Seven Lies (ARC)
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too. It was a very different loss. Jonathan disappeared all at once.
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Whereas Marnie was slipping away. I was the sand: solid and static and
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stuck in one spot. And she was the sea: being sucked from me, siphoned
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away by a force greater than either of us.
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There had been a moment in which she might have chosen me. She
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could have asked him to leave instead. She could have stepped away
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from his arm around her waist. And yet she didn’t. Because she be-
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lieved what he was saying, that he was innocent, that the lies were
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mine. There are some natural disasters so devastating that it is almost
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impossible to recover all that has been lost.
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I stood and I walked along the grassy verge and back toward the
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hotel. I contemplated settling the bill and heading straight back to Lon-
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don. But I had committed to paying for the room already and so I un-
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packed my small rucksack and ran a bath so hot that the steam clouded
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the metal taps and the mirror and filled the room. I undressed and slid
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beneath the water, feeling it pull at my hair as my face broke back
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through the surface. The sun was low in the sky, decorating the tiles in
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shadow. I heard voices floating up from the road underneath my win-
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dow, a young girl squealing delightedly and the resonating laugh of a
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much older man.
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I stood up in the bath, the water lapping at my calves, and I peered
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out through the mottled glass, pressing my body against the wall to
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shield it from sight. She was very young, maybe seven or eight, and
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wearing only a swimsuit. Her father was wearing swim shorts, still wet,
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the water seeping into the hem of his T- shirt, and I remembered when
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my father walked around like that, on beach holidays in Cornwall, after
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a day spent nestled in sand. A woman— her mother— was behind them,
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two towels flung over her shoulder and a big woven basket swinging by
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her ankles. The girl started laughing again and bent in the middle, liter-22
ally doubled over, unable to continue walking because the movement
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within her was just so much. Her father was laughing, too— at her, at
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her joy, at her fearless, noisy laughter. I wanted so much to be part of
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that family.
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I pulled on my dressing gown, grabbed the hair dryer from beneath
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the sink, and went back into the bedroom. I plugged it in. I would dry
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my hair. I would put on my clothes. And I would be part of that family.
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I don’t mean literally. I wouldn’t literally be part of that family.
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But I was determined to be part of something more than myself.
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I walked back along the corridor and through the reception area. I
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stepped out of the doors and onto a narrow road, bookended on either
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side by two small streams. There were lights everywhere: in the pubs,
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in the restaurants, in other hotels. I walked toward the sea, along a path 02
with a steep slope down to the pebbled beach. There were children,
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naked but for the towels wrapped around their shoulders, skipping up
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and down, running to the top and then back to meet their parents, who
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were climbing more slowly, tired after a long day of sand and sea and
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games. There were two men carrying parasols and windbreakers and
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with sunglasses propped on their foreheads. And two women with
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their hair pulled back in tight ponytails, damp bikini triangles im-
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printed on their linen shirts.
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I tried to imagine myself in the shoes of one of those women, ruck-
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sack on my back, my children circling, sand embedded in the creases of
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my elbows, and I couldn’t help but imagine Jonathan there at my side,
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a brightly colored parasol slung over his shoulder.
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Even then, I couldn’t envisage a version of my future without him in
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it. Which was ridiculous. Because, by then, he had been dead for longer
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than we’d known one another.
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And yet it felt like no time at all.
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Before he died, I had never given much thought to widowhood. Al-
19
though I suppose if you had asked for my thoughts on it, I’d have offered 20
a confident, considered response. I had lost grandparents and I knew
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the weight of that familiar ache. Those losses had been substantial—
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the culmination of long, well- lived lives— and yet their passing felt
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insignificant, too. Those deaths were not tragedies. They did not be-
24
come ghosts.
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Whereas Jonathan did. I still carry him into every conversation. I
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bring him to every table. I am the young woman whose husband died.
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His ghost sits beside me at weddings— do you know that she was mar-
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ried, yes, she was, her husband died— and at funerals— she buried her 29
husband a few years ago, did you know, yes, her husband died.
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He is there in every future, in every hope, in every dream.
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He haunts me, always.
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Chapter Fifteen
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I visited Emma on my way home. She was living in a studio flat south
of the river. It was a twenty- minute walk from the nearest tube sta-
tion and the closest bus stop was almost ten minutes away and across
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an unlit car park. I didn’t have much to spare, but even with my small
16
contribution and the odd payment from my mother’s account, it was all
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that she could aff
ord.
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We’d become even closer since she’d moved out of our parents’
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house. Away from my mother— who’d always insisted on being part of
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whatever we did together— we discovered that we really quite liked
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each other. She was refreshingly honest, as only a sister can be. And I
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think— and I hope that this doesn’t sound petty— that being needed by
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her was fulfilling for me.
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She didn’t work regularly anymore. She had been a freelance editor
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and, for a while, she was incredibly busy, with manuscripts stacked on
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the linoleum tiles, working through the night in order to meet her
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deadlines, always in demand. She’d been so diligent and focused, never
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afraid to interrogate a problem, to ask the difficult questions. But her
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concentration dwindled, and she started to pore over every text, too
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indecisive, afraid that she might upset a rhythm, taking so long that
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eventually everyone stopped sending her new projects. She then spent
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much of her time working with local charities. But it was all voluntary.
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I stood on the balcony in front of her flat and banged on the bright
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red door. There was a doorbell nailed to the frame, but it had never
02
worked.
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“I’m coming!” she yelled as I banged a second time. “Learn some
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fucking manners.”
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“Oh,” she said when she opened the door. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
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“Clearly,” I said. “Is that how you greet everyone?”
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The front door opened straight into the only room: the lounge, the
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kitchen, the dining room, and the bedroom all combined in one small
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space. The kitchen was at one end; the white units were relatively new
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but the floor tiles were speckled orange. The blinds were made of plas-
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tic and held together with thin white string. There was a coffee table, a 12
sofa, a small television, a wardrobe, and a few bookshelves. And beside
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the door that led to the small bathroom, framed above the radiator,
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there was a large sketch of a very thin woman. It wasn’t much, but
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Emma had never needed very much.
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“No one visits,” she said. “It’s only ever someone trying to sell me
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something.” She stepped back to let me in. “Why are you here?” she
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asked.
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“Charming,” I replied.
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“I don’t mean it like that,” she said.
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“I’ve been to Beer,” I said.
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“To Beer?” she asked. “In Devon?”
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“Where Jonathan and I went. Do you remember?”
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“Why’d you go there?” she asked.
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“Marnie and I argued.”
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“You told her.”
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I nodded.
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She gestured toward the sofa.
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“I told you not to say anything,” she said.
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“I had to,” I replied.
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“You bloody didn’t,” she said, taking three dark chocolate digestive
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biscuits from a packet and placing them onto a napkin for me. “Watch
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the crumbs.”
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I nodded and sat down at one end of the gray sofa. She unrolled it
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into a bed each evening.
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“You could have just pretended that everything was normal,” she
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said. “Like I told you to. Then you wouldn’t be in this situation. You’d
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still be friends.”
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“But she needed to know the truth about her husband. Wouldn’t
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you want to know the truth about your husband?” It seemed obvious to
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me that if something couldn’t be said and yet still needed saying, then
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it had to be said.
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Emma sat on the sofa beside me. Her trouser leg lifted slightly so
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that I could see the bones that made up her ankle. She clutched a mug
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of warm tea between her hands. I bit into one of the biscuits and it was
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softer than I’d expected, almost damp inside.
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She was quiet, thinking.
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“No,” she said. “I don’t think I would.”
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“If your husband was a pervert?” I said. “You wouldn’t want to
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know? And imagine that I knew he was a pervert. Put yourself in Mar-
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nie’s position. You wouldn’t want me to say something?”
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“I wouldn’t believe you,” she said.
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I sat up and several crumbs shook themselves loose from the napkin
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and fell onto Emma’s sofa. She leaned over to brush them away.
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“What do you mean?” I asked. “Why not?”
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“Because,” she said, and then she paused. “Oh, don’t be so naive,”
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she said eventually. “If I told you that Jonathan had hit on me, you
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wouldn’t have believed me, not for a second.”
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“I’d have listened to what you had to say and then— ”
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“And then you’d have taken his side. You know what they say, and it’s
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what everyone always says, to never give up your friends for a man, but
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it doesn’t matter because everyone does. Friendships are one thing, but
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a true love, a romantic love? That trumps everything. Always has. Al-
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ways will. You might like to think otherwise, but you’d have hated me.”
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“It’s different,” I said. “Jonathan was . . . He would never— ”
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“Ah,” she interrupted. “That’s what everyone thinks. That’s why you
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can’t blame her for choosing him.” She sighed. “They don’t know they’re
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thinking it, but it’s always there, whenever anything bad happens to
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somebody else. A little voice that says, But it wouldn’t happen to me.”
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bsp; 07
I laughed and more crumbs fell from my T- shirt. “What a luxury,”
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I said.
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Emma smiled. We both knew how it felt to be the people to whom
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bad things happened. It wasn’t that way for most of our childhoods, but
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something changed in our adolescence. My father’s relationship with
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his mistress became common knowledge and we became that family,
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those girls, the daughters of that man. Emma fell first; she became that
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girl, the thin girl, the girl who didn’t eat. My husband died. Our father 15
left. Our mother was diagnosed. Maybe once you start— once you be-
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come one of those people— you can never stop being one.
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Emma and I are united by a history of stares and secrets and whis-
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pers. Perhaps that is why we both choose to live anonymous lives in a
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city so big it swallows you.
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“Do you think she’ll forgive me?” I asked.
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“I don’t know,” Emma replied.
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“I think she will,” I say. “I think I can make her.”
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“You going to record him and send it to her?” Emma smirked. She
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loved that story.
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“You said you wouldn’t mention that again,” I replied. She was al-
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ways teasing, always trying to ease the tension within me. “And, no.”
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“You would if you could,” she insisted. “I know you. It’s still your
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style. Skulking in when the place is quiet, clambering into a wardrobe.
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Detective Black. Delighted to make your acquaintance. All those martial 30
arts classes. Do you have a black Lycra jumpsuit?”
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“He’s too smart,” I said. “He wouldn’t say anything incriminating.”
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“Oh bloody fuck,” she said, and she laughed. “You’ve really thought
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about it.”
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“Only just now because you brought it up.” This was so typical of
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her. It was her idea but she was blaming me.
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“Chill,” she said. “You’re getting crumbs all over the place.”
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“But you do think it’ll be okay, don’t you?” I asked.
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“Probably. She’ll see sense eventually.”
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“What do you mean?”
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“Well, it’s not going to last, is it? The marriage?”