I Found You

by Lisa Jewell

“Kids all in bed?” he asks. “Small one in bed, the others on their beds. Doing things with screens.”

“The others are on their bed” LOLL I CAN RELATE 🤭

So, what happened when you went down there?” “I threw up,” he says.

BRUHHHHHH 💀

“No. This man was clothed. He was wearing jeans. And a shirt. And he had… he had something with him. Something big, in his arms. And he didn’t walk in. He jumped. Like he was trying to get away from someone.” “From who?” “I don’t know,” he says, “but it felt like it might have been me.”

Huh… interesting 😗

imagining her precious seven hours being whittled away. But tonight she has no interest in the time. Time is irrelevant.

CAUSE U FOUND FRANK AND NOW U HAVE A CRUSH ON HIM 🤭😗😍❤️

Be careful. She’s not sure she wants to be.

LOL

Frank clinks his glass against hers and he smiles. “And to you,” he says. “For being so generous.” “Oh,” she says. “I don’t know about generous. Stupid more like.” “Maybe both,” he says. “Yeah. I’ll go with that. Story of my life. Generous and stupid.”

Ah yes stupid and generous LOL 😂🗿

“Well, speaking as someone with no life whatsoever, I’d say that sounds pretty great.”

BRUHHH U HAVE ONE JUST FORGOT DON’T DO URSELF DIRTY LIKE THAT 😂💀🗿

“Yes. I do. But no more than a million other women. Women are amazing, you know.”

AWWW VERY TRU

he rocks back his leg presses briefly against Alice’s leg and she feels it open up inside her, the big gaping hole of loneliness and neediness she’s been trying to ignore for six years.

AWWW U GOT LIKE A BUNCH OF KIDS AND DOGS AND U STILL LONELY MAYBE U DO NEED FRANK 🥹

She puts her hand over Frank’s hand where it rests on Griff’s tightly domed head. Frank brings his other hand to cover hers. And there it is. An exquisite moment of suspended existence, beyond which lies the potential for everything. “Remember,” they might say in years to come, “that night. When we first touched?”

ALICE FALLIN IN LOVE BIGGG TIME LOL 😍

“Because you’re fifteen! Because he’s nineteen! Mum, Dad, you’re not going to let her, are you?” Pam and Tony looked at each other and then at Gray, and Pam said, “I don’t see any reason why not? Do you?” She glanced at Tony again. Tony shook his head. “Long as you’re home by ten.”

EH?!?!? IM WITH GRAY THAT IS CONCERNING AND THE FACT THE PARENTS COULD CARE LESS IS EVEN MORE WEIRD 😦

His minute steak was tough and chewy, the chips were too greasy, and the ketchup wasn’t Heinz. He put down his knife and fork halfway through the meal. Kirsty, he noticed, was racing through her scampi, putting two in her mouth at once at one point. She slapped her knife and fork together, gulped down the dregs of her Coke, accepted a five-pound note from her dad’s wallet, and left.

Ah yes. Gray being a normal protective brother about a concerning 19 YEAR OLD ADULT WANTING TO HANG OUT WITH A `15 YEAR OLD das suspicious 😗and the fact kristy is DEVOURING THAT MEAL TO BE WITH MARK IS HILARIOUS 🗿

And then Gray thought about the mascara and he knew that this had all been preplanned. Down by the donkey paddock. He tried to imagine the conversation; he saw Mark smiling conspiratorially and saying, “Eight o’clock. Find a way to get away.” And his sister, his gorgeous, stupid, never-been-kissed sister saying, “I’ll be there!” Like this was a scene in some stupid Disney Channel show.

LOLL “his gorgeous, stupid sister” 💀AND THE REST WAS EVEN MORE FUNNIER LOL

The phone rings and she jumps. It will be the WPC, calling with more news to rock her world. To tell her, maybe, that her husband was once a woman. That his name is really Carla.

Ok that’s good 😂”CARLA” 💀

He mustn’t confuse his feelings of helplessness with his feelings about Alice. He is like a newborn baby latching onto the first person to show him any affection. But still. There is something about her, something magnetic. Whenever he’s with her he finds himself pulled toward her as if the very air around her is cambered. And it’s not just that she’s self-assured and physically attractive. It’s her resilience, her artistry, her generosity of spirit that draws him to her.

AHHHH HE FALLEN IN LOVE TOOOOO ALICEEE U HAVE A CHANCE LESS GOOOOOO 😍🤭

Romaine sits on the chair at the kitchen table and watches him as he tries to force the bagel into the toaster. “No!” She laughs. “You have to cut it in half!” “Of course you do,” he says. “Silly me!” “Silly you!”

Ahhhhh I LOVE ROMAINE ALREADY SHE IS SO CUTEEE “silly you!” AWWWWW 😭

All the stories, he thinks to himself, the world is full of stories. But the one story he really needs to know is buried somewhere so deep inside him he’s scared he’ll never get to it.

And not just as in a man who is a “stranger” but a man who doesn’t know who he is.

They’d also had candy floss,

EEEEE “candy floss” COTTON CANDY BETTER

they had emerged from the Tunnel of Love with their mouths attached. Full House.

EWWWWWW PEDO ALERT

Gray felt, as though he could tug at it and Mark’s whole face would come off, revealing his true identity, like a Scooby-Doo villain.

Bro got a two face mask at all times

“Oh, come on. He’s only nineteen. I had a twenty-year-old boyfriend when I was Kirsty’s age.”

AYOOOOO 😦😦😦😦💀💀💀💀 BROOO NAHHH PEDOOOOOO

She rolled her eyes and got to her feet. “You’re just jealous,” she said. “Because I’ve kissed someone and you haven’t.” It was a lighthearted dig. She hadn’t meant it to hurt. But it did.

Aww you’ll get a lovely wife and then you can kiss all u want gray trust 🥺🥺🤧

He would wonder if he was gay if it weren’t for the fact that he knew resoundingly that he wasn’t.

💀💀💀💀💀dawg got no game so he thinking on switching teams 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

There was an awkward silence, the sort of conversational void that needed to be filled with an invitation to come in. But nobody offered it.

LOL 💀

Carl had come to him, as he’d come to Lily, as a book without words.

She smiles at him over the top of Romaine’s head. It’s a worn-out smile, tired and faded around the edges. But there’s still a kind of thrilling glamour about it. Something golden and intoxicating. Like an old hotel, he thinks. Like… the Ritz. He smiles to himself at the satisfyingly recalled name and he adds it to his collection; a priceless coin dug up on a beach.

This is the downside of allowing a friend to manage your life for you.

BRUH 😂😭💀

Alice sits down next to Derry. “He’s murdered them both,” she deadpans. “Cut them to ribbons, is eating their warm flesh off the ground with the dogs.” Derry nudges her hard. “Shut up,”

LOLLLL 💀💀😭😂😂😂😂 ALICE BRO UR HUMOR IS SOO GOOOD 💀💀💀

“Hi,” she says, a softness in her voice that wouldn’t have been there if she hadn’t just read the story about a teenage boy’s father dying on the beach.

Frrrr she was about to go to the cops 😂😂

It is like onions. People reveal themselves to you a layer at a time. That is why you should wait. Wait until you get to the layers near the bottom. Usually where the worst stuff is. And then, if the worst stuff is not so bad, then you marry.”

If the worst stuff isn’t bad then marry? HUH OK COOL 😗🗿

You are brave and foolish. But I cannot stop you.”

😂😗

He spends a few minutes dreaming of all the things he will do for Alice once he has found his life again. He’ll send them on holiday. He’ll take them out for meals. And Christ, if he turns out to be really wealthy, he’ll pay off their mortgage for them.

Kiss alice on the list too 🤭😗❤️

“I feel normal.” “Nothing normal about you, Frank,” she says. He laughs. “That’s true.”

💀

“I’m afraid we’ve been infiltrated,” she says. “Kai’s off to a party later and half the town’s population of fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds is convening in his bedroom. There’s about thirty of them up there. In his ten-by-eight bedroom. Doesn’t bear thinking about.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAH I CANT- 😂

Frank can’t hear Alice’s response, but a moment later Alice reappears, followed by Jasmine, Romaine, and Hero, and yells up the stairs, “Food! Food!” Within fifteen seconds a dozen teenagers have stampeded down the stairs, slowing gently as they pass the grown-ups, and then filing in and out of the kitchen with paper plates piled with sausages and mash and onion gravy. They take the plates to the sitting room and close the door behind them.

I DECLARE ALICE TO WORK AT A SOUP KITCHEN SHE IS JUST GREAT FOR THE JOB

“Can you tell him?” she said. And there she was again, the baby sister coming to him with a scraped knee. “Can you tell him I’m ill?”

AHHHHHHHH I LOVE GRAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

As Gray spoke they both became aware of a movement behind them, a shadow across the low window that overlooked the street. Kirsty gasped and clamped her hand over her heart. It was Mark, hands cupped against the glass, peering in at them. He smiled grimly as his eye caught Gray’s. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Gray muttered.

LMAOOOOOOOO I CANT- BRO IS A STALKER WHAT IN THE WORLD wait is this….. “FRANK?!?!?” NAHHHHHHHHHH I THINK HES GRAY NOT MARK I THINK

Mark gave both of them a furious look before pulling the cap back over his hair and striding away from them, muttering loudly under his breath. Gray and his dad looked at each other. “See,” said Gray. “Do you see now?” Tony shook his head disbelievingly. “What a total dickhead.”

GRAY IS THE ONLY ONE WHO FIGURED OUT THAT MARK WAS A RED FLAG AND NO ONE LISTENED TO HIM UNTIL THIS SMHHH 😭

she microwaves herself a packet of basmati rice and eats it with butter.

RICE WITH BUTTER?!?!?!? Im sorry but im gonna have to try that if that even is good cant yuck someones yum ig 🙄

“When we were eating dinner, I think I hurt someone, Alice. I think I might even have killed someone.” She can feel his entire body trembling against hers. “I can’t take this anymore, Alice. I really can’t. And that house.” He glances up again fearfully. “I know that house. I know that house more than I know anything. I think I used to live there.”

NAURRRRRRRR WHO U KILL?!?!?! BETTER NOT BEEN GRAY DAS MY MANS IF U DID ANYTHIN TO GRAY IM COMING FOR THAT AUNT OF URS

“You meet someone, you feel an attraction, then you spend some time with them and sometimes you realize that the attraction was only skin-deep. So you move on.”

“I would say that not lying is something you’ve known how to do for most of your life.” She dropped her gaze to the ground. “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings,” she said. “I didn’t want him to feel embarrassed.”

“He’s like a bloody virus, that boy,” said Tony.

“She’s only fifteen,” Gray said. “That’s OK.” Izzy laughed. “We won’t eat her!” It’s not you I’m worried about, Gray wanted to say.

Fr mark got somethin with 15 year old girls 😗

It just keeps on ringing until it runs out of rings and then the line clicks off scornfully, as if it’s saying, For Christ’s sake, there’s no one here, can’t you take a hint?

LMAO YEA BRO TAKE A HINT STOP CALLING 😂

She thinks through the steps and stages that brought them together last night, the quiet walk back along the beach, the rawness of him after his revelation about thinking he might have killed someone. Alice’s own immediate and completely instinctive certainty that he was wrong, that those big, soft hands could never have hurt anyone and that she is not making a mistake letting him into her life.

BRUH DON’T TELL ME THIS GUY IS MARK OHHH MY GOODNESS GREAT. JUST FREAKING GREAT. UNBELIEVABLE AND I REALLY THOUGHT IT WAS GRAY TOO ☹️

“I really want to.” It emerges almost as a groan; she’s still so full of desire for him. She ignores the poisonous energy radiating from Jasmine and grabs her bag and a coat.

LOL

Maybe he had a young girlfriend, maybe more than one young girlfriend?

I knew it HE IS MARK NO WAY HE ISN’T IDK WHAT EYES GRAY HAS BUT MARK GOT HAZEL

the conversation during which she’d barely lost eye contact with him, had allowed their shoulders and their knees to touch on several occasions without attempting to reposition herself, and had told him he was both “adorable” and “fascinating.”

HMMMM.. how do i put this in kind words gray… she is just being… kind 😭thats what it seems like doesn’t mean she like u BUT MAYBE U HAVE A CHANCE IDK