Thrill Seeker by Kristina Lloyd Read Free Book Online Page B

sloping streets then, when I hit the expanse of Sea Road, I turn up the volume on my iPod and pound along the prom, inhaling sea-salt air and letting the horizon suck away the stresses of the day. On the way back, I often cheat, taking the funicular up to the cliff top, just a few streets from home.
    That evening, because I’d wanted to spend time tarting myself up, I hadn’t gone for my run. Almost without thinking, after leaving the pub in a mopey mood, I found myself heading downslope rather than in the direction of home, hungering to see the sea. Paul wasn’t going to rescue me from the clutches of Den by becoming another Baxter. Nothing had changed.
    The traffic was sparse on the seafront with the funfair to the west a pale imitation of its weekend, high-summer dazzle. By the pedalo lake, the plastic swans faced the blue-grey night with vicious beaks and haughty stares. I crossed to the main beach, casting a glance eastwards to the abandoned fishing beach. Sometimes, I want to revisit places I associate with Baxter and overwrite old memories with new. But mostly, I don’t want to lose the memories because they’re all I have. Stupid to want to keep the lie as if it were truth.
    I crunched towards the frothing grey surf, the hillocky bands of shingle slipping beneath my feet. When I was inthe middle of the empty beach, I dropped to the ground and sprawled on my back, gazing up at pinpricks of stars emerging in the ink-wash sky. I was safe there, surrounded by space. Probably safer than being at home. More relaxing too, given how my house no longer seemed wholly mine. On the beach, no one could hide and jump out or approach without me hearing them. No one knew I was here.
    Above me, a gull soared past, its underside as white as a ghost. The waves crashed on the shore, their regularity lulling me towards peace. I felt so tiny and alone, a speck on the coast of a country in the world. A good place to take stock and mull over whether to pursue online dating or take a break for a while. The constant disappointments weren’t doing much for my morale.
    As if to prove my solitude wrong, my phone honked. I lay in silence, trying not to think about Baxter and love, until curiosity got the better of me. A message from Paul: It was nice to meet you. I thought we had a lot in common so if you change your mind, let me know. Good night. xx
    With a sigh, I returned my phone to my bag. No, that man was not part of my Northern Lights.
    Tears stung my eyes. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take of my hopes being raised and dashed. The stars above me swam in a blur. I recalled Alistair Fitch’s blue music studio, a mural of Van Gogh’s Starry Night swirling on one wall. I smiled to recall how artistic I used to think that room was and how cool Alistair Fitch. In reality, he was an ordinary piano tutor working from a gussied-up suburban dining room. I remembered how his Venetian window blinds obscured the daylight, cocooning him in a weird, other space, away from the everyday. Potted palms and ferns were dotted high and low amid the clutter of pianos, keyboards and stacksof sheet music, giving the studio the gloomy, oppressive air of a Victorian parlour.
    Those royal blue walls used to make me feel I was trapped inside a box of night and eerie dreams. One wall featured the Van Gogh mural, its wonky church rising like black flames, the heavens made of splodgy brushstrokes, while the other walls were scattered with yellow stars spinning like crazy suns.
    Trapped with Alistair Fitch, just as he would have wanted it. I was nineteen, I’d had boyfriends and some sex; I didn’t think I was naïve. My father’s diagnosis meant I’d stayed living with my parents while my friends left town for adventures at university. I got a brain-achingly dull job in a shoe shop and started piano lessons to give myself a focus and a goal. I liked the discipline of practising and the weekly tuition. Alistair Fitch was cute too, steel-rimmed glasses,