Obsessed

CopyrightPublished by ConstableISBN: 978-1-4087-1620-5All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.Copyright © Liza North, 2023The moral right of the author has been asserted.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.ConstableLittle, Brown Book GroupCarmelite House50 Victoria EmbankmentLondon EC4Y 0DZwww.littlebrown.co.ukwww.hachette.co.uk ContentsCopyrightDedication1 Laura2 Laura3 Hope4 Laura5 Laura6 Hope7 Laura8 Laura9 Hope10 Laura11 Laura12 Hope13 Laura14 Laura15 Hope16 Laura17 Laura18 Hope19 Laura20 Laura21 Hope22 Laura23 Laura24 Hope25 Laura26 Laura27 Hope28 Laura29 Laura30 Hope31 Laura32 Laura33 Hope34 Laura35 Laura36 Hope37 Laura38 Laura39 Hope40 Laura41 Laura42 Hope43 Laura44 Laura45 Hope46 Laura47 Laura48 Hope49 Laura50 Laura51 Hope52 Laura53 Laura54 Hope55 Laura56 Laura57 Hope58 Laura59 Laura60 Hope61 Laura62 Laura63 Hope64 Laura65 Hope66 Laura67 Laura68 Laura69 Laura70 Laura71 LauraAcknowledgements For my mum, Vivien, always my first and loveliest reader 1Laura4 March 2019When your world ends, sometimes you carry on spinning. When Heather told me, I did not scream. Perhaps I did not even speak. I know only that I got away from her. I went into the nursery and I picked up Benjy and Evie and heard about their lunches and their paintings and said the right things about the boy who had bitten Evie and how it could easily have been the other way round. I got Evie into the buggy and she cried because she wanted to sit back to front, and then Benjy cried because it was dark and he had to walk.I negotiated this, all of it, as though I was the same woman I had been ten minutes before.At home, I couldn’t find my keys. I knelt on the doorstep hanging on to Evie with one hand, upturning my bag with the other. She jerked away and ran for the road, and I screeched at her like the kind of parent I want not to be. At last I found the keys in my coat pocket, where they should always have been. I got the kids inside. Evie was raging. Benjy was whingeing. I shoved them in front of the TV, coats and shoes and all. Then I shut myself in the kitchen and looked up the local news on my phone.It was true. He was dead. Alexis was dead. Stabbed minutes, surely, after we had lain naked together. I was sticky with his sweat and he was nothing. Flesh and bone, bleeding only because it takes time for our bodies to know that we are gone.Benjy came to me, still whining, demanding a snack. I howled at him and he went out white-faced and accusatory. I didn’t care. I picked up a fork and dug it into my thumb until I was no longer shaking. I filled the sink with cold water and put my face in it. I went into the sitting room, apologised to my son. I pulled my daughter, warm and protesting, onto my lap and sat with my chin on her hair and her hot weight fixing me to what had been normality. Over her head I watched the cartoon and hated everyone in it.I started to 2Laura1 November 2018The past caught me tonight. One moment I was examining a lump of clay Benjy had fashioned into half a rabbit, the next I was gaping at the man I had failed for nearly twenty years to forget.I was at the nursery parents’ evening, too hot in my winter coat, being talked at by Liam’s mum, Heather. Which was Benjy’s sculpture? Oh. Very … surreal. Was he going on the trip next week? Oh great, so was Liam. Was I volunteering? (No. I would rather eat scorpions.) Most important, had I met the new hot single dad?I hadn’t and I wasn’t much interested. Any single dad would be hot. That was the rule, just as any single mum would be desperate. I took a mouthful of wine, examined a montage of skeletons, thought about what I’d watch later on Netflix.Heather jabbed at my arm. ‘By the pumpkins. Yazzie can’t take her eyes off him.’That was unexpected. Yazzie is the new toddler room manager. Purple highlights and a marble face. Loves kids but takes absolutely no shit. All the parents are terrified of her.I drained my glass, abandoned the skeletons.Yazzie was staring, so I took a long look too. I saw a man in profile. Broad shoulders in a grey sweater, straight nose, hair like maple leaves. My chest contorted. For an instant I considered running away, faking a call from Ryan. Then the man turned as though he had no alternative, and looked directly at me.‘Jesus,’ I said.It only lasted a moment. Then someone handed him a drink and he had his back to me again. I touched my fingers to the wall, hauled in a steadying breath.‘I told you,’ Heather said.‘It’s not that. I know him.’Immediately I wished it unsaid. I started to drink and remembered my glass was empty. ‘Not well,’ I said, ‘but we were at school together. Decades ago, actually.’ I laughed, fake as a hyena. ‘He’s aged well.’‘So have you, apparently.’ Heather looked me up and down. My body gave me away, fingers shaking. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘aren’t you going to say hello?’I forced myself together. ‘Later maybe. There’s no rush.’That was true. I knew we would find each other.He came to me in the corridor, fluorescent-lit. I was gazing at