I Found You

by Lisa Jewell

Didn’t want to be the loser at home in her pajamas.”

OUCH.. 🥺IM NOT IN MY PAJAMAS OK ☹️HOME GOOD ANYWAYS 🙄

“Seriously. Look at her. And she’s older than you.”

IRONIC OUT HERE KISSING A 19 YEAR OLD GROWN ASS MAN 💀PEDO BTW

“I just don’t think it matters. Not when two people have a… connection.” Kirsty rolled her eyes.

ONE CONNECTION

This time the “adorable” didn’t strike him as a compliment.

THANK U CUZ IT AINT

“why don’t you two share half. A quarter each. You’ll barely notice anything. And you’ll be back to normal by the time you get home.”

COMING FROM A STALKER WHO LIKES GIRLS YOUNGER THEN HIM PLUS THE ARGUMENT HE HAD WITH GRAY THE OTHER DAY SUREE TAKE THE DRUG WHY NOT WHAT COULD GO WRONG HONESTLY.

her bare arm around his waist. “Please.”

SEDUCTION!?!?!?!? THATS CRAZY THIS WAS A SETUP WOWWWW

“No,” Kirsty interjected, “he doesn’t have a girlfriend. In fact, he’s never had a girlfriend—” Gray clamped his hand over his sister’s mouth and wrestled her halfway to the floor. She fought back and resurfaced, pinning Gray’s arms down to say, “He’s never even kissed anyone, apart from our mum.”

WOW KIRSTY U ARE MEAN GRAY DIDN’T DO THAT WHEN U WENT TO TALK TO MARK 🙄

Mark pulled a small bag from his pocket, lined up another set of pills on the counter. Again he broke one in half. He pushed one half toward Gray, the other toward Izzy. This time Gray didn’t need to be persuaded.

BAD IDEA TELLIN YA BOSS

They stand for a while in the flower bed, statue still, listening to the phone ringing. Finally it stops, then a moment later it starts again. A chill runs through Alice and she looks anxiously at Frank. He has clearly understood the significance of the ringing phone in the empty house. Within days of Frank arriving in Ridinghouse Bay and within hours of him remembering having been in this house, a phone is ringing and ringing behind the locked door. It can’t be unrelated.

EH?!?! A PHONE STILL WORKING?!?!

And even if he’s right, even if he has killed someone, he’d have a good reason for it,

UMMMMMM idk about that bro was a stalker and a two faced monster SOOOOOOOOO 😗

not wanting him to remember that he doesn’t want to be here anymore. Because Alice really, really doesn’t want Frank to go. She doesn’t want to leave him at a police station and get a smug call from him in few days saying, Thanks for everything, my wife and I are so grateful to you. Or a call from the police saying, He’s an ax murderer. We’ll need to bring you in for questioning.

LOL AX MURDER!?!?! THATS A BIT MUCH

There’d always been that polite remove between them, but here she was, her heart wide open, holding on to him and loving him. He put his arm around her waist and he pulled her closer and he whispered into her ear, “Love you, little sis.” And she whispered back, “Love you too, big bro.”

Awwww while my big bro is dragging me down the hallway to make him breakfast 💀then if im minding my own business he takes my blanket and runs

and stopping as the silver of a flick-knife caught the moonlight. It was at Kirsty’s throat. Mark was panting. His eyes were wide and he licked his lips. “Now look,” he said to Gray. “Now look what you made me do.”

A…alice… u.. u still… like mark boy? 😦

urge to shout, Lunch! Lunch! That is your plan? Lunch!

Frr bro could of come up with saying “doctor appointment” OR SOMETHIN NOT LUNCH 😭

He shows her a Tupperware box full of raw pasta. “Or should I say, threw it at me. Said, this is your lunch. You’ll have to cook it yourself.”

LOLL MMM THIS RAW PASTA IS VERY TASTY

“Was she your wife?” she says, almost in a whisper. “I don’t know,” he says. “I really don’t know.” “Funny to think, isn’t it, that you might have a wife?” He shrugs. It’s not funny, not really. It’s awful. He remembers what Jasmine said last night over dinner, about how he was being cruel not finding out who he was, that there might be people worrying about him. And until now he hasn’t been able to imagine what that might really mean. He’s felt nothing for anyone beyond the people in the room with him. Now, suddenly, he loves someone from before. He loves Kirsty.

SEE I TOLD U IT WAS MARK CAN’T TRUST THAT STALKER SMH

but not before noticing Alice staring blindly into the middle distance, a film of tears across her eyes.

ITS OK ALICE IK UR SAD BUT THE MAN UR HANGING OUT WITH AND WELL HAD RELATIONSHIP WITH IS NOT WORTH IT HE IS A STALKER AND A VERY ANGRY MAN 😦

It looks like her watching TV on a crumb-strewn sofa, surrounded by stinky dogs and moody teenagers, then going to bed with a greyhound and waking up the next morning with greasy badger hair and not caring, and starting the whole thing all over again.

WOW THAT IS SAD 😔

“Well, whatever it is, we’ll find out tomorrow, and after that I’m not sure you’ll have any desire to know me anymore anyway. Whether I’m married or not.” She stops then and turns to face Frank. He doesn’t get it, she thinks, he really, really doesn’t get it. “I’ll always want to know you, Frank,” she says. “One way or another. It’s whether or not you’ll want to know me that’s the real question.”

OOOP- 😗

holding a blob of a baby.

LOL A BLOB OF A BABYY IM USIN THAT 💀

“In this country, I think, people spend a lot of time worrying about the darkness. We all want to be sunny. We’re scared if we’re not.”

She knows nothing of his childhood, of his past. She knows nothing of his scars. But she knows they are there.

WHAT IF THIS CARL GUY IS…. GRAY?!?!?!? MAYBE MAYBE IDK IDK

But even in the fog of their fading faculties, they are holding hands. There are their hands, clutched together between them. They don’t know who the prime minister is, they don’t know what day of the week, what month, or even what year it is. They can’t quite remember their daughters’ names and they certainly can’t remember if they had lunch today or what the plan is for supper tonight. They know nothing of any significance whatsoever. But they do know they love each other.

JEEZ DO THEY GOT THAT ON AMAZON!?!?!? WHAT A LOVELY COUPLE REALLY 😭

He wants to rush upstairs and tell Alice, There’s no woman! I live alone! But there’s so much more he needs to know before he can assure her of anything.

he’s whittling himself down to a smaller and smaller thing. A maths teacher, living alone in a scruffy flat.

Mark had locked Kirsty and Gray in a spare room

THIS IS MAYBE WHY U DON’T FOLLOW A STALKER TO A PARTY AND THINK EVERYTHING IS GOING TO GO WELL PLUS DRUGS AND HE INSISTS THAT U TAKE THEM AND NOW LOOK GRAY U HAD THE BRAINS WERE DID IT GO HONESTLY 🤧

Kirsty began to sob. “Listen,” said Gray, joining her on the bed, “it’s nearly midnight. Remember what Dad said? He said if we weren’t home by midnight he was going to come here and humiliate us. Yeah? So he’ll be here soon. OK? OK.”

Prob the best BIG BRO IVE EVER SEEN W POSITIVITY WW

She turns to Russ. “Kick it in,” she says. “What!” “Kick the door in. Please.” “I can’t do that, Lily. That’s criminal damage. I could be arrested, it could…” Lily pushes him out of the way and launches herself against the door.

AYYYYY GO LILLYYY

“I mean, I remembered where I live. I could see the inside of my flat. All my stuff. And there was no sign of a woman. Just a cat. Called Brenda.” Alice feels her heart blossom and unfurl. This man, this remarkable stranger, this person who has made her feel ways she thought she might never feel again, is a single maths teacher with a cat. She laughs loudly. “Brenda?!”

HAHAHAHA

That really would have put the cherry on top of the turd.”

A dark red fire was building inside Gray. It was licking up the walls of his consciousness, melting his reason. He wanted to kill this man. Murder him. Stab him, batter him, stamp on his skull until it smashed, shoot him in the head and then in the heart, kick him, stone him, decapitate him, maim him, and maul him until he was nothing but a lump of flesh and bone.

ATTA BOY GRAY THATS THE MINDSET I LIKE GET EM KILL THE BASTARD UNLESS THIS MARK GUY IS ALICE NEW BF 😦

to have so little respect for another person’s feelings. It makes you less than human somehow. Do you see what I mean?”

IRONIC MARK 🙄

He needed to focus. Forget the pain. Forget Mark’s hand between his sister’s legs. Just get this cord loose. Slip his hands out. Get that lamp. Bash it over Mark’s head. Make this stop. Make this stop. Make this stop.

Oh shit mark is a monster goodness gracious GET EM GRAY GO BIG BROOOO

She kisses his cheek and he smiles at her and then he’s gone, leaving her alone in the dark kitchen with the buzzing fridge and the darkness and the dogs.

AWWW I FEEL BAD like reading this I CAN FEEL HER LONELINESS LIKE SIS NEEDS A LOVING RELATIONSHIP FOR ONCE IN HER LIFE

was down, hard, his jaw cracking against the hard tiles, momentarily winded, Mark on top of him. He felt Mark’s hands meet tightly across the crown of his head, pick it up, and then smash it against the hard floor, felt his brain bounce against the walls of his skull, his hearing fade to a drowsy buzz. His sister was screaming, and then there was a strange and terrifying moment of silence. Mark suddenly rose away from him, then slumped again. His sister had stopped screaming and stood over them both, breathing loudly, hyperventilating. She was clutching a bloodied knife. Mark’s knife. Blood dripped onto the pure white floor. Then she and Gray were both running, through the door at the back of the house, across the glorious, moonlit lawn, hand in hand.

OH SHIT SO MARK IS DEAD?!??!?! THIS WHOLE TIME I THOUGHT “FRANK” WAS MARK BUT IT WAS ACTUALLY GRAY!! AND KIRSTY IS THE ONE OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH makes sense GOOD GOOD

She decides to leave the dogs at home. She doesn’t want to spend her last walk with Frank stopping to collect steaming turds from the cold pavement.

EWWWWWWW GOOD IDEA

She pauses and looks at each one of them in turn. “Well, that is not his name either.” She laughs nervously. “No, since I reported him missing to the police, they have told me that his passport is a fake and that no such person as him exists.” She shrugs. “So. Two men with no name. It is weird.” Alice shivers. There is a dark pit of unknowable badness beneath her words. Two men with no name. It is much more than weird.

And then, from behind them, no longer an outcrop of Gray’s adrenaline-fueled imagination, but as real as the rocks beneath his feet, came the sound of a man breathing heavily and the thud of feet against the wooden steps. “Faster,” he hissed at Kirsty, “come on!” The footsteps behind them grew closer and closer as they approached the end of the staircase.

EEEEEK HURRRRYYYYYY

He was dying, Gray suddenly knew. His father was dying and his sister had disappeared into the North Sea with a psychopath. And he couldn’t do anything, not one single thing, about any of it.

HOW IS MARK ALIVE?!?!?! LIKE BRO U WAS STABBED LIKE JUST DIE LOL

Lily looks at her through narrowed eyes, evaluating her. She has something about her, something vital and proud. She makes Lily feel insecure in some way and that makes Lily feel like a cat with a dog, that she needs to show her that she is more vital and more proud.

OOOOOOOOOOO LILLY JELLLYYYY AHHAHAHAHAH ALICE BETTER THEN UUUUUU THEHEHEHEHEHE

Lily wants to slap him. Why is he being so vague?

BRO LILLY HE FORGOT HIS MEMORY GIVE HIM A SEC JEEZZZ INPATIENT LOOKING ASS

Lily nods. Good, she thinks, a person with facts rather than a confused person making it up as he goes along. Why is this man, Frank, not in the hospital?

NAURRRRR JUST GIVE HIM A MINUTE LMAOOOO

Gray could only assume that these children went on trains in their out-of-school lives,

WHAT I FREAKING SAYYY I KNEW IT WELL IN THE END YES BUT LOOK I FIGURED IT OUT 🤭im a happy cookie now

Mark Tate was alive. And if Mark Tate was alive, did that mean that Kirsty was alive too?

NAURRRRR WOWWWW OK WOWWWWWW IM WOWWWWWWWWWW MARK ALIVE?!?!?!?!?

And that the shock of his father dying in his arms caused poor Graham to enter a temporary fugue state.” “He’s in a fugue state now,” Alice says.

“You take your time. We’re not in any hurry.”

LILLY IS LOL

Mark Tate walking into. It’s a financial services company. He clicks on the “who we are” link and scrolls down until he finds his picture. His name, apparently, is Carl Monrose.

WOAHHHHHHH BRO CHANGED HIS IDENTITY!!!

Knowing that every journey he took, every choice he made, every person he brought into his life caused his mother an animal ache of fear. Knowing that he could never leave her. That he was tied to her, like the owner of a loyal but life-restricting dog, until she died.

NAURRRRRR PAM WAS SOO SWEET THO!!! 🤧

forty-year-old man marrying a girl half his age.

I JUST REALIZED THAT BRUHHHHHHHHH I WOULD’VE KNOWN IT WAS GRAY THIS WHOLE TIME IF I WAS PAYING ATTENTION TO THISSSS MARK LIKES YOUNGER GIRLLLSSSS UGHHHH IM MAD I DIDN’T SOLVE WHO WAS WHO BEFOREEEEE 😣

He’s hiding the bag in an empty kitchen cupboard. “I found a place and I…” His memories swarm and teem and he feels nauseous. “I took him there.”

OH NO HE KILLED MARKKKKKK NAURRRR WELL YAY BUT NAURRR