All the Little Things by Sarah Lawton (the best books to read txt) 📕

that Vivian had an email too and promised to get her to forward it to her so she could show the police.

My relief that Molly had been in touch curdled at the thought that she was saying she didn’t want to come home. What was wrong with her? What had happened? Had Vivian done something to make her run away? Oh, I adored her, but she was flighty and impulsive. I was so afraid for her, thinking she was so grown up when she was still just a little girl; she was always that sweet little girl.

I rattled round the house, packing up things for Dorset, thinking about Molly and Vivian, all the quiet years I had lived through since we left London, how much Molly was a part of them, a healing part.

I finished my packing late, and couldn’t hear anything from Vivian’s room. I hadn’t cooked any dinner, and she hadn’t appeared to forage for herself. She was probably cross with me about something, but I really struggled to care. I managed to force some toast down, sitting again at the kitchen table where I had broken Alex’s heart only a few hours before. I wanted so badly to text him, but I didn’t want to lead him on or give him any false hope. I deleted his messages and his number so I couldn’t. I was tempted to open more wine, but I didn’t; I just went to bed instead, alone again.

I didn’t sleep well that night either, snatches of rest broken with dreams of two golden girls and a dark, bleak boy.

The next day, with my concern over Molly having abated only slightly – she was still missing after all, and only fifteen despite her pretended maturity – my thoughts returned again to Alex. I hadn’t heard from him since the morning before, but I could somehow sense a brooding hostility hanging over me, and a small part of me missed him badly. I checked my phone and the messages I’d gotten from Steve. Judging by all the pictures of cocktails, I could only imagine he was nursing a severe hangover by a pool. I sent him a message telling him I missed him. I was envious of his away-ness. I didn’t want to be where I was any more.

I busied myself finishing packing for our trip, piling our travel easels and blank canvases into the back of the car, so we could leave after Vivian finished school that afternoon. We went every year to Lulworth Cove; it was one of my favourite places, I had holidayed there since I was a child myself and it was full of happy memories. Vivian’s school finished a little earlier than most so we usually had a few days to ourselves by the sea before the hordes arrived.

I wasn’t so unaware as to not have noticed that she had gradually disappeared into herself in the last few weeks. I told myself it was her age, hormones, teenage angst, Tristan’s accident, and now missing her friend, but that small, niggling thought whispered in my head, Remember. I couldn’t stop thinking about Lexie Coleman. I wondered if I should try and get in touch with Lucy, but I had even changed my number when we moved because I couldn’t cope with bringing anything with us except memories, and they were heavy enough. Perhaps it really was best just to let it all lie. But it had proved surprisingly easy to disappear. I guess no one knew what to say to me: it was better to let me slip away unremarked. No one had ever looked for us.

Five minutes later, and I had changed my mind again. I didn’t have any social media accounts except for my work website, which was just my name, Rachel Sanders Art, but I managed to find her easily enough. The account was private, but I could see her profile picture. It was of Lexie, aged five or six by the looks of it, an impish, gappy grin on her little face. It had been cropped down, but I could see the thin arm of another child around her shoulders. It hurt me to look at her face, her eyes. What did she look like now?

I still don’t know how I let it all happen, that horror in London. Mum had warned me several times that Vivian wasn’t behaving in a healthy way and that she was worried about her, but I didn’t want to listen. I brushed it off as typical young girl behaviour – they do get obsessive at that age, and it’s always about power games in girl groups. One day you were best friends, the next it was you-can’t-sit-with-us. There was that incident at a sleepover with Lexie that I didn’t like to remember, but I had been sure that it would all blow over. Lucy had been so good about it at the time. Mum didn’t think it was normal, though. She thought that there must have been a deeper issue, and that there was a definite problem with how Vivian was coping with what I thought were normal childhood issues.

Apparently Vivian had had screaming rages about it, followed by hours of icy silence. I had tried to talk to her, about why she’d done it, but I’d never seen any of the tantrums. My mum was more a parent to her than I was, and I left her to deal with it like the coward I am. But then she died, and everything in my life blew up and I just ran away, like I ran away from Manchester and Ciaran. I just buried my head in the sand the way I always do.

I decided to stop moping and finish putting everything in to the car, cramming the small boot and backseat. I went upstairs to check if Vivian had actually listened to me and done her packing. Her room was almost spartan in its emptiness. Everything was hidden away