The Sanatorium (Detective Elin Warner, #1)

by Sarah Pearse

I have loved constraints. They give me comfort. —Joseph Dirand

it’s as if time has taken over the building’s soul, left something rotten and diseased in its place.

funicular

Her life has contracted. Closed down to become something that would have been unrecognizable to her a few years ago.

She’s always been amazed by Will’s capacity for absorbing this kind of intricate detail and fact. It makes her feel safe, somehow, secure that he has all the answers.

For her, even easy, everyday things became something to be agonized over until they swelled out of all proportion.

foibles,

Instead, this room, like the others, is named after a peak in the mountain range opposite.

This is the anomaly, she thinks, the tension she’s picked up on. This juxtaposition . . . it’s chilling. Institution butting up against beauty.

As an architect, every day is a blank page. He’s always starting over, creating something new.

Elin soon got the sense that he didn’t see her the way she had always seen herself. The effect was almost dizzying; it made her want to live up to what he saw in her, or what he thought he saw.

But she should have known it couldn’t last, that the real Elin would come out eventually. The loner. The introvert. The one who found it easier to run than give her hand away.

Who she had become, it wasn’t enough for him, didn’t make sense.

She sensed that if he couldn’t get what he always had from her, then he wanted something else to put in its place—another part of her she hadn’t offered up before. Commitment. Certainty.

marmot

She can no longer read his face; time has blurred her sense of him. The idea stings—the only real family she’s got left, and part of him is strange to her.

Now her features seem on a tighter leash.

He’s tall, athletic looking, but it isn’t his stature that’s giving off the power vibe; it’s his wide-legged stance, the big expansive gestures. Only people with influence, money, possess that kind of inbuilt belief that they have the right to take up that much space.

Elin remembers the letters Laure sent. Then later on, text messages. But Elin only halfheartedly replied—once, twice, then it petered out. It was easier somehow, not staying in touch. Not only because of the memories, but because part of her had been jealous. Life for Laure hadn’t changed. She was able to move on.

you’ve let it all build up into something so huge it’s swallowing the rest of your life. Your world, it’s getting smaller and smaller.”

How do you go about unpicking someone from your life when they’re the thread tying every part of you together?

Sometimes she wonders if he saw her as a bit of a project when they first got together, like one of his old buildings that needed renovating. A small redesign, one more push, the final fix, and she’ll be shiny and new. Except she isn’t, not yet—she’s falling behind schedule—his schedule, and he doesn’t like it.

Perhaps her discomfort says something about her.

puerile,

the ultimate way to move forward. Closure by deletion of the past.

Every day a grim loop of brittle regularity—ward

A familiar surge of frustration: she’s forgotten this. The relentless attention seeking, the endless pivots from one drama to another.

His words are light but she can hear the tension in them.

It’s so familiar it stings.

their grief no longer suspended.

She’d nearly fallen for it, the words, the feigned emotion, but people don’t change, do they? The ability to lie, deceive, it’s woven so deep, it’s impossible to pick out, remove.

Sharp little words like poisonous darts.

She could still do it, ask him, but what if she scares him off? She’ll be left with nothing.

She’s only skimmed the surface of his life these past few years—filtered scraps of information he’d thrown their way.

But still, it stings. The first time anyone’s said it out loud.

At what point had she stopped being that? Had other people stopped believing that? When the three-month break turned into six? Nine? It feels horrible, unnatural. Her job had always defined her.

“The way I see it, you’re willing to put yourself out more for him than you are for us.”

It helps to have that support network, people to talk to without judgment. When you have that as a base, it’s easier to take risks, make decisions.”

It’s strange, she thinks, how for her, claustrophobia doesn’t only exist in spaces outside herself, but within her too. That horrible sense of being trapped inside your own body.

She’s always felt too self-conscious, foisting her random thoughts on the world.

Yet the fact that it doesn’t tell you everything is in itself revealing. The curation, the person they’re pretending to be, can say a lot: an insight into someone’s desires, their insecurities.

Why not tell the truth? Why give myself an authority I don’t deserve?

A dream that meant enough for her to keep a photograph on her desk, however painful it is to remember.

Hit your late twenties and people felt the need to box you up, categorize you. If they couldn’t, they saw you as a threat. An indefinable.

She’s forgotten how easy it is to lose track of someone; the sum of their parts.

He forces a smile but the hurt in his eyes is obvious.

lungs balling into two tight fists.

They’re neutral words, sharp edges sanded off inside his head.

The sight, once again, pulls the breath from her body. It’s like she’s on pause, every fiber in her body in stasis.

dry avalanche.