I Found You by Lisa Jewell Read Free Book Online

the walks and the fish. They’d loved the place as children, all wellies and crabbing and funfairs and chips. But now Kirsty was fifteen, Gray was seventeen and Rabbit Cottage was virtually the last place on earth either of them wanted to be. They arrived on a damp July afternoon in poor spirits after what felt like a much-longer-than-it-used-to-be journey up the M1, during which Tony, their dad, had refused to let them put on their own music and did the thing he always did of chasing local radio stations in and out of frequency to keep himself abreast of traffic reports.
    Parking restrictions had changed in the years since they’d first come to Ridinghouse Bay. Back then you could park right outside the house and unload all your stuff in the middle of throngs of holidaymakers. Nowadays you had to park your car in a car park on the edge of town and walk in. So here they were, unloading cardboard boxes packed with breakfast cereals and long-life milk, toilet rolls and Heinz soups, and trudging up the hill into town with suitcases and rolled-up towels and duvets. A light summer drizzle fell upon them as they walked and by the time they’d emptied the car and closed the door of Rabbit Cottage behind them they were steaming like New York pavements and all in rather bad tempers.
    ‘Christ,’ said Gray, resting a cardboard box on the Formica-topped table in the kitchen and looking about. ‘Is it possible that they have actually painted Rabbit Cottage?’ It was true that the walls had lost their tarry patina and there were also ‘NO SMOKING’ signs attached here and there about the place that had not been present before.
    He heaved his rucksack up the narrow staircase and dropped it on to the single bed (unmade, sheets and blankets left in a folded pile at the foot of the bare bed). His room overlooked the sea. His parents liked the room at the back because it was quieter; the street below could get quite noisy during these summer months: there were three pubs on this road alone, not to mention the steam fair that came to town every summer with its loud pump organ music, which carried up the coast on the slightest breeze.
    But Gray didn’t mind the noise. It made a nice change to the silence of the quiet street they lived on in Croydon, where the only noises at this time of year were droning lawnmowers and honey bees. He liked the sound of drunk people calling out to each other, the echo and reverb of footsteps on the cobbles in the dark.
    They were here for two weeks. Gray had tried to persuade his parents to allow him to return home a week early; there was a party he wanted to go to, there was a girl he liked. Plus the weather forecast for thesouth was glorious in comparison. But they’d said, ‘No.’ They’d said: ‘Next year. When you’re eighteen.’ And Kirsty had looked at him with searing, beseeching eyes, a look that said: No, please don’t leave me here alone.
    They were reasonably close, as far as brothers and sisters went. She’d played him well as a small child; gone to him with sore knees and unlaced shoes; left him alone when he asked her to. They looked out for each other in a rather detached way, like well-meaning but somewhat reserved next-door neighbours. So, he’d agreed to the full two weeks and hoped that the girl he liked would still be available when he got back.
    Downstairs, Gray’s dad was building a fire and his mum was unpacking food into cracked Formica-covered kitchen cabinets. Kirsty was on the sofa folded into a pile of gangly limbs and cheap knitwear, reading a magazine. Outside, the rain was still spritzing against the windowpanes but a band of hopeful brightness sat on the horizon forcing a gap between the clouds.
    ‘I’m going out,’ said Gray.
    ‘Going where?’ asked his dad.
    ‘Just for a walk up the prom.’
    ‘In this?’ His dad indicated the rain-spattered windows.
    ‘I’ve got a waterproof. And anyway, looks like it’s brightening.’
    Kirsty looked up from her