‘Alex?’ #2
‘I was just passing,’ she says, ‘and saw the door open. I didn’t see anyone, so I came in to check everything was all right.
When I called out “Hello?” Alex appeared, and he said he needed to go get something but that you were still upstairs, with the guards, and I told him I’d be happy to stay and let you know, so …
’ She looks around, shakes her head. ‘Such an awful mess. What on earth happened?’
Part of me wants to lunge at her, grab her phone and furiously smash it into pieces in front of her.
Because how dare she. But another, bigger part of me has the sense to recognize the inherent risk in confronting her at all.
Insisting she delete any photos she took may well encourage her to share them – and she could just deny taking them.
‘How long have you lived on Delaney Row?’ I ask.
‘Oh, a very long time,’ she says, after a beat. ‘I bet I was younger than you are now when I got here. What did the guard say?’
‘So you must know a lot about this terrace, right? The people who used to live here, things that happened?’
‘Thankfully, there’s not much to tell. Was it a burglar? Should I be worried? They go after the cars around here, we’re used to that. But a house—’
‘I was just wondering what you meant by your message. Your first message. “I pray the house is happy now, at long last.”’
Annalise’s eyes narrow.
‘Surely you knew it was vacant?’ she says. ‘Awful shame for a house to be empty, especially when it’s only one of three. It’s like a dead bulb in a room. No one wants to be looking at a dark corner.’ She tilts her head, frowns. ‘Have we met before?’
A bang, behind me.
I turn to see Alex coming through the front door, carrying a plastic crate with two hands.
‘Hey,’ he calls out, apparently to both of us.
Does anyone on this terrace understand the concept of other people’s houses?
‘Well,’ Annalise says briskly, ‘I suppose I’ll be off.’ She brushes past me and down the hall, calling a clipped goodbye over her shoulder before I have the thought to open my mouth to tell her to stop, to wait.
By then, Alex is coming into the kitchen and I can see what’s in the crate. Spray bottles of things, cloths, lightbulbs, a roll of black refuse sacks, a dustpan and brush …
And a drill?
‘Alex,’ I say. ‘What the—?’
‘Can we just skip the protest?’ He swipes coffee granules off a stretch of countertop before setting the crate down.
‘Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to help you clean up.
I’ve got a safety chain I’m going to install for you, and I brought the dowel you forgot to take with you yesterday.
At least when you’re home, this place will be secure.
Tonight, it will be. And whenever it suits you, I’ll come back with the furniture I was telling you about. ’
I feel a flush of rage. ‘I told you, I didn’t want—’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know. You don’t want the furniture. You don’t want help. But I want to help and I’m going to. I’m not asking, I’m just doing. So.’ He puts his hands on his hips. ‘If that’s all the objections out of the way, can we get started?’
I don’t know what to say.
But I do know that I’m tired. Bone-tired. Exhausted. From barely sleeping, because I spent last night listening for the shudder of a patio door or a creak on the stairs. From hiding, lying, surviving. From every last thing being so bloody hard.
I can’t tread water any more. I don’t have the energy. And the shoreline feels further away than it ever was.
So I stop kicking. I surrender.
I give up.
I see Alex’s face fall before I feel the tears on my own.
‘Shit,’ he says, stepping towards me. ‘I didn’t mean—’
‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s not—’ But my voice cracks. Jesus Christ, this is mortifying. ‘It’s not you, it’s just … It’s just …’ Every. Single. Thing.
‘Come on,’ he says with a gentleness that pierces me. ‘Sit down.’
He rights two of the kitchen chairs and sets them facing each other, only a foot apart. I drop into one. He sits on the other.
‘Why are you like this?’ I ask.
‘What?’
‘Aggressively helpful.’
Alex hesitates. ‘It’s going to sound very dramatic.’
‘Try me.’
It can’t be any more dramatic than my answer for why I’m like this.
‘It’s just, that, well …’ He sighs. ‘I know what it is to feel alone.’
I frown, thinking—
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he says. ‘I literally live with my sister. And you don’t know this, but we’re close with our parents and I have lots of great friends.
I’m super popular, actually.’ He grins. ‘But, a few months ago, I broke up with a woman who’s been in my life – in all our lives – further back than even she and I can remember.
We met when we were in school. And when everything fell apart, everyone took sides.
Hers, for the most part. She’s telling everyone I’ve wasted the best years of her life, that I pretended to love her.
And they just can’t seem to understand what I’m saying, which is that I just started having this feeling that this wasn’t it, that it wasn’t right enough, and I thought that maybe spending the rest of my only life with her wasn’t fair on me or her.
All I did was change my mind – and not on purpose. It just happened.’
I shift in my seat, discomfited by this reveal of private feelings.
‘My point is, I know how it feels to be starting again, from scratch, at our age. Alone, whether that’s a feeling or a fact.
And I know how hard it is to accept help, because accepting it is admitting that you need it, and it’s never easy to do that.
It can feel like failure. But we all need help at some point.
Getting it isn’t charity, but community.
And look, I understand something else may be going on here, that maybe you came from a place that wasn’t safe, and you’re scared that you won’t be safe here, but I’m trying—’
‘Wait,’ I say. The implication of what he’s saying has hit me on a delay. ‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘Just that … You know …’
But he trails off.
‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.’
‘I just thought …’ He swallows. ‘It just seemed like maybe you’d been in a bad relationship. With a bad person. I’m sorry if I’m wrong. It’s not my business anyway. I know that.’
Where the hell had he got that idea?
Had I given it to him?
In a panic, I mentally replay our conversations, searching for anything I might have said that would have inadvertently suggested such a thing.
I imagine what I’d feel for someone in that situation and my insides churn with shame, because it explains everything.
It explains why he’s being so nice to me, trying to help me, even when I try to dissuade him at every turn.
The problem is, I don’t deserve it.
‘That’s not it at all,’ I say. ‘I …’
But I stop there. I may be running on empty, but evidently there’s an emergency generator that gives me just enough energy to stop myself from self-imploding entirely, from pressing the button that would immediately destroy me, everything, worlds.
From revealing a truth that, once out, I’ll never be able to contain again.
If I say this, it’ll be like a shockwave, running away from me in all directions.
Can I even say it?
I don’t think I ever have, not out loud.
But what if the truth isn’t a nuclear button? What if the way out of this is through? What if I just tell him?
‘The thing is …’ I take a deep breath. ‘Alex, the thing is, you don’t know who you’re helping. I … I wasn’t in Paris.’
He looks at me questioningly.
I look at the floor. I can’t see his face when I say this.
Say it. Just say it. Now, or you never will.
‘Alex, I was in prison.’
Silence.
I lift my head, force myself to look at him. His expression is perfectly blank. Not shocked or horrified. Not even confused. Just blank, like a basic computer overloaded with too many simultaneous tasks.
‘And my name isn’t Ellie,’ I say. ‘It’s Hannah.’
After a beat, Alex sighs.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I know.’