by R. A. Casey
Because I’m starting to wonder.
Appearing at Broughton, conveniently, the same day I was there?
The very same day I found the parcel in the woods?
I tense up.
The silhouette standing outside the other week.
The duo Moira told me about, too.
Could they have been there all along?
Could they have sneaked inside?
Taken the parcel from me?
Working with Calvin—or Cameron or whoever the hell he was—all along?
It doesn’t add up. It doesn’t make sense.
There’s only one reason why Glynn might be doing this to me, and I can’t see how that is possible.
Because why now?
Why now, after all these years?
But nothing is making sense. Nothing at all. All I know is the parcel—the note, the strands of hair—they are real. They are real, and I have evidence they are real now.
I decide to grab my MacBook and log into Facebook and do some Glynn stalking. It’s years since I’ve logged in. Deactivated a long, long time ago.
But I figure if I sign in now, all my old friends—or rather Gregg’s old friends—will still be on there.
I enter my email. My old password, the same one I use for everything. MiniCooperRed1980. Capitals, numbers, always the best way, or so Gregg used to tell me, even though he insisted mine wasn’t quite strong enough because it was too easy to guess, too…
A shiver creeps up my spine.
0891deRrepooCiniM
The username.
The Snapchat username I received the image from.
It’s my password.
My password in reverse.
I start to shake. Another sign that this person, whoever the hell it is, knows things about me they shouldn’t know.
They know my Snapchat account name. How? I don’t give that out to anybody.
And they know my password, too.
Fuck.
All these years I’ve spent convincing myself I can get away with one random password, and finally, it’s come back to bite me.
But as Facebook logs in and I am welcomed by people and acquaintances I once cared about, I am distracted. I can worry about the password later. I need to check on Glynn now.
I search his name in my friends list. No sign. Shit. Must’ve deactivated or deleted. Not surprising, really. We were friends when Gregg and I were together, but I deleted before the whole fallout of the affair. And I didn’t really log in after that anyway, so he could’ve deleted me right away for all I know.
I type his name into the search bar.
Glynn Maynard
Nothing at all.
Shit.
I delete his name. Then I decide to take a look at his wife’s profile. See if I can find anything out about her and him.
I type in her name. Holly Maynard. But I’m struggling to find her. Loads of Holly Maynards.
I’m about to give up when I see her.
There she is.
Holly Maynard.
Blonde and beautiful as ever.
I click on her profile and am surprised to see a photo of her and Glynn. Look like they’re abroad somewhere. Palm trees in the background. Nice tans.
Alan standing in front of them.
He looks older. So much more mature. Always used to be such a cheeky chappy.
But there’s this look to him.
A look I can’t pinpoint. That I can’t put my finger on.
This deadness to his eyes.
But there’s something else that catches my attention. That I hone in on above anything else.
Holly’s photo.
It was uploaded a week ago.
She and Glynn are still together.
I sit there. Laptop on my knee. Stare at the screen. I don’t understand. Gregg told me he met Glynn. That Glynn and Holly split up.
Then why is Holly still posting photos of her and Glynn?
Why is—
The front door opens and makes me jump.
I’m immediately greeted with the smell of Chinese food.
Freddie stands there, wiping his shoes. “Sarah,” he says. “Sorry. Nipped out to grab Chinese for us. King Prawn Fried Rice and curry sauce. That good?”
I smile. Nod. “That’s… That’s good. Listen. Freddie. I have to—”
“Before you start,” he says. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
I freeze. Dread creeps up my spine. Something is wrong. He knows something. Or something has happened.
I remember the texts.
The urgency with which he wanted me home.
And I wonder just what is going on.
“What?” I say, trying to be as calm as I can.
He stands there. Stares at me for a moment.
Then a big smile bursts across his face. “Managed to book us a last-minute flight to the Costa del Sol. Next weekend. One week. No work. None of this crap. Just a chill on the beach with plenty of cocktails. Put all this shit of the last few weeks behind us. Just for a little while. Our time. What do you reckon?”
I want to smile.
I want to thank him.
I want to be so grateful.
But instead, I burst into tears.
“Sarah?”
He puts the Chinese down. Walks over to me. Wraps those big arms around me.
“What’s wrong? I thought—I thought you’d be happy.”
I want to lie to him. I want to convince him all is good. That everything is okay.
But I can’t keep the pretence going any longer.
“I am happy. Really. But I… I need to show you something, Freddie.”
I reach for my phone. Pull it out of my pocket. Open my photos. Go to tap on the screenshot.
And then I freeze.
“It… it was here.”
“What was there, Sarah? What is it?”
I stare at my photo library.
There is no trace of the photo.
I close the photos. Go into my recently deleted.
It’s not there either.
“It—I got a screenshot of it. It was here.”
“Sarah, you’re scaring me a little.”
“They sent me a Snap,” I say.
“A what?”
“The person. The person who—who is following me. Who is tormenting me. They sent me a snap, and I screenshotted it, and it’s… it’s gone.”
I look up at Freddie, and I can see in his eyes already that he doubts me.
“They’ve got an account,” I say. “I can show you. Their username. It’s like my password. It’s… I’ll show you.”
I open Snapchat, barely able to keep my hands still.
I go to click on the message again, even though I know it’ll be gone and even though I know I won’t be able to see it again.
But again, I freeze.
There is no message there.
The profile is gone.
There is no trace of 0891deRrepooCiniM on my Snapchat.
Or of the note and the strands of hair in my photos.
It’s gone.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“It… it was here, Freddie.”
I stand and stare at my phone and try to wrap my head around it.
The photo.
The screenshot of the note.
I KNOW EVERYTHING
And the other thing.
The strands of blonde hair with blood specks on it.
I took a screenshot of it from Snapchat.
And now it is gone.
Not even in my Recently Deleted.
Totally gone.
“Sarah,” Freddie says. I can sense he’s trying to calm me. Trying to reassure me. But it’s not working.
“I had a photo,” I say. “A—a screenshot.”
“I think you should sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit down.”
“Lower your voice. Please.”
I know he’s right. I know it makes
sense. I know I can’t lose my shit. Not now.
But everything from today is just driving me crazy.
The Gregg thing.
The Glynn thing.
The Snapchat account with my password as the name.
And now this…
The account. Vanishing.
No trace it ever even existed at all.
“Do you believe me?” I ask.
I see it in his eyes again. Sadness. But also disappointment, too.
He’s booked a holiday for us. Done something for the pair of us to get us away. To take our minds off all the shit we’ve both been through lately.
And after things have gone so much calmer lately, so much more peaceful, this goes and happens.
“Do you believe me, Freddie?”
He opens his mouth. And I can tell he’s about to tell me what he wants me to hear. He’s about to comfort me. He’s about to reassure me.
Then he closes his mouth and shakes his head.
“No, Sarah. No, I don’t.”
It hits me like a punch to the gut. Hearing it as clear as day.
My boyfriend doesn’t believe me.
And he isn’t even pretending to believe me anymore.
“It’s like I said. I believe you truly believe what you’re saying. I don’t think you’re lying to me or anything. Not consciously. But I… I’ve got to look at the evidence, Sarah. And you haven’t even told me what was in this parcel yet. You haven’t let me into the doctor’s with you. You haven’t told me anything other than you had a breakdown after Charlie disappeared, and it sent you a bit… downhill. And I feel like that’s happening again. And I… I’m starting to feel like it’s time we got someone else involved.”
I narrow my eyes. I don’t know what he’s saying. What he’s implying.
“What’re you talking about?”
He lifts his phone. “I’m—I’m going to ring somebody. The meds, I thought they were helping at first; I really did. But now I’m starting to wonder if we need… more help than that.”
My heart races.
My stomach tightens.
I know what he is saying. What he is implying now.
“You’re—you’re going to have me sectioned, aren’t you?”
“I don’t want to do this, Sarah.”
“Fuck. You—you think I’m crazy. You think I’m insane—”
“Look at the fucking evidence in front of me, Sarah! Look at things from my perspective for one fucking moment. You’re saying things that don’t make sense. You’re claiming things are there when they aren’t. And you won’t be specific about anything. Anything at all. I love you. And I’m not leaving you. I want to help you. But… but you’re not cooperating with me. You’re not opening up to me.”
“I want to. I really want to.”
“Then tell me where you were today.”
I open my mouth. I can’t tell whether this is a test or not. Whether he already knows.
“Tell me, Sarah. Please.”
I want to lie. I want to cover up the truth.
But I don’t see how I can anymore.
I don’t see where it will get me.
“I was at Gregg’s,” I say.
Silence. A pause. I can barely bring myself to look into his eyes.
“Gregg’s?”
“Gregg’s. My—my ex-husband.”
“Your ex…”
He looks away. I can see his eyes are bloodshot. Tearful. I can see how upset he is. How little he understands.
“There’s nothing going on,” I say before he can suggest it. He does get a bit jealous like that. “I went to see him because I wanted him to confirm a few things about my past.”
He looks right at me. “And that’s why you visited him the other week, too?”
I frown. “I didn’t…”
“Don’t bullshit me, Sarah. I know you’ve been sneaking off a lot lately. That where you went instead of the doctors the other week, too?”
“I… No. That wasn’t to see Gregg.”
“Then where was it?”
Fuck. Where did I say I’d gone?
Because I can’t tell him the truth on this.
Not because there’s anything sordid going on. There isn’t.
Not because I’m technically doing anything wrong.
Just… because.
“I—I met Cindy.”
“No,” he says. “No, you didn’t.”
“I—I think I—”
“Why don’t we give Cindy a call then?”
I frown. My throat tenses up. “I don’t—I don’t want to involve her in this.”
“The famous, mystery Cindy. Why don’t you pick up your phone and give her a call right now?”
“Freddie. Please don’t make me do this. Please.”
“Okay. I don’t want to play mean here. But I’m going to give you a choice. Pick up the phone. Ring Cindy. Or I ring the police, and I’ll see about getting you get sectioned for your own good.”
“You—you wouldn’t.”
“Cindy, Sarah,” he says. “Do it.”
I lift my phone and can’t believe this is happening.
I open my contacts.
I scroll through.
Right down to Cindy.
And I don’t know what to say.
What to do.
I look back up at him. “I—”
“Now. Now.”
I think about hitting a random contact.
I think about telling him some lie.
I think about hiding, and I think about pretending.
But at this moment, this dark moment where I feel so lost and cornered, there is only one thing I can do.
I lower my phone.
I put it in my pocket.
Freddie watches me. Narrows his eyes.
“So you won’t ring her? Not even for me?”
I swallow a lump in my throat and prepare for my whole world to fall apart.
“I won’t ring her because I can’t,” I say.
Freddie frowns. “What—what are you talking about?”
“I can’t ring her,” I say, wanting to fall into a hole, wanting to die, wanting all this to end. “I can’t ring her because… because she doesn’t exist.”
Freddie is silent.
But I can still hear my own words echoing around the room, around my mind.
“What?” he says.
“She doesn’t exist,” I say. “I don’t have a best friend called Cindy. I didn’t go to meet her. I never have. Cindy—Cindy doesn’t exist.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Okay. So maybe I’ve not been entirely honest about some things.
But it’s like I said earlier.
If you thought I was being entirely honest about everything, you really haven’t been paying attention, have you?
It’s not for any bad reasons, though. I don’t have any nefarious intentions. It’s just the way we all are, right?
Don’t we all keep secrets from ourselves?
Don’t we all tell ourselves lies because the truth is a whole lot harder to swallow the vast majority of the time?
Don’t we live fantasies?
Don’t we gloss over the darkness of the past and emphasise the light—and vice versa, where necessary?
Aren’t deep down, we all just messed up fuckers?
Lying is human nature.
And I’m the most honest fucking person here because I actually dare to admit that, so don’t you dare judge me for it.
I stand in my living room opposite Freddie. I still can’t believe the words just exited my mouth.
And the way Freddie is looking at me, neither can he.
“What—what do you mean Cindy doesn’t exist?”
I hear Freddie say those words, and I can’t believe I’ve actually said it. I can’t believe I’ve actually admitted it to him.
The number of times I’ve said I’m off for coffee with her.
The number of times I’ve told him she won’t be
coming around for whatever fucking reason or other.
The number of times I have lied to him.
I’ve hidden the truth from him because I wanted to protect him.
And pretending I have a best friend. Pretending there is actually somebody out there who cares. Sometimes that makes me easier to digest for other people. Makes me seem more… well. Normal. Ordinary.
And sometimes I tell myself I have someone, too. Just so I feel a little more normal in this world.
A little less… lonely.
Is there any harm in that, really?
“Sarah?” Freddie says. And I can hear the urgency in his voice now. The intensity. “Speak to me. What do you mean Cindy isn’t real? What… what are you talking about?”
I look at him, and I don’t know what to say. So I simply shake my head, and I shrug. “I don’t have a friend called Cindy. What else can I say?”
“But—but you meet her. For coffee and lunch and—”
“You’ve never met her, have you?”
He opens his mouth. “But… but you even went for a weekend away with her. A couple of months back. What… Where were you, Sarah? What—what’s happening?”
I hear his questions and see the confusion, and I feel so desperately sorry for him. But really, I was fooling myself, wasn’t I?
Did I really expect to spend my whole life with this man and for him never to find out the truth about me?
Did I really plan on keeping this from him forever?
And just how deluded does that make me?
“I lied to you,” I say. “I lied to myself. And I’m sorry. Really—”
“You’re insane.”
I hear his words, and they cut me deep. “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I probably am.”
“You need help, Sarah. All this time and you’ve been lying to me.”
“It’s not like it sounds.”
“So what is it?”
“What?”
“Is it another bloke or something?”
“Freddie, no. That’s not how it is—”
“It’s him, isn’t it?”
“Who?”
“Gregg. All along, it’s him.”
“Freddie,” I say. “I am not having an affair. I know how this sounds. And you are right. I… I do need help. But I can tell you something else, too. I am not crazy when it comes to the things that have been happening to me. I know what is happening. And I believe it. Really. I do. But… but you’re right. It’s time I started being honest with you about things. Fully honest with you about things.”