Good Girl, Bad Blood

She stayed there, clicking through for hours, jumping from article to article, comment to comment. And it was with her too, of course. It always was.

The gun.

It was here now, beating within her chest, knocking against her ribs. Aiming with her eyes. It was in nightmares, and crashing pans, and heavy breaths, and dropped pencils, and thunderstorms, and closing doors, and too loud, and too quiet, and alone and not, and the ruffle of pages, and the tapping of keys and every click and every creak.

The gun was always there.

It lived inside her now.

Welcome to season two of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – The Disappearance of Jamie Reynolds

Maybe I don’t have to be good, or other people’s versions of good. And maybe I don’t have to be likeable.’

‘Do you care?’ Charlie asked. ‘Do you care what people think, if you know you’re right?’

Come on,’ Pip said, suppressing a smile, patting him twice on the backside as they walked up the path alongside the car

‘We’re the same, you and me. You know it deep down,’ Charlie’s voice intruded, speaking inside her head. And the scariest thing was, Pip didn’t know if he was wrong. She couldn’t say how they were different. She just knew they were. It was a feeling beyond words. Or maybe, just maybe, that feeling was only hope.

Pip laughed, watching how ridiculous they all looked, the sound a small croak in her throat. And it was OK, to be out here on the sidelines, with Ravi. Separate. A gap between everyone and here. A barricade around her. She would join them, when she was ready. But for now, she just wanted to sit, far back enough that she could see them all in one go.

‘You OK, Sarge?’ he said.

‘Yeah.’

‘You want to come over and join everyone?’

‘I’m fine here,’ she said.

‘But everyone is –’

‘I said I’m fine,’ Pip said, but it wasn’t her saying it, not really. She sighed, looked across at him. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to snap. It’s . . .’

‘I know,’ Ravi said, closing his hand over hers, sliding his fingers in between hers in that perfect way they slotted together. They still fit. ‘It will get better, I promise.’ He pulled her in closer. ‘And I’m here, whenever you need me.’

She didn’t deserve him. Not even one little bit. ‘I love you,’ she said, looking into his dark brown eyes, filling herself with them, pushing everything else out.

‘I love you too.’

Jamie hugged her, a quick, teetering hug, different from Connor’s clumsy hugs. Then he stood up and walked across the garden to Nat’s side. His eyes were different when he looked at her, fuller somehow. Brighter. A dimpled smile stretched across his face as she turned to him, the laugh still in her voice. And Pip swore, maybe just for a second, she could see the same look in Nat’s eyes.

He raised his beer bottle out towards her. ‘Live well,’ he said.

Pip lifted her glass of water and clinked it against Jamie’s bottle. ‘For him,’ she said.