Page 6 of Seduce & Destroy

The weight of the day, of my loss sat heavy on my chest.

Before I could succumb to my grief, the sting of tears threatening to spill already, I had to know if it was really her. “This is going to sound unbelievable, and I-I don’t quite know how to start this.” I took her hand when I spoke. I was shy, as lonely people often were, but her presence lent me an unexpected eloquence, even boldness. To my surprise, she pressed into my hand and laid hers over it. Her eyes beamed at me as she smiled again and blushed. It spurred me on. “…I know you. At St. James's Academy in Islington. Eight years ago.” I didn’t ask her in the end. I was overcome with the same certainty with which I would say that the breeze ruffled leaves.

“No,” Kenna said simply, and a boulder fell on my chest, knocking all the air out of my lungs. Her glossy brown hair captivated me into a brief stupor as I reclaimed my breath. “I was homeschooled.”

My face dropped. This can’t be happening. After all this time. Now that she sat right in front of me. I couldn’t be wrong.

“No,” I said. “No, no…I’m sure it was you.” I am not crazy.

With her head tilted, she leaned her face in closer. “Couldn’t be, Miss Laney.” She took one of my hands into her lap. “I’d remember a pretty face like yours.”

I was stunned into silence and stared straight ahead avoiding her.

“My deepest condolences for the passing of your grandfather. His absence is felt in the community,” Kenna brought our clasped hands to place them over her heart. Community?

I retracted my hand. Confusion clouded my head as my eyes closed. “No,” I whispered, “No.” It was another loss. Keep it together until Tilly gets here, keep it together until Tilly gets here, she’ll tell you what to do.

Kenna took my muttering as confirmation of my grief, but she didn’t move to comfort me like she had before. No hand was resting on my back nor were there any rhythmic thumb caresses.

Slowly, she retreated from the room. If you need me, I’ll be next door. I heard her mumble, but it didn’t register because it didn’t feel genuine. When she closed the door, she left me in the deja vu-stricken confines of crushing solitude. I memorised each of her eyelashes each time she passed me in the school corridor. The warmth of her skin. The shine of her hair.

I remember her, I’m sure of it, and I wasn’t wrong.

When I heard her door click shut, I scrambled for my yearbook hidden behind the vanity and desperately flicked through the pages. I found myself easily, under a fake name, but no trace of her. I looked up old group emails and messages. Class registers. Pictures from sports days. No evidence. Kenna, Kenna, Kenna. I scoured the internet. Nothing. Not even amongst the endless galleries of images that mums seemed to harbour on Facebook.

How strange.

My vision wavered as I stared at my laptop, a migraine beating a rhythm into the left side of my skull. The steady thump was a red signal to close the laptop and sleep.

Dread filled me. Was Father right?

No.

I wasn’t seeing things.

It would be agony if she wasn’t real. My mind tentative for a push down, the spiral of thoughts and feelings and considerations of fallacy and reality, I couldn’t decide what was right. Grandfather was still here, and Kenna was the mystery girl. No doubt about it. Or was there?

Somewhere in the cloud of confusion and incorrectness of it all was the profound feeling of grief that underpinned it all, and with it, a pervading sense of injustice for grandfather.

This was his retirement, death wasn’t meant to touch him, and conflict wasn’t going to avenge him either.

Despite the taxing day, sleep was difficult. I need medication.

As I stepped out of my room to go to the bathroom medicine cabinet, a shift in the air drew my attention away from it. To my left, I narrowed my eyes to see a figure drowned in oversized black clothing. Flicks of hair waved in the breeze as they strode to the backdoor. My tired eyes betrayed me; within a blink, they were gone.

Father was right. Hallucinations.

The pill was a bitter one to swallow.

Chapter 2

KENNA

She stood at the top of the staircase.

Laney was different from how I remembered her. The image of the sad girl had been replaced by a vulnerable kind of ferocity and alive. Between stolen glances and swift head turns at St James’s, I formed an attachment that I’d hoped would cease as soon as I saw her again.

But it was not budging.

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