Push

3. She Heard a Story

GWEN

The mug was overflowing.

Water pooled on the wooden countertop. I blinked. The world was speeding ahead in front of me, but my thoughts were choked in a thick black fog at the starting line. I could see the kettle in my hand, tipped down, water gushing into the mug and spilling over the sides like a waterfall. I did nothing to stop it.

Everything was numb. My mind was stuck on empty. Pumping my foot on the gas wouldn't change anything. I could only think about one thing.

Where was Toby?

"Gwen! Shit!" Marnie's hip bumped me out of the way, and she pried the kettle from my fingers. "I'll make the tea. You sit down, okay? I've got this."

I sort of nodded. Her words were blurred by the endless flicker of remembering Kayleigh's lips on Toby's cheek. Forty people liked that photo. Forty. Friends. Family. The facilitator at Noah's sensory class. Everyone knew. Everyone.

Marnie's hip bumped me again. "Living room. Now." She hissed a curse when she spotted the water pooled on the countertop and snatched up a tea towel to mop up the mess I'd made. "Go, go, go!"

I shuffled to the living room. I flopped on the sofa. The mountain of pillows I'd painstakingly chosen to fit my whole modern farmhouse vibe only annoyed me. Nothing felt cozy. Everything itched. Even my brain itched.

Who did I piss off in a past life for my day to turn into this trainwreck?

I started my morning dreaming of a cappuccino. That was it. Dreams got smaller—simpler—when you were a stay-at-home mum facing most of the world alone. But did I bundle Noah up in his stroller to treat myself to a fancy coffee from the cafe down the road? No. I stayed home. I was responsible. I folded the never-ending stack of cloth nappies. I pureed another freaking batch of peas and carrots.

Surely that earned me enough brownie points on the universal shit-o-meter to at least spare me the car accident?

Apparently not.

Marnie fluttered into the living room. Nervous energy sparked off her like a frayed electrical cord. The mugs shook when she slid them onto the coffee table. Tea sloshed over the edge and dripped down the sides.

I was unsettled, too. This was new territory for both of us.

Usually, I was the one comforting Marnie as she jumped from heartbreak to heartbreak. Her emotions were a firecracker. Pure passion. Explosive. I was the one who stayed calm. We were the perfect team. Just like those pureed peas and carrots Noah liked so much. Marnie fretting over me like a worried nanna was all back to front. It didn't feel right.

She nudged my mug a little closer. "Drink up. You'll feel better."

"The world's problems can't always be solved by sitting around drinking tea, Mar."

"Some of them probably can."

"It won't change the fact Toby isn't here. It won't delete that photo."

"No, it won't, but maybe there's another explanation? Maybe it's just a dumb photo?"

The look I tossed her was dubious. She'd said that in the car on the drive home, too. We all knew straight-laced Toby turned into the life of the party when he was tipsy. The photo probably meant nothing. A drunken laugh.

Except I wasn't laughing.

Maybe on its own, that photo didn't mean much to anyone else, but it was hard to switch off all my years as a prosecutor. In my old line of work, we called photos like that circumstantial evidence. Follow all the other breadcrumbs those two had left behind, and there was only one logical conclusion, right?