Page 16 of Forever is Now

And this book was a flop, despite all the marketing that the publisher did.

But the media picked up on that. Like, the press found out that I was there. They were suddenly touting me as one of the UK’s best writers, which was weird. Really weird. But it made people pay attention. And I thought it would be good because then more people would be looking for Ruari.

Or rather, for his body.

There weren’t, uh... There were a lot of people dead, and a lot of people missing.

But yeah, I think we got to when Mum was helping me on the phone, right after Ruari disappeared. And... and it is difficult to talk about. I mean, I did fly home later, without him. It was October 2017, then. So, I’d stayed for three months—longer than we could’ve afforded really—but I had to fly home. I got a boat to Bali, I think, and I flew from there.

On the plane, I took sleeping pills. I don’t know if that was a good idea or not, but it was the only way I’d be able to get through the journey, if I was out of it. Because just boarding the plane had me feeling so guilty. Like I’d just given up on Ruari. Like I was turning my back on him.

I remember the dream I had though, that pill-induced dream. I actually wrote it down, and I used it as the basis for a scene in one of my books, later on.

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Ican’t feel anything, apart from the thing inside me.

I think it’s a baby. Everyone tells me it’s a baby. But it doesn’t feel like a baby to me. It feels like something else. This... this swirling. This creature inside, and soon, I know, it’s going to tear its way out of me, like a scene fromAlien.

I don’t want to be ripped apart.

But here I am, lying on a trolley. My belly is a mountain of possibility—and of fear—rising up in front of me. I cannot see my feet, and I cannot feel my legs.

All I can feel is the thing that everyone tells me is a baby.

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Summer Taylor-Braddon: So, that’s the scene. And in that dream I had, I was pregnant. I was pregnant with Ruari’s baby, but it didn’t feel like a baby. It felt like something else—something unknown. And it terrified me, that I would have this unknown thing inside me, heading into this unknown life, without Ruari.

None of this ever stops resonating with me. It’s always here, in my heart. This whole thing, it’s always a nightmare that I can’t escape from.

And now let’s have one of your wonderful articles, Adelaide.

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STONE COLD KILLER OR STONE COLD PLOTTER? THE TRUTH ON SUMMER TAYLOR-BRADDON IS FINALLY HERE.

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