Page 84 of Rich Little Liars

I feel like someone who’s been taken apart and put back together wrong. Like all my pieces are in roughly the right places but the connections between them have shifted. I move through the world now with a strange new awareness of my own fragility, of how quickly everything can collapse, of the thin membrane separating ordinary life from catastrophe.

But I’m alive.

And so is Richard.

‘You can see him now,’ the nurse tells me in the afternoon. ‘If you’re feeling up to it. He’s been asking.’

I’ve been asking too. Every day, sometimes multiple times, until the nurses started rolling their eyes when they saw me coming. How is he? Is he awake? Can I see him? The questions tumbling out before I could stop them, betraying a desperation I didn’t know I still had the capacity to feel.

They wheel me down in a chair – hospital policy, they insist, even though I can walk – through corridors that all look the same, past rooms full of people fighting their own battles against mortality. The fluorescent lights hum overhead. The air smells of disinfectant.

Richard’s room is at the end of the hallway. Private, which undoubtedly costs more than I can imagine. The door is ajar, and through the gap I can see sunlight streaming through windows – real sunlight, not the grey murk that’s been filtering into my room for days.

The nurse parks my wheelchair outside and gives me a look that’s equal parts encouragement and warning. ‘Don’t tire him out. He’s still recovering.’

‘I know. I will. I mean, I won’t.’ The words tangle on my tongue. I’m nervous, I realise. Actually nervous, like I haven’t been since those first days in East Hampton when everything felt new and terrifying and full of possibility.

She leaves me there, and for a while I just sit in the corridor, gathering courage.

What do I say to him? The last time we were together, he was bleeding on my hallway floor. The last words I heard him speak were my name, shouted in warning as Harvey’s weapon connected with his skull. He almost died protecting me. Almost died because I let him care about me then become a target for someone else’s obsession.

He deserves the truth.

All of it.

No more lies. No more half-truths and omissions. If Richard and I are going to have any kind of future – and God, I want us to have a future, want it with an intensity that frightens me – then it has to be built on honesty. Real honesty. The kind that strips you bare and leaves you vulnerable and trusts the other person not to destroy you with what they find.

I take a breath. Push myself up from the wheelchair, ignoring the protest from my body.

Then walk into his room.

He’s sitting up in bed, propped against pillows, a book open in his lap that he clearly hasn’t been reading. His head is still bandaged – smaller dressings now, less dramatic than before – and there are shadows under his eyes that speak of sleepless nights. But when he sees me, his whole face transforms. That smile I remember.

Those warm brown eyes crinkling at the corners.

‘Kelly.’

My name in his mouth is a warm welcome.

‘Hi.’ My voice comes out small. Inadequate. I hover in the doorway like I’m waiting for permission to enter. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Better now.’ He sets aside the book and reaches out his hand. An invitation. A bridge across the space between us. ‘Come here.’

I cross the room on unsteady legs and lower myself into the chair beside his bed. His warm hand finds mine, and I hold on like he’s the only thing keeping me anchored to the earth. Maybe he is.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. ‘I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t…’

‘Hey.’ His voice is gentle but firm. ‘None of this is your fault. He made his choices. You didn’t ask to be stalked. You didn’t ask for any of this.’

‘But you got hurt because of me.’

‘Because you let me care about you?’ He squeezes my hand. ‘That’s not something to apologise for, Kelly. That’s something to be grateful for.’

The kindness of it breaks something open inside me. Tears spill down my cheeks before I can stop them – hot and messy and utterly undignified. I’ve spent so long holding everything in, maintaining the facade. But here, now, with Richard’s hand in mine and his eyes soft with understanding, I can’t pretend any more.

‘There are things I haven’t told you,’ I manage between sobs. ‘About Daniel. The fire. About what I really did.’

‘I know.’