Page 1 of Never Tell Secrets

Prologue

ALFIE

Istared down at my desk, at the masses of paperwork. An endless sea of quotas and demands. Everyone wanted to take, no one wanted to give. I let my head fall into my hands. This was the bed I’d made for myself, the noose I had tied around my neck. My ghosts weighed on me, turning in my mind, slithering in my bones.

On weary legs, I stood, forcing myself away from the desk and to the one place that could make me feel better. Outside, on the patio, I soaked in the sun for a moment before walking down the grass slope to the familiar gap in the trees.

Along the way I kicked off my shoes, my socks, relishing the feel of warm grass on my feet. My jacket went too, my waist coat, my tie…all the things that bound me, and with every step I took, I breathed easier.

I stepped through the gap in the trees, finding myself at the top of a grass stairway, each step adorned with a jasmine-laden flower wheel, tall enough for me to walk through. The tension left my body as I breathed in the floral fragrances that remindedme so perfectly of her. I paused on the bottom step, afraid to look up, as if she wouldn’t be there, but of course she was. She was always there. She always would be.

She knelt on the ground, the yellow folds of her sundress pooling around her, her hands deep in the earth as she bedded a new bleeding heart at the base of the moss covered plinth, home to white lilies. Around her a sea of blue, pink, and yellow. Delicate petals from the blossoming cherry tree floated on the spring breeze, coming to rest where she sat.

She tended to our Evergarden with care, keeping it warm and home for me when I needed it. She used a soil covered hand to brush her hair out of her face, the thousand shades of red glinting in the sunlight, a firelight halo falling to the small of her back. Her deep blues found me and my chest felt like it was about to burst.

Then, she smiled. As always, it caught me off guard how happy she was to see me.

“Alfie!” My name, my name on her beautiful lips. She stood, her dress dancing around thighs I could spend my life buried between. “Alfie, where have you been? I’ve been waiting forever for you.” She smiled again. I couldn’t speak, only stare at this angel with whom I’d been blessed. “Come on then.” She held her hands out, beckoning me to join her in the haven she’d made for me. She giggled, the sound a vice-like grip on my heart that pulled me off that final step and into our Evergarden.

The bare skin of my foot connected with the honeysuckle path and suddenly the day grew dark around us. The clouds rolled in, turning our world from day to night. The ground began to move under me and I looked down, watching in horror as the honeysuckle turned to rot under my feet, poison spreading out from me in black tendrils, destroying the earth.

“No!” Her voice broke. I looked up at her scream. Her eyes were wide with despair. “Alfie, stop! What are you doing?”

I didn’t mean to.I wanted to answer but the words wouldn’t come. I couldn’t move. I just froze there, immobilized as the flowers died, the trees withered, the bleeding hearts grew and grew and from their petals sprouted thorns, long and spiked.

The ground erupted in vines like barbed wire. They sprang from the trees, closing us in. She screamed again as barbed vines twisted around her ankles, breaking her skin.

“How could you do this?” she cried as she struggled against the barbs circling her arms. The more she struggled the more they cut her, splitting her flesh. “How could you do this to me, Alfie!” Blood poured down her arms. Screams stuck in my throat. I couldn’t move, couldn’t talk. I couldn’t step back and undo it, I couldn’t move forward and save her. I was forced to stand there and watch her wilt.

The blue in her eyes faded to grey as she struggled, the fight dying out as thorns a foot long began to pierce the body I had kissed and loved a thousand times. She screamed desperate sobs, her eyes pleading with me.

“Alfie, please...stop it, please…”

But it was too late. My damage was done. A thorn broke through her chest. The wall between us grew, blocking her away from me. Only then could I fight, tearing through the barbed wire vines that never weakened, only grew stronger, tightening around me like a steel spider web. I fought until my hands bled and still she didn’t stop screaming, her cries ringing in my ears. Alive but broken. Unable to heal. Unable to die.

I hadn’t meant to poison her world, I hadn’t meant to break her. The barbed wire vines welcomed me, swarming my body, making me a part of them. They were made out of me after all. But her sobs never stopped, her whimpered cries.

I tried to reach for her...I’m sorry...I’m sorry…I’m…

I jerked awake, gasping for air.

Lo…

I clutched my chest, holding onto the dream for as long as I could. Not the last part, or the beginning part, but my favourite part, the part in the middle. The part where she smiled at me and said my name. It faded like a puff of smoke the same way it always did, but the other part–that remained.

Acting on instinct, I grabbed my phone, swiping the screen to unlock it. With bleary eyes I found what I was looking for. A second later, as I gazed at the screen, the pain in my chest started to ease.

Two years. It had been two years and four months since she’d walked away from me and I had felt every second of it.

I’d felthertoo. Felt the loss of her in my arms at night. I’d felt her when the seasons changed. When snow fell over London, I’d imagined her welcoming it, and when spring came again, I’d imagined her coming back to life. The capital city stifled so many natural things but my Lo would be like an oasis in the desert.

In truth though, I hadn’t had to imagine any of this, because I’d seen it all. I was there when she moved into her tiny apartment with Keira, just like I was there when their roommate had defrauded them out of three months' rent.

I was there for her first day at college, her hands twisting on a notebook, her name painted in pink calligraphy on the cover, the skirt of a blue dress rippling around her knees. I was there for her first project. I was there when she graduated after two years at the top of her class. I was there when one of her lecturers offered her an internship on her next commission. I was there as she soared. As she thrived.

I was there when she missed me. Missing me was inevitable. I was there when she cried over what I’d done to her, hours and hours of copious tears that I took no pleasure in. I was there when Keira took her out and forced her to drink and dance her sorrows away.

I was there when she moved on. I was there for her first date with another man, though there hadn’t been a second date, not with him. But the next man…she’d dated him for three months. She’d let him enjoy her laughter, her quick wit, her light. But not her body.