Page 98 of The Art of Loving You

She was no longer here.

All the terms Noah had used circled back to me. I had thought it was so he didn’t have to use the death word, but it wasn’t that.

There was no Bethany.

I paced, around the churchyard, looking back over the times Noah and I had been together in my head. The things we had talked about.

Grief.

That was always, understandably, our main topic of conversation.

I recalled the first day I had met him. His shadow falling over me as I had fallen to pieces at Jack’s graveside, my heart breaking over the headstone. He’d come from nowhere and left when I did.

‘Bethany isn’t dead.’

‘Libby?’ I tensed at the sound of Noah’s voice. Not wanting to turn around and face this man I believed was my friend. He had deceived me in the cruellest way possible. ‘Mum said—’

‘You lied.’ My hands bunched into fists.

‘Please.’ He looked distraught. ‘Let me explain.’

‘You. Lied. To. Me.’ I began to walk away before marching back towards him. ‘Why? Why? I don’t understand why you … why anybody … would pretend …’ I trailed off because suddenly I knew why. ‘You … knew. That day I first took you to the house. You said how awful it must have been Jack being mugged after going out for Lemsip. I never told you he went out for Lemsip. How did you know that?’

Noah could have answered my question a myriad of different ways: ‘because I’d read it in the paper,’ ‘because Alice mentioned it’, ‘because I’d heard it on the news,’ but instead he said none of those things. The colour drained from his face.

How did Noah know? And not just about the Lemsip but … I thought back again to our first meeting at the churchyard. He knew Jack’s name before I had told him. He knew the date of his death. He’d said he read it from the headstone but I had been leaning against the writing, masking it.

But that wasn’t our first meeting, was it? He had come to the house, the day of Jack’s funeral. ‘I’m sorry,’ he’d said over and over while I had told him that we didn’t want quotes at that moment, assuming he was a builder. What if he had come for something else? Was apologising for something else?

‘Are you even a decorator? Noah? What’s going on?’ I asked but I already knew.

I shook my head wanting to toss up other thoughts, different thoughts, a snow globe craving a change of scene. But there was only one thing in my mind. The knowing that I had never shared with anyone what Jack had bought at the shop. It hadn’t seemed important.

Until now.

There was only one way Noah could know.

If he had seen it.

‘Jack wasn’t on his own that day was he?’ I backed away from him. ‘You were there.’

Chapter Thirty-Four

‘You were there that day, Noah,’ I repeated.

Noah folded in on himself, his legs no longer supporting him. He crouched on the ground, covered his face with his hands and wept. My knees buckled and I sank onto the grass next to him. An odd numbness spread through me as I watched him sob. I couldn’t offer him sympathy – I didn’t feel any. I didn’t have to ask him again if he was there. As he sat up his bloodshot eyes and tear-stained face told me that I was right.

I had so many questions I didn’t know where to start. I couldn’t begin to articulate all of the things I wanted … Ineededto know. Instead I violently tugged up handfuls of grass, tossing the blades aside before reaching for more.

Noah was still crying loud against the birdsong, the leaves rustling in the breeze. I could have placed my hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

I didn’t.

‘I …’ He gulped a breath. Tried again. ‘I’m sorry.’

It wasn’t enough.

It wouldneverbe enough.

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