Lying Beside You by Michael Robotham

Author:Michael Robotham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2023-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Sometimes, when my world is washed in grey, I go to dark places in my mind. Lonely places. Cruel places. The only way to escape this is to hide; to discover somewhere no bigger than a crawl space, where nobody can find me. I push boxes aside and squeeze between crates and old furniture in the attic, before curling up on a bedspread that smells of mothballs and mildew.

Closing my eyes, I listen to the ticks and wheezes of the radiator, the cars that pass outside, the voices of children in the park. Time slows down. Time stops. And my skin registers the fall in temperature as it grows dark outside.

Next to me, on the narrow sill of the attic window, I have my most precious things—the button from my mother’s coat and my collection of colored glass that looks like gemstones. When I hold the button in my fist, I can remember what my mother looked like and the sound of her voice and how she smelled.

She was wearing that coat when I last saw her. I clung to her, and they had to prize my fingers apart. It was only later, when I opened my hand, that I saw the button, which must have come loose in the struggle.

A creak on the stairs. A gentle knock.

“Are you hungry?” asks Cyrus.

“No.”

“I made pasta.”

Silence fills every corner. I wait to hear his weight on the stairs, but he’s still there. A moment later, a box slides aside and I see his face.

“Leave me alone, please.”

“This is cozy,” he replies, squeezing in beside me. He sits with his back against the wall, hugging his knees. His socked feet almost touch mine. We sit like that for a long while, listening to each other breathing.

“What’s with the button?” he asks.

“It belonged to my mother.”

“You don’t talk about her.”

“It won’t bring her back.”

Silence. Breathing.

“Cyrus?”

“Yeah.”

“How long will Mitch have to serve?”

“Another two years.”

That’s how much I have cost him. Two years of hating me, of cursing my name.

“Sometimes I wish I was dead,” I say.

“Don’t say that.”

“Everyone would be better off.”

“Not me.”

“Why?”

“Because I think you are the most fascinating, challenging, infuriating, exciting, unknowable person that I’ve ever met, and I want to see how you turn out.”

“What if this is how I turn out?”

“Well, that would be just fine.”

I gaze into his face, looking for the lie, but can’t see one. Maybe I’m not so good at picking them. Maybe he’s getting better at hiding them.

I am weeping now, head down, hair over my eyes.

“Evie?”

I can’t answer.

“Evie, listen to me.”

I feel him shuffle closer and his hand touches my head and strokes my hair.

“You are the bravest person I’ve ever met. You have been forged by fire. Don’t give up, OK? Never give up.”

He leans forward and wraps his arms around me, pulling my head against his chest.

“You deserve to be loved, Evie Cormac. Believe what I say.”

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