“Actually, we were kinda chatting if you don’t mind,” she said. He looked confused. “As in this is an ‘a’ plus ‘b’ conversation, so please ‘c’ your way out of it.”
She crossed her arms and raised her brows at him expectantly. He muttered, slipped beneath the water, and slid away.
“God, I hate boys like that,” she said with an eye roll.
“Tell me about it,” I said, matching the roll and determined for her not to ever think of me as a “boy like that,” either.
Things with Chioma snowballed quickly after that. The texting was fun, even if a lot of phrases went over my head. And there was fresh attention in the school corridors. A lot of the questions were derisive, but a lot more were pure fascination. I’d hit it off with a pretty Black girl from the local comprehensive, and suddenly I was the most interesting boy in my year. Suddenly, I was no longer Little Edie or Eeds. I was James again.
The nature of my schooling meant I could only see Chioma over the holidays, but that was fine by me. People’s interest in me tended to wane as soon as it waxed. Other boys at school, teachers, family friends,were used to my loud and gregarious older brother. Expected the same of me, only to find themselves rapidly disappointed.
A large and vocal part of me worried Chioma would eventually come to the same conclusion as everyone else. That I was a little boring. But with term time enforcing so much time apart, she never had the opportunity to get bored. A few days stolen together here or there felt special. So much so that our relationship lasted until we’d both graduated from our respective schools. She found me interesting, my Latin recitals impressive, my family home astonishing. I hadn’t known how good it could feel to be admired. Hadn’t known how a few superficial things could make me worthy in the eyes of someone as smart, as funny, as genuinely cool, as she was. I wanted it to stay this way forever. It triggered something unsavory in me when other boys were too friendly with her, but she was always clear she only had eyes for me. Reassuring. I was fully out of my brother’s shadow and in a spotlight of my own for once.
To celebrate our last summers at home before uni—me going to Exeter to study economics, and Chioma off to UCL to do medicine—my parents invited Chioma to join our family holiday to Corfu. They knew how cut up I was about our plans to land at the same university failing. I didn’t get the grades for UCL, and Exeter had rejected Chioma for reasons she couldn’t make sense of.
I could already feel the distance between us. And I mean that in a tangible way. We had months to go until we’d be so many miles apart, but I could feel her already withdrawing from me, our conversations shorter and further apart.Long-distance relationships at uni never work, she started saying. I wanted us to be the exception.
It took three meetings with our parents for Chioma’s mother and father to eventually agree to let her go on the holiday. It was one of those moments that reminded me of how culturally different we were.But once they gave their permission, we were so excited we could barely contain ourselves. I suppose we didn’t know how badly things would work out.
The day that it happened, we were in our villa, enjoying a lazy morning. Will and Chioma were getting on like a house on fire. I didn’t like it. I’d come downstairs in the morning to find them huddled together at the kitchen island, laughing around mouthfuls of muesli.
Maybe on balance, I’d been a bit naive about the whole holiday. Even with the trepidation of our impending distance cooling the relationship a little, being with Chioma still made me feel like a rock star. After almost two years of dating, my family, while friendly, hadn’t made the effort to spend masses of time with her. I thought spending more quality time with someone so great who clearly thought I was worthy of adoration might get my family to start seeing me through Chioma’s eyes. But all that happened is they found a new appreciation for how clever and smart she was. Fell more in love with her. Over humid lunches where we kids were allowed a little wine, Dad would crack jokes about what she was doing with me. Mom would sit beside her in the evening shade of the pergola, books splayed open on their laps, and later over dinner, they’d trade passionate whispers about what they’d read. And Will…They’d never spent a huge amount of time together before. I always thought he fell into the category of “boys like that” in her eyes. But there could be an edge to their respective senses of humor that they’d found slotted well together.
On this morning, Will and Chioma were turned toward each other on their sun loungers, nattering away as I lay silently beside Chioma in the shade. It was too much sharing her with Will, of all people. Seeing her distracted by his dazzle. So I hatched a plan for us to have some time to ourselves. A couple of hours on the beach, just the two of us.
“Wait—you’re not gonna take me with you?” Will asked.
Chioma threw me aWell, shouldn’t we?look with her eyes. I threw aPlease let me have some alone time with my girlfriendback at Will. He let it fall, uncaught, and waggled his brows at me.
“C’mon, you two lovebirds aren’t gonna leave me alone with the old folk?” he asked with a wink. “Besides, only I know how to get to that secret beach with the good diving rock. You got lost for an hour trying to look for it last year, James.”
“Oh, James, the pictures looked incredible!” Chioma says. “Let’s go there.”
And so the three of us went off.
When we came back, red-eyed and without Chioma, it was immediately obvious that something had gone horribly wrong. It’s one of the only times I remember my mother’s arms wrapped so tightly around me. And when I was able to find my voice, I told them all what had happened. How Chioma had drowned. How we couldn’t save her.
The coast guard was called. The police, too. But after two weeks of looking for her body, they gave up the search. It would have taken thousands that her parents didn’t have to hire a commercial diving team to keep looking. Thousands my parents wouldn’t give them, no matter how many times Chioma’s mom showed up on our doorstep asking. That was when the restraining order was placed; they said it was about protecting me, but really, they just wanted the problem to go away. If Chioma’s mom stopped showing up, then people would eventually stop asking questions, and the shame of Chioma’s untimely death on their watch would die along with her memory.
I don’t think Chioma’s parents have ever forgiven us—me—for what happened to their future doctor. They’ve certainly never forgotten.
42
Now
The cogs are turning in my head as I sit in Will’s living room trying to digest everything I’ve learned. I’ve been so relieved that James has never pushed to talk about the past that I’ve never questioned how that might be benefiting him, too. Will looks sheepish as he cradles his glass of water.
“So it wasn’t, like, a murder? James isn’t a murderer?” I ask. There are so many questions, but it feels like a good place to start.
Will shakes his head. “No, it was genuinely an accident. And, I mean, she did hit him before he pushed her away. She wasn’t meant to fall off the rock. I guess it’d be manslaughter, to put a definition on it.”
I bite my lip, try to keep my thoughts straight. Is this how James felt reading my letters? I feel like I’ve married a fraud. A stranger.
“And everything going on recently. The blackmail? Because you say you didn’t go to James asking for more money recently, but I know our IVF money disappeared from our account and had to gosomewhere.”
Will clears his throat, rolls his neck. “I did take that money…but I didn’t exactly ask for it. I’d been cracking for a while, saying we should go to the police. Help Chioma’s parents find peace. The years of them trying to explain how their daughter who loved swimming would just drown destroyed them. Drove them mad. In the end, I heard from anold school friend that her dad turned to drink. Liver cancer. Not sure how long he’s got left. The guilt of knowing the answer, of not letting Chioma’s parents know, too…It was a lot.
“Then one day, James came to me bragging about what you were capable of, telling me I’d better keep in line or else. I made the point that it seemed like you both had a lot of secrets worth hiding, that you’d be smarter leaving me alone. He didn’t like that. But then he started talking about the drinking, the gambling. He wanted to know how much of a hole I was in—just looking for a new angle, I guess—and when I told him, he offered the money to me to keep quiet.”
