Title Page

There’s a field somewhere

beyond all doubt and wrong doing.

I’ll meet you there.

– Rumi

For my mother and everyone else who got on the boat.

I hope you’re where you want to be.

CONTENTS

Love

Before

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

After

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Eleven Months Later

Acknowledgements

Love

Alice Anderson is exactly where Deborah said she would be, on the cliff in Saltdean looking out at the sea. Not that I could have missed her in that hot-pink fur coat she’s wearing. It’s the sort of thing I’d make a beeline for in a shop, but never be brave enough to buy. I’d try it on, take a selfie, then put it back in favour of something more sensible. Something black that I could wear to school without getting detention.

That’s one of the hardest things about this, how hopelessly normal they are. Alice could be from my year or the girl behind me in the queue at Primark, waiting for the changing rooms. Someone I could have passed in the street and never noticed until tonight.

It’s hard to tell in the dark, but from here she looks my age – sixteen, maybe seventeen – with a froth of blonde curls that the wind lifts up and away from her face so I can see her profile. I can’t see the colour of her eyes, but I can make out the sweep of her jaw and her neat button nose, her lipstick the same colour as her coat.

Judging by her knee-length dress and heels, she’s been out tonight. It’s far too cold for bare legs, but maybe she thought she’d be OK because she was getting a cab home, then lost her purse and had to walk instead. Or maybe she had a row with her boyfriend and told him to stop the car here, insisting that she’d make her own way home.

I don’t know why I do this, why I make up stories about them. That will pass, I suppose. Maybe in a few months when I’ve done this enough times that I won’t even remember their names any more.

Until then, I can’t help but ask myself why they’re there.

Why them?

The sea is rough tonight, the waves a rolling boil that will snatch you clean off your feet and drag you in if you get too close. Not that I ever do. I’ve always been scared of open water and nights like this remind me why. The waves are so loud that Alice doesn’t hear me approach, but I keep my distance because I can see that she’s shaking.

There’s something about that moment, when you’re stuck in that woozy midpoint between being here and not, when you feel everything at once – fear, joy, hope. It’s not so much a rush as a flood and it’s like you’re drowning, like someone is holding your head under water and if you can just find your way back to the surface, you’ll be OK.

That’s what’s so cruel about it. There’s a split second when you’re sure that you got away with it and the relief is dizzying. It’s kind of like that moment right after you kiss someone for the first time and you feel untethered, like you could float up and touch the sky. That’s where I come in, to make sure you don’t.

I give Alice a minute to steady herself, watch as she closes her eyes and sucks in a breath. Her whole body shudders and I wonder if it’s then that she knows that there’s nothing there.

Finally, Alice turns, her blonde curls swirling in the wind, and when she sees me, she takes a step back.

I wait a beat, then another.

‘Alice Anderson?’

The crease between her fair eyebrows deepens. ‘How do you know my name?’

‘I’m Ash.’

She stares at me so I nod at her. It takes her a moment, but when she realises that I’m gesturing at her to look over the cliff, she does, then lets out a wail that sends the seagulls scattering in every direction. She staggers back from the edge and covers her mouth with both hands. When she spins round to face me again, I have to fight the urge to turn and run because what if she wants me to say something?

This is what she’ll want me to say: everything is going to be OK.

This is what I can’t say: everything is going to be OK.

She doesn’t say anything, though, and I’m glad that she doesn’t ask me how or why or any of those impossible questions I can’t answer. Maybe she’ll want to know when. I can tell her that. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt doing this, it’s that in that moment, when all the years you thought you had ahead of you dissolve into a few seconds, why doesn’t matter. What matters is who you’ll leave behind and I get that more than anyone, believe me.

Like I said, there’s something about that moment. Everything – all those things you did and didn’t do and said and didn’t say – falls away and you see everything with absolute, startling clarity. People go their whole lives waiting for that moment. They climb mountains and swim seas and read books hoping to find it. A lucky few do, but most of us – people like me and Alice Anderson and all the ones who went before us and all the ones that will follow – don’t until it’s too late and, God, it’s cruel, isn’t it? How, when there’s no time left, you suddenly know exactly what you should have done with it.

When Alice lifts her chin to look me in the eye for the first time since she found me standing here, I wait and wonder if this is it. She knows and it will come out in a rush. All the things she should have done. The lies she told and secrets she kept. She can’t take it with her, so she’ll leave it with me. Everything she wished for when she blew out her birthday candles. I’m there and this is it, her last chance to say I’m sorry or I love you or Forgive me.

All the times she should have jumped and didn’t. All the people she should have kissed and didn’t. All that time she wasted being too careful or too polite or too scared when, in the end, nothing is as scary as watching your whole life narrow to a single moment that’s about to pass, whether you’re ready for it to or not.

Maybe I’ll see it then – the regret – burning off her, right through her clothes, and she’ll never look so alive. She’ll laugh and cry and scream, exhaust every emotion until there’s nothing left and it will be like watching a light bulb flare then burn out.

Alice doesn’t do any of that, though. She doesn’t tell me her secrets, doesn’t tell me about her dog, Chester, who sleeps at the bottom of her bed at night. Or about the lipstick she stole from Boots last year, the red one that wouldn’t come off, even when she scrubbed it so hard her mouth felt bruised for days.

I should be OK with that because it means that I don’t need to explain, we can just go. But I want to. I want Alice to ask me who I am. If she did, I’d tell her that I’m Ashana Persaud and that I’m sixteen. I’d tell her that my favourite song is ‘Rock Steady’ because it always gets my parents on the dance floor at weddings and my favourite film is Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, even though I tell everyone it’s The Shining because it’s easier. I’d show her the scar on my chin that I got falling off a slide when I was six and tell her about the tattoo I was going to get on my eighteenth birthday. I’d tell her that I’m scared of open water and clowns and being puked on and that from here, you can see where I had my last kiss, a couple of weeks ago, right there on the beach. And most of all, I’d tell her that it’s not fair.

It’s not fair that she gets to go, when I have to stay here and do this.

She doesn’t ask, though, so we just stand there, on the edge of the cliff, the moon watching over us and the sea beckoning beneath until finally she says, ‘The moon looked so pretty. I just wanted to take a photo of it. I didn’t realise I was so close to the edge and then it just . . .’ she stops to look up at the moon, ‘. . . wasn’t there any more.’

When I see her smudged eyeliner, a mascara-coloured tear skidding down her cheek, I realise that her eyes are brown, like mine, but the light behind them has gone and I wonder what they were like before. Before I got here. And I wonder who’s waiting for her at home. If her parents are up, pretending to be engrossed in Newsnight so it doesn’t look like they’ve been waiting up for her. Her mother swaddled in a thick dressing gown, phone in hand, while her father listens out for the curmudgeonly creak of the gate, followed by Alice’s careful footsteps as she navigates the gravel path in her heels.

But she isn’t going home, is she? The thought makes me want to turn and run into the sea, let it pull me under, carry me to wherever it is that I’m supposed to be. But I can’t. I can’t leave her. So I walk over to where she’s standing and peer over the edge. It’s dark, but I can see her – Alice Anderson – on the path, her limbs at unnaturally odd angles on the concrete, a halo of fresh blood beneath her head.

We stand there for a while, my hands in the pockets of my jacket and Alice’s in the pockets of her hot-pink coat. Eventually, she tilts her cheek towards me. ‘Are you an angel?’ I try not to laugh. ‘If you’re not an angel, what are you, then?’ She looks me up and down and I let her. Let her take in that I’m in black, from my DMs and jeans to my hoodie and leather jacket. Her gaze narrows when she sees my silver scythe necklace.

With that, her pale skin becomes almost see-through against the dark sky, her edges blurred, like she’s already disappearing. A whisper of moths gathers, settling in her curls as she watches me look over the cliff again then does the same. When she sees the sharp shadow of Charon on the beach below, the moonlight picking out his wooden boat as it bobs gently on the suddenly still sea, she turns to me with a curious frown.

‘Is he here for me?’

I nod.

‘Where am I going?’

I hold out my hand. ‘You’ll see.’

Before

One

ONE

As school trips go, visiting a wind farm to learn about the importance of renewable energy isn’t much to get excited about. We don’t even get to go on a coach because we’re only going to the Marina so Mr Moreno makes us walk there, saying that the exercise will do us good.

It’s chaos, of course, all of us spilling out of the school gates at once in a roar of laughter and chatter that you must be able to hear halfway down the street. We Whitehawk kids have a bad enough reputation as it is, but when we’re travelling en masse like this, it’s enough to make people shake their heads and tut as they cross the road to avoid us.

By the time we get on to Manor Hill, Mr Moreno is clearly regretting his decision to make us walk as he runs back and forth, frantically doing a head count to make sure none of us have wandered off while his TA urges those of us lagging behind to hurry up or we’ll miss the boat.

I’m one of them.

‘It won’t be that bad,’ Adara tells me, offering me a cheese and onion crisp, which I refuse with a surly scowl as I stuff my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket. She’s right, of course. After all, it’s quite a hot afternoon for late September, the sun high and bright in the sky, and I’m missing double chemistry, which is never a bad thing. Besides, it’s Friday and Mr Moreno says that we’ll be done by two thirty, so I should be thrilled that we’re finishing early, even if it means hanging out at a wind farm for a few hours.

My reluctance, however, is less to do with where we’re going, rather, how we’re getting there.

‘Listen, yeah,’ Adara says, stopping to reach for another crisp and pointing it at me. ‘I know you don’t like open water, babe, but it’ll be fine. I promise. We’ll sail to the wind farm, look at the turbines, marvel in the energy of the future and sail back.’ I obviously don’t look convinced because she adds, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’

That question is answered as soon as we arrive at the Marina and Dan McCarthy runs up behind me. He must have overheard us talking because he picks me up and threatens to throw me into the sea. I shriek, telling him to let go of me as I try to kick him, but he just laughs and asks me if I want to go for a swim. I’m aware of Adara shouting at him, but that just makes him laugh harder as he holds me over the sea wall, the waves so close it’s as though they’re reaching up to lick the soles of my DMs.

Mercifully, Mr Moreno intervenes, marching over to where he has me dangling. ‘Daniel McCarthy! Put Ashana down right now!’ Mr Moreno never raises his voice, which I almost admire, given that he has to keep a classful of sixteen year olds engaged through double chemistry on a Friday afternoon when our only concern is what we’re doing at the weekend. It works, though, because Dan lifts me back over the edge of the sea wall and puts me down.

Mr Moreno’s cheeks go from pink to red. ‘What were you doing, Daniel?’

‘We were just mucking around, Sir.’

We? I’m tempted to interject, but Year Eleven solidarity dictates that I never grass on a fellow classmate, even if they’re as annoying as Dan.

‘It didn’t seem like Ashana was in on the joke, though.’ Mr Moreno crosses his arms, waiting for me to agree. When I don’t, he gives up with a sharp sigh. ‘Apologise to Ashana. Now.’

‘Sorry,’ he says, trying to swallow back a laugh and failing.

Mr Moreno, clearly unimpressed with Dan’s lack of remorse, uncrosses his arms to raise his finger. ‘We’ll discuss this on Monday, Daniel. I want to see you in my office at eight o’clock, do you understand?’ I can tell Dan wants to object – eight o’clock on a Monday morning! – but he thinks better of it and nods instead. ‘Now try to behave yourself for the rest of the afternoon. Do you think you can manage that?’

Dan grunts something I assume is yes then runs off to join his mates.

‘Prick,’ I mutter, adjusting my leather jacket. I didn’t think I’d said it loud enough for Mr Moreno to hear, but he turns to me with a fierce frown that lets me know that he doesn’t think it’s a proportional response. Now it’s my turn to apologise, which is deeply unfair given that I nearly just died. I mutter one anyway, which he acknowledges with a nod before ushering my classmates who gathered to see what’s going on towards the gangway that leads to the boat.

‘You OK?’ Adara asks as we follow, albeit with less enthusiasm.

I nod and she knows me well enough to leave it at that.

My legs are still shaking as we walk over to where everyone is gathered in a horseshoe around Mr Moreno at the foot of the gangway, his face back to its normal colour. He must have been waiting for us, because when Adara and I stop, lingering at the back, he holds his hands up. ‘I know we’re all excited to learn about the marvel of renewable energy.’ There’s a collective groan, which he ignores. ‘But you’re representing Whitehawk High School this afternoon, so please try to remember that, OK?’

He tilts his head and raises his eyebrows at Dan McCarthy, who looks back at me and laughs.

‘Ignore him,’ Adara tells me as Mr Moreno claps his hands and turns to lead the way up the narrow gangway towards the waiting boat. ‘You know what Dan’s like.’

‘He’s kind of hard to ignore when he’s trying to throw me in the sea, Ad.’

‘I know, but he only does this stuff because he fancies you. You know what boys are like. That’s how they show their affection.’

‘He’s not my type,’ I remind her with a sour smile.

She laughs. ‘He doesn’t know that, though, does he?’

‘First of all.’ I stop to smooth the palms of my hands over my scalp, trying to tame the fine hair that has escaped from my ponytail thanks to Dan’s grand romantic gesture. ‘He doesn’t fancy me, he’s an asshole. And even if he did, we’re sixteen, Ad. Aren’t we beyond boys pulling our pigtails in the playground?’

She goes quiet and when the skin between her precisely drawn eyebrows pinches, I know that she’s asking herself whether all the boys who teased us over the years, who tried to pull off her hijab and told us that we smelt like curry, were just ‘showing their affection’ or if they were assholes, like Dan.

I’m about to tell her not to worry about it when there’s a bristle of excitement. I wonder what Dan’s done now as Mr Moreno marches down the gangway towards us, reminding Adara and I that they’re holding up the boat because we’re late as he corrals us on. It’s then that we discover what all the excitement is about: we’re not alone. There, on the other side of the deck, is a huddle of girls who look as horrified to see us as we are to see them.

‘Who are they?’ Adara asks, blinking so furiously the wings of her eyeliner look set to take flight.

‘The Whitehawk kids and the Roedean girls.’ I smirk. ‘This should be interesting.’

There’s a tense moment of silence as we stare across the deck at one another. To their credit, they don’t recoil, rather push their shoulders back and lift their chins as if to say, We’re not scared of you. Some even cross their arms and while it does nothing to deflect the stares they’re getting, when I see them in their neat navy uniforms, it’s enough to make me want to lick my thumb and bend down to wipe away the scuff on the toe of my DM.

When I turn back to Adara, she’s fussing over her hijab and I follow her gaze across the deck to a girl with the sort of hair I’ve only ever seen in shampoo adverts – long and blonde and practically glowing in the late September sun – who is staring shamelessly at us.

‘What’s the matter?’ I ask her, crossing my arms. ‘Never seen brown people before?’

The girl immediately flushes, then turns to her friend to whisper something. I’m about to tell Adara to ignore her, but I don’t need to as she looks at me and rolls her eyes.

‘Right. Everyone keep to the left, please,’ Mr Moreno tells us as the teacher from Roedean tells them to keep to the right, as though we’re warring football supporters who might charge at one another.

The boat engine starts and as soon as I feel the reluctant rumble of it beneath my feet, I remember where I am and reach for the railing to steady myself as my legs threaten to give way. I’ll give them that – the Roedean girls are a welcome distraction from the sea encircling us, but as the boat begins to pull away from the dock, I’m lashed in the face with the cloying smell of fuel and feel the milk from the cereal my mother made me have before I left home curdling in my stomach.

‘Deep breaths,’ Adara coos, rubbing my back with her hand, but I can’t – the heady smell combined with the smoke chugging from the engine is so strong, I can taste it coating my tongue.

The Story Continues on BooksBarbecue!

Enjoyed this preview? ❤️ Do not stop here!

Read the complete book free online → 🔗

Continue reading now on BooksBarbecue and discover every page!

Love reading? Bookmark BooksBarbecue.com for more amazing books!

Happy Reading!