Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
TWO YEARS AGO
Greta
‘Don’t worry,’ I remember saying to her. ‘You can only be brave when you’re afraid.’ That seemed to help. That was the day when I felt we had truly become friends, and we’d been inseparable ever since, until, well, right now, I suppose.
Later, she found out I’d lifted it from a handmade kitten poster in Mrs Todd’s Year 4 classroom but the fact we kept talking about it twenty-five years later meant that it had still been significant.
I just hoped Ruth would make it out of this.
I hoped and prayed that Ruth, Chlo, my dad, my brother, would all be all right, that somehow they’d all be okay in the end.
They could be sad for a while, that was fine.
Actually, it would have been weird if they weren’t, but I really didn’t want this to destroy them.
Honestly, when you’re dying, you don’t wish the worst on anyone…
except, of course, if relevant, the person killing you.
More than anything, you just kind of want everyone you love to be okay, to know that they’re going to be just fine without you.
More than anything, you just wish you had more time.
But I knew Jago had made one fatal mistake, one he didn’t even recognise with the size of his ego.
He messed with my Ruth. It might take time – years, maybe – but if anyone was going to get to the bottom of this, it was her.
From the words he’d spoken to her on my phone as I began drifting out of consciousness, I knew she wouldn’t stop to make him pay for what he did. I knew she’d figure it out some day.
All I needed now was for her to be brave.