Episode Three

Even as February lingered just out of sight, winter was not yet done with Clayham-on-Sea. 

As January faded, the tides became fiercer, dark water heaving and lashing at the shore. The very vibrancy of the town seemed to drain along the seafront; everything had paled in its presence. Once-golden sand was now dulled by the cold, the skies were iron white most days, and even the marquees with their pulsing lights and garish hues seemed muted under the oppression of winter rain.

Regardless of the treacherous weather and the unwelcoming clashing and crashing of waves, Havannah still found herself standing on the rain-soaked sand at the crack of dawn, shivering at the very thought of making contact with the water. By now, the sun should have lit the sky, but dense clouds smothered any sense of light and time. A storm had formed overnight, much further from land than prying eyes could see. In its wake, the sea had stewed into a dark and violent force. For the first time since initiating her morning ritual, Havannah almost considered heading back to the warmth of her flat, leaving the tide to its moods. To do so, however, would be to walk about the day with a weight in her chest. 

“What do you think? Too cold?” came a voice, distinctively cheerful even as the sound of waves rolling haphazardly towards the two lone figures threatened to deafen them both. The wind whipped and threw the words around viciously. Still, Havannah didn’t need to look behind her to know who it was. The eyeroll that followed – a secret, silent gesture, shared only with the sea – came unprompted by any conscious thought. The encroaching on a sacred moment was always bound to put Havannah at odds with an interloper.

And yet… A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. The impish wind suddenly became something of an ally, throwing his lingering scent in her direction. She drank it in, savouring the warmth and the memory of his arm around her body.

Olivier took his place, uninvited, at Havannah’s side. Draped over one shoulder was a towel that seemed two sizes too small, while a pair of trainers dangled from two hooked fingers, teased by the unsteady current of air. With his free hand, Olivier sheltered his eyes and surveyed the remnants of the tempest, the last emotional thrashing before it tired itself out.

“Bon matin,” Havannah greeted him with a smirk. At the periphery of her vision, she sensed the Frenchman’s face light up with pleasant surprise. 

If the wind and faint hint of incoming rain had cause to berate Havannah, then they had chosen to spare Olivier. Unbothered, as if caught in a gentle breeze, his hair simply waved peacefully, still following the distinct line of his side parting, while a pair of round spectacles remained mostly clear of water droplets and fog. Havannah, meanwhile, had been forced to secure her braids more tightly in an up-do, clumsily bundling them atop her crown in a half-awake state some twenty minutes earlier. Already they threatened to spill, and she could feel the end of her nose starting to freeze. But with a witness? There could be no turning back.

Olivier reached one arm across himself, supported the elbow, and started to stretch and rotate, making a show of warming himself up. A gust of wind pressed the white viscose shirt tightly against his body, and Havannah could make out more of the tattoo and the musculature that had been out of sight at their lunch meeting. It was baffling how he could even be there in such weather, protected by thin material and jogging bottoms rolled half-way up his shin, but Havannah kept returning her glance to his body, tall and lean and firm. Determined to distract herself from the sight, she resorted to incredulity instead.

“You’re not actually going in, are you?” Havannah asked, over-egging the disbelief just enough to sound self-righteous. To ensure no offence was taken, she hastily added concern, delivered with softness. “You’ll freeze.”

“Of course!” Olivier replied, his voice competing with the erratic rise and fall of the wind. He hadn’t heard her concern, but seemed no less deterred. “I love swimming in open water.” 

“It’s crazy out there,” Havannah shouted over a sudden surge of wind that calmed almost as soon as she was done talking. It seemed the weather was intent on vexing her today.

“It’s…lively,” Olivier corrected, pulling the towel from his shoulder and depositing it on the sand at his feet. A strategically-placed big toe kept it out of the clutches of the mischievous gusts, while he moved to unbutton his shirt. The material slipped from his tall frame and he folded forward, tucking part of the sleeve under his foot.

Havannah wasn’t paying attention to Olivier’s flexibility or ingenuity; her eyes were occupied, gliding over Olivier’s skin to trace the tattoos that reached from his toned chest to his shoulder and bicep. With every movement, his biceps portrayed a garden in motion, flowers and snakes, insects and leaves layered in monochrome one on top of the other. Although they met and melded together, the tattoo on his chest was quite different, the outline of a curling shape, like smoke creeping up to his collarbone. It looked unfinished and Havannah couldn’t make out how far along it was, but she wanted to marvel at it – to trace her fingers along its dark lines and follow wherever she was led.

Standing barefoot together on the beach, Havannah recognised just how tall Olivier really was. He towered above her, a mighty oak rooted so firmly in the wet sand that the weather itself seemed to take notice. The teasing rain had already lost interest and had never properly committed before it stopped; the wind started to calm, even as the waters continued to churn in the distance.

As Olivier stepped out of his joggers to reveal tight black swimming shorts, the idea that he was showing off – that he wanted her to swoon at his bravery – suddenly felt childish. He was serious about going in, and not once had he glanced at her to check if she was looking. Havannah knew these waters, had swam in them, worked beside them, heard the horror stories from her parents; it was surely too dangerous for either of them. But he had intruded upon her ritual and there was now a certainty that she would follow him in. Too many times, her bluff had been called; Havannah hadn’t ever lost yet.

“No, really. I don’t think it’s safe, Olivier.” It was Havannah’s last appeal - the last moment of grace she was giving attention to before doing something reckless.

“I’m sorry,” Olivier replied, kicking free of the stubborn joggers bundled around one foot. “I can’t hear you over the waves.”

With one final tug, Olivier freed himself. He bundled his towel, joggers, and shirt together, and handed them to Havannah for safekeeping. To her surprise, she accepted them without question.

“If you’re not coming in, maybe you can hold my things for me?”

The favour was asked with such sincerity that it took a few seconds for the outrage to surface. By the time Havannah thought to protest, Olivier was away, howling as he ran and leapt into the sea. Thrashing waves rose to meet him, grateful for the company of a fool. The playful, intimidating nature of the water reminded Havannah of a boy she had known at school, who rough-housed with his dogs as she watched them jump and yelp and lick their master’s face.

In her hands, the shirt felt warm and soft, comforting her with Olivier’s lingering body heat. The scent followed, drifting towards her. This time, though, Havannah surrendered the items rather than her senses. She dropped Olivier’s clothes at her feet and pulled off her own t-shirt, cardigan, and navy blue joggers. 

“I’m not some fucking maid,” she huffed under her breath.

Aware of the impending moment when the cold air would sink into her skin, Havannah hurried to place both pairs of trainers on top of the clothes, keeping them pinned to the sand. A pang of hesitation followed. It evaporated as soon as she saw the waves attempting – and failing – to scale Olivier’s full height as he howled with shivering joy.

Taking measured, yet determined, steps, Havannah raced to follow the footprints left behind before the tide could sweep them away. With tightened fists and a gulp of breath held in her chest, Havannah braced herself for the impact of a wave storming towards her. Once in the grasp of the sea, a short, sharp scream escaped. Like a frozen palm, the water had roughly caressed the small of her back with little warning, urging her into its depths.

Olivier laughed and waded over, suddenly rising out of the sea like a new mountain formation; it still could not reach him at his full height, no matter the effort. She took his hand, instantly regretting it as he pulled them both further from the shore. Even so, it was too cold and too much of a shock to let go now, so instead Havannah allowed her grip to tighten on his hand, while simultaneously leaning closer against Olivier’s firm body for support.

“Make sure to keep breathing,” Olivier instructed, his voice now competing with the combined booming of both waves and the wind. 

Slowly – gently – he led her deeper into the water, easing them both further and further away from the safety of land, until Havannah’s toes could no longer reach the sand. At such a distance, surrounded by the freezing tumbling and turning of the waves, even Olivier’s bravado started to fade. Goosebumps rose to the surface of his peach-coloured skin, and his words were made jagged on chattering teeth.

“You’re shivering!” Havannah observed aloud, allowing herself to tease.

“Of course I am!” Olivier laughed, paddling and thrashing his arms beneath the waves to keep them both afloat. “It’s fucking freezing!”

Havannah giggled at his pronunciation – fuh-keng – and was rewarded with a splash of seawater. A wave rolled into the pair, causing them to splutter and gasp in between their laughter. Against the odds, Havannah felt her breathing become even and controlled, and she thought for a moment that she might have conquered the sea itself. 

Away from the shore, the waves seemed to ease as the clouds gave way to an emerging shaft of pale sunlight. They floated there for a minute, caught in the spotlight and surrounded by the twinkling diamonds caught on the crests of waves. Havannah closed her eyes and turned to face the source, hoping to capture it beneath her skin and carry it with her through the rest of winter.

The momentary kindness in a season of brutality was brief. After only a few minutes, the clouds reunited and the swimmers were left alone in the water, Olivier’s arm around Havannah’s shoulder, her hands now pressed against his torso. Their feet kicked frantically out of sight, but in the open air they seemed peaceful – comfortable in each other’s embrace. But then, without the sun as a witness, cold reality started to settle into their bones. Here they were, practically strangers, far from the shore and reliant on one another to stay afloat. Havannah felt her insides squirm, felt a tension that twisted all around her insides. She kept her eyes on the pier in the distance. If she looked back, would it be Ronan she saw, or would Havannah have to reckon with the idea that she had been reading from the same screenplay once again. 

A flaring of embarrassment across her body gave a temporary – if unwelcome – reprieve from the cold. Rather than allow the feeling of her innards being wrung out to continue, Havannah relinquished her grasp on Olivier and put just enough of the sea between them. Perplexion rippled across his face, only to be hidden just as quickly as it had been revealed.

Havannah hadn’t noticed; her attention was caught closer to the shoreline, where a second glow from the heavens had broken through the clouds. Light spilt upon the pier, adding definition and lines to the usually obscure silhouette. 

“What a view,” Olivier said, following where she was looking. To Havannah’s chagrin, the water was calming around them; she had hoped that the waves might have leapt up to steal Olivier’s words before they could be spoken, but they didn’t care for her feelings. She hadn’t conquered the sea after all.

“Yeah, it is.”

There was a silent pause between them. A tear rolled from Havannah’s eye and immediately ingratiated itself with the saltwater already upon her face. It was a private tear – a secret between her and the sea – and this far out she didn’t need to wipe it away.

“Can we get out?” Olivier asked, muscles twitching beneath his collarbone. He was shivering and starting to pale. The point had been made, the adventure undertaken; now it was time to dry off and continue with the day.

At the suggestion, Havannah experienced both relief and disappointment; relief that they could get warm on the shore, and disappointment that it had been Olivier who had wanted to turn back first. She distanced herself a little further and nodded. Droplets of icy water speckled the bundle of braids atop her head, and the tip of Olivier’s nose held the last indication of any warmth in the way it blushed.

“Yeah, I think we should.”

They took off for the beach, Olivier occasionally slowing to check on Havannah, his own limbs long enough to pull him to shore faster. She could keep up, however, tempered by the many mornings spent alone in the icy water.

Despite how it had paled the world around them, the winter sea had been unable to dull Olivier’s lively spirit. Throughout their traipse back to where towels and clothes lay in a pile on the sand, he lauded the short adventure as one of the best mornings of his life. Havannah laughed and smiled and played along as well, though their escape from the cold waves had shaken something loose in her.

There had been a moment – one terrible moment – where Havannah had abandoned the very purpose of her morning swim, allowing herself to forget about her father and Ronan and the skeletal remains of the pier watching from the distance. Instead, she had basked wholeheartedly in the sensation of Olivier’s skin beneath her fingertips, and the warmth of his body against hers even as the sea threatened to freeze them. Guilt – a guilt that felt far colder than the late January air or the unruly sea – sank into her chest, and then into her gut. She dried herself off in silence. Behind them, the sea had finally tired of its own crescendos, now at rest once again.

Dressed and mostly dry, the pair headed back to the sandstone steps reaching up to the street. Out of politeness, she answered his questions – small talk and inane chatter to fill the gap now that the wind had dropped and left empty air behind. At street level, Olivier smiled and swept his damp hair back with one hand.

“Thank you for that. I had a lot of fun.” 

Havannah gave another a polite nod. The damp braids were weighing upon her crown, while in her head, miserable utterances called attention to her flaws – the way she’d drawn so close to a man once again, the treachery of considering selling her father’s legacy, the ease with which she had become distracted from her own misery. These thoughts burst forth from her bedrock like a spring, dark water flooding Havannah from within. To stay another moment might mean drowning, and so she wished Olivier well and turned to cross the road.

“Oh! Hang on,” Olivier insisted, suddenly. 

Instinctively, Havannah pulled her hands closer, imagining that Olivier would reach out to grasp a wrist in a desperate attempt to root her to the spot. When she glanced back, however, his hands were far from her own, fumbling in the pockets of his joggers. He pulled out a car key fob, which he pointed towards a black sports car parked along the street.

“Hang on for just one minute,” he held up one index finger, but then changed the gesture so his hands were as close to a prayer position as possible with the key fob dangling between the palms. “Please. It will only take a moment...” 

Until he received Havannah’s assent, Olivier wouldn’t move. Did he fear that, given the chance, she would be gone the moment he looked away? Although there was hesitation, Havannah had no intention of vanishing. Putting him out of his misery, she nodded and said, “Sure.”

“Good. Great,” Olivier said, the edge of his excitement softened by the ever-present anxiety that she would change her mind. Such was his concern that she caught him glancing back on the way to and from the car, an awkward smile returning to his face each time he was caught.

From the boot of the car, Olivier produced a bright bouquet of flowers that even the steely sky and murky water couldn’t rob of vibrance. As he carried them over, Havannah imagined the sun’s warmth emanating from the flowers, a drop of pure light caught and cut and wrapped up just for her.

“A little something for you. To say thank you. You’ve been very welcoming. And you were brave this morning, in the sea.”

Olivier beamed as he handed the flowers to Havannah, who accepted them with a deep inhalation of their fresh scent. Bold yellow lilies and demure white roses brought civility to an arrangement punctuated by a cluster of bright pink chrysanthemums. She would put them in her mum’s favourite vase, if she could find it. Upon the exhalation, a garden’s worth of peace stayed behind in Havannah’s lungs.

“They’re beautiful,” she said, meaning it with every fiber of her being. “Thank you, Olivier.”

“You can call me Oli. A lot of English people say my name wrong, so I tell them to call me Oli. Not that you’re saying it wrong.” Olivier pushed his rounded glasses further up his nostrils and Havannah could imagine his school days as a shy, bookish boy. The movement was – to her – proof that parts of us never leave.

“Thank you, Oli.”

Despite her gratitude and the beauty of the bouquet, Havannah was still all too aware of the sadness rising from the depths of her. In the dark water, the future was reflected back at her as visions of misery; the flowers would inevitably spend the rest of their short-lived days in a vase in the kitchen, out of sight from visitors, shrivelling up and losing their colour until she could finally make the excuse to throw them out. Then again, to put them on display at all betrayed the notion that Olivier might one day be in her flat to see them. In that vision, there was no way for her to put the sea between them – no way to keep him at a distance.

“Are you alright? Has nobody given you flowers before?” Olivier asked.

Havannah realised she had been looking so inwardly that she could have been staring down an old stone well, lured in by tempting reflections.

“Oh, yes, they have. My dad gave me flowers,” Havannah mused, half-aware of her words. “Sorry, I was miles away.” 

“He sounds like a wonderful man,” Olivier offered, putting a noticeable amount of space between them. He shuffled his feet a little, scratched the back of his head, and then stuffed distracted hands back into his pockets. “I know you declined before, but…what do you say we talk more later? Over dinner?”

Havannah dropped her gaze once more towards the bouquet. At such proximity, she could imagine looking out over a summer meadow. Somewhere between the petals and leaves, the right answer might be hiding just out of sight.

“I’ll take a look at my calendar and let you know. Is that OK?”

“It’s better than a no.” Olivier gave a shrug, accompanied with a wink. Without warning, he leaned in and kissed Havannah on the cheek in farewell, his lithe body closing the gap between them with surprising ease. As she pulled away, Havannah drank in the sight of him once again; the guilt bubbled at the bottom of the imaginary well.

“I look forward to your answer,” he said casually, closing the boot of the car. Where there had been a vague portrayal of nervousness, there was now a quiet confidence. Havannah thought the young Frenchman sure of himself, but also unsure of himself in equal measure – two sides of a single coin that was Olivier Boutain.

Havannah didn’t wait for him to leave; she threw Olivier a quick wave before crossing the road, the flowers held tightly to her chest. Somewhere behind her, the car’s engine roared into life. Havannah didn’t look back to see if he was gone.

***

Olivier’s flowers - still wrapped in plastic, stems untrimmed - rustled and shook as the bouquet landed on Damon’s desk some hours later. Despite the impact, the petals stayed in place, stoic in the face of ill treatment.

“You shouldn’t have,” Damon mocked as he dragged sore eyes from the screen to his unexpected guest. “What’s the occasion?”

“Oh ha-ha,” Havannah sniped, folding her arms as she sat, the colourful pile of blooms lying awkwardly between them. “Olivier gave them to me this morning.”

Out of playful curiosity, Damon prodded the flowers with the end of his ballpoint pen, lifting the stalk of a lily as if to inspect their quality. In truth, he was trying to find fault, to find any way that he might convince himself that the bouquet he had bought for her was superior. He let the lily go, a dusting of pollen escaping onto the plastic, and hoped Havannah didn’t see his own purchase; if she turned her head towards the windowsill, she would surely see the sparse bundle of already-wilting roses, slumped against the edge of a vastly oversized vase.

“All credit to Monsieur Boutain. He must be very resourceful to find a florist so early in the morning.” Damon couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice.

“He had them in the boot of his car,” Havannah added, eyes narrowed. What did she want from him?

“Ah. That would explain the…tinge,” he joked, dryly.

Havannah rolled her eyes and leaned her head back, catching sight of the waning bouquet in the windowsill. Or maybe she’d already seen them upon entering the dim office, and had waited for the opportune time to ask about them? The idea of this imagined mockery incensed Damon, though that did nothing to stifle the heat rising to his face. 

“I see I’m not the only one who’s received flowers,” Havannah observed, letting the words hang before pointing casually over her shoulder at the bouquet, askew and thirsty. “Someone special?”

Damon had already turned his attention back to his computer, desperate for Havannah to read the move as boredom rather than embarrassment. 

“Can’t a man give himself flowers?”

He hated himself for the excuse, but it was easier to swallow than the truth: that he had brought them for her days earlier, and that the flowers had wilted on the cold backseat of his car before he’d ever considered bringing them indoors before they died completely. Unfortunately, he knew that, even in their prime, they would still look diminished in comparison to the flourishing bouquet Havannah had placed upon his desk.

Without a word, Havannah grabbed a half-empty glass of water from Damon’s desk, taking it to the window on a mercy mission. The contents rushed into the dry vase, lapping at its edges. The gesture was too little and too late, but it eased Havannah’s conscience nonetheless.

“Do you have an elastic band?” she asked, looking at their slack posture.

“No, why?”

Havannah rolled her eyes once again and rifled through her handbag for an elasticated hair tie. Back at the windowsill, she gently gathered the disparate stems together and twisted the hair tie around them, binding the flowers together. They could now stand more resolutely as a single unit, rather than each individually falling against the sides or resting their weary heads on the window - a small kindness; they wouldn’t last much longer. 

Damon only briefly looked up at the goings-on in his office, making sure to not be caught by Havannah on her return journey. She moved with such ease and confidence in a space that was used to only one master - one overarching influence. Everything looked how Damon wanted it to look; everything was how Damon wanted it to be. But in a few short months, Havannah had taken some silent ownership, making drinks and opening the blinds, and now even fixing flowers meant to be hers.

Willing the intrusion to stop, he cleared his throat loudly.

“So, tell me: why is there a bouquet of petrol station daisies on my desk?” he sneered, watching as Havannah returned to her chair. “Shouldn’t they be on display in your new pad?”

“Please don’t call it a pad, Damon – you’re not sixty. And they’re here because I don’t know what to do with them.”

Before Damon could open his mouth to speak, Havannah raised an index finger to pause him. His gaze had shot to the flowers that Havannah had just tenderly cared for, and she wasn’t interested in his facetiousness today. “Don’t. Obviously I know what to do with flowers. Unlike some people, I can keep fragile things alive.”

Mockingly, Damon raised his hands in defence, though the slight had cut deeper than he would admit..

“You could be a florist,” he smirked. The comment went unacknowledged.

“I’m just stuck on a thought, and I was hoping you could help me with it,” Havannah began, locking her fingers together in her lap. “If Olivier had them in his boot, ready to give to me after my sea swim, that means he bought them yesterday – which means he knew he’d see me this morning.” Havannah folded forward a little, resting her elbows on the desk. “Did you tell Olivier where to find me?”

Damon stared at his screen, pretending not to have heard the question – though he was sure that, by now, Havannah had come to understand the many ways he stalled for time. Still, he let the calculations run in his mind, even as her gaze burrowed into his skin. Different threads revealed themselves; time was needed to explore each possibility, and so Damon continued to click the mouse meaninglessly and let his eyes run over the same single line of text over and over again until he had landed on the right thread to pull. Havannah was still waiting, not insisting but not acquiescing before getting an answer.

“OK,” Damon sighed, finally giving Havannah his attention. “I admit, he mentioned it. Said he’d driven past one morning and asked if it was you. I might have said it was. But I swear, I didn’t think he’d just…turn up and crash your morning paddle.”

It was a lie, of course. 

Damon had been the architect of coincidence, nudging Olivier towards the beach for an early morning rendez-vous. But that thread only led to conflict between the two of them, and he needed Havannah on side, always. 

If she suspected that Damon had uttered anything but the truth, Havannah didn’t show it. Instead, she sighed and closed her eyes in exasperation, but calmed as quickly as she had reacted.

“Please keep things like that to yourself in the future, OK? It was a private moment.”

“Sorry…I didn’t think. I just thought you two were getting along.” The landscape of Damon’s expression changed from a faux admission of guilt to mischief, the corners of his lips curling as if being pulled by a suggestive raising of the eyebrows. “I saw you two at the restaurant. There’s chemistry.”

“No, there isn’t.”

“There might be if you got to know him - really got to know him,” Damon teased. Maybe if she saw him as a friend, talking casually about the matter, then he could weave his way out of the tangle.

“And why is that?” Havannah asked firmly, her arms somehow crossing even tighter.

“Well, you want to know who you’re selling to, right?”

To their collective surprise, Havannah rose very suddenly from her seat, the chair flinching from her as she stood. The wind that had died down seemed instead to have hidden within her, escaping as a furious bellow.  

“I will sell the pier when I’m good and ready, Damon. I own it. It’s mine. It’s my family’s legacy.”

The mischief in Damon’s expression parted like clouds from his face, leaving behind only a view of the hardened bedrock that lay beneath the facade. His patience had been exhausted.

“And what about your father’s other legacy? The hotel we’re supposed to be building? He wanted to evolve, to move forward. You refuse to do that. You go on and on about Patrick’s legacy, but what are you doing to preserve it? I’m working my arse off to find you buyers, line up opportunities and get this dream – your father’s dream – off the ground, while you prance about with pretty boys and bitch about a bouquet of flowers.” Damon stood now, meeting Havannah where she was, his fury so much greater – so much more sudden – than her own; she wilted in the face of it.

Damon directed a furious finger towards the wall. There was nothing there, but she knew exactly where he was pointing; beyond the bricks and mortar, almost parallel to where they both stood, was the pier.

“I think you want to stay stuck in the past, wasting your time staring at that rotting pile of shite out there. I think you want to wallow. He’s dead, Havannah; Patrick’s dead and Ronan’s not calling you back.”

The slap was delivered quickly, a brisk connection between Havannah’s hand and the side of Damon’s lightly bristled face. The whip crack of impact rippled in the air. Too stunned to process his own reaction, Damon stood with his mouth agape. What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to say next? He caught the briefest glimpse of tears in Havannah’s eyes as she leaned closer to snatch back the bouquet from the desk. And yet…even as she went to leave, he couldn’t help but deliver the final shot.

“Havannah,” he said, firmly. Although he hadn’t expected her to, she paused at the door. “You’ve got a lot of growing up to do.”

The sparkle of tears became a supernova, erupting from Havannah’s eyes.

“Go to hell,” she managed, the words coming undone as they spun from her lips. 

The door slammed shut behind her, and Damon was left all alone.

With fists propped on his desk, he let out a primal roar of fury. For a second, there was a thread dangling before him, enticing him to flip the desk and lash out at the office all around him. But following that thread to its conclusion brought Damon strife; he would need to clear up the mess later and make an admission to his staff. The impulse wasn’t worth it.

Curbing the urge to inflict his rage upon his surroundings, Damon stormed over to the window, where Havannah’s hair tie was keeping the half-dead flowers together. They mocked him, sitting smugly upright. Without a second thought, he threw the vase against the office door. As it flew through the air, the vessel’s journey was mapped by a trail of water across the carpet. Petals were torn loose by the force of being tossed, and several flowers came undone completely as the bouquet hit its target.

Predictably, the most mess came from the vase, whose flimsy surface shattered upon contact with the doorframe. The wide brim became dozens of shards of glass that flipped and spun as they exploded from the shape they had once known into their own separate splinters.

At some point – some moment caught between milliseconds – Damon had lost his breath. His chest was rising and falling at a pace he could barely contend with. Larger pieces of glass crunched underfoot as he moved over to the flowers, lying broken against the skirting board. Up close, he could see where splatter marks were soaking into the wall and the carpet; beneath the crime scene, the bouquet had been left brutalised. He crouched and cautiously lifted the flowers up, shaking loose any glittering specks of glass that might have attached themselves. 

Damon yanked the hair tie free, letting the flowers fall, an assortment of colourful limbs strewn in different directions.

In Damon’s palm, the hair tie formed a neat black circle which he traced with his index finger. Regret threatened to encroach upon his anger, but he swallowed it down. This, he told himself, was just another thread that needed to be seen to its conclusion.

At his desk, he lifted the telephone receiver and called to the bar phone downstairs. Shireen answered.

“I need some help up here,” Damon looked around at the rage that had befallen the office. “Better bring the vacuum too - there’s glass everywhere.”

“Sure thing,” Shireen replied, her voice flat with resignation. “I’ll be right up.”

Damon replaced the handset and closed his eyes as he waited for Shireen. In this dark space, he could soothe himself with a calculated calm. 

After all, Damon always got what he wanted sooner or later.

***

Rahim had almost started to regret giving Claire his phone number. Her summons disturbed him at the most unexpected of times, punctuating the silence of the college library, or waking him with an uncomfortable glare in the early hours of the morning. 

This time, however, the interruption was welcomed. 

In fact, Rahim had been watching his phone with great intent, willing for it to start singing a trill rendition of the Super Mario Bros. theme tune while it vibrated precariously towards the edge of his bedside table. He’d already practised reaching for it, grabbing the device mid-air as it made a break for freedom. But those instances had been false alarms – text messages and social media notifications and a call from his gran; the phone otherwise just sat there, staring at him. It was as bored as its owner.

When the call finally came, Rahim swung his legs out of bed and snatched the device to his ear. He answered on the first three notes of the ringtone. Claire’s voice, raspy and a little flat, greeted him with a simple request, delivered with a stillness that chilled Rahim. 

“I need you to come over,” she said. 

“Did you listen to those voicemails?” he asked in vain, the call disconnecting before there was an answer. 

While word of Claire’s dramatic nature had drifted to his ear, Rahim had sincerely not expected to have been so easily swept up in the rushing tide of it all. And yet, there he was, throwing on his jeans and grabbing a jacket to come running like a lapdog - even after her unexplained radio silence and the stilted nature of their supposed friendship. Despite all that – and despite the uncertainty and how Claire seemed to be coiled like a snake, poised to strike and poison him at a moment’s notice – Rahim was forced to admit to himself that there was something thrilling about the whole situation. Whenever the pounding rose up in his chest, he could use that thought to urge it back down into the depths of his stomach, shaking off anxiety with a simple reclassification to ‘excitement’.

That feeling had, however, died down by the time Rahim arrived on Bishop Close. It was instead replaced by exhaustion and a faint shiver from the cold reaching up his coat sleeves. When Claire opened the door to let him in, Rahim could only offer a worn-out version of his usual beaming smile, the brightness of his face turned red by the jog over from three streets away. Even that tired imitation of his smile began to fade, however, at the recognition of mania in Claire’s eyes. They were wide, darkly coloured marbles set into pale skin, seemingly both fixed on the task at hand and yet also darting about without rhythm or pattern to their movements.

Without even a hello, Claire abandoned Rahim at the door to attend to a collection of stray magazines on the top of the cabinet behind her. She gathered them up in a sweep of her hands and dumped the entire collection into a waiting bin bag at her feet.

“The estate agent’s coming round to take photos next week. I have to tidy,” Claire mumbled, robotically, as Rahim stepped inside and wiped his feet on the rough bristles of the doormat. She weaved her way round to the space between television and sofa, turning her scattered attention momentarily towards the coffee table. Unwashed takeaway containers, stray chocolate bar wrappers, and used wads of kitchen roll joined the magazines inside the bin bag. Nothing was escaping frantic disposal.

“Hey, Claire…” Rahim reached out a hand to stop the manic jittering of her own. The house was so cold that even the lightest grip left behind ghostly fingerprints, and the iciness of her skin made Rahim recoil without thought. She turned to face him, those dark marbles now slick with the threat of tears. “Hey. Take a breath for me.”

At a standstill, Claire allowed the plastic bag to hang limply from her fingers as the nervous energy in her feet rolled up to her eyes instead. Without the momentum of busying herself around the living room, she began to cry – an ugly, wet bawling that ached with desperation. She let go of the bag and flung her arms around Rahim, who, surprised, was only just able to catch her in time. Stray tissues and cartons tumbled out of the bin bag as it fell to the floor, but neither of them paid any mind; that could be handled later. 

“It’s OK,” Rahim assured her, making sure to secure his hands to a clothed part of Claire’s body to avoid the freeze of her touch. He stroked her back, his palm running along the jutting bones of her spine; she clung to his coat, scrunching handfuls of fabric. The tears were already soaking through, and Rahim was suddenly aware that perhaps ‘excitement’ wasn’t the right word after all.

Once the sobbing had abated and Claire had peeled away from the comfort of Rahim’s embrace, he made a casual promise to help. But first, he said, she needed to take a moment. Room was made on the sofa while Rahim boiled the kettle, viciously scrubbing two mugs before using them to make tea. Satisfied that the milk was miraculously still in date, he carried the tea over to Claire and took a seat beside her. They settled into a peaceful silence, punctuated only by the occasional sniffle from Claire and the faintest of sips from their lips.

When the mugs were finally empty and patterned with fingerprints, and some of the warmth had returned to the surface of his skin, Rahim took them both away to be rinsed and dried, placing them face-up on the stained draining board. Without a word, he returned to the discarded plastic bag, delicately replacing the items that had fallen out, before calmly exploring the cupboard beneath the sink, in search of cleaning supplies.

All the while, Claire watched from the sofa, wordless. She was observing him, taking in the movements and the patterns, the materials he used and the methodical way he cleaned. Whenever Rahim faced her direction, though, Claire would look down at her own hands again, fingers tangled around one another. 

Eventually, this was no longer enough. Perhaps it was the visible difference he had already made, or the building pressure of judgement as he busied himself around her house – or even the childlike desire to mimic somebody else’ maturity. Whatever caused the feeling didn’t matter, because as Claire took Rahim’s lead, she finally felt useful.

At first, it was just collecting crumbs on the coffee table, idling at them with her fingers as he swept behind the sofa. Then she noticed old leaflets that had been pushed through the door, lying on an unwashed dish beneath the coffee table, so she started to gather them up. Rahim had started a fresh black bin bag, so Claire brushed the crumbs into her hand and tossed them into the bin bag with the magazine. The plate was gently placed in the sink, which Rahim had emptied of saucepans and crockery, before filling with fresh hot water, scented by washing up liquid. Claire let her hands linger gratefully in the sink, allowing the soap suds to climb up her forearms as she eased them deeper under the water.

An hour later, and the worst was over. 

Mounds of dust had been trapped in a microfiber cloth Rahim had found under the sink – once yellow and now a filthy grey, choked with dirt. The sitting area was cleared, soapy water left to dry on the coffee table’s surface in the hopes of lifting the stains from Claire’s clumsy eating. The sink was cleared and cleaned, as was the draining board – which was now piled awkwardly with sparkling plates, ready to be put away before they slid from the side and shattered on the laminate flooring.

Occasionally, Claire had looked over her shoulder, checking that her helpfulness was being observed. Rahim acknowledged the effort silently with a smile and a nod, and Claire found herself returning the smile.

At some point, without either of their noticing, a radio had been switched on in the kitchen. They had both started to clean joyously, hips swaying as they swept and wiped and hoovered and mopped. For a house that had grown so used to a painful silence, the music was a relief, soaking into the walls and washing away layers of dull misery. The house suddenly felt lived in again.

When they had scrubbed and mobbed and wiped and cleaned as much as they could, it was Claire who collapsed onto the sofa first, leaving Rahim to wrap up the vacuum cleaner cord. 

“Look at that! So much better,” Rahim exclaimed, encouragingly, as he nudged Claire. “Great job!”

She thanked him, sweetly, but even with the encouragement, her smile soon faded like a weakening sunset; dusk swept Claire’s face and she dropped her gaze before speaking.

“My dad’s selling the house. I thought…Maybe I was being stupid, but I thought it’d be mine. Turns out it’s not - it’s his. We were just…staying here.”

Rahim watched as she wiped away a stray tear, unsure of what to say next. The safe option chose itself. 

“I’m so sorry. What will you do?”

She shrugged.

“He said I can live with him and Jan for a bit. Jan’s his new wife.”

“Is that a good thing? Living with them?”

The question was left hanging in the air; Claire preferred to bite her nails instead of answering. They smelt faintly of furniture polish and dust and dish soap – bitter chemicals and the memory of her mum’s Saturday morning cleaning sprees. All they needed was the breeze from an open window and it would feel like all those moments come to life in this one.

“I hate Jan.” It was said with the defiance and certainty of a child. No reason was offered, though Rahim didn’t push for one.

Although the ripe odour from her unwashed body attempted to dissuade him from doing so, Rahim reached an arm around Claire. Her skin felt clammy against his palm, but he kept it there while sorting through the jumbled pile of words in his head. Some combination would pave the way forward to ask what he was most curious about – the issue he had expected to be the reason for her earlier call. Somewhere along the way, it had been forgotten; now it announced itself loudly in the front of Rahim’s mind, a desperate means of moving the conversation away from where she might wallow. 

“And what about the other thing? The voicemails?” he asked, softly. 

Claire tensed beneath his touch. On any other day, she wouldn’t be able to say – would be overcome by the sound of waves and the fear curling at the edges of her stomach and folding into her chest. But today, with Rahim beside her and the house in a state of order and calm, Claire felt brave enough to speak. She inhaled, ready to replay the voicemails and how they’d led to a meeting with Damon.

Before she could stand to retrieve her phone, they were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was firm, stern, and purposeful. Somewhere in time, Claire could hear her mum saying, speak of the devil, with a knowing look in her eye. It suddenly felt less like a memory and more a prophecy, Mrs Hallett remarking on events she could have no influence over.

While Rahim wondered aloud who the interloper was, starting to stretch to look through the window against which the L-shaped sofa curved, Claire simply stood and stiffly moved to the front door. There was only one person who would knock like that.

Sure enough, Damon was waiting when the door swung open.

“Hello, Claire.” He greeted her with a brightness that didn’t suit the dimness of his usual demeanour; there was even the hint of a smile. “These are for you.”

He handed her a bouquet of flowers and stepped forward, allowing himself in. Claire was powerless to stop the intrusion, too distracted and too flattered by the gift. The flowers were still a little wet, and the colour had started to fade from them. In place of plastic, they were bound together with a length of green ribbon, tied into a bow. Such was her gratitude at the gesture – and the lack of imagination on Claire’s part – that she couldn’t possibly conceive of the idea that Damon had salvaged the flowers meant for Havannah from the floor of his office while Shireen had picked shards of glass from the carpet. 

“Thank you,” she smiled, inhaling the fading scent; it had started to turn pungent and overly sweet, but Claire didn’t mind. Damon said nothing in return, pulling his coat off and folding it over his arm as he ventured further inside.

“I said I’d be around, remember?” As Damon spoke, his eyes roamed the living room and the kitchen, while his nostrils welcomed the chorus of lavender and the sting of excessive cleaning products. “Honestly, I was expecting worse.”

Then, Damon’s eyes fell on Rahim, who had twisted in his seat to look up at the visitor. The reaction Damon had on Claire - a shadow so vast and deep that even the brightest flowers wilted in its presence - was just as unfamiliar to Rahim as the man himself.

“Hi,” Damon said, offering a handshake. Rahim took it, nervously, and shivered as the cold of Damon’s skin pressed against his palm. The grip was icy, tight, intimidating; Rahim knew he would have to wait for Damon to let go first. When he finally did, the stranger gave Rahim a smile that reminded him of the straight boys at college who would deliver a compliment as bait for a trap. Only this was a man in his mid-thirties, not a teenager, and the danger emanating from Damon dwarfed any such adolescent incidents. Rahim felt himself shrink away. The earlier excitement had inverted into dread, and he suddenly wanted to be anywhere but here.

“Damon, this is Rahim,” said Claire, pulling her nose at last away from the flowers.

“Nice to meet you,” Rahim mumbled, making sure his eyes hung just below Damon’s eyes. There was something about them he didn’t trust, as if they might see right through him. Or, maybe, to look into his eyes would allow Damon to always see Rahim, wherever he was, at any time. Either way, it wasn’t a risk he wanted to take.

“Likewise,” Damon said, discarding any attention he had briefly paid to Rahim along with his coat on the back of the sofa. He turned to Claire instead. “I didn’t think you’d have company.”

“I was just leaving,” Rahim announced, rising to his feet. The brightness in his smile faltered as Damon and Claire looked at him. The shadows seemed to grow darker where they were standing, and he could tell he was no longer welcome. Even Claire’s familiar gaze was different, and although nobody confirmed it aloud, Rahim realised he was the odd one out; he was the newcomer, intruding upon the history of two people he didn’t really know. Better I go, he thought.

If he heard, Damon didn’t think the declaration was worthy of a response. Instead, he lowered his voice to address Claire directly. “You reek. Go and run yourself a bath. We can talk after.”

She nodded, meekly, peeling away from the two men without so much as an acknowledgement of Rahim and his support. As she passed the kitchen, Claire parted with the bouquet, laying the half-dead flowers on top of her phone on the breakfast bar. Damon and Rahim watched her ascent through the gaps between each step. At the final stride, Rahim’s stomach clenched as Claire disappeared onto the landing. Without distraction, he knew that Damon’s attention would turn back to him.

Sure enough, it did. 

The nightclub owner looked the skinny eighteen-year-old up and down. He didn’t register a threat, but he did recognise the boy’s face, the cut of his jaw, the depth of colour in his irises, the rich sienna colouring his skin. Damon narrowed his eyes while flicking through a mental list of names and faces. The answer soon came to him willingly, and the question followed: “You’re Sayid’s son, aren’t you? Sayid Qureshi?”

Rahim hesitated and then nodded slowly. 

“Yeah…yeah I am.”

An unexpected levity came to Damon’s expression and voice. It was such a sudden turn that, rather than abate, the worry in Rahim’s stomach twisted further into itself, adding new dimensions to his anxiety.

“You should’ve said something,” Damon beamed, extending another, warmer handshake. The tightness had loosened into a confident welcome, and felt himself suddenly grateful for the weight his father’s name carried in Clayham-on-Sea - even if the Qureshis had never quite reached the same heights as the Shaws.

“Send my regards to your dad, will you? He’s a good man to know,” Damon winked, squeezing his fingers on the final shake.

“I will,” Rahim obeyed, glad to have his hand returned to him.

Damon started to roll his sleeves up, as if suddenly alone. Just as quickly as the bonhomie had arrived, it had departed.

“See yourself out, won’t you? There’s a good lad.” Damon issued the command casually, as if in expectation that Rahim would follow the order without question. It was almost impressive how he wielded such a strange and intangible authority, Rahim thought. This wasn’t Damon’s house. Claire wasn’t his property. And yet, he had arrived and swept away anything that didn’t please him - Claire’s hesitancy to let him in, the unpleasantness of her current state, and now Rahim.

Although no promises to leave were made, Rahim still readied himself for departure. Damon didn’t wait, the idea of the younger man doing anything else not even registering as a possibility. Instead, he made his way towards the stairs, following Claire.

Once Damon was out of sight, Rahim started slowing himself. Rather than going immediately, he found himself pausing by the side of the sofa, caught between the living area and kitchen. The sound of pipes clicking and gurgling as hot water gushed through them deafened any other sound from upstairs, though if he leaned away from the sofa and listened carefully, Rahim could make out that the coast was clear. Wherever he was, Damon wasn’t coming downstairs.

Keeping his eyes fixed on the top step, Rahim moved as quietly - and as quickly - as he could, clearing the few steps to the kitchen counter where Claire’s phone had been left. All morning, his eyes had fallen onto its screen; several times he had wiped around the phone, had even lifted it under the pretense of removing a mark on the marble kitchen island. But Claire’s eyes were never far from it, always wandering over to Rahim or the phone, with a smile or a shake of her hips when an upbeat song came on the radio.

Alone at last, the opportunity had presented itself. Rahim snatched the phone and watched it light up in his hand. He knew the code - he had known it since before the first time Claire had sloppily stabbed the screen with her fingers right in front of him. The keypad vanished, revealing a selfie as the wallpaper. From behind a scattering of app icons, Claire’s face looked back at Rahim, one arm wrapped around a dark-haired girl he didn’t recognise. This, he supposed, was Envy - the friend Claire so often complained about, though it seemed there was still some affection on Claire’s part. Never mind that, he thought, shaking loose the distractions. He navigated to the photo gallery, the icon expanding into a neat assortment of thumbnail images. There were too many coloured squares to skim through all at once, a loud cacophony of snapshots from the history of Claire and her friends. That being said, many of the newer images were screenshots - half-amusing memes, encouraging phrases on patterned backgrounds, and the occasional sad-looking kitten. Where was he supposed to begin?

“I thought you’d left.” Damon’s voice drifted from the top of the stairs. He was crouched and leaning forward, one hand placed on the bannister for balance. Rahim froze. How long had he been lurking like that, a spider watching from its web? “What are you doing?”

“Oh, I was just going to put these flowers into water for Claire,” he lied, quickly sending the phone back to sleep. His feet shuffled him a little to the left. With any luck, his body was hiding the phone from view, while his fingers felt desperately for the stems of the flowers. Beneath their touch came the wet ridges where thorns hadn’t been able to pierce emerald skin. His fingers gripped the stems lightly, busying themselves in the hopes of a convincing performance.

Unsatisfied with the excuse, Damon straightened and descended towards the kitchen with slow, steady footsteps. Even with his back to Damon, Rahim forced a harmless smile; if he could only believe his own lie, maybe Damon would too? Still, no chances could be taken. Free from their bindings, Rahim started to lay the flowers side by side on the plastic, covering as much of the phone as possible so that it might disappear beneath the spread of their leaves.

As Damon approached, Rahim stepped away from the kitchen island to grab a vase from one of the cupboards. It was as much a demonstration that he knew Claire - that he knew her house and was familiar enough to help himself - as a logical step in a improvised performance. Water gushed from the tap, filling the vase while Damon’s gaze burned into the back of Rahim’s head. He was so hesitant to turn around that he turned the tap until it became barely a dribble, buying himself more time. Eventually, he would need to go back to the flowers and pick them up. There would be no way of hiding the phone. Resigning himself to this fate, Rahim snuck a deep breath in through his nostrils, turned off the tap, and slowly carried the full vase back to where Damon stood, waiting. Water lept free with every uneven step, the vessel filled to the brim and Rahim’s hands trembling.

Back at the kitchen island, Rahim continued to work under Damon’s watchful gaze. Gathering the flowers, he held his breath in anticipation of what would surely follow when the phone was exposed.

When it came, there was no raised voice or accusations. Instead, Damon calmly pointed out the phone lying beneath the plastic, reaching for it with casual indifference. No matter how hard he had tried to hide it with his body, Rahim had failed to account for Damon’s ability to play the game.

“Claire’ll be needing that.” 

The phone was retrieved from among the stray leaves and odd drop of stray water. A breath caught in Rahim’s chest as Damon’s arm past him. He tensed, waiting for an impact that never came.

“Thanks for doing that,” Damon motioned towards the vase with the phone, before clapping it against his palm. At the bottom of the stairs, he paused with one hand on the bannister.  “Don’t worry about the mess, I’ll sort it out later.”

“I-I don’t mind,” Rahim offered, but Damon’s insistence came with a sharper edge.

“No, really. I’ll sort it. It was nice to meet you, Rahim.”

There was no explicit threat in those words, but the slow, deliberate way Damon spoke – his voice restrained, his body positioned to show strength even from a distance – was enough to warn Rahim.

“Great, OK. Nice to meet you too. Tell Claire I said bye?”

Damon nodded, never breaking his stare as Rahim collected his hoodie, slipped on his trainers, and closed the door behind himself. He almost lingered on the other side of the threshold, an attempt to regain his composure as the bitter breeze brought his senses back to the present. But there was a chance – an impossible or maybe only improbable chance – that Damon’s gaze was still fixed on him, even through the white UPVC door.

And so Rahim dug his hands into the pockets of his favourite hoodie, and marched home without looking back. For good measure, he threw the hood over his head, hoping to escape Damon’s intrusive gaze.

***

With every step, Claire’s phone grew heavier in Damon’s palm, weighed down by lingering curiosity. Rahim had no doubt been up to something, he was sure of it. There had been nights when Damon had dealt with the less subtle drug dealers in his club – the ones he didn’t permit to be there – and they had shown a similar childlike approach to feigning ignorance. What, he wondered, could Rahim have wanted with Claire’s phone? It was too tantalisingly easy to answer that question. The screen was still unlocked, after all – some part of him had known that he would cave and look – and it would only need him to turn the phone over in his hand to find out. As if to spite himself, Damon let his thumb slip against the lock button without looking down. The electronic imitation of a click accompanied a snuffing out of the screen glare. It was out of reach of even Damon’s temptation.

Having stalled his own curiosity, Damon realised he had paused on the landing, the creak of a floorboard underfoot kept waiting for him to move so that it might finish its whine in peace. Similarly, as he went to knock on the bathroom door to announce his intrusion, he found the knuckle of his index finger stuck, hovering millimeters from the painted wood. This time, however, it was a different kind of curiosity that had frozen him in place. It took a moment to realise the cause, but when he did, it was all-encompassing: there was silence. The taps had ceased to run and there was no sound of a person climbing into the bath or the splashing of water as they adjusted themselves. 

While there could be any number of plausible explanations, Damon knew better. Rather than knock, he went straight for the handle instead, stepping into the steam-filled bathroom with a purposeful stride. Even as the vapour rushed towards the open door and distorted his vision, he could still make out the mountain of pure white bubbles stretching from the surface of the water, up through the fog. He stepped closer and saw how the suds were helped by the water, the surface of which now reached the bath’s edge. As bubbles expanded and burst, they crackled and released hints of lavender and sea salt into the air.

“Claire?” he asked, feeling a little foolish. There was, after all, nowhere for her to hide but the bath. At that realisation, a jolt of focus overcame Damon. There was the smallest second where his feet hesitated to step forward – or perhaps he hesitated, even as his legs were ready to move. If he left now – walked out, closed the bathroom door, denied ever being there – nobody would ever know about the voicemail. He could find Kristi’s phone, delete it, and be gone before anybody even wondered where Claire was. And when they did find out, it would surely be reported as a freak accident befalling the tragic sister of a dead woman. Who would ask him about why the second sister had joined the first in drowning? Claire’s grief was her own, and that was motivation enough. He could do interviews expressing his sadness, and there would be no one to point the finger and say you were there, why didn’t you help?

But what if she didn’t drown after he left the room?

A worse thought rose from the depths, teasing the presence of Damon’s blackened soul. If he rolled his sleeves up just a little higher, he could plunge his hand into the bathwater until he felt Claire’s chest beneath his fingertips. From there, it would take so little effort to simply push his palm against her breastbone and let it rest there, holding her under. It was a necessity. Nobody would miss her. He’d done worse to survive.

At those words, Damon realised that he had stepped closer to the bath, legs carrying him forward so that even if he wanted to deny being tempted by the heinous act, he would already be so close to the water’s edge that it would take so little to see it through. Power once again surged to his crotch.

“Claire?” he asked, the dryness in his mouth clutching at the words to try and keep them small and unheard. At least he could pretend that he checked on her first.

Licking his lips, Damon took another small step forward, struggling to shift his rolled-up sleeves further up his arm. “Claire?”

A rush of water sprung from the bath, accompanied by the sound of Claire’s gasping and choking. The emergence of the young woman’s face and torso parted the mountain of bubbles and sent lashing waves spilling over the edge and onto the floor. Damon stepped back in equal parts shock and a desire to avoid getting his shoes wet.

Shoving the recent thoughts of murder back into the darkest parts of himself, Damon grabbed a towel and crouched beside the bath, one hand spread against her naked spine. 

“Jesus fuck, Claire. What the hell are you doing?!” he exclaimed. The pounding in his chest was a reminder of just how close he’d come to holding her under until she couldn’t breathe. He’d been ready. And then she’d risen like a ghost avenging a theoretical death – one Damon promised himself he hadn’t meant. At the sound of Claire’s spluttering turning into laughter, Damon’s concern turned to fury. He released the towel, rescinding the offer of help. Claire wiped the water away from her face with a bare hand instead.

“Sorry, I just haven’t had a bath in a while.” She lowered herself a little bit, the bubbles obscuring just enough of her pale breasts to bait Damon into seeking them out in the suds and water. He kept his eyes fixed on her face, watching the strange, twitching smile grow and split her lower jaw apart. She giggled. “I’m feeling great today, really great. The greatest.”

Damon sighed. “For fuck’s sake. I thought you’d drowned.” 

At this admission, Claire slid her way a little out of the water, revealing more of her chest. Rather than humour her, Damon held up the phone.

“You should be more careful with this,” he lectured, eyebrows raised like a parent scolding a careless child.

Another giggle rose in Claire’s chest, building into an unhinged cackle as she splashed Damon without warning. He roared his disapproval, rising from his haunches so that he could step away and survey where the water had landed. Patches of his white shirt were already darkening as the moisture soaked in, revealing the shape of his body.

Whatever fury had risen in Damon seemed to ease faster than he had expected. When Claire beckoned him to come close once again, he returned to her side without question, leaving the phone to rest on the edge of the sink. 

Under normal circumstances, he didn’t think the youngest Hallett looked anything like her sister – lighter hair, plain features, paler complexion, inferior in every way. But there in the bath, soaked hair pulled away from her face, eyes full of joy and twinkling with shards of emerald, and dimples forming where her smile arced from A to B…the family resemblance was at last noticeable. It had been a long time since anybody had looked at him like that.

“What are you looking at?” Claire asked, biting her lip with awkward seduction. 

Damon ignored the clumsy gesture, his eyes gravitating towards the bubbles. He was curious as to how alike the sisters had been. 

In this attention, Claire saw an opportunity to tease, crossed arms accentuating a modest cleavage. “Are you trying to see if the bubbles have popped?”

Damon swallowed hard, hoping that he would find some of his sensibility among the steam and the smothering heat. Was this madness? His crotched ached.

“No, I–”

Before he could look away, Claire’s hand was on the side of Damon’s face. With a gentle thumb, she caressed the bristles of his stubble, leaving behind a trail of suds. At the idea that it might be Kristi’s touch, he let his eyes drift closed momentarily, listening to the sound of water dripping from Claire’s arm, returning to the surface with the slightest tap, tap, tap. The last drop fell back into the bath. Claire let her thumb trace the same spot one last time, and then she retreated. He opened his eyes. Wet warmth lingered from her touch, suds kissing his skin as they burst in the corner of his mouth. He didn’t wipe them away, knowing they’d be gone soon enough – all the bubbles would be.

Claire lurched closer, leaning over the edge of the bath. A shower of droplets trickled from her naked skin. Heat caught in her voice and she spoke with a breathy desperation that reminded Damon of the swell of a summer storm. 

“I want you to make me feel how she felt.”

Steam curled up from the bath, and he now noticed that it had gathered above their heads, clouding up the mirror and wearing away at the bathroom’s warm light. Lightning prickled between them both, dangerous and enticing. Giving in to the building electricity, Claire wordlessly closed the gap between their lips, relishing the taste left behind from her touch – and the firmness with which he suddenly gripped her head as the kiss deepened.

The closer of Damon’s hands found itself joined by Claire’s fingers wrapping around its wrist. With little resistance, he let her take him wherever she needed. She led him gently into the water, inviting Damon to join her in the depths.

Damon was no longer in control of himself, blood rushing, body stiffening. Their kissing became more fervent and feral as his fingers explored where they had been taken. He knew what to do – had known what to do since his girlfriend in college had taught him – and so gave Claire her wish. In response, she gripped at his face and biceps, her mouth attempting to devour Damon, body and soul. 

I want you to make me feel how she felt. The words echoed in both their ears. To Damon, it was an invitation to exorcise the last of his feelings towards the woman he never managed to break; for Claire, it was the desire to have what her sister could not – and perhaps even a chance to be released from her guilt, should he push her beneath the water until she struggled and strived.

I want you to make me feel how she felt. 

The erratic splashing started to warp from lustful enthusiasm into a memory, and the words took on a chillier meaning for one participant. Suddenly, her mouth was full of her sister’s screams and the taste of tobacco on Damon’s tongue. 

I want you to make me feel how she felt.

Desperate to escape – to not feel that way – Claire tore herself away, suddenly lashing out with screams and frantic struggles. At first, Damon didn’t register what this change meant, continuing to explore with his fingers. Only when Claire began to scream and swipe at him did he realise the moment had passed. He retrieved his hand from the water, just in time to deflect a stray strike, thought the nail still caught on his arm. Damon swore, placing his hand against it as a drop of blood fell into the churning waters below. Claire was deaf to his angry protestations and swearing, however. Her sister’s ghost walked through those words, plunging her out of the present and into the past, where she clawed at the waves and her sister, choking on the water flooding into her panicked lungs.

“Jesus Christ, Claire,” Damon snapped, drying himself with the towel. “Will you fucking stop, you lunatic?!”

Steam fled the path of Damon’s words, the volume filling the bathroom with a booming echo. The impact startled Claire, who grew quiet. Small waves climbed against her body before easing, and the bathtub became calm again. The tears followed shortly afterwards, and Claire felt she might refill the tub with all her sadness. Hell, she might even flood the world with her misery. Wouldn’t that be something? Wouldn’t they care then?

She sat up, knees drawn to her chest, face buried against them. Once upon a time, she had never cried; now it was all she could do to relieve the swelling tide and the rising guilt that thumped upon the door.

Despite himself, Damon was once again beside Claire, the towel thrown beneath his knees so that he could save his trousers from further soakings. He pulled Claire towards him as she sobbed, accepting that her wet hair would leave behind an imprint on his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” she bawled. “I’m sorry.” 

Damon said nothing in return. He just listened to the lapping of the bathwater and heard the tumultuous thrashing of the sea in its place.

Perhaps, he thought, holding her under would’ve been a kindness.

***

It was with some hesitation that Olivier admitted to himself that he hadn’t expected Havannah to change her mind about dinner. If he was being completely honest with himself – a practice which so often brought him nothing but flushed cheeks and the desire to hide himself away – the handsome young Frenchman would have acknowledged that this reversal of fortune had more to do with some upset on her part, rather than his own charms. She had, after all, been crying shortly before picking up the phone; her voice had been small, the joy wrung out from each syllable.

Whether out of ego or eagerness, Olivier had swatted the idea away, of course, enthusiastically accepting and throwing himself into getting ready. The half-drunk IPA – his second of the afternoon – was left abandoned next to the hotel’s oversized television set in favour of the rack of shirts a maid had hung upon his arrival.

The rest of the afternoon was a blur, dulled by the one-and-a-half beers and an overwhelming desire to present himself as worthy of Havannah’s attention. Before he could even count the passing of time, Olivier found himself in a taxi heading for Clayham-on-Sea, and then sitting at a table in Marco’s, forty minutes early for his date. No, not a date, he reprimanded himself. It’s just business. 

Even if he occasionally leaned into light-hearted arrogance, Olivier was well acquainted with his own nerves. They lived just beneath the shallow surface of his excitement – with which it wove together so closely that he often mistook the two for one another. Whatever it was he was actually feeling, nerves had won the coin toss, and he found himself rearranging his posture over and over, simply to better suit the shape of the chair.

Realising how much time he still had, he turned his attention elsewhere.

After ten minutes of gnawing on stale bread and sweeping the crumbs from the cheap tablecloth, Olivier caved. With a cheerful smile, he called over the waitress who had seated him, and made a play for the wine list. In the face of a sharp white or a heavy red, his nerves could be silenced for a while.

A bottle of white soon graced the table. Olivier grimaced as the waitress twisted the metal lid, its supports snapping as she separated them. There was no drop for him to sniff, just a full glass poured in haste. When the pale liquid almost teetered towards the very brim, Olivier had to speak up and halt the waitress’ endeavour, paired with a defensive hand reaching for the glass. After that, she left him to his own devices, the wine growing warm on the table. But that wouldn’t do… At the risk of receiving a metal mixing bowl full of ice chips in lieu of an actual ice bucket to cool the wine, Olivier decided he was better off simply pouring another glass, and then another, and one more to be safe.

Time – previously slowed to a grinding halt once he took his seat – began to slip a little forward. In the distance, a buzzing noise irritated Olivier from inside his own skull. Alone with the wine and the sound that nobody else had noticed, Olivier surveyed the room. Clearly, winter’s cold touch had extended inland, his fellow diners all hushed and melancholic in an underdressed restaurant. In fact, upon his arrival in town, Olivier had started to count the frowns he saw. Upon seeing a young server start their shift, the number hit eighty-six. There was no frown to be counted on his own face, however. The wine brightened the colours of the dingy venue, and where the nerves had calmed, they had become the undercurrent to a surge of excitement.

He wiped a little spill of wine from his chin and continued with his game. A couple by the window who so clearly would have preferred to have been at home with a takeaway (and anybody but their present company) grimaced at each other in silence. Eighty-seven, eighty-eight. An old man, all alone and focusing ever-so-hard on his food so as not to attract attention or unwanted sympathy had been placed on a two-seater against the far wall. Now and then, he glanced up at the empty chair opposite him as if expecting someone else to be there. Olivier saw the glint of tears in his eyes and counted, eighty-nine.

And then there was the staff. Two teenagers laying cutlery in front of a diner who had dared to venture out in the cold to enjoy undercooked pasta and acidic house wine – ninety and ninety-one – were out-miseried by a middle-aged woman who had once held ambitions grander than managing a place where the tackiness of the distant seafront had still succeeded in wearing down any grandeur. Ninety-two. 

Olivier’s eyes swept once more across the restaurant, landing on his own reflection. He glanced down at the wine glass. It was empty. Perhaps he should stop drinking now, before the last of his excitement died down and disappointment swelled in its place. He looked once again at his own face staring back at him, a ghost in the street. Ninety-three. 

He hated it here, the British weather, the miserable people, the confines of this awful restaurant, with its dated carpet, peeling wallpaper, poor imitation of Italian cuisine…it was a far cry from home. He took another sip and remembered the glass was empty just as it reached his lips. The disappointment was even sharper than the sauvignon.

Olivier raised his hand to get the waitress’ attention, only to lower it at the glare of the taxi outside. There she was, silhouetted by sunken headlights, a black coat wrapped closely to her body. He couldn’t help but smile, watching as Havannah shut the taxi door and thanked its driver with a smile.

In Olivier’s imaginings, the pavement would glow gold underfoot, each inch of this town brightened by Havannah’s presence. Best of all, he reckoned, was the fact that she didn’t seem to realise her own glory. He felt the warmth in his cheeks but didn’t wonder how the wine might have let his mind run away with itself.

When the taxi pulled away, Olivier realised that the haziness of its lights couldn’t be attributed to either the vehicle or the condensation on the window; he was, without a doubt, drunk. This time, his waving was frantic, hoping to summon the waitress who had tempted him with a bottle of screw-top wine. Instead, a confused young man appeared beside him. A crisp ten pound note – fresh from the bureau de change – found its way into the waiter’s palm as Olivier gestured for the table to be cleared posthaste. He repeated himself a second time, tongue clumsily lolling over English words.Finally understanding – and keen for the tip – the waiter began diligently removing any mention of the near-empty bottle of wine, the used glass, and the scrunched-up napkin. Olivier hurried him with hisses, glancing over his shoulder at Havannah being greeted by the hostess. The two women shared a private joke which ended just as the waiter placed a fresh glass in front of Olivier.

Steadied by crisis, Olivier’s hand reached for the carafe of tap water and poured himself a glass, which he immediately brought to his lips. He swilled the first mouthful of water, desperate to ease the aroma of cheap sauvignon blanc, before taking several extra gulps. The acid building in his stomach was further agitated by the sudden introduction of water, though Olivier swallowed down any sign of discomfort.

On auto-pilot, he stood from his chair, smiling widely as the hostess guided Havannah to their table. With hands that flopped at the end of limbs loosened by too much wine, Olivier greeted Havannah, kissing her on each cheek as she giggled in surprise. Did she giggle? Or was it just a smile? Was she even pleased to be there? The nerves had started to emerge from their hiding place once again. Holding two menus under her arm, the hostess pulled Havannah’s chair out just as Olivier realised he was supposed to do it. To avoid embarrassment, he retracted his hands after making a small show of an attempt, before collapsing back in his chair with a nervous laugh.

The hostess handed over the menus and asked after drinks. A bead of sweat appeared at the mere threat that she might reveal his secret, but the hostess had seen nothing, so said nothing.

“I’m so glad we could do this,” Olivier smiled once they were alone.

The sweating had not abated, and the young waiter had yet to return with a fresh napkin; it would soon be impossible to maintain his mask. But then, whatever smile he had imagined on Havannah’s face had already faded, her own mask vanishing. Or had it had been an illusion all along? She doesn’t want to be here, he thought.

“Are you OK?” Havannah asked, leaning closer. She glanced around before continuing in a quiet voice, “You look a little…unwell.”

“Me?” Olivier replied, attempting to sound cool. Unfortunately, his voice had been a little too loud, the words more stressed than he had intended. To save face, he crossed one leg over his knee and leaned back with one arm over the back of the chair. “I’m great!”

“Are you sure? We can rearrange.”

At this, Olivier grew serious, repositioning himself in his chair. His expression became grave and he wiped the sweat from his forehead with a shirt sleeve.

“I’m great. Honestly. It’s just good to see you. That’s all. And it’s a little warm, no?”

Havannah smiled through pursed lips and bowed her head down to look at the menu, avoiding any further awkwardness. Olivier spotted a crumb of stale bread he’d missed and brushed it away with a firm hand. That’s when he noticed the tremble had returned.

Before he could summon the young waiter to be his accomplice one more time, his original waitress appeared with a fresh bottle of wine.

“Compliments of the house,” the waitress beamed, looking directly at Havannah. “We’re glad to welcome you back, Miss Shaw.”

“Thanks, Annie,” Havannah replied, kindly, though her eyes betrayed a tiredness that had started to curdle into defeat. Olivier felt his lips turn downwards in empathy and realised he was showing on the outside thoughts that were reserved for the inside. If she noticed his shifting expressions, Havannah said nothing. She regrets coming, the nerves said.

The waitress twisted open the lid and Olivier gulped. She started pouring the wine, Havannah raising a hand somewhere around a third of a glass. When it was Olivier’s turn, he could feel the perspiration on his forehead and under his armpits conspiring to give him away. With a word, the waitress could reveal that they’d done this dance before some thirty-five minutes ago. His hand – a little shaky and a little clammy – was poised to interrupt her pouring at the half-way mark of the glass. She said nothing.

“Thanks,” Havannah said as Annie took her leave. Time seemed to have slipped again. Olivier’s hand was still where he had left it, hovering near the glass. “A toast?” Havannah offered.

“Yes, yes. A toast!” Olivier declared. The old man with teary eyes and the miserable couple longing for other lovers looked over at their table, shooting them both glances. No, not both of them; just Olivier. He continued, undeterred. “To new friends!”

Havannah reluctantly let her glass clink against his, then took a sip and rested her wine gently to the right of her plate.

“So, have you been here before?” he asked, using her response as a chance to take a hearty swig of wine. His stomach – empty, save for acid, crumbs, water, and wine – churned and burned in response.

“Yeah, me and my dad used to come to Marco’s all the time. It’s special to us. It was special to us, I guess.”

At this, she seemed to dim. It was a topic to avoid. But whatever senses Olivier had that would keep him adhering to this information were drowned out by the warmth and the buzzing and the sharp taste on his tongue.

“Do you miss him?” he asked. Havannah shifted uncomfortably.

“I’d rather not…”

“It’s OK to miss him,” Olivier said, leaning back in his chair in a way that was supposed to give him an air of philosophical insight. Instead, he looked self-congratulatory, holding his wine glass up to see the rippling of ruby light. It was almost as if he had conquered grief, and was passing on this wisdom to Havannah, though it came unsolicited and poorly timed. 

“I know it is,” Havannah said through gritted teeth. Her fingers tapped against the stem of the wine glass. She was avoiding his gaze.

“What do you think happens?”

“I’m sorry?”

“When people die. What do you think happens?” Olivier asked, the slurring of his words thickening the way his French accent curled around the words. He didn’t have an answer for it, but it seemed to be the right question to ask. He wanted them to talk about these things – the deep, meaningful conversations that you usually had to burrow down to, deep beneath all the layers of small talk. Was that so wrong?

“Like I said,” Havannah started, firmly. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“It’s OK.” Olivier reached for Havannah’s hand across the table. “I bet he’s in heaven.”

“I said stop!” she snapped, pulling her hand away from Olivier’s. 

“Sorry, sorry!” he said, raising his hands in defence. An uncomfortable silence sprawled between them, though in Olivier’s head, a babbling argument between impulse and control raged. The former – emboldened by wine – won, and so, when he broke the silence, Olivier made a further nuisance of himself. “This place is a bit…”

“A bit, what?” Havannah asked, unable to hide her regret as her furrowed brow tightened into a knot between her eyebrows.

“What’s the word? What do you English say?” Olivier slurred. “A dump?”

Without a word, Havannah stood. Although quiet, the scene had not gone unnoticed; at her manager’s behest, Annie appeared at the table.

“Is everything alright, Miss Shaw?”

“Sorry, Annie. We won’t be staying,” Havannah answered, reaching for the sleek black handbag she’d draped over the back of her chair. From within her purse, she pulled loose an approximate amount for the wine and a tip and handed it to the waitress. Annie resisting counting the money.

Olivier, meanwhile, watched events play out with a blurry detachment; the scene was happening to somebody else, and he was merely a witness, sitting at the same table. When his senses finally caught up with him, his attention was suddenly very much invested in Annie’s silence and the way she glared at him. Havannah’s eyes followed. Had he missed something?

“Just the one extra bottle?” Havannah asked Annie calmly while her eyes pierced Olivier.

“Yes. Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologise. Please give Marco and Angie my best and tell them I’ll be back to see them.”

As Annie scurried off to retrieve Havannah’s coat, Olivier opened his mouth to protest, finally aware of the waitress’ betrayal. 

Havannah stopped him dead. “No. Not one word. Don’t say a single word, Olivier.”

His mouth hung there, the words clenched in his throat – some in English, some in French.

Havannah left the table, taking the light from the room with her, and Olivier found himself sitting in silence, save for the distant buzzing and a cough from another table. Where was time slipping to? He’d only just arrived, hadn’t he?

Slowly, as if surrounded by lions that would pounce the moment he jolted a limb or tried to run, Olivier stood. Annie had brought his coat with her as well, held out with pity and and another apology. 

Lights prickled in his vision and the room seemed to swell and stretch as he stood. Annie surrendered the coat, and from its inner pocket, Olivier produced a second collection of folded notes, which he dropped on the table. The money came loose, a careless gesture scattered on the cheap tablecloth. Maybe they can use it to buy some better linens, he thought bitterly as he left the gawking waitstaff behind.

“Merci. Bonne nuit.”

Rather than waiting for a taxi outside Marco’s, Havannah walked briskly to the nearby rank. The evening had been a mistake, and the more distance that she could between her and Olivier, the better. Upon reflection, however, she found a certainty that it would go awry long before Olivier had even opened his mouth. Then he had spoken, evaporating any guilt while confirming Havannah’s unspoken fear: he wasn’t Ronan. There was, buried somewhere in this revelation, some relief; she had perceived her open heart as a flaw, but the disastrous date had confirmed that what she and Ronan had felt was not so easily replicated. But then, even that relief was tempered by the distance she had placed between them. At this thought, Havannah readied a delicate finger to wipe away a forming tear without ruining her immaculate eyeliner.

“Havannah!” Her name was chewed and shouted, the syllables mashed between Olivier’s teeth before being spewed out loud into the street for all to hear. “Havannah!”

She kept walking, head down and handbag clutched tight, hopeful that he might vanish if paid no heed. Still, he shambled closer, the screaming of her name becoming more unhinged as it intermingled with random French cursing. The embarrassment was palpable.

When at last he was too close to ignore, Havannah rounded on Olivier hissing, “Keep your voice down!”

“You left me back there!” Olivier accused, looking bedraggled and hurt. The casual way he left the top button of his shirt open now seemed sloppy, and the curl of his tattoo visible just a little lower no longer interested her. Behind his rounded glasses were bloodshot eyes, watery with remorse.

“You were drunk before I arrived,” Havannah stated, matter-of-fact. There was no denying it, though Olivier tried. She shut it down with a flat palm telling him to stop. “I don’t want to hear it. Those people are family friends. I know them. And you just embarrassed me in front of them.”

“Those people,” Olivier spat, “Are the ones who should be embarrassed. They’re liars and their restaurant - pah!” Olivier no longer seemed like the put-together young man she had clung to for warmth in the cold water. Now he was the violent tide, lashing out at the world around him. Once he’d reiterated his dislike of Marco’s, Olivier started to hurl insults about the town with a liberal increase in volume, as if daring Clayham-on-Sea to argue back. The delusion of coherence was overwhelming; in truth, he made little sense, his words a garbled combination of languages.

A taxi crept up to pause at the edge of the pavement.

“You alright, love?” the driver called through the window. She didn’t reply with words, but took the handle of the door, relieved at the escape.

“Get some sleep, Olivier.”

Before Havannah could pull the door open, however, Olivier grabbed her wrist, desperate to plead his case and in need of her attention to do so. None of that reasoning was shared with Havannah, who promptly yelled at him to let go, struggling to free herself from his grip.

The driver, a veteran of many a late-night fracas, burst from his taxi and stormed around to the pavement.

“Oi, mate, what do you think you’re playing at?” he shouted, pointing a thick, angry index finger at Olivier. Even though the young Frenchman towered over the driver, he obeyed, relinquishing his grasp and raising his hands in surrender.

“Thank you,” Havannah gasped, nursing an aching wrist as the driver ushered her into his taxi. All the while, he scowled at Olivier, fists ready to curl and lash out.

The guilt Olivier felt wouldn’t form words. It was all getting too much. The evening had gotten away from him. Why had he drunk so much wine? Why did he stop for a drink in the hotel bar first? Where was time going? Was he in trouble? The thoughts wouldn’t stop speeding around his brain. He wanted it to stop. He needed it to stop - for everything to quieten and for everybody to leave him alone.

Olivier began to pace furiously, hands pulling back his hair in frustration. He wanted to protest or plead, but the taxi pulled away before he could collect himself. When he closed his eyes, all he could see was Havannah’s disappointed face looking back at him through the window. Ninety-four, he counted. Ninety-four miserable faces.

 A surge of rage erupted in him, jolting his leg over and over as he kicked a rubbish bin. A passing couple sped up; a group of teens chuckled among themselves.

And then there was no one to care about his tantrum; he was all alone. As Olivier slumped against the bin, pounding it now with his fists as he sobbed senselessly, he wished for just one thing: some passer-by to stop and comfort him, a stranger that would hold his misery and then disappear into the aether, leaving him unburdened. Knowing the comfort would never come, Olivier pulled all his insecurities – all the guts he’d splashed upon the pavement as he begged for Havannah’s attention – back into himself and swallowed them down.

Now, alone under the amber wash of a blinking streetlamp, there was no point in pretending he was anything other than who he was. With unsteady hands, Olivier pulled himself to standing and sighed.

Deciding oblivion would be kinder – would be capable of smoothing the edges of his misery and numbing the memory of this evening before it got stored away forever – Olivier stumbled back into the dark in search of another next drink. 

Maybe this one would fix him.

***

Should any of her neighbours notice the brevity of her absence that night, Havannah was sure that they would comment. For a short while during the trip home – somewhere between settling her breathing and the driver checking in – she had considered asking him to do an extra loop just to avoid any scrutiny. It wasn’t late, but it was dark, and the only place Havannah wanted to be was her own bed, so she swore to defy the imaginary critics and go straight home. In reality, what would they care of her comings and goings?

The taxi pulled into the car park at the front of her building and Havannah sighed with relief. With gratitude, she handed the driver a twenty pound note and insisted he keep the change. 

The driver lingered, watching as Havannah made her way across the car park. Upon reaching the entrance, she waved him goodbye and he nodded solemnly, before driving away. 

The car park faded back into darkness, save for two dim lamp-posts. In the distance, if she listened carefully, Havannah could hear the sea. Part of her was tempted to wander over to it, just to see if the water could deliver some comfort – maybe it would be calm enough to balance out the evening’s chaos. But her bed was waiting, and Havannah was tired of being at the mercy of other people’s tides.

Inside, the bright lights shone off the polished gypsum flooring that ran from the entrance right up to the elevators. Even in the cold and the dark of winter nights, there was still a reassuring warmth about the building’s atrium. It wasn’t her old flat – her dad wouldn’t be waiting upstairs – but the idea that it was home had started to creep into Havannah’s mind. After the last few days, she was relieved to be here.

Without thinking, Havannah reached for her phone. It was only as the elevator made a ding and opened its doors that she realised her automatic movements. This was a ritual of lesser enjoyment. A finger hovered over Ronan’s name. Naturally, it was him she wanted to talk to about Olivier. Or maybe it was the hope that she could share her revelation with him – about herself, and about their connection – and in doing so, he would see the logic and forgive her. First, of course, he had to pick up the phone. But as the dial tone faded in and out, that eventuality looked less and less likely with every level the lift reached.

By the time the doors opened on the eighth floor, the tone had ended and Ronan’s familiar voicemail began. Havannah sighed and stepped out into the gleaming corridor, content to listen to his voice – even if they were the words she had come to associate with disappointment.

Ronan’s recorded prompt concluded, followed by a beep. Everything she had wanted to say felt too important to leave to a machine, leaving only a hesitant silence. The voicemail’s waiting quiet seemed impatient, so she hunted for at least something to be said.

Just as the words came to Havannah, they were snatched away by surprise.

Ahead of her and a little to the right lay the entrance to her flat – positioned somewhat awkwardly so that the corner of a right-turn obscured a complete sight of the door. Where the doors weren’t symmetrical, the domed lights running along the ceiling were, guaranteeing some certainty of the shadows lingering in the corridor. The shadow stretching from beyond the right-turn, spilling past the edge of her front door, however, was not one supposed to be there.

Ending the silent stand-off with Ronan’s voicemail, Havannah promptly dialled 999, a thumb poised ready to hit the call button. She glanced back at the lift, but it had already left her behind. Meanwhile, the two nearest doors – one on either side of the corridor – led to an empty apartment and another used for showings; there was no one else between her and the owner of the shadow.

With little confidence of an escape the way she came, Havannah separated her keys and positioned them between her knuckles before slowly easing forward.

“Hello?” she called out.

The shadow jolted in surprise. It moved, stretching and darkening the pale beige wall to the left of Havannah’s front door. With the quickening of her heartbeat, Havannah’s feet did the opposite, slowing down her encounter with the looming threat. The shadow grew and Havannah moved to the left-most wall in an attempt to see around the corner before the shadow’s owner saw her. It was no use; he saw her first.

“Hi, Havannah.”

“Oh thank God,” she exclaimed, resting her closed fist against her chest, the keys still protruding from between clenched knuckles. Havannah pressed her back against the wall and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to steady herself. The evening had threatened to catch up with her.

“Are you OK? Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No, it’s fine,” she insisted, snatching a much-needed breath. A small laugh escaped, a hysterical remnant of fear. “You just…surprised me is all.”

The shadow’s owner was in full view now, a stuffed holdall hanging from the strap that strained against his fingers until they blanched in resistance. Once Havannah had regained her composure, it was easy to see a levity in the whole scenario.

“What are you doing here, Victor?”

Havannah passed him by as he sheepishly balanced on one foot and then the other. Even as she unlocked the door and welcomed him inside, Victor struggled to find the words to ask what he needed to ask. The holdall told Havannah all she needed to know.

Once on the other side of the threshold, relief flooded her body. She pulled the black coat off and hung it up, before freeing her braids from the high ponytail that had tightened her scalp and pulled at her skin. Victor just stood in the doorway, watching as she busied herself with her routine. The door closed behind him and they were momentarily blanketed in darkness.

“Can you get the lights? The switch is on your right,” Havannah called out as she vanished out of sight. Victor obeyed and the apartment became bathed in a warm white glow. He could see Havannah now, filling the kettle with water from the kitchen tap in the far corner of the apartment.

“You can come in, you know,” Havannah said, calling over her shoulder as the clear kettle lit up with a blue glare.

On her instruction, Victor took a tentative step forward, his holdall grazing the polished laminate flooring. The wall to his right had two doorways – one a cupboard, the other a bathroom – which he eyed curiously. Beyond the short entranceway, the living room spread out in front of him, a sofa placed against the bathroom wall, facing a television. To the left, the kitchen occupied its own corner in the open plan. An exposed beam ran horizontally above the kitchen, from one end of the apartment to the other. On its jutting metal surfaces, Havannah had placed a hanging plant, holiday trinkets, and photos of her parents. The hallway cupboard was still full of boxes bursting with yet more treasured items, but he didn’t need to know that.

“I’m guessing you need somewhere to stay?” Havannah asked, casually eyeing the holdall.

“Sorry to ask,” he mumbled.

“You haven’t asked yet.”

“Sorry.”

Havannah folded her arms and rested against the kitchen worktop. She took in the sight of Victor, noting all the ways he’d changed. Where he had once looked strong, he was noticeably thinner; the line of his jaw had been sharpened to a bony edge. Similarly, his eyes had sunken, a deep exhaustion setting in, bruising the skin.

“It’s been a while,” Havannah noted, standing straight now. “The last time I saw you…I didn’t think you were coming back.”

“We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

“Ha!” Havannah exclaimed, tending to the kettle. She poured boiling water into two mugs, ballooning the teabags until they floated to the surface and turned their surroundings a pale gold.

“Catching up is what friends do, Victor. We don’t really know each other that well. Here,” she said, offering him a mug. He sniffed it.

“Is this?”

“It’s camomile.”

“I don’t like ca-”

“It’s good for you,” Havannah insisted, sipping her drink as she moved from the kitchen over to the windows that lined the far wall of the living room. The view had enticed her into buying the flat and it had yet to let her down. That night, the stars were glittering in the void, and she could see the roughly-hewn crests of obsidian waves in the distance. Below, almost as if near her feet, the car park was still choking in darkness, save for the light spared by the street lamps.

“I’m sorry. About before. The last time we saw each other..”

“Which bit? Your fucked up attempt at blackmail, or…?” Havannah pondered for a minute, watching her own reflection in the window. She caught herself and the cold rolling sea both in front and behind her. Cruel eyes looked back. Afraid of what her reflection might say, Havannah turned away from the window to face her visitor. “It’s fine, Victor. I mean, what you did wasn’t fine, but…things have changed. It doesn’t matter so much now.”

“I was scared of people finding out I’m…”

“Gay?”

“I’m not gay,” Victor replied, firmly. His jaw tightened and he was the same obstinate young man she recognised from the summer. “I know it doesn’t change anything, but I hope it explains why I acted the way I did.”

“Victor, I don’t care what you are. I don’t even care that you weren’t a particularly great boyfriend to Claire. What you did – recording yourself having sex with her sister – I mean, come on. Jesus, it’s rough. Especially in hindsight with everything that happened.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Victor had spoken quickly, the words spilling out before they could be tested and measured. There was no regret; now that they were out in the open, they seemed to be the most significant words in the world, their weight bringing a sense of purpose – and anticipation – to the room. Havannah inspected him carefully this time, looking beyond the superficial for hints in his body language. His gaze, she noticed, wasn’t directed at her, but beyond her, fixed on the horizon. Where the strap of his holdall met the folded skin of his closed fist, the flesh brightened thanks to his tightening grip. His teeth were taking passing bites at his bottom lip, chewing until it bloomed in red.

“I need to tell you something about that night. The night of the fire.”

“I’m listening.”

In the distance, waves rolled and crashed into one another, the sea’s anxious mood drowning out any conversation. Without explanation, it had reached Havannah’s ears, threatening to deafen her. Or perhaps it was her heart racing and thumping and screaming at her?

“Do you need to get that?” Victor asked, nodding in the direction of Havannah’s handbag, whose handle was draped over the edge of the countertop. He sipped at his tea and grimaced.

Realising that the angry tide was nothing but the vibration of her phone, Havannah shook her head. This was too important.

“It’s fine. What did you want to tell me?”

“Well…”

The vibration started again, dragging the handbag closer to the counter’s edge. Annoyed at having to intervene like a parent mid-conversation, Havannah moved to the counter and pulled the phone from her bag. She glanced at the two missed calls – both from the same number – and sent the screen back to sleep.

“What did you want to tell me?”

By now, Victor was growing visibly nervous – which could only mean he was about to leave without telling her anything.

“Maybe I should go…” he said, placing the tea on the dining table behind him.

“No, wait.” The phone rang again. “For fuck’s sake,” Havannah hissed, answering curtly.

“Is this a bad time?”

“Yes, it is. Can I call you back tomorrow morning?”

“You’re the boss.”

The line clicked dead.

It was Victor’s turn to ask Havannah if everything was OK. She shrugged the question off, steering herself over to the window and the car park down below. “It will be,” she replied, her voice far away. With great interest, she watched the blue car pull away from in front of the building, headlights illuminating its path into the dark.

Content – and a little short on patience – Havannah switched the mobile phone off.

“Right, no more interruptions.” She crossed her arms and leaned against the windowsill, intently fixing her eyes on Victor’s, even when he attempted to break contact. “You were about to tell me something important.”

“Before I start…Are you sure you want to know? It’s heavy shit, Havannah. There’s no going back afterwards – once it’s out, it’s out. And I need…I need you to trust me.”

Havannah thought for a moment.

“Whatever it is, you trust me enough to be here. I’ll extend the same courtesy, but don’t try anything, Victor.”

“I won’t. So, you’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” Havannah said, sipping on her tea but tasting blood in the water. “Tell me everything.”