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Chapters (86)
  1. Title Page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. Love
  4. Before
  5. One
  6. ONE
  7. Two
  8. TWO
  9. Three
  10. THREE
  11. Four
  12. FOUR
  13. Five
  14. FIVE
  15. Six
  16. SIX
  17. Seven
  18. SEVEN
  19. Eight
  20. EIGHT
  21. Nine
  22. NINE
  23. Ten
  24. TEN
  25. Eleven
  26. ELEVEN
  27. After
  28. One
  29. ONE
  30. Two
  31. TWO
  32. Three
  33. THREE
  34. Four
  35. FOUR
  36. Five
  37. FIVE
  38. Six
  39. SIX
  40. Seven
  41. SEVEN
  42. Eight
  43. EIGHT
  44. Nine
  45. NINE
  46. Ten
  47. TEN
  48. Eleven
  49. ELEVEN
  50. Twelve
  51. TWELVE
  52. Thirteen
  53. THIRTEEN
  54. Fourteen
  55. FOURTEEN
  56. Fifteen
  57. FIFTEEN
  58. Sixteen
  59. SIXTEEN
  60. Seventeen
  61. SEVENTEEN
  62. Eighteen
  63. EIGHTEEN
  64. Nineteen
  65. NINETEEN
  66. Twenty
  67. TWENTY
  68. Twenty-One
  69. TWENTY-ONE
  70. Twenty-Two
  71. TWENTY-TWO
  72. Twenty-Three
  73. TWENTY-THREE
  74. Twenty-Four
  75. TWENTY-FOUR
  76. Twenty-Five
  77. TWENTY-FIVE
  78. Twenty-Six
  79. TWENTY-SIX
  80. Twenty-Seven
  81. TWENTY-SEVEN
  82. Twenty-Eight
  83. TWENTY-EIGHT
  84. Eleven Months Later
  85. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  86. Copyright

‘I thought it would help, you know? Seeing your grave. Help with coming to terms with what’s happened. It helped Dev,’ she explains as I shake my head at her, utterly appalled. ‘When we finally lured her out of the bedroom, we took her to her funeral and she said it made her realise that it was real. That she was dead. I wanted to do the same with you, but Deborah wouldn’t let me. She said you weren’t ready.’

‘What makes you think I am now?’

‘I don’t.’ She lifts her shoulder and lets it drop again. ‘But after seeing your girlfriend tonight, I thought it might help. I just don’t want you getting your hopes up, Ash.’

‘You don’t want me to get my hopes up?’ I stare at her, stunned. ‘Poppy looked right at me and she didn’t recognise me. How would that get my hopes up? If anything, it brought it home that I really am dead, so this . . .’ I gesture at the grave and almost say, Is the final nail in the coffin but think better of it.

Jesus, it would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.

When I don’t finish the thought, she puts her hand in her hair and fists it. ‘I’m sorry, Ash. I’m not trying to make you feel worse. I just thought it would make it more real, you know? Give you closure.’

Closure.

I turn away from her and look down. ‘There’s no headstone,’ I realise with a frown.

She stands next to me, so close her sleeve brushes mine. ‘There won’t be. Not yet. It takes a couple of weeks for them to put one up.’

I didn’t know that.

We stand in silence for a while, looking down at the grave.

My grave.

I realise then that I’m not angry. Not bitter or sour or burned-up by the injustice of it all.

I’m just sad.

Desperately, unreachably sad because it’s not fair.

It’s not fair.

‘Where do they go?’ I ask, at last.

The one question I haven’t dared ask Dev.

Esen doesn’t look at me. ‘Who?’

‘When they get on the boat, where do they go?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says and I believe her. ‘No one I know has got on the boat and come back.’

‘Dev says it’s wherever you want to go.’

‘Dev says a lot of shit.’

I chuckle and it’s nice, this warm tickle in my chest.

‘You’re Catholic, right?’ she asks, nodding at the wreath in the shape of a crucifix.

I hadn’t even noticed it.

‘Technically.’ I shrug. ‘But it’s complicated.’

‘Because of the gay thing?’

OK. Maybe it isn’t that complicated.