The front wheels spin viciously for a moment before the car reverses back down the driveway.
I start running after her.
I reach the car and slam my hands down on the hood, staring at her through the moving wiper blades. Her face. Her indignity. Her panic. Her disgrace.
His face. Distraught. Confused. The perfect marriage of both of us. The perfect little boy.
Her face. His face.
The wipers wipe them clean.
She puts the car in drive and guns the engine, enough to push the grill into my hips. I quickly leap to the right before I get run over.
I roll over on the ground, out of the way, and struggle to my feet as Miranda whips the car around and speeds off down the street.
“Miranda!” I scream. Panic grips me for one second, freezing me in place, helpless, hopeless.
But I’m not.
I have to go after them.
I run back to the house, grab my mobile, and the keys to the vintage Aston Martin and run back out, jumping into the car.
The fucking piece of shit takes a few times to roll over and I’m looking at the phone wondering if I should call the police. I don’t even know if she’s legally drunk or not, and I don’t want to get her in trouble, but if they can stop her before I can, before she possibly hurts herself and Hamish, then I may just have to. I have to do something.
I know she’s heading to her parents’ house, the Hardings, across the bridge to St. David’s Bay. That’s where she always goes. Maybe I should call her mother. Get them on the lookout. Mrs. Harding will hate me even more for it, but not as much as she will when Miranda tells them what I’ve done.
The car finally turns over. I gun it down the driveway and onto the main road, a winding, twisting artery that leads to the M-8.
“Fuck!” I scream, banging my fist repeatedly on the wheel as my self-hatred chokes me. “Fuck!”
Why did I pick tonight to say anything?
Why did I have to go to London?
Why did I have to choose this?
Why did it have to choose me?
I’m asking myself a million questions, hating myself for letting it go this way, wishing dearly that I had done things differently.
I’m asking myself things I don’t have any answers to other than:
Because I love Natasha.
It always comes down to that terrible truth.
I love her.
So much.
Too much.
Enough to make me throw everything away.
Because I could no longer live the lie.
But the truth doesn’t just hurt, it destroys.
The road twists sharply to the left as it skirts along Braeburn Pond, and in the pouring rain, the wipers going faster and faster, I nearly miss it.
But it’s impossible not to.
The broken fence along the side of the road.
The steam rising from beyond the bank.
From where a car has gone over the edge.
A car has gone over the edge.
I slam on the brakes, the car skidding a few feet, and pull to the side of the road.
I don’t let the thoughts enter my head.
The thoughts that tell me this is them.
This could be them.
But if it is them, one thought says, you have to save them.
I can save them.
I don’t know how I manage to swallow the panic down, but I do.
I get out of the car, rain in my face.
The air smells like burned asphalt.
The pond is whipped up by the storm.
And as I approach the edge of the road, I can see the faint beam of headlights from down below, a misplaced beacon in the dark.
I look down.
The world around me swims.
The hood of the sedan is smashed into a willow tree, the same hood I had my hands on minutes ago, begging her not to leave.
The car is at an angle, leaning on its broken nose.
The steam rises.
And yet I still have hope.
I have to have hope.
I cry out, making noises I can’t control. Maybe I’m yelling for them, maybe I’m yelling for help. I stumble down the hillside to the car.
Praying.
Praying.
Praying.
That they’re going to be okay.
They’re going to be okay.
The windshield is completely shattered, the jagged glass stained with red.
I stare stupidly at the empty car.
Then turn my head.
To the space in front of the hood.
And the grass between the car and the pond.
Where two bodies lay, dark in the night.
Two bodies—one big, one small.
Both broken.
Both motionless.
I have one moment of clarity as the truth sinks in.
My truth.
This real truth.
And in that moment I want to grab the jagged piece of glass lying at my feet.
Put it in my throat.
And end it before I can feel it.
But that would be the coward’s way out.
So I stumble forward.
Vomit down my shirt.
Paralysis of the heart.
I cry.
Scream.
Noises animals make.
I stumble past Miranda.
To Hamish.
Fall to my knees.
And cradle my truth in my arms.
And I feel it.
I’ll never stop feeling it.
The rain.
The death.
The end of everything.
My world goes black.
And stays that way.
CHAPTER ONE
Brigs
Edinburgh
Present Day
Pop.
A cork flies off a bottle of alcohol-free champagne. The shit isn’t Dom Pérignon, but for the sake of my brother and his alcohol recovery program, it will do. Besides, it’s not what we’re drinking that counts—it’s what we’re celebrating.