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And now he’d dragged Maia into the sordid horror show that was his hatred of me. She didn’t deserve that. None of this had anything to do with her. It made my skin crawl to think of him sidling up to her somewhere, sometime, and having a go at her like he’d just had a go at me. I could take it, hell, part of me felt I deserved it, but she had nothing to do with this.

Unless she did.

Unless I made the same mistake with Maia that I had with Em.

Not caring enough. Not loving enough. Not doing enough.

I had to tell her. I had to tell Maia how I felt, and get her to open up to me. The only way I could be sure I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice was for us both to be completely honest with each other. It made what we had seem more fragile than ever.

I pulled up outside my house, and just seeing her car in the driveway seemed like a positive sign. Only days ago, the house had seemed empty. Now, it was the opposite. It was as if someone had flipped a switch, filling the shadows with light.

I walked up the front path, looking forward to taking her into my arms and kissing her until we were both breathless.

I opened the front door. “Maia?”

For several long moments, the house remained quiet.

Then, “I’m in here.”

She sounded strange. I closed the door behind me and walked down the hall towards the spare bedroom.

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, the contents of Em’s box of memories scattered around her.

She looked up at me and tears were rolling down her cheeks. Judging by the look of despair on her face, they weren’t the first, either. My heart plummeted.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her cheek quickly. “I just opened the wardrobe, and I found all this stuff of hers.”

I should’ve thought about that, but it all happened so fast. “Jesus. I’m sorry, too – I should’ve moved it.”

She started to pick up all the photos and put them back into the box on the floor in front of her. I knelt on the floor to help her, trying to ignore Em’s face staring back at me. And mine. And both of ours, together.

I placed a handful of photos into the box. “Are you okay?”

Seemed like a stupid question really, considering the amount of tears that had obviously been liberated.

She sighed, wiping her cheeks again, looking down at the handful of photos in her hand. “It’s just so real, suddenly. Looking at all these photos of the two of you together. I just… I hurt for you, for losing her, for everything you must’ve been through. And I hurt for her, too. For losing you.”

I had been right. I knew it with a certainty that made the room spin.

I reached over for her hand. “Who did you lose?”

She stared at me, her hand twitching in mine, as if she wasn’t sure whether to let go of me or not.

“I can tell you’ve lost someone,” I said gently. “I recognise the signs. You don’t talk about anyone, you lock it all way. I just want you to know that if you want to talk about it – about anything – you can. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

She didn’t answer me. That was all the proof I needed. If I was wrong, she’d have told me so. But she didn’t. She didn’t dispute it, she didn’t argue. She just nodded.

Then she withdrew her hand from mine and began collecting photos again, putting them back in the box. All I could do was offer to listen. I couldn’t make her talk, that was her mountain to climb. I just wanted her know that I was here, when she was ready. She was ready a lot sooner than I thought.

“I think I’m going crazy,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She looked up at me, fresh tears brimming in her eyes.

“What?”

She shook her head, as if she was afraid to say it again. I couldn’t just sit there and let her cry. She let me take her into my arms, and she grabbed fistfuls of my shirt, holding on tight. Then the sobbing started. Great, wracking sobs that shook her whole body.

I held her tight. I had no idea what was going on, no idea what to say that would help. I tried not to panic. I was there with her, she was safe. If that was all I could offer, then that would have to be enough for now.

We sat like that, locked together on the floor, for the longest time.

“What’s happening to me?” she finally whispered into my shirt.

I wish I knew.

“Come on,” I said gently, pulling away and getting to my feet. I reached down for her hand. “Let’s go into the living room.”

No good ever came from sitting on the floor, crying. Especially in that room. I knew that better than anyone.

We walked through to the living room and she sank down onto the couch. She made herself into a small, impenetrable fortress, pulling her knees up, wrapping her arms around them and bowing her head. It felt like she was shutting me out again, but I didn’t know if it was intentional or just a self-preservation thing.

Henry’s voice popped into my head from out of nowhere.
Alcohol.
She needed a short, sharp shock to her system to bring her round. Maybe then I could find out what the hell was going on.

I walked through into the kitchen and pulled two glasses out of the cupboard, along with a bottle of whisky. I poured a shot into each glass and immediately downed one myself, breathing through the burn as the whisky slid down my throat.

I took her glass back to the couch, hoping that one taste might bring her back to her senses. She had raised her head at least, but she was staring at nothing, her eyes red and swollen. When I sat down and laid a hand on her arm, I could feel her still trembling.

“Do you think you can drink this?”

She blinked, slowly, as if everything was too much of an effort. I stroked her hair and she closed her eyes, leaning into my hand.

“Come on,” I said gently. “Drink up. It might make you feel a bit better.”

She opened her eyes, and it took a few moments for them to find me. I could see the raw desperation shining out of her, begging me for help. It was so obvious, she might as well have screamed at me.

I handed her the glass and she took it. She took a small sip, screwing up her face and coughing violently.

“It’s whisky,” I said.

She handed it back to me, still coughing. Not knowing what else to do, I took it and set it down on the coffee table.

“What’s going on?” I asked carefully. “Talk to me, because I’m getting a really bad feeling here.”

Her eyes slid from mine to the floor. She sat there, huddled in a ball, staring at the floor until I couldn’t bare it any longer.

“Come on, Maia. Please?”

Every second that passed made her seem more and more unreachable. Then, when I was beginning to think I should just give up and leave her alone for a while, she looked over at me. Fresh tears gathered in her eyes.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

Her voice was so heartbreakingly small, I found myself holding my breath. I tried to call on the sensible gene, the one I supposedly had and Vinnie had supposedly missed out on. We couldn’t both drown here. One of us needed to stay focused.

“What do you mean?”

A tear slid down her cheek, followed closely by another. She wasn’t sobbing, not this time. These tears were the silent kind. I honestly didn’t know which was worse.

“I think I’m going crazy,” she whispered, as if sharing a secret with me. One she wasn’t sure she should be sharing.

I was overcome with a blinding case of knight-in-shining-armour-complex. I wanted to fight off whatever was hurting her – to grab a sword and stab it, killing it and burying it so it would never hurt her again. Vinnie would’ve had a field day if he knew.

“What makes you think that?”

She sniffed, wiping away the tears that had fallen with the back of her hand. She looked like she was hanging onto a ledge by her fingertips. I was scared to move, to say the wrong thing in case I sent her toppling over.

“Remember when I told you about the near-death experience, or whatever, at the beach the other day?” she asked. “It happened again.”

My heart raced. I had no idea what to do with that. Had I missed something?

The last threads of self-control tightened, then snapped. Her face dissolved, contorted with sheer agony. That was the final straw. I scooted forward, reaching for her as she dropped her knees and crawled into my arms.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but we’ll figure it out,” I mumbled, thinking aloud.

She nodded into my shoulder, holding on tight. Then the sobbing started. It was silent, but her whole body shook with the intensity of it. My brain whirled as I tried to work out what could possibly be happening here. It wasn’t just seeing Em’s things in the wardrobe, that much was clear.

God, I used to hate it when Em cried. It always made me feel so useless. All I could do was hold her and hope like hell it was enough.

I felt just as helpless then, with Maia in my arms.

After a while, she sniffed, pulling away from me. I let her, smoothing the damp hair away from her face. Her cheeks were flushed and wet.

“Talk to me,” I said. “And let’s see if we can work it out together.”

She took a shuddering breath and sat back. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she sniffed and stared blankly at the floor. I didn’t want to rush her, but whatever this was, I was keen to get to the bottom of it.

“I wish I knew,” she said quietly. “When it happened at the beach, I thought it was a one-off. Some kind of near-death thing. It freaked me out, but I could live with it. But this time… “

“What happened this time?”

Despite my curiosity, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to that.

She looked up at me, losing about ten years in the process. “I opened the wardrobe, and I saw all of her things in there. I saw the box and I just… I opened it. I was looking at the photos when it happened again.”

A near-death experience, when she wasn’t near death? A chill crawled up my spine. There had to be a rational explanation, surely. I wished Bridget were here. She was better at this stuff.

“Tell me what happened.”

She sighed, anxiously rubbing the knuckles of one hand with the fingers of the other. They were both shaking.

“I was just sitting there, looking through the photos. Then it was like… I don’t know. The room disappeared, and I saw us – at least, I think it was us. It could’ve been you and her, I’m not sure, I couldn’t tell. It was really quick, like lightning quick.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

“It happened so fast, I can’t really remember now. Maybe it was more like a feeling I got, rather than what I actually saw.”

My brain whirled in circles as I tried to hang on and keep up. “Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”

She stared at her hands. “Not that I can remember.”

I sighed. A leaden sigh, one that hurt my lungs. What the hell was going on here?

“Do you think this had something to do with Em’s stuff, in the wardrobe?” I asked. “I’m sorry it was still there. I should’ve shifted it when you moved in, that’s my fault. I’ll get rid of it all, move it down into the basement or something.”

“It’s not that,” she said irritably, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “And I’m sorry I was snooping, but I opened the wardrobe to put my things in there, and it was all just… and then I saw the box, and when I opened it… ” She groaned, leaning forward and burying her face in her hands. “God, I feel like I’m losing it. I can’t sleep, I can’t think straight – it’s all just… I don’t know.”

I latched onto the one thing she said that made any sense here.

“You can’t sleep?”

She sighed, her hands dropping back into her lap as she looked at me. “I can’t sleep. That’s why I get up early. I can’t seem to relax, I feel like I’m on edge all the time. When I had that migraine the other day, I managed to get about an hour’s sleep. I think that was the most I’ve had in days, maybe even weeks. I feel like I’m wading through sand.”

She got up off the couch and walked over to the French doors, staring out over the balcony. I was familiar with the feeling. For the first year after Em disappeared, it had been my new normal.

“Sleep deprivation,” I said. “I bet that’s what this is. It causes hallucinations and all sorts of other stuff. Maybe that’s what we’re dealing with here?”

I stood up and walked over to her, gently turning her around to face me. “You know how dangerous that is, right? They used to use it as a torture method. It makes you see things, makes you think you’re going mad.”

She looked up at me, hope in her eyes, wanting so desperately to believe me.

“We need to make sure you get some sleep. Maybe we need to get you to a doctor?”

She shuddered. “No doctors. I hate doctors.”

“Well, we can try some other stuff first. Relaxation techniques. I actually have sleeping pills somewhere.”

She frowned up at me. “Sleeping pills?”

God, that felt like forever ago. It was a shitty time, a time I wasn’t keen to rehash, so I gave her the condensed version instead. The version that didn’t make me sound like the complete basket-case I was back then.

“I was in a pretty bad way myself for a while there,” I shrugged, trying to keep it light. “A couple of years ago. It kinda snuck up on me. Vinnie took me to the docs, and she gave me some relaxation exercises, some anti-depressants and a few sleeping pills. I didn’t use them all, I still have some.”

She stared up at me, fear easing slightly, replaced by empathy. “Because of Emily?”

“Yeah. Amongst other things,” I said. “Look, the point is, I can help. I’ll teach you the relaxation methods I learnt then, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll try the sleeping pills. Just promise me that, if we try this stuff and it doesn’t work, you’ll let me take you to the doctors. Do we have a deal?”

She screwed up her face.

“Maia? Come on. Deal?”

She sighed. “Yeah. Okay.”

I smiled. “Good. See? We have a plan now. Plans are good.”

I drew her closer, rubbing her back gently. My heart rate was beginning to slow as the fear diminished. That sensible gene was worth its weight in gold, especially if it made her feel a little better.

“Thank you,” she mumbled into my shirt, her arms tight around my back.