Page 1 of Forever is Now

DAY ONE

Sunday July 21st, 2024

Adelaide James: So, Ms. Taylor-Braddon, I must admit, I wasastonishedwhen your agent got in touch. In fact, I choked on my breakfast. Avocado and smoked salmon on toast. A fancy Japanese herbal tea. I’d spent ages making it, setting out on the plate just right, using the tea strainer that my mother always said was only for when we had guests—because I was celebrating that morning. Celebrating a recent article I’d written. I’d just won a major award, but your email eclipsed that. And you know what? I can’t evenremembertasting my breakfast. All I recall is the way my shoulders suddenly tingled, how tight my forehead felt, and how I just couldn’t make my fingers move fast enough to type back. I was so sure you’d change your mind.

Summer Taylor-Braddon: I haven’t.

Adelaide James: No, you haven’t. Which makes me really curious as to what you can possibly say to change my mind—as I assume that is your goal?

Summer Taylor-Braddon: What is it they say? Fight fire with fire.

Adelaide James: And I am the fire. [She laughs] Well, I’m sure we’ll get more into this all later on. I have a rough outline here of how you’d like to tackle the recording of all this... and I must say, it does seem pretty thorough. I believe one might even say that objectivity is your goal? And I can see we’ll both, apparently, have time to put our own views across. So, shall we get started?

Summer Taylor-Braddon: Yes. [She clears her throat] Yes, I think we should.

Adelaide James: Then go right ahead, Ms. Taylor-Braddon. Change my mind.

[Silence for five seconds]

Summer Taylor-Braddon: I still find it astonishing that everyone wants to know about what happened. The whole world, watching our lives like we are a soap opera. Everyone feels invested, like they have a personal right to know what’s happened.

Of course, you have put me through hell—but you know what hurts the most? The idea that I never loved Ruari, as if it’s up to someone else, someone like you, to decide whether my love is real.

I have gone through hell.

So has he.

And Mia. All those reporters, outside the hotel, the hospital, my house, his father’s house, Mia’s house.

So, I’m going to talk about a particular moment first, before we’ll then go through everything chronologically.

I was in the Grand Aux Hotel, just sitting in our room. The one me and Mum had booked, as soon as we’d had the news confirmed. That Ruari had been found.

I hadn’t yet seen him, and I felt sick, so sick to my stomach. There was a tapestry on the wall. Medieval, suits of armor, horses, that sort of thing. Dark, rich colours, and the horses had weird faces, and all I could stare at were those faces.

Annmarie, one of the British consulates who’d been helping us navigate the whole mess, was in the room too. Sitting at the side, by the coffee-making facilities. I was on the edge of the bed. My mother too. She reached over to squeeze my knee. A reassuring touch. And we just waited. And waited. Ruari was... out there. Not just in the vague sense of the phrase, like I’d told myself so many times as I cried myself into a shallow state of sleeplessness where nightmares plagued me. But he was really and truly out there. Alive. Here.

There were fifteen minutes until he was due to arrive at the hotel. Fifteen minutes until I’d see the love of my life again, but all I could think about was that tapestry. The horses’ eyes were too far forward on their faces. Like they’d never actually be able to see properly if anyone was sneaking up on them. Their field of vision was so limited.

Annmarie and my mother were talking. There were police stationed outside my hotel room, because of some of the threats we’d received, and I could hear their voices too. Most of them were speaking in French and I didn’t really understand. Couldn’t pick out more words thanremarquable!andil ne s’en souvient pas, because those were the words that just kept being repeated, but it was reassuring to have them there. The police, that is. I felt... protected.

I’d received more death threats that morning. According to Annmarie, so had Ruari. She let that slip, when my mother was asking some questions. I can’t even remember what.

You’d led people to think it was just all a publicity stunt. A sick game to get the world riled up. A sick game to boost my book sales.

Adelaide James: You—

Summer Taylor-Braddon: No—don’t try and interrupt. You’ll get your chance later. Let me speak.

My voicewillbe heard.

Everyone wanted to be here for it. The first meeting. The reunion. Me and my love, united after years apart, when my beloved had been assumed dead.

My mother squeezed my knee so hard while we waited. Later I found bruises had formed like cobweb kisses across my skin. I stared at those bruises in the days that followed. Watched them turn from yellow to black to purple, then fade to ghosts until there was nothing left. Like my whole life.

“This will all be over soon,” Mum murmured to me, in her reassuring way.

Of course, she was trying to soothe my anxiety. She’s always known how unbearable I find anticipation. How nervous I get. And of course how nervous I’d be for this of all things.

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