27. AFTER
It seems as though we've been crouched down, eyeing each other in a mixture of shock and repulsion, for an entire lifetime. Finally, Pippa lets out a shaky noise – it sounds like a strangled sob, and the spell is broken. I get up and shove the notebook into my coat pocket.
"Two pieces of evidence," I say with a firm nod. "The files from the church website and this. It isn't much but—"
"Matt, this isn't anything." Pippa shakes her head in despair. "Believe me when I say I'm completely convinced now but there's no way we're going to get a case over a few words scribbled on a notebook."
"But," I whine but nothing more comes out of my mouth because I've run out of ideas. I feel completely and utterly drained, my body is hollow and heavy at the same time and that sick, sick feeling – the one that's been hovering over me for weeks now – feels even more prominent than ever before. My shaky hand wraps itself around my tie and I tug at it to provide my neck with some freedom but the claustrophobic tightness still remains.
Then there is silence. A heavy, thick, painful silence surrounds us and that tiny voice inside of my head, the one I desperately tried to ignore for so long, now screams at me loud and clear. This is it, the cruel voice cries out triumphantly, you've done all you can. Wasted minutes and hours and weeks of your time and what do you get? Nothing. Nothing. It's over now. Adam is lost.
And, at the thought of that, something inside of me snaps.
All at once, I am undone – weeks and weeks of pent up demons now flood out into the open; those dark, nasty creatures that crawled around in my brain like restless little vultures, nipping away at me, bit by bit, trying, trying to find my weak spot. I'd resisted. I'd resisted them from the moment mum had walked into my room all that time ago, the phone dangling precariously in her hands, and announced that they'd found Adam's shoes and watch washed up by the shore. He'd been missing for twelve hours. No hope of survival. Confirmed suicide.
I'd resisted it then, I'd resisted it the day after, and after that. I resisted it after waking up from hellish nightmares of Adam screaming at me to help him, just help him.
There is only so much a human body can take before it breaks.
I only become aware that I have collapsed onto the floor as a sharp stab of pain shoots through my knees. Pippa's hands are on my shoulders, shaking and shaking and shaking. Then they are cupping my face and I look up at her, bewildered but dazed at the same time, and I watch her lower lip tremble fearfully, her eyes wide and emotional. I have never seen her so confused before.
"Matt," she whispers. "You're crying."
"I—" But the words evaporate into thin air when my fingers touch my cheek and I feel a damp patch I hadn't registered before. I'm crying. I'm crying, for Adam. For Adam. Adam.
An unmistakably animal sound seems to erupt out of my throat – it is low, like a growl, and raw and scratchy, but I can decipher only one meaning of it. This is what pain sounds like. And it terrifies me.
Pippa wraps her arms around my shoulders, pulling me closer in an attempt to completely envelop me and I'm responding, somehow, amidst the chaos that swirls around in my brain, and I'm burying my face into her hair. I'm crying. I'm crying like it's the first time I've ever done it – maybe it is, I've never experienced tears in this way. I shake in her arms but she holds me, my anchor. Her body rocks against mine and all I can hear is her breath ruffling my skin.
"Shh," she mumbles, her chin resting against the crook of my neck. "There now, there."
"I miss him," I manage to croak at some point. "I want him to be here."
