The Lie by C. L. Taylor Read Free Book Online Page B

taxi, not because he called me a drunken bitch but because he was a shit and he didn’t deserve you.”
    I’m just about to respond when – “Surprise!” – Al leaps from the top step and lands next to Daisy. Still soaking from the pool, she wraps Daisy in a wet bear hug, and clamps a hand to her mouth. Daisy puts up a half-hearted fight to free herself, but she and Al both know it’s in jest. Al looks across at me, and smiles. “No arguing, you two. We’re on holiday, remember? Oh! Look at that gecko.”
    “What gecko?” Leanne makes her way gingerly down the steps. She pulls the grey cardigan tighter around her shoulders but it doesn’t stop her shivering. “What are you two doing? We could hear you shouting from the pool.”
    “Here.” Al crouches down on the ground and reaches out a hand to the creature. The gecko speeds away and zips under the bench.
    “Leave it.” Daisy tugs at the black strap of Al’s swimsuit. “Let’s get some more wine and go back in the pool.”
    “I’ve never seen one of those before.” Al peers intently under the bench.
    “Al!” Daisy yanks her swimsuit again, but this time she’s swatted away.
    “Not now, Dais.”
    The playful expression on Daisy’s face vanishes, and she twists away, wrapping her arms around herself as she turns her back to us and looks out towards the lake.
    “I’m going to get my camera. Come with me and grab a blanket.” Al stands up and gestures at Leanne, who’s still standing on the bottom step, staring at us through the darkness. “You look cold.”
    “Yeah.” Leanne hesitates. She can sense tension between us and she’s torn between going after Al and staying to find out what’s happened.
    “Come on,” Al urges, grabbing Leanne by the elbow and angling her up the stairs, “we’ll grab some more wine, too. I think the hotel manager’s still awake.”
    Daisy doesn’t acknowledge Al and Leanne’s departure as they stumble up the steps and crash through the undergrowth. Instead she continues to stare out at the lake. I head for the steps too. Staying and arguing isn’t going to solve anything. We’re drunk, we’re tired and we need to sleep.
    “Is this how it’s going to be?”
    “Sorry?” I turn back.
    “This. Is this how it’s going to be? You and Al making excuses not to spend time with me?”
    It’s at times like this that I wonder how much more I can take. Daisy pushes and pushes and pushes, almost as though she’s deliberately stretching the boundaries of our friendship to see how much I’ll put up with. If I stay, she’ll berate me for being a walkover, for not standing up for myself; if I go, I prove her theory that everyone will eventually abandon her. It’s a catch-22 situation.
    “Don’t look at me like you don’t know what I’m talking about, Emma. First you wander off when we’re all having fun round the fire, then Al shrugs me off when I ask her to go in the pool with me. And then there was our first night in Kathmandu when you and Al pretended to be jetlagged instead of carrying on drinking with me.”
    “We
were
jetlagged.”
    “You were laughing and drinking beer in your room. Why couldn’t you have done that in a bar with me?”
    “Daisy, it was one can each, hardly a party. Come on.” I take a step towards her and put a hand on her shoulder. “You need to go to bed.”
    “No.” She shrugs off my attempt to drape the blanket over her, swiping it away, knocking it to the ground. “I don’t want to go to sleep. I want another drink and I want to go back in the pool. Where’s my wine?”
    She glances towards the bench. The bottle of wine is on the ground where I left it. The gecko has moved back out from under the bench and is a couple of centimetres from the wine bottle.
    “I don’t think you need any more wine, Daisy.”
    “Don’t tell me what I need.”
    She pushes me out of the way and totters towards the bench. The gecko scuttles towards the wine bottle. Daisy slows her pace,