Page 37 of Rich Little Liars

All I have is Richard’s hand in mine. His kiss goodbye. His certainty that I’m worth defending. It doesn’t feel like enough. But it’s all I’ve got.

I relax and listen to the house groaning in the autumn winds. To the distant sound of cars on wet roads. To my own breathing, shallow and quick. Tomorrow, I’ll try again. I’ll smile if I see anyone. I’ll pretend the letters don’t exist. I’ll keep pretending I’m fine until maybe, impossibly, it becomes true.

Tonight, I’ll just survive.

That’s all I can manage any more.

Just survival.

One locked door at a time.

13

NOW

Unable to sleep, I’m making coffee at half past eleven when I notice it.

Not a dramatic moment. Not a sudden shock. Just a shape at the edge of the back yard that catches my eye as I’m waiting for the kettle to boil. Dark against dark, but slightly different.

Slightly wrong.

I stop mid-reach for a mug and look properly.

It’s probably nothing. A trash bag I left out. A trick of the light from the streetlamp filtering through the trees. The hedge casting shadows in ways I haven’t learned yet because I’ve only been here a short while and don’t know how this garden looks at night.

Except, it’s in a spot where nothing should be. Just past the patio, near the corner where the fence meets the hedge. A dark mass that I don’t remember seeing before.

I move closer to the window, trying to get a better angle. The pool lies between me and the fence, the water flat and black at this hour, turning the yard into layers of shadow I can’t quite read. The shape doesn’t resolve into anything recognisable. Just remains stubbornly unclear – too tall for a fox, too still for branches in the wind.

The coffee maker sings completion behind me. I ignore it and just continue to watch. The shape doesn’t move. Doesn’t do anything except exist there at the edge of my garden in a way that makes my shoulders tight. It must be a trash bag. Or a pile of leaves. Or literally anything except what my paranoid brain is trying to make it into.

But I keep watching anyway, scanning that corner of the garden, trying to identify what I’m seeing. Trying to convince myself it’s nothing.

After five minutes, my neck starts to ache from the angle. I straighten, roll my shoulders, tell myself to stop being stupid. Make my coffee. Drink it standing at the sink, occasionally glancing out at the garden.

The shape is still there. Still unclear.

Still making me breathless.

Eventually, I force myself away from the window. Go through my usual routine of checking locks – front door, back door, every ground-floor window. Everything is secure. Everything is fine.

Upstairs, I stand at my bedroom window looking down at the garden from a different angle. From here, I can’t see the corner where the shape was. Can’t see much except the back patio and the yard and the fence line disappearing into darkness.

I close the curtains and get into bed fully clothed. Lie there staring at the ceiling, listening to the wind whistle, telling myself there’s nothing to worry about.

But sleep doesn’t come.

The next night, I see it again. Different spot this time.

I’m in the study around midnight, reading the same page of a book for the third time, when I glance up and catch something at the far end of the garden. Near the shed I haven’t opened since moving in.

Another dark shape. Another mass that doesn’t quite make sense.

My first thought is: maybe I left something out there. Except I haven’t been in that part of the yard, or even walked past the back patio since that first week when I pulled a few weeds and gave up.

I set down my book and move to the window.

The shape is harder to see from this angle – too far away, too much darkness between here and there. But it’s definitely something. Definitely present.