Page 86 of Dead to Me

I realised with a note of surprise that Marcie was wearing a lanyard over her neat white shirt.I’d never stopped to wonder what she did, but clearly it was a job in the hospital.I guessed that must be one of the reasons the Sedgewicks lived in Great Shelford, which was just out of Cambridge on this side.

It was strange seeing James and Marcie together again.Both were so strikingly beautiful, and both somehow afraid of taking up space.

James saw me first, and gave me a rueful grin.‘Hi, Aria.’

His dad stood, quickly, and greeted me warmly.Which probably meant James hadn’t told them I’d almost gotten him killed.

‘It’s lovely to see you,’ Philip said.‘You’ve met Marcie, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, it’s so nice to see you again.’I was given a brief but wonderful-smelling hug by James’s beautiful mother.How could she be in the middle of working at an overheated, disinfectant-laden hospital and still look and smell amazing?‘I didn’t realise– you’re a doctor here?’I added as she released me.

‘Ah, ish,’ she said.‘Radiology consultant.’

‘OK.Scanning people, right?’

‘Exactly,’ she said with a smile.‘But luckily not James.’

‘Yeah, wouldn’t want to see the mess I am underneath it all,’ James said with a trace of dark humour.

I saw the way his parents both reacted.It was as if the joke had cut through their cheerfulness and let a bleak, awful fear for their son ooze out.

‘Absolutely,’ Philip said.‘Hey, we should go and find coffee.James must want a break from us.’

They were out of the room by the time James said, tiredly, ‘Their determined cheering me up is exhausting.’

I sat a little shakily in the chair next to the bed.‘Do they… think you did it to yourself?’

James gave me a slightly sardonic laugh.‘I honestly don’t know.Dad’s talking about bodyguards for the foreseeable, and I don’t know if that’s to save me from outside threats or…’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, reaching out to squeeze his hand.‘This is all my fault.’

‘Of course it isn’t,’ James said.

‘It really is,’ I insisted.‘I was the one who told you about what Kit said.I pretty much suggested trying to find out what happened.’I took a wobbly breath.‘Jesus.You could have ended up dead.’

There was a long pause before he said, ‘But I wanted to know.I felt like I needed to.Like I owed it to Holly.’Hepaused again, and said, ‘But honestly?Now?I’d rather nobody ever knew if it meant not putting them in danger.I can’t let this bullshit happen to anyone else.’

I wished I could tell him the whole truth, but I didn’t think it would help anyone right then.So I did the next best thing I could think of and asked him who he’d spoken to before this happened.

‘Aria,’ he said, forcefully.‘Please don’t.Please don’t try to find answers.I didn’t even see it coming.’

‘But if you only spoke to one person…’

‘I spoke to all of them,’ he said, helplessly.Angrily.‘The whole gang.Kit, Ryan, Esther… even Esther’s mum… I was on a mission.’He looked at me steadily.‘I thought it was worth it, but I don’t any more.And it’s definitely not worth it for you.You didn’t even know her.’

I was trying to reply, persuasively, when a series of footsteps on the lino flooring announced that James had more visitors.I probably should have guessed that it would be some of the others, but it was actually all three of them.I flinched slightly as Kit stopped in his tracks.

‘Hey,’ he said, shifting a bag in his hands.‘I didn’t know you were coming.’

‘I couldn’t stand waiting at home,’ I told him.‘I figured I’d get here the same time you did if I cycled hard.’

It was at that point, though, that I realised Kit must have asked the others to come with him.They hadn’t all arrived coincidentally at once.

Which meant he’d deliberately excluded me.

Why?I thought.Why keep me out?

I rose to kiss him, feeling all over again the strangeness of the situation.Somehow Kit was both my boyfriend and absolutely not my boyfriend in any way.I was going to act like he was everything I wanted for as long as I was Aria, and thenI was going to leave Cambridge and never see him again.It was increasingly messing with my head.

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