‘I never want kids, El. I never want my child to feel as disappointed in me as I do in him. I couldn’t stand it.’
I took his hand in mine. ‘You can’t be a bad person if everything you do is done with love. That’s the difference between you and him.’
I was fifteen and young and very much in love with Jack Westwood. The kind of intense, feverish love that makes everything else turn to ash.
I loved his anger and ambition.
I loved his weathered sketchpad filled with drawings of all the different places we’d live when we left Crosshaven: a lofty London apartment, a thatched cottage, a rustic lakeside cabin.
I loved that he could twirl a pocket knife through his fingers with the same ease as he could a number two pencil.
I loved his mop of golden curls and the sharp angle of his jaw.
I loved that he was predictably unpredictable.
But I wasn’t brave enough to tell him. To tell anyone.
‘It’s getting cold,’ he said, shrugging out of his jacket and draping it around me. It was warm from his body. Far too wide across the shoulders. It smelt like him. I wanted to kiss him right there, on that ledge, with the earth beneath us and the stars above, and his thrifted jacket curled around me.
The heat in his gaze told me he knew what I wanted.
He smiled. Then he swooped down and kissed me.
I sank into the feel of his mouth on mine, into the hot press of his body. I was gentle, careful not to catch his split lip. Jack groaned, wanting more. He kissed me harder, until I was lightheaded and spinning; the only thing keeping me tethered were his hands on my waist, sliding beneath my top and along my bare back. His fingers moved to unhook my bra.
We were reckless and certain.
Young and wanting.
Breathless and wild.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
We sprang apart. Jack caught me before I fell. Jeffrey loomed behind us, his face twisted into a snarl of disgust.
Jack swivelled around and hopped down from the windowsill.
‘What did I tell you?’ barked Jeffrey, his Philly accent thicker in anger.
He shrugged.
Then Jeffrey was on him. He grabbed Jack by the throat and swung him into the wall hard enough to make it shake.
Jeffrey brought his face inches from Jack’s. ‘What did I tell you?’
Jack lounged in his father’s grip, like a bored model who’d had too many cameras shoved in his face, but his trembling hands betrayed him.
‘What did I fucking tell you?’
My heart beat so fast, I was sure it would crack a rib.
‘You hear me, boy?’
I wanted to get the hell out of there, but even if fear hadn’t rooted me to the spot, I couldn’t leave Jack.
‘I hear you.’
‘Fucking punk,’ he spat before letting go of him.
They stared at one another, chests heaving.
‘It’s time for her to go home,’ Jeffrey said.
Jack made to move towards me, but Jeffrey shoved him away.
The car ride home with Jack’s father was silent.
Jack and I have never talked about the kiss. It was like it never really happened, like it was a dream or a film. I thought maybe, understandably, Jack’s fear of his father outweighed his desire for me. Not wanting to cause friction between our families, I didn’t even tell my parents what’d happened. I should’ve, because a few days after Jeffrey’s overreaction, he killed himself. Maybe if I’d said something that summer, someone would’ve realised how unstable he was.
Years later, I got drunk on a dangerous mix of tequila and vodka and told Ada about the kiss and Jeffrey’s outburst. The next morning, she wanted to know more, but I was so ashamed of not being good enough for Jack, so guilty for not telling anyone about Jeffrey’s extreme reaction while he was alive, I pretended to have no memory of our conversation.
Now, since finding the basement room, my guilt has lessened, replaced by rage as I picture a small, scared Jack isolated in the windowless space for days. My hatred towards Jeffrey is ugly; I catch myself thinking I am glad of the bullet that cracked his skull like a watermelon. Glad he was left to bloat and rot in the August heat. Glad he died all alone.
I am curled up on the sofa with a blanket because the weather is unseasonably cool for the first week in September and I watch the news to distract myself. I get a jolt when I see my parents standing behind a pine podium lined with mics. On an easel to their right is a giant photograph of me – the one from my sister’s rehearsal dinner. Dad is thoroughly ironed and combed and crisp, just as he was at my graduation, except now there are shadows beneath his eyes. Mum is wearing a buttercup yellow dress and her lips are painted pastel pink. As though she’s about to host a picnic in the park.