Page 88 of Deep Blue Lies

EIGHTY-SEVEN

I wake up at seven thirty because Mum’s an early riser, she always has been. Sophia runs down to Maria’s supermarket to grab a few things we need, and I send Mum another text. This one takes a bit longer to craft:

Hi Mum. I need to speak to you, it’s important. I suggest we meet in the old Aegean Dream Resort. I think that’s a good place to have this out.

I know this is going to make her suspicious as hell, there’s no avoiding that.

But what I want to do is stop her steamrolling me into leaving the island.

She’s so good at that, making me do what I don’t want to do.

It’s what she’s done to me my whole life.

This time it takes her a long time to reply, even though I can see from the message receipt that she’s read it. Eventually a message comes in:

Ava, what is this? Why would we go there? It isn’t safe, the resort’s in ruins. If there’s something you need to say, I’ll come to you. Wait there.

I can see she’s already typing a second part to the message, so I fire back before she can send it:

I’ll meet you there at 11. By the old pool bar.

Then immediately I switch off my phone so she’ll see I won’t receive anything she writes after that. She’s got no choice then, she’ll have to come, and she’ll absolutely hate that. Then I leave to meet Sophia in a cafe – just in case Mum jumps straight in her car to catch me at the apartment.

I try to eat something, but mostly I just sip at strong black coffee, drinking one straight after the other.

We go through the plan a final time. It still seems basically crazy and doomed to fail, perhaps even more so now that we’re out of the late-night, unreal setting of my apartment and back in the bright sunshine of the real world.

But it feels a pretty damn bleak world right now, and neither of us can come up with anything better.

“It’s ten o’clock,” Sophia says to me, touching my shoulder with her hand. “Time to go.” She tries to force a confident smile, but it looks twisted on her face. “You got this.”

I nod, hoping I don’t look as wretched as I feel. I get up and look down to the sea, then I start walking. Down the beach, towards the faded glory of the Aegean Dream Resort.