Everyone is out on the terrace by the time Rachel feels strong enough to emerge from her hiding place. She’s surprised to see that, while her entire life has crashed down around her ears, everyone else is still going about theirs, without a care in the world.
The wind is whipping up again, and hearing the sound of the Atlantic waves crashing against the underside of the structure they’re standing on makes Rachel shiver. She can no longer see the caves further along the cove, lost to the dark and the rising tide that is steadily climbing the cliff face.
She glances around for Jack, but doesn’t want to see him, because she doesn’t know how to look at him anymore. If she sees Paige, there’s no way she can disguise what she now knows and the thought of having to go back to the same house, and then travel home tomorrow on the same plane, fills her with a dread so unsurmountable that she can’t even begin to comprehend it. It’s almost as if something even bigger than what she’s dealing with needs to put itself between the now and then, because without it, she can’t see a way through.
“Oh my God,” cries Ali. “But how…?”
“It’s okay,” says her mum, pulling her in tight. “It’s going to be okay.”
Rachel looks on with a sense of dismay. It must be her grandmother, who was too unwell to travel. Her heart breaks along with Ali’s.
“But how could that happen?” asks Ali.
“I don’t know,” says Maria, as the pair of them look fervently at a phone. “But it’s definitely come from her.”
Rachel can see the rising panic behind Ali’s flickering eyes as she looks around.
“Chrissy!” she calls out, having to shout above the sound of the sea and bass of the music that’s still playing inside. “Chrissy!”
“Is everything okay?” asks Rachel, going over to her, feeling compelled to offer help in any way she can. Though, she can’t dispel the growing sensation that this might have something to do with her. It seems that everything has something to do with her.
Ali looks at her, with wide eyes, as if momentarily weighing whether she can be trusted or not. Rachel nods at her, to silently assure her that she can.
“What is it?” she asks gently, putting an arm around her shoulders. She looks to Maria, who has tears in her eyes.
Ali shows Rachel her mother’s phone where the photo of her and Chrissy as teenagers is presented in glorious technicolor.
“I don’t understand,” says Rachel. “What’s the problem?”
“Th-that’s…” starts Ali, before looking to her mum, who nods slowly. “That’s me.”
“Yeah, I know,” says Rachel ambivalently.
Ali’s mouth drops open and she physically takes a step backward, holding a hand to her chest. “How do you know?”
“Because Chrissy showed me earlier,” says Rachel, without thinking. Though, even if she had, she’d have never been able to foresee the problem.
Ali looks at her mum, unable to stop her bottom lip from sticking out. Giant tears teeter on the rims of her eyes, reminding Rachel of a six-year-old Josh, when a bully had stopped him from using the slide in the park.
“How could she?” cries Ali.
“Who?” asks Rachel, still none the wiser what the problem is. “What’s happened?”
“Look!” says Ali, her voice high-pitched. She swipes down from the photo of her and Chrissy to show one of her today, in her wedding dress, with the text message, “The two faces of Ali Foley. Who knew?!?”
Rachel looks at it, confused. “Chrissy sent you this?”
“Erm, Ali…” says Kimberley hesitantly, as she approaches them with her phone in her hand.
Rachel knows what’s coming.
“I’m not sure why, but I’ve just received this…” She shows them the screen with the same message and images.
“Sh-she’s sent it to you too?” cries Ali, hoarsely. “So, who else…? Who else has she sent it to?” Her arms flail and she spins around with her hands on her head.
“Darling, please,” says her mum. “Please try to stay calm.”
“How can I?” says Ali. “I’ve spent all my life trying to leave that time behind and now it’s back to haunt me … on my wedding day!”
“It was a long time ago,” says Maria. “You don’t ever have to go back there again.”
“Is that why you were bullied?” asks Rachel, unable to understand why kids are so cruel to each other.
Ali nods.
“She’s always struggled with her weight,” says Maria. “It was only a few years ago, after the accident, that she decided to do something about it.”
“But you told me that you never had to worry about what you ate,” Rachel says to Ali gently.
“Because I didn’t want you to think any differently of me,” says Ali.
“But I would never have,” offers Rachel.
Maria takes her daughter’s hand. “You have to understand that it was a life that she worked hard to get away from. She never had anything to be ashamed of in her appearance, but she couldn’t stand how it reminded her of being bullied. She never learned to love herself the way she looked back then, and so she left the physical person that made her so unhappy behind and forged a new identity. She created a persona she could feel proud of and what you see now is that woman. She wears the clothes she wears because she never dreamed she’d be able to, and she speaks her mind because she’s not used to anyone listening. She’s always felt invisible and now she feels seen.”
Rachel looks at the woman in front of her with new eyes. All this time, she’d had Ali down as being vacuous, so full of her own self-importance that she was unable to relate to anyone else. Yet, behind the facade of over-confidence, and under the pretense of having skin as thick as a rhino’s, she’s fighting to get away from a past that plagues her every waking moment. She can see it now, as the real Ali emerges from the shadow of the caricature she’s invented to protect herself.
“You are a good person,” she says to her. “Don’t ever feel you have to lie or make excuses for the person you are or the person you once were.”
Ali shrugs her shoulders pitifully. “But everyone’s going to see that picture,” she whispers.
“So what?” says Rachel, taking hold of her arms and turning her to face her. “The only people who really matter are here with you right now and they know what you’ve been through because they’ve watched you grow up. Anyone else who’s got a problem with it can go swivel on this.” Rachel sticks her middle finger up and Ali laughs.
Rachel looks at Maria, who’s nodding and sobbing into a tissue. From one mother to another, Rachel can see that she’d rather have gone through it herself than have her daughter hurt so much, that all these years later, she still feels the effects.
“Will!” Ali calls across the terrace to where he’s standing with his back to them.
Rachel can only imagine the turmoil going on inside Ali’s head as she reconciles how best to tell her new husband that she’s not always looked the way she does today.
He turns around with a concerned expression, as if knowing just by the way his name was called that his new wife is upset.
“Will, have you got my phone?” asks Ali, unable to keep her voice steady.
He comes toward them, rifling in his inside pocket.
“Yeah,” he says, handing it over. “Is everything all right?”
Ali unlocks it and her face instantly crumples. “She’s sent it to me too. She must have sent it to everyone.”
“I’m going to see what she’s got to say for herself,” says Maria, heading back in the direction of the restaurant.
“Er, what’s going on?” asks Will.
Ali looks at Rachel in exactly the same way as Josh did in the park that day, unable to comprehend why someone would be so horrible.
“It’s Chrissy…” she starts. “She’s sent this picture to everyone’s phone.”
Rachel waits for him to ask who it’s of and what it’s got to do with Ali. But as he squints at it, all he says is, “Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know,” cries Ali. “But now everyone will know.”
He takes hold of her face with his hands and smiles. “What does it matter who knows that you used to look like that?”