It would have been very overwhelming, and that would have just been the first night. Imagine how crazy things would have been when I went back to sixth form. Mum would have been right. Everybody would have been talking about me behind my back. Some would have pointed and stared. “There goes that girl that was with Rupert when he died.”
Some teenagers might crave the spotlight, but not me. I’d have hated it, and thinking about it, I’d have probably had to withdraw from college because it would have been too much for me to handle. That would have meant that my chances of going to university would have gone down the drain. Without the qualifications I needed, I wouldn’t have been able to go onto further education. I would have been stuck here, in my hometown, where everybody knew my name, and everybody felt sorry for me.
As crazy as this night has been, and as crazy as it continues to be with Mum still out of the house digging a hole in the woods, I know this course of action is for the best. Mum knew it, and it has taken me a while to get my head around it, but I know it too. As long as I stay calm and quiet, nobody ever has to know what happened to Rupert. Nobody has to point and stare at me, and nobody has to feel sympathy for me for being the unlucky girl who ended up alone with a guy who died in a freak accident. This way, I can have a normal life.
Yet somehow, I don’t feel like I will ever be normal again.
Something has changed inside me. I can’t put my finger on it yet, but I can feel it. With what I know now and what my mother has been forced to do to protect me, it’s clear that things will always be different. There’s no way they can be the same. I will carry around with me the knowledge of where Rupert really is for the rest of my life while his family, friends and the wider public in this town search for answers and discuss conspiracy theories. The only other person who will know what happened to him is Mum.
Let’s hope we can both keep a secret.
Only time will tell.
I’m just about to try and close my eyes even though I know sleep will not happen for me tonight when I feel the vibration of my mobile phone on the mattress. I pick it up and see that it is a message from Zara. She has finally responded to my text.
Babe! I was so worried! My battery died too! We didn’t stay long at the park, it was too cold. I’m so glad you are home. I thought something bad might have happened lol chat in the morning xx
Zara bought it. That’s one less thing to worry about, though somehow, that doesn’t make me think that sleep will be any easier to achieve. I doubt I will be able to settle until Mum gets home.
I wonder how she is getting on cleaning up my mess.
11
HEATHER
They say it’s better to be digging someone else’s grave than your own, but that’s not much consolation for me right now. Thankfully, the ground is fairly soft after recent showers, so I managed to get a couple of feet down before it became more difficult. The last ten minutes have been harder, but I reckon this hole is three feet deep now. That means I need to dig down one more before I’m ready to put Rupert inside.
I pause for a moment and wipe the beads of sweat from my forehead. At least I’m warm now.
Unlike the body behind me.
I’m trying not to focus on the moment I know is coming around fast. It will be the moment when the hole is dug, and all that is left to do is push Rupert into it. I’m dreading it for many reasons, and not just because it’s a grim task.
I’m dreading it because it’s so final.
Once his body is in this hole, if all goes well, it will never come out again. While that might be a good thing for Chloe and I, it is a dreadful thing for Rupert and his family. This isn’t much of a final resting place, and there will be no closure for his parents, who won’t be able to settle until they are reunited with their child. I really wish there was some other way of doing this. I wish I could just leave his body to be found so that everybody will at least know what happened to him. But that’s too risky. With a body comes an investigation, and that investigation might end up leading to my doorstep. Just as I’m sure Rupert’s mother would have done anything to protect her offspring, I am no different.
I will do anything for my daughter.
Anything.
I’m aware some might consider hiding a body as going above and beyond the normal realm of parental responsibilities. But is it really when looked at under these circumstances? If my daughter was a cold-blooded killer who had done this on purpose, then there is no way I would have looked to protect her, no matter how much I love her. If she had committed a crime, then she deserved to pay the price for that. But this was an accident, so there is no way I could stand by and watch Chloe’s life go down the drain because of something that was a consequence of nothing but sheer bad luck.
No way at all.
I feel a sharp pain in the back of my neck and stop digging for a second, worried that I
