I walk onto the promenade and along the front. I remember we used to sit in the shelter and shout at passers-by. Entertainment was what you made of it in a place like this. The shelter has had a couple of layers of paint added since I lived here, but it’s the same one. I remember when they installed it. I sit on the bench inside and run my fingers along the wooden slats. The first time we got drunk was in this little hut. We sneaked bottles of Vermouth and got one of the older boys in town to buy us cider. We drank the Vermouth straight and in too short a space of time. Afterwards we walked to the cemetery and jumped out at each other from behind gravestones. I still feel bad for throwing up on a grave, even though it was well over a hundred years old and clearly hadn’t been visited anytime recently. I had forgotten about that night until just now. I remember getting home and pretending I was sober and my mother playing along, or perhaps she was too blind to reality to notice, even though I could tell she knew I had been drinking.

I look up and down the promenade to check for anyone else, but there is no one apart from the occasional car on the adjacent road and so I lie on the concrete walkway. I have lain here before. I carved our initials in the wood under the bench. I wondered if it was preserved. It was; faded but the same and still recognisably in my handwriting. F & J forever. Except nothing lasts forever, not even in this picture-perfect little town.

Chapter Fourteen

I walk along the high street I have walked down a million times before – the same gift shops and charity shops, the same bakeries and clothing shops. I know where to start my search, although I’m still unsure of exactly what I’m looking for, still ignoring the whispers at the back of my mind that are telling me I already know what happened. I don’t know why I thought I needed to be here, all I know is that I do. I have to find out what I missed when I ran away. The library is as good a place as any to start.