Page 98 of Swept Away

“I’m sorry,” Marissa says. “She doesn’t want to speak to you.”

My heart starts to hammer. I lower myself down in the desk chair, the seat where I tortured myself over GCSE textbooks that never made sense.

“What do you mean, she doesn’t want to speak to me?”

“I mean, she’s told us all to tell you that, if you get in touch.”

“She said that? She said she doesn’t want to…”

I trail off in the face of Marissa’s silence. No. No. I press my fingertips to my forehead. I saw Lexi a few hours ago. We held hands, gripped each other so tightly.I love you, she’d whispered, before she’d stepped off the lifeboat.

I should never have let her go. All the time out there on the water, we never split up, we never parted. I feel like I’m back on the boat, only this time, the wind’s managed to tear her from my arms.

“Did she say anything else? Is she OK? Am I allowed to know why?”

My voice is bitter and sharp. I’m so tired. I’m so—lost.

“No,” Marissa says after a moment. And then: “I’m sorry.”

“Are you kidding me?” My voice rises. “No, I’m not allowed to know, or no, she’s not OK?”

She sighs. “Look, you seem like a reasonably nice kid. So I’ll just say, think about one thing you might have done that a woman like Lexi could never forgive, and then, yeah, it’ll be about that. And she’s not OK about it.Capeesh?”

I stare at the wall. What have I done? What could it be? There’s…nothing, I don’t think. She knows me better than anyone ever has.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

I can hear the hopelessness in my voice, and maybe she can, too, because she says, “Get some sleep. You’ve been through something unspeakable. Rest. We’re looking after her.”

She hangs up. I lie on top of the duvet and stare at the familiar landscape of my old bedroom ceiling. I feel completely…I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m wiped out, blank.

Lexi doesn’t walk away from someone she cares about, not ever. So, what, she doesn’t care, then? I can’t believe that, either. Iknowher, I’ve held her in my arms and I’ve seen her so close to the brink and I…

I press my hands to my face. All at once it comes rushing in: the grief, fear, sadness, the loss. I’m worn out—I’ve got nothing left. It just crashes over me. I can’t survive without Lexi.

So many times on that houseboat I felt like I was living inside a nightmare. But I’d take a night in the storm over this.

Lexi

“He’s at thebar,” Marissa whispers into the phone.

I close my eyes, snuggling deeper into the sofa.No, no, no. The image of Zeke standing at the bar of The Anchor, like that first day we met…it makes me want to cry, and I just don’t have the energy for more tears. I’m sapped.

In my head he’s still in those velvet trousers—I can’t quite see him in anything else. It’s a nice metaphor for the fact that I have only ever known one very specific version of this man: the version who didn’t confess to knocking up a young bartender and then telling her he wanted nothing to do with her baby.

“Don’t ring me and tell me these things, Marissa,” I groan into the phone.

Mae’s in bed, so life is happening at low volume—not quite a whisper, because Penny and I always vowed we wouldn’t live our lives like that, but we turn the telly down and wince if anyone drops something. She’s been a light sleeper since the day she was born; waking Mae is a crime punishable by serious chores.

It’s amazing, really, how I’ve slipped back into this life. Mae’s made it easier, I think: there’s something so grounding about achild. Their needs are so immediate, and they’re so physical—scuffed knees, sticky fingers, tangled hair. It’s easier to be present in the here and now when there’s someone beside you who knows no other way to be.

“What’s Marissa saying?” Penny asks, poking her head out from the kitchen, where she’s preparing her classic Saturday-evening treat for me and Ryan—a KitKat broken up over a bowl of vanilla ice cream. I fantasized many times about this KitKat ice cream onThe Merry Dormouse.

I wave a hand at her, like,Not important, and she narrows her eyes, but steps back into the kitchen again. We’ve not talked about Zeke since she told me he was Mae’s father three days ago. We’ve also not talked about the fact that I have moved back into my old bedroom, or the fact that in my absence Ryan clearly moved into our flat, or the fact that I wake every night sweaty and terrified, convinced I’m going to die. We’ve talked a lot about what we’re going to order for dinner every evening, though, and she’s fully caught me up onMarried at First Sight, so it’s not like we’re in complete denial or anything.

“What’s he wearing?” I whisper into the phone.

“Oh my God, I am not playing go-between for your late-night sexting with this man,” Marissa says. “I’m just telling you that he’s here, desperate to see you, and if you want to talk to him…”

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