Page 60 of Dead to Me

To be honest, it’s not the most comfortable thing to think about, either.The whole situation makes me feel like I’m almost what you thought I was.

I’d seduced him.By accident, sure.But when I realised what had happened, I didn’t back away.I felt weirdly triumphant, because now maybe he’d tell me things that he really shouldn’t.

You’d do anything, wouldn’t you?Charm anyone, sleep with anyone, betray anyone…

I remember your face when you said that.I don’t know if you remember.It was in a whole slew of stuff you slung at me before you left.

But honestly, Reid, I don’t think anyone else has ever managed to hurt me that badly.Not the high-school boyfriend who casually told me he was sleeping with someone else; not the probable narcissist I met on a job who love-bombed me and then ghosted me.

I didn’t understand how you could be saying any of those words.When what I was telling you was that I was going to keep fighting for you, and for Tanya.When I was being absolutely honest with you, and always had been.

And I want to tell the truth about this, too.Or at least write it down.

What’s happened with Kit has felt like the only thing I coulddo.Because as much as you’ll have trouble believing this, it isn’tthe storythat I want: it’s justice.For Holly and Tanya’s killer to be jailed, and for no other girls like them to die.

OK.I guess if you’re still reading, then that’s something.

Though maybe you’ll stop kind of soon.Because the next part might actually be… worse.

In the three days since Kit rescued me, I haven’t had to see Ryan once, which has been a relief.

The day after it happened, Kit drove me, as promised, to London.I’d worked hard to make sure I knew exactly where he should take me to meet up with the other Olympic rowing hopefuls, and that I had exactly the right equipment with me to look like someone who was injured but was hopeful I might still be able to train.

I left him at the entrance to the boathouse and walked in as if I belonged there, promising I’d call if I needed picking up.I then brazened it out, heading up the staircase and in, and sat on my phone for a good twenty minutes amid an increasing number of rowers going in and out for a weights session until somebody asked me if I was OK.I grinned at her and said I was there for physio, and nobody seemed to pay me any attention after that.

Forty-five minutes later, I messaged Kit to tell him that I was on light duties but cleared to at least train and asked if he wanted to hang on for an hour or head home.He immediately replied that he was happy to wait and so I dumped my bag in the gym and went for a hobbling, uncomfortable run down the bank until I’d built up enough of a sweat to look like someone who’d been erg training for an hour and then hung around outside until he came to pick me up.Aside from a couple of athletes commenting on my bruised, swollen leg in a curious and sympathetic way, now that it was extremely obvious under my rowingLycra, nobody accosted me, and I was able to get back into his ridiculous silver Bugatti and tell him a load of fabricated nonsense about the physio session on the way home.

It made me feel weirdly guilty to do all this when he was putting himself out for me, squeezing the trip in before his own training when he really ought to have been studying.But any time I started to feel bad I’d remind myself about Holly and Tanya, and then about the reason my leg was swollen and bruised, and then about the photographs someone had taken of me.

I’m not the one with the biggest secrets,I told myself more than once.And if lying to Kit helps me work out who killed them, I’m willing to do it.

Since then, Kit has arranged to meet me alone several times, or with Esther and James.He has also avoided the topic of Ryan entirely in each and every formation.Which has been welcome, but has also made me start to suspect that he hasn’t actuallydoneanything, despite promising to.I’m beginning to think he’s just avoiding an argument until everything blows over, as if Ryan and I had just had a falling-out instead of him committing a major sexual assault.

Esther’s response has been, in contrast, both kind and touching.I didn’t see her until she’d finished her final exam on Friday, the day after the attack, but she still took the time to message me the morning after it happened.

Kit told me what Ryan did.I’m really, really sorry, darling.I don’t give a shit that he’s my friend, that’s so not ok.I’m here for you if you need me.Xx

It was a lot less diplomatic than I would have expected, and when I saw her in person she had every reason to be full of post-exam distraction, but she still hugged me fiercely and asked, ‘Are you doing OK?’

‘I’m OK,’ I told her, and gave her a squeeze back.‘Thank you.’

When she let me go it was to look searchingly at me for a long moment.Then she said, ‘They get away with so much, don’t they?’

It was a strange, startling thing to say.I wanted to ask her what she meant– ask her if she meant Ryan and Kit and James, or someone else.But Kit arrived at that point, fresh from his training for the summer’s big rugby tour to Japan, and Esther assembled her face into a flawless smile as she caught sight of him.

I realised that I needed to talk to her properly.After what happened with Ryan, I’d lost sight of Esther, and of the secret boyfriend I’d guessed she had.Of her own secrets beyond that.

It occurred to me, suddenly, that of all of them, Esther was the one I’d most easily believe would leave photographs like that, and a note.She was the patient, watchful, sometimes unnoticed one.

I felt myself drawing back from her at the thought.

‘Hey, you,’ Kit said, coming to hug me, too.Despite the fact that he’d only seen me three hours before when he’d dropped me home from London, it was a long, lingering hug that ended on a held gaze.

‘Hey,’ I said, feeling blood rush to my face in a not-that-professional manner.

I realised that Esther was watching us with that same polished smile but that one of her hands was rhythmically clenching and relaxing.

Kit turned to her at that point and slung his arm round her.‘How was it?’

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