I sit in front of the beach huts by Jacob’s Ladder. I have my big shades on. The beach doesn’t seem as clean as I remember it, but there is no arguing that the view is stunning. There is something about the sea, it’s magnetic. I had forgotten, in my haste to get away from it, what it felt like to be near it. Our house is near Brothers Water lake, named after two boys who drowned there. Although it’s a morbid name it’s a pretty place, especially in the spring when the flowers on the banks are in bloom. The sea is a different beast though, less quiet, less contained, less predictable. It’s warm today so it’s calm, but I have seen it at its angriest and most spiteful. Underestimate it at your peril.

Watching people with their children makes me think of my own. Chris still hasn’t called me. I think he’s making a point. I wish he would tell me what it is. I check the local news on my phone, but there’s still no identification of the body they found in the woods, just regurgitations of other accounts that I have already seen. They have been digging up there all through the night. I look for any mention of a brown car being spotted, hoping to find something to corroborate what I think I have seen. There are mentions of a car in the press but one cites it as maroon and another beige, both adding to my confusion. I am surprised the discovery of the body hasn’t made the national news, but the usual political shenanigans are overshadowing every other thing on the planet. As the media whip themselves into a frenzy about who said what to whom, Mandy Green’s murder goes unmentioned since that first report. If I hadn’t been watching the news at that exact moment I wouldn’t have known about this and I wouldn’t have come here. A part of me wishes I had never seen it at all.

I haven’t touched any alcohol today. I was stupid yesterday, self-indulgent, afraid of the past. Meeting with Jason proved I didn’t need to be afraid, that people remember only what applies to them, which I am guilty of myself. I lied when I told Jason I didn’t remember the party where everyone played spin the bottle. I didn’t want him to think too much about me and who I used to be. The me he remembers had a terrible reputation at school. It took a long time to reinvent myself after leaving.