Our Little Secret: The most gripping debut psychological thriller you’ll read this year

by Darren O’Sullivan

  It was the first time he had said it and he said it in a typical Chris way. Not attracting attention to himself. Not making it a big thing. Just three quietly spoken words that I truly and deeply believed. I wanted to say I loved him back, but couldn’t. Chris has never asked for anything from me in all the time we have been together. I wanted him to have his brave and touching moment. So I said goodnight and snuggled in to his shoulder.

  Just as I was dozing off he whispered that he had put in an offer on a place, and if it’s successful he wanted me to move in. So I didn’t have to worry about money, and could spend as much time with my mum as I needed.

  I’ve really missed not being with Chris much this week. I’ve been staying with Mum. He’s been so understanding and patient with it all. I was sure when it all started he was going to get fed up with me being upset and away all of the time. I mean, who wouldn’t get fed up with that? But he hasn’t (so far). In fact, he’s been more attentive, more available. He messages me all the time, seeing how I am, wondering if there is anything he can do. I even told him if he needed a break from the constant misery I’d understand. But he said he couldn’t think of a worse idea.

  Sometimes, I don’t know what I would do without him. Even if sometimes I don’t treat him in a way he deserves. For instance, the other day I was tired and fed up and worried about Mum. Chris could see I was off and asked if I was okay. And I shouted at him, told him to leave me alone. Told him I needed space and he just stood and took it all.

  He didn’t leave, he didn’t raise his voice, and he didn’t do anything that would fuel my outburst. He just waited patiently for me to calm and once I had I was devastated I had spoken that way. He forgave me instantly. Telling me it was one of those things and that he understood. Not a hint of anger. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such a good man.

  In the morning I think I’m going to ring the doctor and get Mum an appointment. I hope to God it’s just a tired and bored mind. Although my instincts tell me otherwise …

  Chapter 19

  11 days left

  8.42 p.m. – London Road, Peterborough

  Sat on his back doorstep, his bare feet basking in the last of the evening sun before it continued westward and over the horizon, Chris watched the sky begin to softly change colour. He thought about what he and Julia would be doing on such a nice day if she were still alive. What had they done the previous year?

  He pictured them going for a nice walk along the river where he had asked her to be his wife before finding a pub to get a drink and perhaps some food. They would then walk home slowly, enjoying the warmth of the evening, perhaps sitting on the bank to talk about work or holiday plans. A warm summer evening, just before the sun started to set, was his and Julia’s favourite time of the day. It reminded them of the lazy Spanish ones of their honeymoon, which seemed to be timeless.

  On a day like this Chris missed his wife even more.

  And if they didn’t go out but stayed at home she would be in the garden with him right now, sipping a glass of white wine whilst he nursed a lager and played guitar. She would be sat at the patio table, looking up at the sky and gently swaying to whatever he played. Neither talking. Neither needing to. They were content with each other’s silence.

  It would get dark and they would go inside before the mosquitos feasted, heading to bed where Chris would read to her as he always did. Her head on his chest, in her space, as they immersed themselves in chapter after chapter of whatever book had captured their attention.

  Chris closed his eyes and let himself see it. Both of them naked and close. Her arm wrapped around him as he held the book in one hand and stroked her hair with the other. Their breathing in unison. The sound of the warm wind gently blowing through the open bedroom window. The world still and calm. He imagined putting the book down and lifting her chin with his hand to kiss her on the lips. Her pulling away and smiling at him before kissing him back. Their bodies intertwining. Her legs wrapping over him. Him rolling on top of her. Her hands held to the bed by his. Her back arching slightly, inviting. Him pulling up, straightening his arms to see his wife.

  Her glazed eyes looking back.

  Standing up Chris rubbed his eyes until it hurt. Partly to shake the image, partly to stop himself crying. He hated that he couldn’t think of his wife as his wife any more but as a dead person. He hated that her memory was becoming tainted by his inability to manage his thoughts. He hated that she wasn’t there with him making new memories. Looking at the sky, its colours starting to come alive as it does with a sunset. He knew that he couldn’t sit and enjoy a moment like this again. This would be the last sunset he would let himself watch before he saw one with Julia. If that was what happened next.

  He went into his house and locked the back door behind him. Walking into his lounge he saw his guitar stood beside the sofa, against a wall. Dust covered the top of it. He sat and pulled it out. Placed it on his lap. He cleaned its strings with the bottom of his T-shirt and plucked each one individually. It was out of tune, but not horrifically.

  He rested the guitar on his lap and prepared to play a few chords and go to the place he went when playing. A quiet place with no sounds or time or memory. But the last time he picked up his guitar, she was sat with him. To play now would be unfaithful.

  As he stood to put it back, knowing he would never play again, he paused. The guitar firmly in his hands. He had never been in a band; he only played for pleasure, and then, for her. And she was dead. With one hand still on the neck he held the base with the other and drove it down onto his knee, snapping it in half, the neck swinging wildly, still attached by the strings. It would never make music again.

  Dropping it on the floor he sat and put his head in his hands. Chris let himself cry. It was right to have snapped the guitar. It was right that he couldn’t ever play it again, and neither could anyone else. It was only for Julia. But it still broke his heart because of the memory attached to it. One of the best times in his life.

  Wiping tears from his eyes he picked up the beheaded instrument and rested it back where it had always lived. Disfigured and dead. He needed a drink, to numb this fresh wave of grief. As he stepped into the kitchen he heard the sound of footsteps in high heels walking towards his front door. It caused him to panic. The steps sounded official. Ducking down he scuttled towards the doorframe that connected his lounge to the hallway and pressed himself against it. He peered out towards the door. He hoped she would post something and walk away but she didn’t. She hesitated, and then he heard three quiet taps.

  The train girl was back.

  ‘Chris?’

  Hearing her voice startled him.

  ‘Chris? Can we talk?’

  He didn’t want to talk to anyone. Especially her. But he didn’t know what else to do. He still had eleven long days. If he didn’t talk now then she would be back again and again and maybe even on the day when he needed to leave his house for the final time.

  ‘Chris, I know you’re in. Please, just talk to me. I just want to know if you’re okay.’

  Chris realized part of him wanted to tell her he wasn’t. He wanted to say that today had been one of the hardest since Julia died but her death had to remain a secret so no one else would be hurt and he could join her without anyone stopping him. If the train girl knew he wasn’t okay she would keep coming. But if he told her he was okay she would know he was lying and still want to help. So he just sat there, peering out towards his door. Not saying anything.

  ‘Listen, I know you’re in there. I can see your upstairs light on and I also know you’ll ignore me, which is fine – whatever.’

  He’d left an upstairs light on? When had he done that? Had it been on all day alerting anyone who would want to know that he was in? He cursed himself for being careless.

  ‘I know it’s weird me just turning up but I’ve been in London today, on a course, and had to come via Peterborough so I thought, whilst I was here, I would come and say hello. I hope you don’t
mind?’

  She waited for him to say something, only to be greeted by silence. ‘I should hate you.’ Her voice suddenly sounded angry. ‘You know I’ve not been able to forget about you since that night; you know that right? Not a single day goes by without me wondering how you are. You haunt my dreams. You haunt me when I’m awake. I was in London today and it was busy at Kings Cross and a young man was stood on his own, close to the edge, and I thought he was going to jump. I can’t look at anyone standing close to a platform edge without immediately thinking they’re going to jump now. That’s because of you, Chris. That’s on you.’

  Holding his breath Chris crept to his front door, as quietly as he could, knowing he should either retreat to his garden and block out her sound or scream at her to go away.

  ‘You’ve ended up being everywhere, and I wish I could let you go. Instead I follow you home after randomly seeing you in the city. Eventually I pluck up the courage to knock on your door not once but twice despite you clearly not wanting me to.’

  ***

  She stopped talking and looked at her feet as the realization of what she had just said hit her.

  ‘Please say something?’

  She realized that despite her career thriving and her relationship with her sister being better than ever before she was terribly and desperately alone. Because of him.

  ‘And it doesn’t stop there. John, my ex, he messages me more now than ever, and today would have been our five-year anniversary. I’ve blocked him now, this evening in fact. I know he’s a bastard and I deserve better but I’ve closed that door because that night you made me see that there’s another way, that men can be better. Men can care! Someone reminded me there is some good in the world despite that person now hiding from me.’

  ***

  Sarah went silent for a moment and Chris shifted his weight to get his ear closer to the door. When she spoke again, it was softer, more vulnerable. ‘I loved him, Chris. And I can’t any more.’

  Chris placed his head in his hands, trying not to let her honest words upset him. He didn’t want to know this woman, he didn’t want her in his life, and he didn’t want to impact hers in such a negative way. And yet, her voice was soothing to him, calming him in a way only one person could before.

  She needed to go but he wanted her to stay; he hated himself for it.

  ‘When I first met him I knew straight away I couldn’t see anyone else; it was just me and this perfect stranger. He didn’t know I existed of course – and why would he? I don’t suppose you would understand.’

  He understood. It reminded him of when he first saw Julia in that bar all those years before, her carefree laugh and his terror at trying to talk to her. Most of the memories of Julia made him sad. This one in particular he struggled with the most.

  ‘That was five years ago. Five years.’

  ***

  I thought about those five long years of me hoping John would be the right one and couldn’t help but think I had wasted all of that time. Getting a cigarette from my bag I looked to the trees that gently swayed in the evening wind and wondered what five years meant to them. How much had they grown? Would they even notice five years like humans do? Would time matter in the same way?

  I wondered what I could have achieved in those years if I didn’t meet John. I could have been married with children, or have immigrated as I always dreamt of doing, the north western shores of New Zealand beckoning me. Or would I be where I was now but in a more senior role? I wondered if I’d not wasted those years with him, would Chris have died as he planned?

  On the other side of the door I heard him exhale, quietly but still loud enough for me to realize he was there. Turning around slowly I raised myself to my knees and pulled back his letter box to look inside. I could see his dark messy hair. He was only a few inches away from me, listening. Quietly I closed it again and sat back down.

  ‘Chris, I know you’re there.’

  I waited, but he said nothing.

  ‘I just want to know if you’re okay.’

  Silence again.

  ‘Chris?’

  A sadness began to build inside me. I was trying to make him talk to me, trying to show that I cared for him, and he couldn’t even say hello. It had taken so much of my courage and strength to be on his doorstep and he couldn’t even acknowledge my existence. I was opening up to him and he was more closed off than before. I thought of that time when I saw the train driver’s pitying look as he drove past and I wondered what he would think of me now, of how low I had gotten for the sake of someone who didn’t care one way or another. Enough was enough.

  ‘You know what, Chris, fuck you. Fuck you for your silence and fuck you for being on my mind as much as you are.’

  Then he spoke. His words not being what I was expecting.

  ‘I don’t care what you think. Get off my doorstep. Leave me alone.’

  Getting up, I flicked my cigarette, his words cutting me deeper than I had ever felt before. I knew he didn’t care for me as much as I did for him, but I also knew I had gotten through to him. And he knew that someone wanted to help. For him to say he didn’t care was possibly the worst thing he could have said. I had never wanted to be home more than I did then, not even the night I discovered he wanted to die. I knew then that Chris was as bad for me as anyone else I had ever fallen for – possibly worse.

  ‘Fine, Chris, I’m going. But just so you know, I went back to that station every night waiting for you to come back.’

  ***

  Although he would get what he wanted by letting her hate him the idea of it wasn’t something he enjoyed. Those words spoken aloud were clearly so difficult to say and hearing her tell him she went back to March train station made him feel terrible. This was exactly what he hadn’t wanted; he hadn’t wanted his actions to affect anyone else.

  Pressing his ear to the door he heard her walk away until her footsteps were no longer audible. Confident she was gone Chris rubbed his eyebrows with the balls of his hands and then hit himself, as if he could beat her out of his head. He hated that he needed her to know he cared. He hated that he wanted to speak with her. He hated that he was being an arsehole to protect her and she would never know.

  He walked upstairs, a heavy feeling in his legs, but before he could make it to the top he turned around and headed back to his door. He pressed his ear against it and tried to hear if she had returned. Then grabbing the handle he paused for a second before opening it. He half expected, or rather hoped, she would be stood at the end of his path but she wasn’t.

  The ground felt cold on his bare feet as he walked to the roadside and looked right. In the distance, her head low, he could see her walking back to the city. It made him feel something, and not knowing why he wondered how he would have felt if he’d let Julia walk away from him when he first met her. He almost called out to Sarah, but stopped himself before he did. He needed her to hate him. He needed her to never come back.

  He went back into his house, closed the door, sat down, and cried long and hard. He hated what he had become. He hated the man he now was, a man his father wouldn’t be able to look in the eye any more. He tried to think of his dad, of one of his stories or life lessons he was so good at sharing with Chris when he was young. But his image stayed hidden in the shadows of his memory, ashamed.

  Chris walked into his kitchen and grabbed his phone. After scrolling to Steve’s messages he began to type. He knew he shouldn’t. But the weight of his world was beginning to crush him. He wouldn’t tell Steve anything other than he and Julia hadn’t spoken recently and he was starting to become frustrated with the lack of communication from his wife; maybe he could even say he was worried about her. He just needed something that would resemble normality after nearly a year of secret grieving. He needed someone to grieve with, but he could never tell.

  Instead he typed: ‘Hi mate, sorry it’s been so long. I really need a drink. Are you free this evening?’

  Chapter 20

  11.38 p.
m. – Cherry Orton Road, Peterborough

  Sat at his kitchen table, Steve was shaken as he pressed a packet of frozen peas to his face. He could feel the swelling coming out across his eye and knew that he was going to have a huge bruise by morning. Some people already thought he looked like a thug; a swollen eye wouldn’t help his cause. With three meetings in the next week with potential clients, he would need a good excuse for a battered face. He’d already decided that he did it playing rugby. The swollen eye wasn’t what troubled him. Nor the fact he had been punched in the face. What troubled him was who had hit him.

  Hearing footsteps coming down the stairs he turned his body slightly so Kristy wouldn’t notice the swollen eye as soon she stepped into the room.

  ‘Sorry, darling, did I wake you?’

  ‘No, not at all. I was just worried. Why haven’t you come to bed?’

  ‘I just needed some time to think.’

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘I don’t know, honey.’

  Turning, Steve looked at his wife, wincing as he did so.

  ‘Jesus! Steve, what happened to your face?’

  ‘There was a fight.’

  ‘What do you mean there was a fight?’

  ‘In the pub tonight.’

  Kneeling beside Steve, Kristy placed the pea bag back onto his eye, receiving a grimace in return.

  ‘God, Steve!’

  ‘It’s not as bad as it looks.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Chris happened.’

  Steve then relived the evening as he told his wife about the events. How when he got to The Corner Lounge Chris was there and, as before, he was already drunk. Steve told her how he seemed edgy, wired, not himself. He noticed how Chris struggled to make eye contact all evening, his eyes always darting from side to side, watching the room. And when last orders were called he stood and walked out of the pub without saying goodbye, leaving Steve at the table confused.