Rachel lets out the breath she was holding. He already knows. Of course he does. That’s why they’re a couple who are going to survive. Because they have no secrets from each other.
“When are you going to get it into your head that being the person you were back then has made you the person you are now?” he asks, smiling. “The way you handled that made you the strong, incredible woman you are today.”
It doesn’t sound like the first time Will’s had to dispense this speech, and Rachel’s heart feels as if it might burst.
“Their weakness made you strong,” he says in between kissing her. “Their jealousy made you selfless. Their bitterness made you sweet.”
Ali’s sobs dissolve into whimpers as his wise words sink in.
“Ali!” calls out Chrissy, breathlessly, as she runs toward them. “I don’t know how … I’m so sorry … it doesn’t make any sense.”
“I can’t even look at you right now,” cries Ali, her tears returning. “After everything we’ve been through together … how could you?”
“But I didn’t…” pants Chrissy. “I swear to God…” she says, looking as if she’s about to pass out. “This wasn’t me. I would never have done this to you.”
“It came from your phone,” says Ali accusingly.
Chrissy shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head, speechless.
“Well, if you didn’t do it, who did?”
An uncomfortable, but not altogether unsurprising thought begins to whir around Rachel’s brain.
Ali’s looking at her, as if she’s asking herself exactly the same thing.
If she’s capable of sleeping with her best friend’s husband, then she’s capable of anything.
“I saw her,” says Rachel, as if to herself. “She was looking at Chrissy’s phone.”
Chrissy looks from one to the other, desperately wanting to be let in on the conspiracy theory that’s gathering pace. “Who?” she asks.
“Paige,” says Rachel. “The friend I was with earlier.”
Calling her a friend already sounds so alien now.
“She was with you at the bar a little while ago and you were both looking at your phone.”
“Yeah,” says Chrissy, not seeming to grasp what’s being suggested. “She wanted to see the photos I’d taken of the wedding.”
“Jesus,” says Rachel, exhaling. “She must have sent it without you noticing.”
Chrissy thumbs through her sent messages and looks up ashen-faced. “I’m so sorry,” she says to Ali. “She’s sent it to everyone on my contact list.”
“Wait, Paige has done this?” asks Will, his face clouded with confusion. “Why would she do something like that?”
Ali looks to Rachel, as if seeking permission to tell him. Rachel nods.
“She’s not quite who you think she is,” says Ali.
His perplexed expression is wiped off by an icy spray of sea water that washes over the side of the terrace—an ominous warning of how high the tide’s come in.
Yet while he and everyone else yelps in shock, instinctively turning away, Rachel finds herself stepping closer to the edge. She looks into the swirling water just a few meters below as it batters the underside of the terrace. What had it done with the beach they were sitting on this afternoon? The caves they’d stood in? The staircase they’d walked down? Even the sign warning about falling rocks that had seemed so high when she was down on the beach is now about to disappear just below her. It’s as if, one by one, they’re being magicked away, lost in the depths of the choppy waters, only to reappear when the ocean feels ready to give them back.
She wonders if the waves have ever reached the restaurant, which is just a little higher, and, if they have, whether the lobsters in the tanks were able to set themselves free. She entertains the bizarre idea, as she knows it’s the only way she can hold off having to decide what she’s going to do about her husband sleeping with her best friend.
Because there’s no doubt in her mind that Ali’s telling the truth. Yet instead of feeling hurt or angry, Rachel feels stupid. How could she have allowed herself to be deceived by two people she thought cared for her? How had she lived the life she thought she should live, when deep down she knew she wanted the life she gave up? Now that she really asks herself the question, she thinks that if she hadn’t become pregnant so quickly, she and Jack most likely wouldn’t have lasted. But family is everything, and she’d vowed to do whatever she could to ensure they stayed together. But what was it all for? Why had she suppressed her feelings for the man she truly loved? Spent years beating those emotions out of herself, so that every time she saw Noah, she wasn’t taken back to that night, with a yearning that threatened to tear her apart. The thought that Josh may be Noah’s son, and they could have been together as a family for all this time, makes her want to throw herself into the swell of the waves. She’d done what she thought was the right thing to do by everybody. Why couldn’t Jack and Paige have demonstrated the same respect?
A tremendous bang makes her jump, as the night sky is set alight with a flash of pink and white. The million colored sparkles burst out from their cardboard rockets, reigniting again and again, before falling into the inky abyss.
As the sky falls black again, Rachel can see the streams of smoke weaving their way through the darkness, leaving floating gray wisps. But within seconds, another telltale whistle of a burnt-amber light soars up from what she can only imagine is a boat out at sea. It resembles a weeping willow tree as it explodes, reflecting in the water below.
In that split second, the ooooh’s that are coming from behind her turn into strangled screams that slice through the air. Rachel instinctively turns around and is blinded by a dazzling light that seems to be heading toward her. Her brain goes into overdrive as it battles to catch up with what others are already beginning to work out. The beam is definitely moving, and fast, but there are people in the way, she can see their outlines in the headlights.
Headlights? So it’s a car, and it’s showing no sign of stopping. She wants to scream, but it’s as if she’s trapped in a nightmare and no sound is coming out. She wills it to veer left, so that the restaurant takes the brunt of the impact, but she freezes as she thinks of the staff and DJ who are no doubt still inside.
The engine screeches, stuck in first gear, and Rachel prays that it won’t have enough power to reach the terrace. But it’s already here. She can hear the thud of bodies hitting the unforgiving metal, see them being spun up into the air. It’s all happening in slow motion, but yet she can’t seem to reach anyone before they’re hit; can’t save them from this faceless horror that is picking them off and taking them out, one by one.
The revving is deafening, competing against the roar of the waves, as the machine gets ever closer. What looked like a single beam separates into two round circles of light as it nears, blinding Rachel to anything beyond. She can’t see what car it is, what color it is, or, more importantly, if anyone’s in it.
It’s almost upon her now, but there’s nowhere for her to go, other than diving over the side of the terrace and into the sea. But it’s rocky and she’s likely to be taken by the ocean without trace if she gives it the chance.