you’re all I have, do you hear me? You’re all I have.” You’re all I have was their mantra, their special coded message that replaced the words they would have really wanted to say but couldn’t.
Their bodies pulled towards each other. Towards comfort, respite and out of the lonely state they’d both found themselves in. It nearly happened – he nearly held her in his arms the way he used to. But all of a sudden Sarah steeled herself. They stood immobile, her hands in his, fighting the gravity that pulled them together like a planet and its moon.
“Where are you staying?”
“I’m renting somewhere near here. A farm cottage on the moorland.”
Sarah nodded. “Come back tomorrow. I want to speak properly.”
Sean nodded, giddy with relief.
“I want you to go now,” she said in a soft voice, a voice that made it sound as if she actually wanted to say stay with me. And he wanted to stay, he wanted to hold her through the night. He remembered what it was like to kiss her, their one and only kiss. He remembered her lips on his, and he didn’t want to be away from her, not then, not now, not ever.
But it was too soon. He would be patient. It was best if he went.
Just one last thing.
“Sarah?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever heard of forgiveness?”
Without waiting for her reply, Sean turned and walked out of the room, out of Sarah’s house and into the darkness.
Soft footsteps followed him, and he turned and took Elodie’s hand, a slight smile on his lips. There was a little glimmer of hope in his heart, because when he had looked at Sarah’s face just before walking away, her eyes were still saying stay with me. So he did stay, with Elodie by his side, both of them still and cold – watching the soil anxiously, watching over Sarah for the rest of the night.
10
Days and Nights
To just do it
To dive from barren land
Into blue waters
While Sean and Elodie were still hidden and invisible among the oak trees, Sarah was sitting at the kitchen table, examining her wrists, lost in thought. Small purple bruises were appearing where Sean had held her down, like bracelets, or handcuffs, getting darker on her pale skin. In front of her, on the table, sat a little red pouch, the protection charm she’d made for the man she’d believed was Harry. It had snapped the night before when she’d tried to hit him with the Midnight gaze. Sean had been wearing it all that time.
Sarah took a sip of her cappuccino, feeling the soft red velvet of the charm with her fingers. She could make out the shape of the little pink quartz in it.
She believed Sean. For some weird reason – a hunch, a gut feeling, whatever you might call it – she believed him when he said he didn’t kill Harry. He wasn’t a murderer. Just a liar.
And then another Sean-thought, a bittersweet one, came fluttering into her mind: his blue eyes, so clear, the forbidden feeling of lips on lips, skin against skin, a girl who suddenly knew what to do and was unafraid.
She stood up quickly and started wiping the table. That thought she couldn’t cope with – the memory of her feelings for him, and their one and only kiss. All that was over and gone forever. And Nicholas wasn’t to know.
She’d asked Sean to come back. She should have told him when – she had deleted his number from her phone in a fit of anger when she’d discovered his betrayal, so she had no way to contact him now. How long would she have to wait? Maybe she shouldn’t go to school, in case he turned up there. Or maybe he’d come in the evening. Or the night again, when she was in bed and helpless? The thought chilled her. It had been a terrifying experience, not least because of what she might have done to him.
She wasn’t afraid of Sean hurting her anymore – had he wanted to, he would have done so already, but she still wanted to be in control. Not in the dark, unprepared and vulnerable way she’d been earlier. She wanted to be able to think clearly the next time they met. And if Nicholas was there … No. The thought of the two of them crossing paths in her home was just too strange.
What she wasn’t admitting, not even to herself, was that she couldn’t wait. She wanted to talk