Page 46 of You Can't Hurt Me

“Is that really a good idea?” I reason. “It’s just that—”

“You think I’m being irresponsible? What about you, Anna?” He stares at me, his features slackening. “A whole day at the seaside with your work colleague?”

I laugh in disbelief. Did Amira tell him? Now I suppose I’ll have to assume she tells him everything. Even more reason for them not to be together.

“It was my editor’s idea. She suggested a change of scenery to mix things up a bit.”

“And did you?” He wraps his hands around his cup. His knuckles look raw and chafed.

I look at him blankly.

“Did you mix things up a bit?” He blinks at me, and I notice the rims of his eyes, pink and watery. “No need to answer. Although I think you already have.”

“So what if I did? What’s it got to do with you anyway?”

“Anyone else I’d be fine about. You know that, Anna.”

I sigh. “Thanks for the concern. I came here because you said you wanted to catch up. Come on, let’s walk.” I stand, eager to outpace my irritation, and he follows. Together we head toward a patch of woodland and the ornamental lake at the far end of the park.

“Not going to Nate’s house this afternoon?”

I shake my head. “Transcribing and writing all day.”

“So devoted to your work.”

“That’s me.”

We stop for a moment by a small wooden gate and I step in front of him to open it, keen to keep walking, to move the spotlight elsewhere, but he continues to press in that playful way of his.

“You’re not telling me something, A. What is it?”

I smile stiffly. Tony has been using my initial a lot lately—something our mother used to do—maybe to thaw the ice between us.

“I’m stressed, that’s all. There’s a lot of pressure at the moment to get this book done. The deadline is insane and I just want to get through it.”

We chat some more about his upcoming assignments, circling the duck pond back into the neglected woodland where kids climb over the high Victorian walls to mess around at night. There’s a patch of burnt grass in the center, the remnants of a recent fire. Graffiti covers the benches nearby.

Tony leans over the bridge, picks up a handful of pebbles, skims them one by one at a beer bottle floating in a tangle of weeds.

“Doesn’t he give you the creeps?”

“Who?” I ask, still distracted.

“Nate.”

“Not particularly, no.”

“I can see what’s happening, Anna,” he says, giving me one of his sideways looks. “You know Dr. Reid is manipulating you, making you feel special in some way, so you write the book he wants you to write.”

I feel my features harden once again. “You don’t know him, and you don’t need to stress about me. Focus on your travels, a new start, getting away from this place.”

“But I’m leaving you all alone. I worry for you, that’s all,” he says, tilting his face toward me. I sigh. I know however obnoxious his execution can be, deep down he’s just trying to help look after me. It’s part of the deal.

“Tony, please—” I grip the slim metal rail of the bridge, stare into the brackish water below. I gulp, that familiar catch in my throat as I try to take a full breath. Maybe it’s being back with Tony, in this spot, just a couple months past the anniversary of our mom’s death, but I feel my childhood rushing up to meet me, my body keeping the score. That night comes back to me in shades of blue. French blue. The color of my father’s Ventolin inhaler, his puffer. They were everywhere when I was growing up. In the kitchen drawer where my mom kept the freezer bags and the spare keys, the bathroom cabinet behind the acetaminophen, the glove compartment of his car, a subtle ever-present reminder of my father’s asthma.

The scattered cries from children playing on the swings nearby pulls me back. Beside me, Tony’s face flashes briefly into something that should be a smile but isn’t.

“I guess it must be heaven for a journalist over there. All that nosing around. Have you been inside her room yet?”

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