Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
KIT
It’s the stairs that wake me. The squeak on the tread that never fails.
The storm’s eased off to a steady drizzle, tapping against the windows like an afterthought. The house creaks – old timber and salt-heavy air settling in. Normally, I’d sleep through it. Tonight, it sets me on edge.
A floorboard creaks near the stairs. Light. Hesitant. Then another. Uneven.
‘Maisie?’ I call, my voice rough, still thick with sleep. She’s had bad dreams before – comes padding down the hall, silent until she’s right next to me.
No answer.
I push myself upright, Cap letting out a whine as he slides off my lap and thuds to the floor. Every joint in my back cracks in protest. The sofa’s too short and too bloody narrow.
‘Isla?’ I ask into the dark. The slight hobble has given her away.
There’s a long pause.
‘Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.’
She’s just a silhouette at first – blanket clutched around her like a shield, hair loose, half wild. Unsure.
‘Everything all right? Why are you walking around on that foot?’
‘I … couldn’t sleep, and honestly it’s feeling better already.’
She crosses the room, her steps uneven, which makes me not quite believe her ‘better already’ update. The blanket’s one from my bed, and her T-shirt’s too big on her.
She stands there like she’s waiting for permission to sit.
‘You want a tea or something?’ I ask, already knowing I’ve got nothing decent in. ‘Could heat some milk, if you’re into that.’
‘No, thanks.’
There’s a long silence, the kind that hums in the chest. I don’t fill it.
Then, in a voice so small I almost miss it, she says, ‘Is it awful that I’m jealous of your life?’
That lands like a punch I wasn’t braced for. I stare at her shadowed form, trying to process what she’s asking, what she’s admitting.
‘What?’
‘This home,’ she continues, voice fragile in the darkness. ‘Maisie. The life you built. The person you became while I was gone. I keep thinking about all of it, lying in your bed, and I—’ She breaks off, shaking her head. ‘Sorry. This is inappropriate. I should go back upstairs.’
‘Wait.’ The word is out before I can consider it. ‘Stay.’
She hesitates, then sinks down onto the armchair opposite me, perching on the edge like she might flee at any moment. The blanket slips slightly, revealing the curve of her shoulder, pale in the faint moonlight.
‘What do you mean, jealous?’ I ask.
She’s quiet for a beat. When she does answer, her voice is so soft I have to lean forward to hear.
‘I’ve been lying in your bed, thinking about Jessica.
About Maisie. Sandcastles and ice-creams. About you reading bedtime stories and making curry and having this whole life that I know nothing about.
’ Her fingers fidget with the edge of the blanket.
‘And I have an Oscar on my mantel and three houses I never visit and not a single person who would notice if I disappeared tomorrow except Piper.’
The catch in her voice throws me off the cliff of sanity I’m still clawing onto. It’s familiar.
‘People would notice.’
She makes a small, disbelieving sound. ‘Would they? Amazing how quickly they disappear when they might get tainted by your scandal. My agent is leaving voicemails daily, but only to discuss damage control. Not once has he asked how I am. Like, am I actually having a breakdown? Are my thoughts dark and endlessly veering towards oblivion?’
‘Are you?’
I don’t like the stretch of silence.
‘No.’
I don’t believe her.
‘I only came back because Maggie left me the cottage, and I needed somewhere to hide. Somewhere untouched by—’ Another beat. ‘But I haven’t left yet… I don’t know. Maybe because it’s the only place that still feels real to me.’
The confession hangs between us. I stare at her through the darkness, this woman who is both achingly familiar and completely unknown to me.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t come back, Kit. But I can’t take it back. I can’t change what is.’
‘No,’ I agree quietly. ‘You can’t.’
We sit in silence for a moment. Then, before I can stop myself: ‘What happened with Marcus Vale?’
She goes absolutely still. Every muscle in her body locks up, and even in the darkness I can see her shoulders rise defensively.
‘Isla—’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Her voice has gone flat. Distant. Like she’s pulled herself somewhere I can’t reach.
‘Did he hurt you?’
The silence stretches too long. When she finally speaks, her voice is barely a whisper.
‘I can’t … I can’t talk about it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.’
But the way she’s wrapped her arms around herself, the way she won’t look at me, the way her breathing has changed – it’s telling me everything she won’t say.
Something cold and sharp settles in my chest. Fear. Rage. Something worse.
‘Jesus, Isla—’
‘Please.’ The word comes out broken. ‘Please don’t ask me. I’m not…’ She stops, swallows hard. ‘I’m not ready.’
I want to push. Want to demand answers so I can do something with the protective fury building inside me. But I can see how close she is to shattering completely.
‘Okay,’ I force myself to say. ‘Okay. You don’t have to talk about it.’
She lets out a shaky breath, some of the tension leaving her shoulders.
‘But if you ever…’ I stop, trying to find the right words. ‘If you ever need to talk, I’m here. You understand?’
She nods, still not looking at me.
The silence that follows is heavy. I can feel the questions crowding my throat, scenarios I don’t want to imagine filling my head.
Whatever happened between her and Marcus Vale – whatever she’s not saying – it’s bad enough that she can’t even begin to speak about it.
And that terrifies me.
Before the silence can engulf us, leaving us both tormented by our thoughts and memories, she speaks again.
‘I meant what I said last night about Jessica – I would have come if I’d known.
Finding Maggie’s postcard in the cottage…
’ Her voice catches. ‘Knowing she tried to reach out to me and I never knew – it’s been eating at me. ’
‘I believe you about the postcard,’ I say, surprised by how much I mean it. I sigh, running a hand through my hair. ‘I’ve been trying not to feel anything at all since Jessica died. It’s been my survival strategy.’
She nods, moonlight catching in her hair.
‘It was easier,’ I continue, compelled by the darkness and her honesty to offer some of my own, ‘to believe that our friendship for all those years didn’t mean anything to you. That you left and didn’t look back.’
‘I looked back.’ Her whisper breaks the stillness. ‘All the time.’
My chest tightens at her words and my throat constricts.
‘And then it seemed like you’d moved on,’ she says softly, picking up the confession. ‘Maggie came to visit me and said you were settled down.’
Silence seems to echo in the darkness.
‘So soon,’ she whispers, a gasp catching the words and reframing everything – like shifting a picture just enough to see what it’s hiding. I close my eyes, leaning my head back. A year felt like forever then. Now it feels like I barely let the grave settle.
‘Jessica was amazing,’ I say, surprising myself. I straighten up to look at her. ‘I met her a year after you left. She was kind and funny and patient. She loved puzzles and could never keep plants alive and sang terribly in the shower.’
Isla is very still, listening.
‘She knew about you,’ I continue. ‘I told her everything. And she loved me anyway. Even knowing I always had this little soft spot I kept just for you. A tender little bruise that eventually she made me forget to press to feel the ache.’ I take a deep breath.
‘She was your opposite in every way. And somehow … that saved me.’
‘She sounds wonderful.’ Isla wraps her slender arms around her knees.
‘She was.’ My throat tightens. ‘And then she got sick, and nothing made sense anymore. She fought so hard. For me, for Maisie. She made me promise things before she died.’
‘What things?’
‘To be happy. To live fully. To let Maisie know her. To…’ I hesitate, then push on. ‘To love again someday.’
‘Have you? Been happy? Lived fully?’
I consider lying, but what’s the point? ‘No,’ I admit. ‘I’ve existed. I’ve raised Maisie. I’ve worked. But happy? I don’t know what that feels like anymore.’
‘Me neither,’ she whispers.
We sit in silence, the rain a gentle backdrop. I can hear her breathing, slightly faster than normal.
‘I should let you sleep,’ she says finally, making no move to leave.
‘Probably,’ I agree, equally stationary.
Another beat of silence.
‘I meant what I said,’ she says, her voice a fragile thread in the darkness.
‘If I’d known about Jessica, I would have come.
Not that it would have changed anything, but …
I would have been here. For you. For Maisie.
I would have still been your friend. Before everything else, before there was even a hint of an us, you, me, and Jude, we were friends. ’
‘I know,’ I say quietly. ‘And I missed that.’
She stands then, blanket clutched around her shoulders. ‘Goodnight, Kit.’
‘Goodnight, Isla.’
She limps towards the stairs, blanket trailing behind her. At the bottom step, she pauses, looks back. Our eyes meet in the darkness.
A pause, just for a moment, and then she starts her way up.
It takes everything in me not to jump up and help.
If she wanted it, she would have asked me.
This new version of Isla who’s returned to Sea Salt Bay is so different from the girl who spent her summers here.
The old Isla was ferocious in her ambition for her dreams. She was wild.
Dad always told me it was a kickback to her boarding school life.
People still talk in Sea Salt Bay about the number of times I pulled her from the current, but that’s because she was always jumping first, impetuous and carefree.
The woman who has returned in her place… She’s trying not to let it show, but I can see the cracks, and they hurt me in ways I didn’t know I could still feel.
I sit in the silence, letting it all wash over me, the tide of words, the slow creep of her back into my psyche. But beneath the silence is a burning rage.
Hot and untempered.
What the fuck did that bastard do to her?
And why the hell isn’t her boyfriend here helping her go through it?
I don’t sleep a wink.
Just those two thoughts circling in my head.