16
It was lunchtime when I got back to Trinity, but the others were still in their carrels. As soon as I turned into the long aisle of books that led to our corner they looked up, fast and almost simultaneously, pens going down.
"Well,” Justin said, on a big relieved sigh, as I reached them. “There you are. About time.”
“Jesus,” said Rafe. “What took so long? Justin thought you’d been arrested, but I told him you’d probably just eloped with O’Neill.”
Rafe’s hair was standing up in cowlicks and Abby had pen smudged on one cheekbone and they had no idea how beautiful they looked to me, how close we’d come to losing each other. I wanted to touch all four of them, hug them, grab their hands and hold on hard. “They kept me hanging around for ages,” I said. “Are we going for lunch? I’m starving.”
“What happened?” Daniel asked. “Were you able to identify this man?”
“Nah,” I said, leaning across Abby to get my satchel. “He’s definitely the guy from the other night, though. You should see his face. He looks like he went ten rounds with Muhammad Ali.” Rafe laughed and held up his hand to me for a high-five.
“What are you laughing about?” Abby wanted to know. “The guy could have you charged with assault, if he wanted to. That’s what Justin thought had happened, Lex.”
“He won’t press charges. He told the cops he fell off his bike. Everything’s fine.”
“Nothing jogged your memory?” Daniel inquired.
“Nope.” I tugged Justin’s coat off his chair and waved it at him. “Come on. Can we go to the Buttery? I want proper food. Cops make me hungry.”
“Did you get any sense of what happens now? Do they think he’s the man who attacked you? Did they arrest him?”
“Nah,” I said. “They don’t have enough evidence, or something. And they don’t think he stabbed me.”
I’d been so swept up by the thought that this was good news, I had forgotten that it might look very different from most other perspectives. There was a sudden flat silence, nobody looking at anyone else. Rafe’s eyes closed for a second, like a flinch.
“Why not?” Daniel asked. “As far as I can see, he seems like a logical suspect.”
I shrugged. “Who knows what goes on in their heads? That’s all they told me.”
“For fuck’s sake,” said Abby. She looked suddenly pale and heavy-eyed, in the glare of the fluorescent lights.
“So,” Rafe said, “this whole thing was pointless, after all. We’re back where we started.”
“We don’t know that yet,” said Daniel.
“I think it’s fairly clear. Call me a pessimist.”
“Oh, God,” Justin said softly. “I so hoped this was going to be over.” No one answered him.
Daniel and Abby, talking late again, out on the patio. This time I didn’t need to feel my way along the walls to the kitchen; I could have moved through that house blindfolded without putting a foot wrong, without creaking a floorboard.
“I don’t know why,” Daniel said. They were sitting on the swing seat, smoking, not touching. “I can’t put my finger on it. Possibly I’m letting all the other tensions cloud my judgment . . . I’m just worried.”
“She’s been through a tough time,” Abby said carefully. “I think all she wants is to settle down and forget it ever happened.”
Daniel watched her, moonlight reflecting off his glasses, screening his eyes. “What is it,” he asked, “that you’re not telling me?”
The baby. I bit down on my lip and prayed that Abby believed in loyalty among the sisterhood.
She shook her head. “You’ll have to trust me on this one.”
Daniel looked away, out over the grass, and I saw a flash of something— exhaustion, or grief—cross his face. “We used to tell one another everything,” he said, “not so long ago. Didn’t we? Or is that simply the way I remember it? The five of us against the world, and no secrets, ever.”
Abby’s eyebrows flicked up. “Did we? I’m not sure anyone tells anyone else everything. You don’t, for example.”
“I’d like to think,” Daniel said, after a moment, “that I do my best. That, unless there’s some pressing reason not to, I tell you and the others everything that really matters.”
“But there’s always some pressing reason, isn’t there? With you.” Abby’s face was pale and shuttered.
“Possibly there is,” Daniel said quietly, on a long sigh. “There didn’t use to be.”
“You and Lexie,” Abby said. “Have you ever . . . ?”
A silence; the two of them watching each other, intent as enemies.
“Because that would matter.”
“Would it? Why?”
Another silence. The moon went in; their faces faded into the night.
“No,” Daniel said, finally. “We haven’t. I would probably say the same thing either way, since I don’t see how it would be important, so I don’t expect you to believe me. But, for what it’s worth, we haven’t.”
Silence, again. The tiny red glow of a cigarette butt, arcing into the dark like a meteor. I stood in the cold kitchen, watching them through the glass, and wished I could tell them: It’ll all be OK now. Everyone will settle; everything will go back to normal, given time, and now we’ve got time. I’m staying.
A door banging, in the middle of the night; fast, careless footsteps thumping on wood; another slam, heavier this time, the front door.
I listened, sitting up in bed, my heart hammering. There was a shift somewhere in the house, so subtle that I felt it more than heard it, running through walls and floorboards into my bones: someone moving. It could have come from anywhere. It was a still night, no wind in the trees, only the cool deceptive call of an owl hunting far off in the lanes. I pulled my pillow up against the headboard, got comfortable and waited. I thought about having a cigarette, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one sitting upright, senses on full alert for the tiniest thing: the click of a lighter, the smell of smoke twisting in the dark air.