Epilogue
Dawn is breaking over St Andrews as we park the car.
It’s going to be a pretty day. We stroll down one of the sandy, grass-lined avenues to the beach, hand-in-hand.
Becca and Leo are waiting for us on the shoreline – they’re helping each other get over their heartbreaks, but not, they assure me, in a romantic way.
They’re just being there for each other as friends.
Jameson and I are helping each other in a decidedly romantic way. We’ve been together for three months now, since the nightmare at Tarnmore ended. We’re taking things slowly. There was a lot of rediscovering to do, and for me a lot of learning to trust – myself, mostly.
I have my flat in Edinburgh and Jameson has his in Dundee.
We both have jobs that matter to us, in cities sixty miles apart.
If and when we decide this is serious between us – who am I kidding, when – we’ll have to think carefully about what to do about that.
For now, we’re enjoying dating, messaging, meeting up and showing each other our cities, cooking meals in each other’s kitchens, drinking wine, taking trips – he took me climbing last week.
I dangled from a rope, and I didn’t die.
He didn’t let me die, like I didn’t let him die at Tarnmore.
I’ve taken him on a tour of my favourite bookshops and made him watch some harrowing true-crime documentaries. We’ve talked on the phone a lot, often late into the night. Jameson might have crossed the I love you line first, but I followed quickly.
I could hardly believe it when he told me that he’d been waiting all these years, hoping I’d come back into his life but too scared to make it happen.
‘I was worried I’d hyped you up too much.
I compared everyone to you and they all came up short.
But we were together for so little time, and we were so young … ’
Exactly how I’ve felt all this time too. I just didn’t admit it to myself until I was staring down the barrel of a gun by the loch where it all began for us.
He was so steadfast, believing in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.
I’m seeing a therapist, of course. It’s going to be a long process, undoing all that damage, recovering my lost memories. But I’m committed to seeing it through. I never want to question myself like that again.
‘How are you feeling?’ Jameson whispers to me now, as we walk across the sand towards the others. I wouldn’t call Leo and Becca friends exactly – too much water under the bridge for that. Too many accusations.
After all, they believed me guilty of murder. They’ve apologised of course, but still.
But we’re tied by our trauma; it’s a connection that’s hard to break.
‘I’m okay,’ I say cautiously, concentrating on the moment, not the memories: the soft give of sand beneath each footstep, the swirl of a breeze that ruffles the ends of my hair, the feel of Jameson’s thumb gently circling my palm – the only sign of nerves he betrays, masked by his attempt to comfort me.
Becca waves, framed by a backdrop of pale-blue sea.
The breakers are gentle, patterning the sand like doilies.
Becca is wearing simple make-up, and her dark hair pulled back in a high pony, jeans that I’m sure would cost me a month’s mortgage.
Leo is wearing a three-piece suit – he’s fresh out of court and didn’t have time to change before driving here, or so he says.
I think the suit makes him feel confident, safe.
It’s like armour. Nothing bad can happen to him when he looks like he’s supposed to.
Jameson takes the piss out of Leo’s attire as we meet them at the water’s edge, which breaks the ice. Leo shifts uncomfortably, seawater puddling in the prints left by his pointed brogues. ‘Another grand’s worth of shoes ruined?’ Jameson says, gesturing at his feet.
‘Actually, no,’ Leo says. ‘Bex has got me into Vinted …’
I look at Becca in surprise. ‘What do your millions of followers think of that?’
‘I’m on a social media detox right now.’ Becca tucks a drifting strand of hair behind her ear. ‘It was all a little crazy, after what happened at Tarnmore … I’ve had lots of media interest – folk wanting to make a true-crime show about the case.’
I’ve brought flowers: a low-key bunch of wildflowers. We fall into step, the four of us, and walk together along the tideline.
‘I wouldn’t have thought they could film anything about the case until the trial,’ Jameson says.
Kimmy is being held on remand for her part in what went down at Tarnmore in February.
Last I heard from Leo, she’s spinning it that she was another victim of Euan’s – brainwashed or coerced in some way.
I don’t care, to be honest. I’m trying not to think about the trial too much – we’ll all be called to give evidence unless Kimmy pleads guilty, which is unlikely.
She’s seemingly spilled plenty of Euan’s secrets too – sharing details of Gen’s past that help to make sense of how she came to be as she was.
She was horribly bullied at secondary school apparently, and she had a fraught relationship with her mother, who made her feel like she was never enough.
A chain-link of trauma – Gen’s mum was a victim of bullying at the hands of Grant Metcalfe too.
It doesn’t excuse how Gen treated Becca, Kimmy, me … But it does go some way towards explaining it.
Grant Metcalfe’s last blow was to disinherit his wife and stepdaughter, leaving them destitute after his death. Gen’s final act of blackmailing Johnny for what she felt was their rightful share was a last-ditch attempt to win her mother’s approval. Sad, really.
She also shared something Euan told her that helped to put the final pieces together of that night on West Sands, explaining the mystery of my wet clothes.
I was stumbling at the edge of the dunes, drunk, and high.
Euan had just drowned his stepsister in a rage and was making his way through the long grass, heading towards the concealment of the dunes, and safety.
He’d taken his chance after watching us party all night.
At first he blended into the melee of students mucking about on the beach, hiding in plain sight.
Later, he took advantage of the state we were in, our petty arguments and dramas.
He was there when I stood looking down into the gushing channel of water, It was either an opportunistic decision to knock me into the water or he feared I’d seen him.
He took a chance – figured the state I was in I wouldn’t even notice the push and just assume I’d taken a tumble, if I survived the plunge into the sea.
I was his back-up plan – the scapegoat if it was ever proved that Gen didn’t accidentally drown: the vengeful best friend, soaking wet and with no alibi.
A decade later, his plan nearly came to fruition.
The signs were there. If only I’d recalled them sooner. My recovered fragments of memory were all him: the watching eyes, the hooded shadow, the hand reaching out of nowhere to cover my mouth, the sensation of toppling down the dune.
‘Do you know Kimmy had the temerity to ask my firm to defend her?’ Leo says. He still looks suave, polished, but he’s different too – more circumspect, more considerate of others. I guess he doesn’t feel quite so entitled to only the best life can offer, now it’s thrown the worst at him.
‘That would be a conflict of interests, surely,’ Jameson says.
‘Well, yeah. But she only did it to get at me. I don’t care. I hope she gets what’s coming to her.’
We walk the length of the beach, talking quietly, catching each other up on the past few weeks since we last met for dinner – at an Italian in Glasgow near Leo’s law office.
Becca’s thrown herself into the country shop venture, and is geeking out on colour schemes.
She’s still living in the cottage, but she’s given it a makeover, wiped it clean of every trace of Euan.
It looks less elegant now, more homely. I’ve been to visit just once, and I’m not sure if I’ll go again.
Leo’s thrown himself into work too, but he’s talking about taking a sabbatical to travel – in a studenty kind of way, not the luxury yachts, business-class flights and private islands he’s used to.
Cancelling the wedding was rough, handling his parents’ reaction was rougher.
His dad is furious with him for even thinking of turning his back on his career – the career he demanded of Leo, the job he secured for him.
But Leo is much stronger these days – inside strong, not the veneer he fashioned before, which was mostly formed of fear of not living up to some ideal, of losing things he used to think were important.
Leo’s priorities have shifted. Becca’s too.
Their lives are simpler since what happened at Tarnmore. And the better for it.
And me … I’ve changed too.
I used to hide myself away, but it took nearly losing my life to realise what’s important. My fear of loss hasn’t gone away, but now I don’t let it stop me from loving.
I spent a week at Easter helping Dad on the farm – he always needs an extra pair of hands with lambing.
Jameson and I are planning to go back up together for a weekend soon.
I’ve had Mitch over for dinner at least once a week since I returned from Tarnmore – it was rocky between us at first, but I’ve stuck it out, let him work through his anger at me for what happened to Mum, and for leaving him to fend for Dad and for himself.
He and Jameson get on. I persuaded Mitch to try kickboxing, and it’s our thing now – a little healthy sibling rivalry on the mat.
Off course, I always win.
We reach the point where the river splays into the sea.
It is quiet here, the beach which felt so busy at the town end now seems empty.
Across the estuary the forest sprawls, treetops waving in the breeze.
There are a few isolated figures on Tentsmuir, tiny in the distance.
Becca wanted to treat Jameson and me to lunch after this, but we declined.
He and I are going to tour our old university haunts and hopefully lay to rest some ghosts.
It’s time to say goodbye to the hopeful, dreamy girl I was and let someone stronger rise from her ashes.
I can feel her flexing her wings already.
‘How is this?’ Leo asks. He takes a hasty step back to dodge a rushing wave.
‘Perfect,’ I say, looking around. Over there is the spot where we crouched over Gen’s body, and there is the dune behind which we lit our illicit bonfire.
And there’s the path through the waving seagrass where we traipsed up to the waiting cars, looking over our shoulders at the remnants of ourselves we left behind on the sand.
I see Alex everywhere too: floundering in the shallows trying to help; slumped on the beach after it was all over; flashing his wicked grin as he uncurled his fingers around the pills in his palm; laughing by the fire, his head thrown back as he whooped into the sky, silhouetted against smoky driftwood flames.
It’s time to say goodbye to them both.
Becca leans towards me. ‘It’s okay to grieve for her, regardless of how she behaved, the things she did … That person you thought she was – for a while that version of her was real.’
I nod; I’ve had a hard time coming to terms with that, but I think I’m almost there. Her sins don’t wipe out the love I felt for her.
I detach a few blooms from the wildflower bouquet one by one and drop them into the sea, watch the swell carry them away. Last week I finished Looking for Alaska – another chapter closed.
Leo has one arm round Becca’s shoulder as she cries. Jameson is holding my hand. We circle back towards the car park and pause at the juncture between beach and road. Jameson cups my face and kisses the tears from my face. Behind us, Leo wolf-whistles and Becca tells him off.
A smile cuts through my sadness as Jameson fills my vision. I wish Alex had lived to get his second chance. I’m going to make the most of mine.
I don’t think of the years between Jameson and me as wasted time now. Instead I think of him as worth the wait.