Page 8 of A Match Made in Hell

Past Willow straightens when she spots him.

Her eyes go wide, pleading. She never knows which Noah she’s going to get: the one who sends her message after message about how beautiful and special she is, how he’d be lost without her – words she’s craved her whole life and only gets from him – or the other Noah, the one who appeared later on, the one who’s cold and detached and threatening to drift away because she can’t stop disappointing him.

Sasha smiles as he approaches. ‘Here he is,’ she says, twirling a lock of golden hair around her finger.

They became friends when limited options forced us into living together in our final year of university, but sometimes it’s a little jarring seeing the two parts of my life collide, like I can’t work out how to slot between them any more. ‘What took you so long?’

‘Aw, Sash. Did you miss me?’ His grin is short-lived as he takes in the sight of Past Willow. ‘I was waiting for this one.’ He jerks his head at her. ‘You told me you’d come back to the tent.’

‘No, I –’ Past Willow frowns. ‘We said we’d meet here.’

He gestures at my current state. ‘Do you think you’re capable of remembering?’

She shakes her head, but there’s a part of her – of me – that’s sure it’s not what they agreed. Biting her tongue might spare her this argument though, and she visibly deflates as she cages the part of her that’s dying to fight back.

‘Come on. Let’s go.’ He holds out a hand, but she doesn’t take it. The beast she’s just imprisoned tries to slide a claw through the bars. She’s never been any good at restraining it, no matter how much it ruins everything.

‘Willow.’ He drops to his knees before her, saying, ‘Come on. You can’t keep doing this.’

The same shame swims in my stomach now as it did then, except this time it’s worse because I know how right he is. Every flash of memory is a body blow, but instead of becoming dazed and concussed my mind becomes clearer.

More sure of what’s to come.

Past Willow pushes Noah away, nuzzling closer to Sasha’s side. She’s still under the delusion she has a plan. It’s one she’s been putting off, but she really means it this time . She just needs one more night to herself.

‘I think Willow wants to keep doing this,’ Sasha says, pouring more alcohol into Past Willow’s cup. ‘Maybe we should let her.’

She fills the cup to the brim, despite the fact hers is lying empty at her side.

Past Willow watches on, silently wishing Sasha would stop because she’s already had twice as much as everyone else and feels distinctly sick. Sasha’s not to blame though. She’s learned this is the only way to keep her from crawling back to bed and staying there.

Noah approved of this tactic at first – like Sasha he was pleased they’d discovered a way to stop her moping – but he became less enthused with no end in sight. He couldn’t take this version of Willow to his family parties. That ring would probably have stayed in his drawer forever.

‘Not here, we can’t.’ He reaches for Past Willow’s cup but she snatches it away, lurching to her left and sliding off the log.

She gets a mouthful of sand for her trouble.

Danny and Michaela, whose mouths have become unglued sometime during this exchange, laugh.

Noah swears, hauling her up and murmuring low in her ear, ‘You’re embarrassing me. ’

She doesn’t care. For one, wild, blissful moment she doesn’t care what Noah thinks.

She’s not getting Nice Noah tonight; that much is obvious.

He’s going to take her back to the tent and give her the silent treatment until she begs for his forgiveness because she can’t stand the thought of him leaving.

Her mother’s dead. Her father left. She’s all alone, and he’s all she has, and she doesn’t care .

She wrenches from his grasp and whirls on him. Behind them, Sasha’s eyes widen.

‘If you want to go back to the tent, go back to the tent,’ Past Willow says. ‘I’m staying here.’

Noah does a double take. Splutters. ‘What?’

‘You heard me.’ The cage unlocks and the beast within roars. Sathanas finally removes his arm from my grasp in order to place his hand on my back instead. He knows what’s coming as well as I do.

Noah’s features soften. He takes a step closer. ‘Baby, please. I need you. Come with me.’

No. No. She won’t fall into that trap; she knows it won’t last. But he said he needed her and she wants him to mean it this time; for someone out there to need her. Indecision has her swaying on the spot. Maybe if she acts out a little more, she can scare him into loving her forever.

‘Think how your mum would hate seeing you like this.’ His voice is gentle now. ‘Let me look after you.’

Without mentioning her mum, that line would have worked, but the word is a blade that cuts through the longing for comfort.

‘Don’t,’ she says. ‘Don’t talk about her.’

‘Willow –’

His mouth moves, but she’s not listening to him.

Not any more. She’s glancing around, looking for an escape, looking for a way not to feel all the things she’s feeling but doesn’t want to feel, because she’s a bottle that’s been shaken too hard and she’s ready to explode and he doesn’t understand, doesn’t get it, the only way to cope is to numb that feeling until it’s gone, to pretend she’s fine and perfect like everyone expects her to be, but he won’t let her forget, and it’s going to be like this forever and ever once he gives her that ring, and she wants to be free, free of his nagging, free from everything –

Her gaze snaps upwards. To the cliff. ‘I want to go up there.’

No no no. My throat is hoarse, like I’ve been yelling silent warnings this whole time and now I’ve nothing left to give.

Noah’s protests are sharp. Panicked. He doesn’t know how to deal with a Willow who won’t listen.

She pulls Sasha to her feet, and they’re both giggling, because ignoring the person trying to save your life is apparently hysterical.

Sasha grins in his direction right before they go tearing up the path.

Noah doesn’t follow. If only he had, I might still be here, with his hand on my back.

Sathanas pushes me forward. I dig my toes into the sand, knowing what’ll happen if I follow, and if I see it then it’ll become real, and I desperately, desperately don’t want it to be real.

‘If we stop now, you’ll fail,’ he murmurs. ‘Your choice.’

That doesn’t do anything to ease the jelly in my legs.

But if I fail I can’t fix this, so I force myself to move, to trail Past Willow up the path.

At least the climb doesn’t hurt like last time.

My calves don’t burn. My lungs don’t gasp for air.

When they finally reach the top, they spin in circles, howling at the moon, Sasha’s twirls as graceful as a ballerina’s.

Past Willow, meanwhile, has just tripped over a rock.

Finally, they come to a halt, gasping. Sasha hesitates before taking Past Willow’s hand and squeezing. ‘Noah’s always upset with you these days. Maybe you two need some time apart.’

‘No, we don’t,’ Past Willow protests. Their – our – problems are a blip.

Sasha squeezes harder. ‘You could go travelling, like you’ve always wanted.’

The smile drops from Past Willow’s face. ‘I can’t. I’ll be starting that internship –’

‘You’ve not applied yet.’ Sasha sighs, looking at me with a pity I don’t want and didn’t ask for. ‘And they won’t offer it to you. You don’t have the qualifications.’

The same hot rush of anger burns in me now as it did then.

‘I’ll get them,’ Past Willow snaps. She should have gained them already, but she doesn’t like being reminded of that. ‘It’s the only way to fix everything.’

‘You can’t fix anything.’ Sasha’s voice might be soft, but her words are weapons, sharp and painful and full of things I don’t want to hear. ‘You already quit, Willow. It’s too late.’

It is not too late. It can’t be. Past Willow’s hands shake to the same rhythm mine do now. I hate Sasha’s words, but I hate what they’re going to make me do even more.

‘You’d love Thailand,’ Sasha says. ‘Beautiful beaches, boys, parties. The whole time I was there, I thought about how much you’d love it.’

Jealousy and longing twist into an angry knot in my chest. She’s been jetting around the world for as long as I’ve known her.

Her parents pay. At first I’d soak up every story like they were my own personal souvenirs, like just being close to her would be the same as me getting on the plane myself.

But then she handed in her dissertation early and flounced off to Thailand and I couldn’t stand it.

When she returned, it was to a Willow whose mother had just died, who couldn’t get out of bed.

She and Noah would whisper behind my back, partly plotting how to fix me and partly so she could tell him her stories.

Terrified I was going to miss out again, I let her tug me into the shower and out of the house, and suddenly I wasn’t envious of Sasha’s life any more because I was living it, living it in a way I never could when Mum was alive.

The freedom was exhilarating at first. Forgetting was easier than remembering.

But then it stopped being fun, because deep down I always knew it couldn’t last – I’d wake every morning with a pounding head and a nausea in my belly that wasn’t just down to the alcohol.

I kept saying this is the last time , because I had a promise to keep.

Now it’s a promise I’m about to break.

‘You know I can’t drop everything and go on holiday,’ Past Willow says.

‘You can. All you have to do is go .’ Sasha moves closer to the precipice and leans over.

I wish I could run over there and pull her back, pull her away , because it’s my last chance to stop all this, stop Past Willow from saying the words that’ll ruin everything.

Waves slosh beneath us, crashing against the cliff face with a thunderous roar.

‘You know, there’s a bay where we went cliff-jumping, and the water’s gorgeous, so warm and clear –’

‘Let’s do it now,’ Past Willow interjects.

No.

No no no –

Sasha shakes her head. ‘It’s too far.’

‘It’s not.’ Past Willow gives the water an all-too-quick glance. ‘People do it all the time here too. Go on. You first.’ Her hand is on Sasha’s shoulders.

Tears trail down my face. Every move she makes peels back the veil I’ve been trying to hide behind, revealing the truth I’ve been avoiding since I woke up in that tunnel.

‘We shouldn’t.’ Sasha bites her lip.

‘You’ve done it before,’ Past Willow says, pulling her closer to the edge. ‘This’ll just be a little colder. And this is my only chance, before . . .’

Before she abandons nights like this for a grey city full of smoke and late nights in an office.

The thought of it is a knife through the gut.

But she can’t change her mind. She just has this one final night, and she needs to make the most of it.

Wind howls, blowing her hair round her face.

She looks wild, out of control. Dangerous. She advances on Sasha. I close my eyes.

‘Watch,’ Sathanas commands.

I hate him. I hate him more than I’ve hated anyone, because I can’t do this, I can’t watch this.

There’s no mud for me to slip on or rock to give way beneath me.

There’s just me, purposefully pushing us closer to the edge because I’m so sick of the way she gets to experience everything and I never do.

Just once, I want to feel it too, to have that rush alongside her instead of hearing about it second-hand.

Someone screams. I open my eyes. It’s Sasha. Her heels dangle precariously over the drop.

I’m not giving her an inch.

‘Let’s do it,’ I’m saying, over and over, and Sasha is crying, and I’m crying, but Past Willow isn’t, because she’s –

She takes another step.

Sasha falls.

My knees give way. Sathanas stands behind me, hand on my shoulder, like he’s afraid if he moves away I’ll do something stupid. There’s no need. I’ll never do anything more stupid than this.

Because this night wasn’t an accident.

Being too mindless to realise what waited below doesn’t make this any less my fault.

I chose this. Because for all my this is the last times , there was always a next time, because I couldn’t get it together, couldn’t stop looking for an escape, didn’t want to lose the freedom I’d found since Mum’s death to face reality instead.

Sasha screams on the way down. Past Willow doesn’t care, or doesn’t notice, because she spreads her arms out wide, and although she’s got her back to me, I know she’s smiling, because with the wind ripping through her hair, her dress, she’s never felt freer, empty of all expectation to be anything but what she is.

Then Past Willow tips forward, and she’s gone too.

‘No!’ I’m crawling to the edge before I realise what I’m doing, needing to know, needing to see – I peer over the ledge, but night has fallen now, the moon a faint glimmer over the sea. I pushed Sasha. I pushed her. I can’t hide from this reality any more and I can’t . . . I don’t . . .

‘Where is she?’ I gasp. ‘Is she . . . ? She can’t be . . . I didn’t mean to . . .’

Panic and nausea claw a path up my throat; my fingers dig into grass and earth as though that can save me, but it’s too late, I’ve already gone over and I took Sasha with me. A whirlpool of guilt churns in my belly. I did this . I did this to my best friend.

Someone is shouting – Noah, I think. There’s a splash of water.

More shouting. I want to call out to him, to tell him it was an accident and I’m sorry, to beg him to tell me he’s found her alive, to tell me anything that will ease the blade currently carving its way through my heart, but Sathanas’s hand is on my arm, hauling me to my feet.

‘No.’ I struggle. ‘No. I need to know what happened. I need to know if Sasha –’

He ignores me. The darkness returns, and I want it to devour me, I want it to never end, because I did this, I did this to myself, to Sasha, it’s all my fault, I deserve to be exactly where I am – I catch a glimpse of lightning, a car spinning, a tree edging closer and closer until it disappears in a spray of water – and then light gleams, bright and beautiful and shining.

I open my eyes, register we’re in Sathanas’s sitting room, and immediately topple over.