ONE YEAR AND EIGHT MONTHS EARLIER
Something is screaming at me.
A constant ringing shriek that just keeps on and on and on. I want it to stop. I'm not sure how much more I can take, but I can barely lift my head without feeling the pain stabbing at my skull and wanting to throw up and so it just keeps screaming.
I should never have sunk that second bottle of wine.
I've never been very good with wine, although to be fair, I've never been a great drinker anyway and the older I've got, the worse the hangovers have become until half the time, drinking doesn't even feel worth it.
At least, that's how it used to be. Before Tom died.
Now, with four months spent in darkness already, drinking seems like the best way to blot it all out.
After a loss, people often say the nights are the worst, and that's what Monica keeps telling me. 'The nights will be hard without him, but you'll get through it. Take a sleeping pill and try to get some rest. In time and in the morning, things will seem better, you'll see.'
But I don't see, and it's not better.
Each day just drags into night, and then all over again. This never-ending circle of wishing I wasn't here. Wishing it had been me and not him. Wishing I hadn't insisted on searching for the source of that noise.
'Fuck's sake,' I hear Monica hiss, as I groan into the sofa cushion.
I turn my head ever so slightly to see her staring at my mobile phone on the coffee table, as if it's a snake ready to bite or spit venom in her eye if she gets too close to it.
It might as well be a snake to be fair, because the person calling would wish the same on me if it was at all possible.
Tania, Tom's sister hasn't stopped calling. She hasn't stopped with her relentless campaign against me since this whole thing began. In fact, she was the one who started it all. She thinks I did it. She thinks I was the one who killed Tom and with no body to be found and no evidence that can possibly link me to his death, she's been virulent and vicious in her mission to see me punished. The graze and growing bruise on my temple are just the latest in a long line of attacks against me, but we've levelled up now from verbal to physical.
She's grieving. Upset. Devastated. I get that. I get it so fucking much. But I didn't kill him.
Yet, why do I feel so guilty?
It's eating away at me every day and every night. There's no let-up. No sign of it fading any time soon. Just this awful, gnawing ache in the pit of my stomach and a constant pain that stretches across my chest as if something is threatening to burst out of my rib cage.
Breathing deeply to try and stop myself from vomiting – Monica has left a bowl by the side of the sofa, like she always does – I shift my aching body so I can look properly at her.
Something is wrong. I see it instantly.
There's a change in her expression, something I haven't seen before, and I've seen it all in Monica since Tom died, mostly evident in a constant crinkle of concern in the middle of her brow. Monica doesn't crinkle. Worried about the onset of time, which is ridiculous considering she's only in her twenties, she's a big fan of cosmetic assistance and spends a lot of time at a fancy clinic over the river. It's costing her a fortune and she's up to her eyeballs in debt on her credit cards, but still she keeps going, pushing back at time as if she can do what no one has done before, and defeat it with a needle and a bit of Botox.
Today, I don't see the concern so much. It's there, a little hint of it still lurking in her brow, but I see something else. She looks haunted, truly haunted, as if there's a ghost sitting by her side, holding her hand in its icy grip. I almost wish it was Tom. I'd give anything to have him back with me, ghost or not.
'Was that her?' I say. 'Again?'
Monica nods, glancing sideways at me, before looking away to the fireplace where a picture of Tom and I on our wedding day takes pride of place. She averts her gaze quickly, almost as if she can't look at it and instead looks down at her hands which are clenched tight in her lap, her knees pulled up towards her chest.
'What is it?' I ask, shifting so I can lean my head against the back of the sofa and when I do, I realise last night's wine bottles and glass are still out. I can still smell the Rioja and it's making my already nauseous stomach rock, as if I'm on a boat and not safely ensconced on my sofa.
Usually, by now, Monica has dutifully cleared away the evidence of my drunken meltdowns, because she knows how ashamed and upset it makes me feel in the morning to know that I still can't hold my life together.
Today, however, my meltdown is here, right in front of my eyes and Monica isn't doing her usual routine of pretending everything is going to be alright, which she usually masters with a wide, cosmetically whitened grin and a knack of holding it all together for me.
She's been my rock these past few months. My only rock.
'Listen,' she says. 'I know things are still tough for you, but I think it's time I moved back home.'
What? I don't get this. I don't understand this at all. Why would she leave me?
'I can drop by, you know, whenever you need me. But, I think, as long as I'm here, you aren't getting any better. You don't need to when I'm always on hand to do everything.'
Guilt surges in, strong and intense. More guilt. Layers and layers of guilt that's built into the foundations of who I am now. It will never leave me.
I struggle to sit up, closing my eyes for a second when my head screams at me to stop.
'I'll try harder,' I say, but I can see she doesn't believe me, or doesn't want to. 'I will, Mon. I know you've taken on a lot, and I promise I'll do more to help myself, but I don't want you to go, not yet. I don't want to be alone here. What if Tania won't stop?'
'Then you up your security. Get the police to install a panic button.'
She knows as well as I do, they probably won't waste their resources. I'm still under investigation. Even without a body, I'm a suspect in the disappearance of my husband. They think I did it. Just like Tania does. Just like everyone does.
Apart from Monica.
There's definitely something different about her today. I can't put my finger on it, but she won't look at me any more than she would look at my wedding picture.
'Mon, is something wrong? Did I do something?'
My drunken meltdowns are becoming worse. Numbness has been replaced with a rage that seems to consume me most when I'm drunk. Last week, I wrecked mine and Tom's bedroom, after Monica suggested I maybe think about sorting out Tom's things. I tried. I really did, but I found a shirt in his wardrobe that hadn't been washed and I could still smell his aftershave. Just a hint of it, but it killed me to smell it. To smell him. The week before, I smashed a mirror that Tania had gifted us when we moved in together and ended up cutting myself on the glass.
Monica had been there to clear up both times, just as she has been here every day since he died.
I hate this haunted look in her eye. How pale her usually perfectly made-up face is. She looks exhausted. Maybe that's it. She's exhausted of me. Exhausted from looking after me. I know it's too much for her. I'm too much.
'You need to sort out your drinking, Evie. I still have the number for that counsellor, I mentioned. Please ring her.'
Why won't she look at me?
When I speak, the sob is not far away. I can feel it, caught in my throat, making my voice sound shaky and weird. 'Mon, whatever it is I did last night, if I got a bit crazy, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. You don't have to leave. I'll go to the counsellor. You could even come with me?'
She looks at me then and suddenly I don't want her to. I don't like what I see there. It frightens me, a stab of fear that makes me suck in a breath.
'I don't know what's happening anymore,' she says. 'But I don't think I'm the right person to be looking after you. You're out of control. The things you said... it's not right, Evie. It's not normal. You need help. Professional help.'
I blink back the tears that have risen, hot and with a sense of panic that's threatening to take over.
'What did I say?' I raise my voice when she doesn't answer. 'Mon, tell me!'
'Crazy stuff,' she says, and she's crying now, but there's anger there too. 'Really fucked-up stuff, all about some creature. A grey man, Evie. A fucking alien or something! You said how this thing came and killed Tom. You said it... became Tom or something insane like that. Why would you say it? I think there's something really wrong with you.'
She says that but it's not what she thinks. I can see it now. She doesn't believe me. She doesn't believe that I didn't have anything to do with Tom's disappearance. Has she ever believed me?
Whether she did or not doesn't matter now. I've ruined it all by opening my stupid mouth and finally confessing the one thing I've been sure to keep to myself all this time. Tania always said I wasn't telling the truth about Tom disappearing that night, and she was right, but how could I ever tell anyone what really happened? They'd look at me exactly how Monica is looking at me now.
I need to say something. I should tell her I do need help, and maybe I do, but who's going to help me? There isn't a single person alive who can help someone who watched her husband get killed by a monstrous thing, some unbelievable creature straight out of a fantasy movie. I'm alone with the truth, at least I was until I told Monica.
Of course, Monica doesn't believe me. At best, she thinks I've had a breakdown, at worst, she believes I killed Tom. Maybe even both?
'Mon...' I say, moving my legs so I can edge forward on the sofa. 'Mon, I was drunk. Really fucking drunk. I was probably just fucking around and didn't even know what I was saying.'
'You said you watched him die.'
Her tone is harder now. Accusatory.
Fuck. Fuck. She believes I did it. She believes Tania.
'I don't remember.'
'What?' she snaps back. 'You don't remember saying it or you don't remember what happened to him?'
'Mon!'
I'm panicking now. Really panicking. I think she sees it too, because she looks frightened. She can't be frightened of me, surely?
'Mon,' I say, trying to keep my voice calm. 'I drank so much last night. I'm a mess, I admit it. You're right, my drinking is way out of control. I don't know what I said last night or why I said it, but surely you have to see that I was off my face on booze? I mean, come on!' I try to laugh but it sounds flat and weak. 'Monica, you know me, okay? You know me. How long have we been friends, eh? Whatever I said was just ridiculous, just a joke, right?'
'Evie, you haven't cracked a joke since he was... well, since he disappeared. Why would you joke about something like that anyway?'
I stare at her for a moment, wide-eyed. I bet if I looked in a mirror now, I'd see my fear and panic like it was a living breathing thing. I can feel it, as if it's under my skin, desperate to escape.
'I... I don't know,' I say, meekly, rubbing my palm over my forehead. It's oily and my hair feels just as bad. I'm not even sure of the last time I washed it. 'I'm tired, Mon. I never took those pills you got for me. I'm drinking so fucking much because I can't bear it. I just... I don't know what to do anymore, but I'll sort myself out. I will, I swear. I'll call the counsellor right now. Where's the number?'
I get up too quickly and sway a little as I do. I'm probably still a bit drunk.
'Evie, stop...'
'No, no, it's fine. I'll ring her right now. I'm going to do it, Mon, really I am.'
I start to hunt for the card. I remember Mon giving it to me and I went to throw it away, but she kept it and asked me to call it when I was ready. It's in the kitchen, stuck to the fridge with that stupid turtle magnet that Tom got when we went to Cancun. I grab it and walk back into the lounge.
Monica isn't there.
I hear movement and look out into the hallway. Monica is by the door, pulling on her boots. At her feet is her suitcase. It had started with an overnight bag four months ago and in the end, she'd brought the case over, needing to have more of her stuff here than whatever her LV holdall could cope with.
'What are you doing?'
I know what she's doing. She's leaving me. She's actually leaving me.
'I have to go home,' she says.
'Mon, look at me.'
She grabs her coat from the hook and starts to put it on, but she doesn't look at me.
I can't let her go. I can't just let her leave me like this.
'Mon, please, don't do this,' I say, grabbing hold of her arms. 'Please, don't go. I'm sorry, I'll sort myself out, but I can't do this without you. You're all I have left!'
I'm sobbing now, the tears streaming freely down my face, but when I look into her eyes, I almost recoil from what I see there. I've never seen her look at me like this. There's pain and hurt and oh god, coldness.
Tight-lipped, she pulls out of my grasp and holds my wrists away from her when I try to grab her again.
'I'm leaving, Evie, okay? It's for the best. I can't stay here.'
'You can, you can,' I plead with her. 'Please, Mon, please don't leave me on my own. You know me.'
She shakes her head, her dark curls falling around her face. 'No. No, I don't. Not anymore. I've stood by you all this time. I've looked after you and last night...' She breaks off, her lips trembling. 'Last night, you scared the Hell out of me. Whatever it is, whatever is going on, just speak to someone. Someone that can put this right.'
She's not talking about the counsellor now. She means the police.
A confession.
'Monica, please...' I say again, but it's no good. She's already grabbing the case and opening the door.
I move to bar her way and her face falls for a second, a flicker of fear that sends me reeling. She thinks I could hurt her. My best friend of fifteen years actually thinks I'm capable of hurting her.
'Move, Evie,' she says, firmly. 'I won't ask you again.' I stand in front of her, still crying. Her eyes soften for a moment, her tone gentle but it's not real. She's placating me. I know it. She knows it. 'I'll come and see you soon, yeah?'
I side-step and she practically runs out of the door.
I don't watch her go. I can't.
Instead, I shut the door behind her and fall onto the welcome mat, sobbing.
'I didn't do it,' I scream into the house I wish was haunted. 'I didn't do it.'
But I did do it. I might not have killed him myself, but I was the one that led Tom to his death. I'm the reason he died that night and I'm the reason that I'm all alone now.
In the living room, the phone shrieks and vibrates on the coffee table.
It'll be Tania.
I think this time I'll answer it and listen to everything she has to say.
I deserve everything that's coming to me.
Everything.