Page 4 of Rich Little Liars

When I open them again, the kitchen is darker. The windows have turned into black mirrors, reflecting the empty room back at me. I should close the curtains. Should turn on more lights. Should make this place feel like a home instead of a show house I’m squatting in.

Instead, I simply listen to the silence.

No screams.

No smoke.

No flames.

Just an expensive town full of expensive people and expensive silence.

This is my fresh start.

This is my second chance.

This is where Kelly Reynolds learns to be someone who doesn’t wake up screaming. Someone who doesn’t smell phantom smoke in the dead of night or panic when a neighbour innocently introduces herself.

I close the curtains and turn away from the window.

Tomorrow, I’ll unpack more boxes. I’ll make the bed. I’ll go for a walk round the park and smile at people and be exactly the sort of quiet widow they expect me to be.

Tonight, I’ll sleep with the lights on.

2

NOW

The morning arrives too bright. I wake to sunlight forcing its way around the edges of the curtains I forgot to close properly, and for three blissful seconds I don’t remember where I am. Then the unfamiliar ceiling comes into focus – too high, too perfect, unmarked by cracks or water stains – and it all crashes back.

East Hampton. The new house.

The fresh start I don’t deserve.

I lie very still and count my breaths until the panic subsides from a roar to a hum. The therapist – the one I saw twice before deciding I couldn’t bear sitting in that too-big room answering questions about feelings – said I should establish routines. Predictable patterns. Structure.

So I get up. Shower in the ensuite where the water pressure is perfect and the tiles gleam like teeth. Dress in jeans and a sweater that doesn’t quite hide how much weight I’ve lost. Go downstairs to the kitchen, where I stand in front of the shiny new coffee maker I have no idea how to operate.

Instant coffee, then. I can manage that.

I’m halfway to making it when I see them.

Two women, walking past my house towards the park. They’re both in expensive-looking activewear – the kind with discreet designer logos – and they’re deep in conversation, heads bent together like they’re sharing secrets. One is blonde, hair pulled into a high ponytail. The other is darker, her jacket a violent shade of pink that probably looks better under different circumstances.

When not wearing activewear, the women of East Hampton seem to dress like they’ve wandered off a yacht – all white linen and gold jewellery. But there’s a brittleness to their elegance. A tightness around the eyes that suggests the effortless look requires enormous effort. I watch them air-kiss on street corners and wonder how many of those smiles hide affairs or addictions or God knows what else. Money doesn’t solve problems – it just gives them nicer packaging.

They glance at my house as they pass. Just a flicker of attention, nothing more, but my pulse kicks up for no good reason.

They’re just walking. Just talking. This is what neighbours do.

I steady myself by learning to use the machine, make a decent coffee and take it to the living room. Then I settle on the couch – cream leather, spotless, the sort of thing you’d never let children near. Not that children are a concern. Not any more. Never, really.

The coffee goes cold while I sit there, staring at nothing, trying to work out what normal people do on their first full day in a new house. By noon, I’ve unpacked three more boxes and hung pictures in the bedroom. I’ve rearranged the kitchen cupboards twice. I’ve done everything except what I know I should do, which is leave this house and face East Hampton in daylight.

Because I can’t hide forever. That would look strange. Suspicious.

You’re not hiding. You’re simply… adjusting.

I pull on a coat – charcoal grey, costly, bought in the frantic weeks after the fire when I needed a new wardrobe and couldn’t bear to think too hard about any of it – and force myself out the front door before I can change my mind.