Seven Lies (ARC)
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that their love— a romantic love— would and must subsume ours. And
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yet our love— one that flourished strolling shoulder to shoulder down
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school corridors, on coaches to day trip destinations, on sleepovers—
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seemed so much more deserving of a lifetime together.
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Every Friday, at around eleven in the evening when I left their flat, I
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found myself saying goodbye to a love that had shaped me, defined
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me, decided me. It always felt so cruel to be both within it and without
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it all at once.
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And a truth that I knew then— and one that I still cannot fully
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comprehend— is that, crueler still, it was a situation entirely of my own 04
making. I am wholly responsible for that first detached limb, for that
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first broken bone, for that first forgotten memory.
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Chapter Three
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Three months after I met Jonathan, I moved to live with him in his
maisonette in Islington. We were young, yes, but we were com-
pletely, utterly, entirely in love. It was unexpectedly easy, in a way that 15
something new rarely is. It was lively and exciting, in a way that my simple 16
life rarely was. I had loved living with Marnie— I had been happy— and
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yet eventually I began to crave something more, something other.
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I had spent most of my childhood in a home that seemed loving
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from the outside but consistently failed to deliver on that promise. My
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parents were twenty- five years married before they divorced. But they
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should have separated much sooner, because their squabbling and bick-
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ering made our family home intolerable.
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The short version is that my father was a philanderer. He had a
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twenty- year affair with his secretary, and there were many other
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women who danced in and out of his affections over the course of my
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parents’ marriage. My sister was four years younger, and so I did what I
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could to protect her from the noise and the drama and the tension. I
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took her out and turned the music up and was forever distracting her
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with promises of something interesting somewhere else. But I suppose
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that’s another story for another time. What I mean to say is that I—
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perhaps more than most— was susceptible to the ideals of a romantic
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love. I adored Marnie. But this new love consumed me completely.
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Jonathan and I met on Oxford Street when we were both twenty-
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two years old. It was six in the evening and we were heading to our
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respective homes at opposite poles of the city. The station entrances
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were gated, as they so often are, due to overcrowding on the platforms.
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The sky was dark, threatening rain, and thick gray clouds passed quickly
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over our heads.
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Jonathan and I— unbeknownst to each other— were both enmeshed
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in the crowd queuing to enter the ticket hall. The throng felt like its
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own person, with its own consciousness, an impatient desire to be any-
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where else emanating from us as one. I could feel other bodies invading
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my own: arms squeezed against mine, thigh on thigh in a way that
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seemed far too familiar, someone’s chest forced against the back of my
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head. We were pressed together so tightly that I couldn’t see beyond
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the back of the man standing in front of me.
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Eventually there was a clanging, metal on metal, somewhere up ahead
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as the gates were opened from the inside. The crowd began to vibrate,
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everyone readying themselves. The man in front of me— blocking my
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view— leaned forward and then, as I stepped into his empty space, he
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staggered back. He bumped into me and I into the person behind. The
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two sides of the crowd shuffled forward steadily as we, there in the center, 20
sent a surge, a rolling wave, pushing the middle in the wrong direction.
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“What the . . . ?” I said, regaining my balance.
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“ You . . .” he said, turning to face me.
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I knew. As I had with Marnie. Immediately, I knew. It sounds so
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stupid, so naive, I know. People have levied that criticism against me
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hundreds of times— when I moved in with him, when I agreed to marry
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him, even on the eve of our wedding. And all I could say in response to
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them then and all I can say to you now is that I hope one day you
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know, too.
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I suppose that it was different with Marnie. We were both looking
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for someone. The next seven years at that school were stretching out in
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front of us and neither one of us wanted to live that alone. The joy we
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felt at finding each other was heightened by an overwhelming sense of
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relief.
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Whereas with Jonathan . . . I don’t know. I had never felt like the
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sort of woman who would fall in love in that way. And so there was no
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want, no empty space, no something that needed substantiating. I sim-
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ply saw him and I knew instinctively that I
needed to know him better.
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I could tell you how it felt with words that over the decades have be-
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come synonymous with great love, but those truisms were never true
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for me. The world didn’t fall away beneath my feet; instead I felt solid
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and substantial in a way that I never had before. There were no trem-
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bling hands, no quivering hearts, no faces flushed with pink. There were
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no butterflies. There was simply the sense that he felt, for me, like the 13
home I’d always needed but never really known.
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“ You . . .” I said, straightening the lapels of my coat. His eyes
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were olive green, and as he stared at me, bewildered, I felt this inap-
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propriate urge to lift my palm to his cheek. “You just— ”
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“My scarf,” he said, gesturing toward the floor. “You stood on my
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scarf.”
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“I did no such— ” I looked down. I was still standing on the tassels of
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his navy scarf. “Oh,” I said, quickly stepping aside. “Sorry.”
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“You want to fucking get on with it,” came a voice from behind us,
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loud and gruff, the voice of the crowd.
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“Yes, right,” he said, turning around. “Sorry.”
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He began to shuffle forward and I followed, smiling in an inane,
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vacuous way, my face still pressed tightly between his shoulder blades.
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We stayed like that, forced together, through the ticket hall, down the
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escalator, and toward the platforms. At some point we began talking.
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And I couldn’t tell you now what it was that we said, but when it was
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time to separate, he to go north and I to go south, we were squabbling
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both about the scarf and about a pub that he said didn’t exist.
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“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I’ve been there
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dozens of times. I could take you there right now.”
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“Okay,” he replied.
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People were rushing around us, filtering into two streams, one on
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either side of us, and dispersing onto the platforms.
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“What?” I asked.
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“Let’s go,” he replied.
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The pub did exist, as I’d said it would: a traditional wood- paneled,
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almost medieval hideaway with low ceilings and an open fire. It was—
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and still is, although I haven’t been there in years— called The Windsor 08
Castle. It’s ten minutes from Oxford Circus and tucked down a narrow
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cobbled street, a welcome nod to an older version of the city that stood
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long before the towering flagship stores and coffee shops that repeat
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every hundred yards.
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We stayed there for hours, until the landlady rang her bell for
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last orders, when we trundled back to the ticket hall, now almost
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empty, and said our goodbyes with kisses— which were entirely out of
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character— and promises of next time. I felt something shift inside me
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when he lifted his hands from my hips. As I watched him walk away
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from me, his dark green coat flapping at his thighs, I knew that I loved
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him already.
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That love was the foundation on which I would have— could have—
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built a life. There is a version of this world in which Jonathan and I are 21
still together, still smitten. We promised each other an unyielding love, 22
a life that celebrated laughter and a bond that would never for a mo-
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ment waver. It is sometimes impossible to believe that we failed to de-
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liver on something that once seemed so certain.
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He asked me to marry him a year later— to the day— in that very
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same pub. He knelt awkwardly on one knee and told me that he’d
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planned a speech, he’d learned it by heart, but that he couldn’t remem-
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ber a single word he’d wanted to say. But he’d love me for as long as he
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lived, he said, if that was enough for now.
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I thought it was more than enough for me.
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We were married that autumn in a registry office. We had no guests
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and we celebrated with the most expensive champagne that the nearest
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off- license stocked. We went to The Windsor Castle for our wedding
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breakfast. It felt only right that it should be the headquarters for all the 04
major milestones of our relationship. I placed our order at the bar, care-05
fully enunciating as I declared that my husband would like a burger.
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The bartender rolled her eyes but smiled, vaguely amused by this young
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bride in a pale blue dress and her groom in a green tie. Our desserts—
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brownies accompanied by vanilla ice cream— were served with Con-
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gratulations written in chocolate icing around the rim of each plate.
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We wheeled our bags to Waterloo and caught the train down to the
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south coast to stay in a small bed- and- breakfast in a seaside town called 12
Beer. We arrived late that evening and checked in, announcing in the
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way that only newlyweds do that the room was booked for Mr. and
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Mrs. Black.
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“For Jane?” said the elderly woman managing the front desk. It was
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nearly ten o’clock and she was clearly keen that we recognize the incon-
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venience.
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“Yes,” I replied. “For Jane Black.” She could say whatever she liked,
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do whatever she wanted, and none of it could even begin to scratch at
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the edges of my happiness.
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“Upstairs, end of the corridor, on the right.” She held out a small
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gold key attached by a thin gold chain to a thick wooden slab engraved
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with the word four. “Anything else?”
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We shook our heads.
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Jonathan carried our bags upstairs, down the hallway, and into our
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room. The floorboards were dark wood and the bedspread embroidered
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mall pastel flowers. The curtains— the color of rust— had been
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drawn closed and a small pink lampshade shone softly in the corner. A
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miniature bottle of champagne had been left in an ice bucket on an old-
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fashioned mahogany desk. He popped the cork and poured two glasses,
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and we toasted our wedding a second time.
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We woke the following morning as the sun rose and speckled our bed-03
spread yellow and orange. I remember the warmth of his chest against
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my back as he bent himself around me, the soft skin of his palm smooth-
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ing my stomach and his lips against my shoulder blade. I remember how
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it felt to be enveloped by him, to be wrapped so safely inside someone
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else, and the way his hands would turn me toward him, his kisses would
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shift and solidify, when he wanted something more.
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It was only later, when there was a knock at the door and a woman
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apologetically handed over the towels that should have been left in the
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bathroom, that we scrambled from the bed and made a plan for the day.
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I pulled back the curtains and looked out at the sea. It was flattened
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across the horizon and bordered on either side by white cliffs topped
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with thick green grass. It was October and yet the sky was bright,
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cloudless, welcoming.
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We pulled on our walking boots and our thick woolen jumpers.
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Outside, the beach was pebbled. I started along the path toward it,
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toward the sea, toward the waves that rolled inward, collapsing against
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the shore.
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“This way,” called Jonathan, pointing upward instead at the cliffs
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above. “I think we should go this way.”
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And so we climbed the road, marching along the pavement, past
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parked cars and curtained windows, until we reached a grassy verge
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with signs about hours and bank holidays and a small ticket machine.
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“Let’s keep going,” said Jonathan, weaving through the few parked
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vans and across the grass.
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From then, we walked in silence, sometimes hand in hand, some-
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times he was in front and I behind, getting distracted by something and
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then rushing to catch up.
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He was always so focused, particularly outdoors, always there with