Chapter 32

32

Mom takes me back to my apartment later that afternoon, despite my insistence that I'm all right and can make my own way on the Tube, the cost of a taxi is too much. She doesn't bat an eye at the cab's meter; I wonder if she ever does.

I can't help but mention it. I think about the lavish hotel suite, the fancy products lined up in the bathroom, the extravagant use of taxis, and remember my argument with Lloyd about how my mom never contributed while I was growing up. It's not that I want compensation; I just can't work out why, if she wanted to be involved like she said.

She frowns, but it's confused more than anything else. "What are you talking about?"

"I heard Dad on the phone to you, once. He said we didn't need your money. He works as an exam invigilator and stuff sometimes, too, for the extra money. I'm not supposed to know, but I heard him talking to Gina about it once."

Mom squints, trying to piece it together, then pulls a face atme.

"I think he probably meant that he and Gina were coping all right without me contributing. He wanted me to set the money aside for you. We used some of it to buy you a car, when you were learning to drive."

"What? No, but—that was from Gina's friend. They were getting rid of it."

"Yes. But we paid them for it, obviously. They could've gotten a decent price at a garage for it. They weren't just giving it away."

"Oh."

Did I know that? I must have known it, at least a bit. But Dad and Gina had never made a big deal of the car, so I'd never thought very much of it. I definitely hadn't known Mom was involved.

She picks up her phone, tapping at it almost absently. There's an email open on the screen. Whatever it is, it's so second nature she's only got half a mind on it. She tells me, equally casually, "The rest of it is in your trust, Anna."

"My—the—what?"

"The trust fund," she clarifies, although it doesn't really clarify anything.

"I thought those only existed in, like, movies and TV and stuff," I blurt. "Like in that one episode of Derry Girls. "

Mom laughs. "Think of it as a protected bank account I've been paying into for you over the years. It's yours when you turn twenty-one. Your dad and I—and Gina—agreed it was money better set aside for you, to help you set yourself up when you finish college."

I gawp, not sure what to say.

She smiles at me, apparently oblivious to the fact my brain seems to have stopped working. "Anyway! It'll be a nice little nest egg for you, when you're a bit older! Something to put toward a house deposit. I gave your dad some to put away for your brothers, too. Gina was a bit resistant at first, but—call it guilt money, I guess. I know you're close to them, so I didn't want it to turn into a source of resentment down the line somewhere."

"Holy shit."

"Language, young lady," Mom says, almost teasing, like she's mocking her own un-mom-ness.

But I just say again, "Holy shit," and she starts laughing, and hugs me close.

—

There's someone lurking in the corridor outside my apartment.

I startle to a stop, only halfway out of the lift. Lloyd's head jerks up at the same time.

He's sitting against the wall with his knees tucked up, and now he scrambles to his feet. The lift doors start to slide close, squeezing my arms. I wince as the doors automatically bounce back open, and then I step into the hallway and toward him.

"Annalise, I'm so—I don't—I had no idea…"

The words pour out of him in a rush, like his mouth can't keep pace with his brain. He stops, takes a breath.

And another.

And another.

I realize I'm holding my breath, counting the heartbeats while we stare at each other, trying to put an entire summer of heartache and want into words. A little curl of dread coils up my spine when I consider—maybe it's not that, for him. Maybe he's angry, more upset with me now than when we fought, maybe he's embarrassed and bitter.

But…he's not.

This is Lloyd, after all. Heart on his sleeve. An open book.

Wide eyes, green like the first rush of grass in a new spring, plaintive and hopeful. His full lips parted slightly with a hundred things to say on them—too many, making it impossible to know where to start.

I don't know how long we stand in the hallway.

I don't know who moves first, either, only that we come together in a collision of outstretched arms and trembling hands, my face buried in the crook of his neck; the familiarity of Lloyd's embrace, the way he holds me so tightly, eliminates the need for words.

He's here, and that's enough.

For as long as we stand there, clinging to each other, I know, can feel in my bones, that it'll be okay. That the disaster of the emails, of everyone finding out about us, won't be the calamity it felt like this morning. The steady rise and fall of his chest against mine, the warm flush of his skin beneath my fingers, the way he makes me feel so suddenly and completely grounded—so wholly myself—feels so much bigger than any internship.

How could I ever have convinced myself that this was worth so little? That it in any way compared to my last relationship, which had been so easy to put behind me in favor of "the big picture" stuff?

Lloyd draws himself upright, ready to say something. A tiny, adorable crease puckers between his eyebrows; I reach up to smooth it out, reveling in the lopsided smile that replaces his focused expression, and my fingers trace a path along his cheek, my palm settling against his jaw. His head bows until his forehead is pressed to mine; it's tender, a stark contrast to his grip on my elbows anchoring me close, like if he lets go I'll slip through his fingers for good. I know how he feels. This is so perfect—so right—that I'm half-afraid it's not real. Like if I say something, I'll jinx it somehow, and this will disappear.

I tilt my head up toward his, our noses brushing. His lips are so close to mine, but the few millimeters of space that parts us feel cavernous.

Just when I think he's about to kiss me, Lloyd finally breaks the silence.

"I wrote you poems, you know."

"You—what?"

There's a ping behind us, and the lift doors open, animated voices slicing through the tension in the air. We've stood too long; we've lost our moment.

Lloyd lets me go, inch by inch, reluctance in his every movement.

The voices stop before I can turn, and then there's a cry of, "Annalise!" and I'm being wrenched into a hug, a pair of thin arms wrapping tight enough around me that all the air is crushed out of my lungs.

"Omigod," Elaine says in a rush, "we were so worried all day! You weren't answering your phone! Are you all right? What happened? Verity said you left with your mom. Are you okay?"

She steps back to hold me at arm's length, scrutinizing me like she expects to see the aftereffects of this morning's events written all over me. She probably can, in all fairness. I must look like crap.

Behind her is Louis, along with Monty, Dylan, and Izzy. They're all looking at me with concern, and pity.

They've all read the emails, I'm sure of it.

I fumble to reply, trying to shake off the heady intimacy of the moment Lloyd and I just shared—the one they've ruined.

"Sorry. My—my phone died, and I haven't really had chance to check it since…" I trail off, not really sure what to say—they're all looking at me so expectantly. My first instinct is to ask how their day has been, if they've got plans together tonight. It doesn't seem right to ask something so normal when it's been such a screwed-up day.

"Let's go in. C'mon, I'm gasping for a cuppa," Louis says, ambling down the hallway with his keys out.

Izzy says tentatively, "Or if you want some space we can leave, Anna. I mean, we don't want to get in the way."

Are they all here to gossip about me?

Could I blame them if they were?

Right now, they simply look sorry for me, and like they care. They're just being my friends; I want to let them.

"No! Don't let me stop you. It's fine, honestly. Come on in."

Behind me, Lloyd clears his throat, drawing everyone's attention to him for the first time. (Which would be funny, under other circumstances—that he has, for once, managed to fade into the background.)

"I'll get out of your hair, guys. See you round the office, yeah?"

Dylan starts to say, "What're you talking about? Stay! You're—"

But Monty elbows him in the ribs, with a sharp and very obvious jerk of his head in my direction. "Dude."

Dylan flushes, deferring to me awkwardly.

"Um, it's…okay," I tell Lloyd. "You can stay, if you want."

He can't leave. We haven't even had a chance to talk.

Was he going to kiss me again? Or did he just get caught up in the moment and is relieved he didn't?

Stay. Stay, please.

But he's already shaking his head. "Nah. Seriously, I'll leave you guys to it."

He smiles at everyone—his usual hundred-watt smile. He claps Dylan on the arm as he passes by and calls the lift, and the rest of us file into the apartment, the chatter starting back up. I turn to look over my shoulder at Lloyd, and he offers a shrug and a small, sorry sort of smile.

It's okay, he seems to say. We lost our moment.

So I let him leave, and join the others in the apartment. Louis offers tea to everyone; Elaine, only half joking, asks if I want something stronger.

"I'm kind of sick of cups of tea today." I laugh, having lost count of how many times one has been placed in front of me like it will fix everything. "Just some water is great, though."

"They tell you about Tasha yet, Anna?" Monty says.

This time, Dylan elbows him. "Dude!"

"What? What? She's gonna find out eventually! Wouldn't you want to know?"

"I haven't checked my phone, like I said…."

Izzy searches my face. "You knew it was her?"

I shrug. "It wasn't hard to figure out. She…said some things yesterday that weren't very nice."

"I can't believe it," Izzy sighs, looking genuinely upset—but not on my behalf this time. "She was always so lovely! I can't imagine why she'd do something like that! You must've really upset her."

Monty scoffs. "Or she was just a bitch. Which is definitely the more likely of the two."

I stare at him in surprise. Who'd have thought Monty was such a kindred spirit all this time? A fellow nonbeliever in great romances and not taken in by Tasha's sickly sweetness.

"Thanks, by the way," I tell him and Dylan. "For this morning. Collecting all the emails, and stuff. It's…It means a lot to me. Thanks."

"Course," Monty says, in his usual gruff tone, like I said thanks for buying some shots when it was his turn for a round, like he didn't go out of his way to do me such a massive favor and look out for me. He shrugs, clearing his throat. "It's nothing."

It wasn't. It really wasn't. Not to me.

But I just smile, and tell him, "I owe you a drink."

"Yeah, you do." He smiles back, a little more gently this time.

"So what happened? They found out Tasha was behind it?"

"Oh my God, Anna, you should've seen it! Well—not—obviously, it was awful, but still. Total drama," Elaine gushes, returning from the kitchen to fold herself into the corner of the sofa next to Dylan—and I wonder if maybe she wasn't very fond of Tasha all this time, too, because she's normally so good at taking the middle ground. "She got called up to Topher's office, and the senior HR partner was there and Tasha's manager and yours and Nadja, and they really let her have it. Nadja went for the jugular."

Izzy says, sounding a little reproachful, "Monty and Verity were helpful enough to message us all to let us know what was going on so we could all come and listen."

"You could've heard a pin drop," Dylan tells me, eyes wide with the excitement of the scandal. "Everyone was listening in."

"She got in sooo much trouble," Elaine goes on. "For messing with your work computer and snooping through it when she knew it could be, like, a breach of confidential information and stuff, but also because it's just wrong. For sending the emails, because it was vindictive. Even wasting company resources, printing out hundreds of copies to stick up everywhere!"

"What did they say about it?"

"Well, it looked like she was going to get away with a slap on the wrist, just a telling-off and tabs kept on her for the next couple of weeks—"

"But then, " Louis tells me, coming back over with a couple of mugs of tea and handing one to Izzy, " then Tasha lost it. She'd just been standing there taking it, crying, apologizing, all that, but when Nadja kept berating her to make her understand how much she'd fucked up, she started screaming. Started yelling at them, defending herself and trying to drag you under the bus, saying they were just looking out for you because you were hooking up with the boss's son and how everybody ought to know that you were sleeping your way through the internship."

I'm very, very glad I wasn't there to overhear that.

Even hearing it secondhand from someone who obviously doesn't believe it to be true, it's crushing. I knew people might think it when they saw my emails to Lloyd, but someone yelling it for everyone to hear…

"So Topher's trying to say that's not true, and your manager is defending you," Dylan says, picking up the story. "And then Nadja just held up a hand, waited for Tasha to finish, and told her to go pack up her things. Literally, there and then! Said they'd dock her final paycheck for the cost of printing the emails, and everything! Threatened to call security to ‘forcibly remove her from the building' if she didn't comply!"

"Oh my God," I whisper, reeling. I figured they'd throw the book at Tasha and tell her off, but I never imagined…

I guess I thought it was nothing she couldn't wriggle her way out of. Not when I'd come out of it looking so bad.

"Right?" Elaine says, nodding bug-eyed at me. "It's wild. She has to move out and go back home and everything. And she's left the group chat. Didn't say a word! Just left!"

"Oh my God."

"I thought it all seemed a little harsh," Izzy says quietly, and then blushes when everyone looks at her. "Making her move out like that and stuff, I mean. Making such a big deal out of it in front of everybody like that."

"What, like she didn't deserve a taste of her own medicine?" Monty scoffs. "She had it coming. Karma's a bigger bitch than even Tasha."

I laugh.

For the first time today, I laugh. It sputters out of me so suddenly that I clap a hand over my mouth, but it still bubbles up, hysterical, filling my chest until another laugh spills between my fingers and I crack up, yet more tears forming in the corners of my eyes. But this time, they're the good kind.

I think, maybe, I'm supposed to feel guilty. That I should feel inclined to reach out to Tasha and apologize, but…I don't. I don't really know what I should have to apologize for. Monty's right: Tasha got a taste of her own medicine. If she'd just left me alone, this wouldn't have happened. I can't bring myself to feel sorry for her; I've wasted all my pity on myself.

Before long, Elaine carefully, as tactfully as she can, says, "We didn't realize…You and Lloyd…Has that been…? Is he the boy you told me about, when—?"

Louis interrupts to ask more bluntly, " Are you shagging?"

"No! No, we just…Well, once, but…I mean, I kissed him, before the internship started. I didn't know who he was at first, and then…We tried to pretend it never happened, and then I kept seeing him around—"

"When?" Elaine asks, curious.

I squirm in my seat. "The office. On Friday nights, sometimes. We hung out, one night—outside of Arrowmile, I mean."

"What were you doing there on Friday nights?" Dylan asks, incredulous.

And I have to tell the truth—there's no point in little white lies to make things easier now. "I had a hard time keeping on top of everything at work. And then I'd keep saying yes to extra stuff, trying to go above and beyond, like Nadja said right at the start…. I stayed late sometimes to catch up. I'd—I'd tell you guys I was meeting friends, or you'd all be out and assume I was just at home. Lloyd was, um, doing some work for his dad. I think it was easier to do when people weren't around all the time. You know what he's like—a total chatterbox. Doesn't get anything done when he can talk to people instead."

It's near enough the truth, anyway. A stretch, on Lloyd's part—but that's not my secret to share.

Elaine looks sorry for me; Monty stares at me like I've lost the plot, and so does Louis.

"Anyway," I barrel on, "we spent some time together, and…I liked him. But I said I wasn't interested in anything serious because I wanted to focus on the internship, and I didn't want to be that girl who was dating the boss's son. I thought people would…say stuff like Tasha did. That all the work I'd done this summer wouldn't mean anything."

"This is the most romantic thing I've ever heard," Elaine gushes.

"It's tragic," Izzy says, not unkindly. I think she means in the Romeo and Juliet sense. She looks genuinely sorry for me, not scathing.

"I don't know what the big deal would've been," Louis adds. "You could've had a great summer sneaking around and hooking up with him!"

Elaine swats at him, so viciously he almost spills his tea. "No! Louis! Didn't you read the emails? It wasn't just sex. "

"Yeah, we can't all have a string of dates and hookups that don't mean anything," Dylan scoffs, grinning at Louis.

"They liked each other!" Elaine goes on, impassioned. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes shining. "They had real feelings for each other! Anna was clearly heartbroken about the whole thing! She cried over him! You should've heard the way she talked abouthim!"

"So?" Monty says, nudging me. "Did you tell him?"

"Tell him what?"

He rolls his eyes.

And then Elaine says, "That you're in love with him."