SIX YEARS EARLIER

Someone is watching me.

I've been laying here for ages, curled up on my side, staring at the same view out of the same window that I've stared out of ever since we moved into this house, and yet everything feels different. Strange. Unfamiliar. I keep expecting something to happen. Something that will trigger a memory. A feeling. Anything.

Instead, I just feel numb and confused. Like I'm looking at this view with different eyes.

There's a deep, nagging feeling in my bladder and I know I should get up and go to the bathroom, but I've been saying that to myself for a few hours now and yet it's not that which forces me to move in the end. It's the innate knowledge that someone is watching me. The hair on the back of my neck prickles and I'm compelled to look.

I twist on the bed and he smiles at me from where he's leaning against the doorway, his arms folded casually across his chest.

I blink slowly, trying to focus.

Tom.

'Hey, sleepy head,' he says, softly. Softly. Always soft. Warm. Gentle. Like the ebb and flow of the spring tide. Like soft pastels gliding on the surface of the paper.

'Hey,' I say, because I don't know what else to say back. Everything feels out of reach. I never thought it would feel like this. I never thought I would feel like this.

Tom pads over to the bed and lies down next to me, propping his head up on his hand. His hair is slightly damp and curling on his forehead. He smells of shower-gel and that coconut shampoo of mine he likes so much, even though he swears he doesn't use it, because it's 'not manly enough' for him.

'You went for a run,' I say, even though it's not really a question because I know he went. I heard him creeping about the room, getting ready and trying not to wake me, even though I wasn't even asleep. I just kept my eyes closed until he'd gone and when I'd heard the front door click shut I'd opened them and just stared out the window.

'Yeah, figured I'd go out before it got too warm outside,' he says, picking at a loose thread on the embroidered duvet cover. I should say something because this bedding cost a fortune, one of those rare impulse buys that felt good at the time, but instead I say nothing. It doesn't seem important. 'You don't mind I went without you, right? You were sleeping and I didn't want to disturb you. Especially not after last night.'

Last night.

Right.

It comes back to me fast and hard. So hard that the pain bursts at the base of my skull. A sharp reminder. Memories have a habit of doing that I guess. Just when you think you've forgotten, they hit you with such force that it feels like a splinter of glass just embedded itself deep in your brain.

'I'm sorry,' I say, instantly, but I'm not sure I am sorry. I'm not sure about anything. It's like there's this deep, black chasm and I'm standing inside it and everything is different now. Everything is cold and so far away and I don't know how to climb out.

Tom smiles again. There's sadness there. Of course there is. That's Tom down to a tee. Empathetic. Caring. Compassionate. He's sad because he thinks I'm sad. But, I'm not. I'm just... lost.

'You are allowed to get drunk some times, you know?' His fingers trace around the button on my shirt-sleeve. I didn't even get changed last night. I suddenly feel disgusting and really want to take a shower too. 'It's nothing to apologise for. Especially considering...'

Considering.

Considering my Dad is dead.

I've thought a lot about that word this morning. What does it even mean? And how am I meant to feel about it? I'm pretty sure I'm meant to feel something, but I don't.

Dad died last week. A whole week has gone by. The lady at the care home had been on at me to go and collect his stuff and I'd gone yesterday. His life had been packed away into a cardboard box and not even a big one at that. The logo of a brand of popular soup was printed on the side of the box. I almost laughed when I saw it. One day, tins of soup, the next, a whole life marked out by a few worthless possessions. There'd been nothing of any sentimental value, not that it had surprised me – this was Dad, after all and he'd rarely been sentimental about anything but a pint of ale in his hands. His worn and tattered wallet, containing his social club membership card from two years ago. A disposable lighter. A West Ham United knitted hat, although I couldn't for the life of me remember him ever supporting a football team. A pack of playing cards. No pictures. No letters. Nothing to indicate that he'd ever been married or had a kid. Nothing to indicate he'd ever had an actual life before his liver had rotted him from the inside out.

'Eve...' Tom says. 'Eve, look at me.'

I'd turned away again to stare out the window and hadn't even realised.

I do look at him and I wonder who he sees. Does he see me? I'm not sure I want him to. I'm not sure I even want him to look at me. I feel watched. Pried upon. My skin prickles again and I want to scratch at it and rid myself of this Evie that has invaded me. This cold, numb creature that is so unlike the person I really am.

'What happened?' he says.

He's stroking my arm now and I try to focus on that because it feels good and warm and gentle. I try to focus on that because I need to feel something now. Something other than what keeps bouncing around inside my head.

'Where did you go after you left the care home? Where's the box?'

'The box,' I repeat, numbly.

Pain pulses strong and I have to close my eyes to fight back against the nausea that sweeps through me.

'Yeah, the box of your Dad's stuff,' Tom says. 'I went to pick up your car and it's not in there. Monica says she doesn't have it. What did you do with it?'

'I don't remember,' I say, but I think I do. It's coming at me in a hazy myriad of images, like that kaleidoscope I had when I was a kid. It always made me feel a little dizzy when I looked into it. I never liked it much, but had always looked into it anyway, half-hoping I'd see something different each time.

'Mon said you were late. She was worried about you, she said she called the care home but you'd already gone. Where did you go?'

I hear the water now, thick and sluggish, and smell the dank, stale stench of it.

The surface had looked almost gelatinous, as if you could throw something onto it and it would hold it there, slowly sucking it down like oozing quicksand. The box was swallowed by the water surprisingly quickly.

'The canal,' I say. ' I went to the canal. I threw Dad's stuff in there.'

Tom exhales and leans towards me, pressing his mouth against my forehead. 'Oh, babe. You should have called me. I hate the idea of you being down by the canal on your own.'

'I wasn't alone.'

Tom stiffens and pulls away, his eyes drowning me in confusion and alarm. 'What do you mean? Eve, who were you with?'

I blink.

My head hurts and all of a sudden, I'm so thirsty I could gag. I really shouldn't have sunk that second bottle of wine. I smile but it's as weak and fragile as the memory.

'Oh, you know what the canal path can be like,' I say. 'Joggers. Cyclists. Dog walkers. It was pretty busy. I walked down past the lock and threw the box in. Didn't even realise what I was doing until some old bloke had a go at me for dumping rubbish in the canal.'

Tom continues to stare at me and I realise I hate it. I've never hated him looking at me before. Why does this feel so different? I usually love the way he looks at me. It's like, he just gets it, he just gets me. But, right now, I don't want him to get me. I don't want him to look and see this creature, the one who said a silent fuck you to her dead dad as she dumped everything left of him in the canal. I'm scared he won't love her. I'm scared he will think she's a monster.

Am I a monster?

'You didn't have to do that on your own,' Tom says. 'You don't have to do any of this on your own. You know that, right? I'm here, Eve, I'll always be here.'

I'm suddenly gripped by a strange irrational fear. A cold, creeping fear that he won't always be here. But, that's the way it should be, shouldn't it? Isn't that normal? I'm not sure I understand anything much right now, my head is a kaleidoscopic mess of gurgling canal water, of footsteps on the towpath, of the man's face too close to mine, all red and angry, of me, crying, stumbling away, lost and alone.

But, there's one thing I do understand.

I press my mouth against Tom's and hold him there for a few seconds.

'I know,' I whisper. 'I know you will.'

This is it. This is what I understand. Him. Us.

When he finally gets up to go downstairs to fix us some lunch and I've promised to get up and take a shower, I watch him leave and something dark and unwanted nags at the base of my stomach. Something unsettling. Something I can't put my finger on.

On the nightstand, the old-fashioned-looking alarm clock is clicking. The battery has run low and the seconds hand is stuck and it just keeps clicking.

Click-click-click.

The room reeks of the care home and canal water.

I can't bear it any longer. Gagging, I run for the en-suite bathroom and throw up violently, the kind of vomiting that feels like it's going to burst your stomach, the kind that makes you want to cry.

But, I don't cry. I can't. Not for Dad. Not even for me. I'm confused, but I'm no longer numb.

I'm scared. I'm scared of losing Tom. I'm scared of losing the only thing that makes sense.

In the bedroom, the clock just keeps clicking.