‘Where are you?’
He steps out from behind a cluster of trees, and I set him with a look that I hope feels like daggers.
‘Hello, darling.’
‘Don’t you darling me. How did you follow me here?’
He shifts before his shoulders drop a touch. ‘Your necklace.’
I touch the stone around my throat.
‘What?’
‘I put a tracker in it.’
My hair stands on end as I try to look down at it. It hasn’t felt any different. ‘How long?’
He’s silent.
‘How fucking long, Liam?’
‘A few weeks.’
I glare at him. He doesn’t flinch, steady through those painted hearts.
‘And you’ve been watching where I am ever since.’
‘Yes.’
I steady myself against the trunk of a tree. It’s bad enough that he stalked me, but tracking my whereabouts feels so much more invasive.
‘Show me,’ I say.
He takes out his phone and turns the screen toward me. A map, and on it a small pink dot, in the middle of the satellite image of the woods. What the fuck?
My ears ring; it feels like another constriction tightening around my life. For a minute, I long for the time a few weeks ago when my biggest worry was my coursework and what I would wear to party with Ellie.
‘I’m not sorry,’ he says. ‘It’s a way to keep you safe. Even when I can’t be there.’
Ellie told me once that her family uses a similar app to find each other’s locations.
Once, she was drugged on a night out and stumbled out of a club on her own and passed out in a back alley in the city.
Her dad found her because of the app; she might have frozen to death in the zero-degree night otherwise.
‘If something happened to me, could you find me?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Anywhere. Immediately.’
I look at the dot.
Six weeks ago, the violation of it would have been too much. But knowing that it’s him makes it feel less invasive. He’s on my side. The one person in the world who knows everything. My good and my bad.
‘You should have told me.’
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘I’m annoyed that you didn’t.’
‘I know.’
I look at the dot on the screen again and reach up to touch the stone at my throat.
‘Leave it in,’ I say. ‘But don’t lie to me again. About anything. We need to be able to trust each other.’
‘Deal.’
I nod.
‘I need to get back to Ellie before she thinks I’ve ditched her. I’ll see you later.’ I turn to go, but Liam grabs my hand and spins me back to him, cupping my face while pulling it to his.
‘I will do whatever it takes to keep you in my life, Kat. My morals are deeply black when it comes to you.’
He covers my eyes and takes my mouth with a heated fierceness. A kiss that reaches into my soul and rearranges like I’m putty under his touch.
‘I’ve loved you since the day we met, Kat. And I will love you to the day I die. If protecting you costs me that, it will be a life worthy of being lived.’
My heart flutters at his words, them catching me off guard in their ferocity.
He loves me.
Liam doesn’t give me the time to respond, kissing me again, his tongue stroking me to a desperate need. I melt into him until he releases me, his mask tugged back into place, and before I can catch my breath, he’s gone.