I sat heavily onto the bed. It was soft, layered with the thick, fluffy duvet, and suddenly I wanted to slip out of the towel, burrow under the covers, and not come out till morning.

What a fool you are, I said to myself. You came back for him, and in thirty seconds it’s already clear that he’s embarrassed to see you, that he secretly hoped you wouldn’t show, and now he sees you’re here and trolling the hallways in a fucking towel for Christ’s sake, trying to lure him into your bed like some desperate divorcée who stakes out college bars . . .

Shut up.

Why? You know it’s true.

It wasn’t like that. None of it. I didn’t come here for him. I wasn’t trying to lure him anywhere. I was just taking a fucking shower . . .

He won’t believe that. That’s the one thing you know for sure. He doesn’t believe a word you say.

I got under the duvet and pulled it over my head.

Chapter Seven

I stare into the darkness, focusing my gaze on the shape between the cupboard and the door, but I am not even sure it is there or, if it is, that it was not there before. I feel like a child in bed, fixating on the shadow of a shirt on a hanger, trying to decide if it’s a monster.

“Hello?” I say. It takes me two attempts. The inside of my mouth is dry and my tongue sticks. I swallow, suddenly realizing how thirsty I am, and say it again, clearly this time. “Is there anyone there?”

It should be funny, I think, that movie cliché, but I don’t laugh. I listen hard, but there is no response. I think I can see the shape still, but it’s a mere craggy blackness against the fractional pallor of the wall. If it is a wall. What I think is a cupboard may not be. The door may not be a door. I can’t tell. It’s just too dark. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m chained to a ring in the wall beside a bed that is really just a mattress on a concrete block.

But I feel it. Something, nestled, squatting there like the nightmare demon in a painting, though this is not squatting. It is sitting in a chair, slumped forward. Unmoving. I’m almost sure.

And I’m also almost sure it wasn’t there before. My skin creeps, my heart races, and my eyes strain wide, afraid to blink and miss . . . what? The thing rising? Looming over me?

The sob breaks from me and I fight to stifle it.

“What do you want?” I gasp to the thing that might not be there.

Still no response, but now I’m sure I did not feel like this before. I was scared before. Confused and frightened by the chain and the darkness. But something has changed. I must have slept, and now things are different. Now I feel . . .

Watched.

I can’t see them, but there are eyes in the darkness. Perhaps. I can’t be sure, and the uncertainty is killing me. I want to get up and lean across, to touch, just to be sure. Because knowing would be better than this dreadful uncertainty. I can’t, of course, and not only because the chain won’t let me reach that far. I can’t move. My muscles have shut down, paralyzed by fear.

I have to know, I think again. Whatever is there is less frightening than not knowing.

And as the idea of this takes hold, I hear something that proves me wrong.

A breath. In and out. Almost a sigh. Coming from the corner by the door.

I stop breathing. I feel my heart tighten in my chest, as if, for a second, every cell in my body just ceases whatever it usually does. I am lifeless. Iron, like the ring in the wall against which my wrist chafes, or ice.

I am fear, and no other thought, feeling, or sensation registers.

I had thought that not being sure was the worst thing I could feel here in the dark, but someone is there, and knowing that is far, far worse.

Chapter Eight

“Oh my God! Did you fall asleep?” said Melissa.

“Sorry,” I said. I had slept for an hour and a half and now felt sluggish and stupid. I had dressed reluctantly and tiptoed down, half hoping everyone would be gone and I could let my humiliation leech out of my system slowly and alone.

“You missed the drinkies,” said Melissa.

At the foot of the stairs I had ducked away from the sound of raucous talking and laughter in what I took to be the living room and found her in a rustic but well-appointed kitchen next door, loading glassware into the dishwasher.

“Not to worry,” she said, giving me a sympathetic look. “There’ll be plenty more. Poor lamb, you must be exhausted.”

“I am, kind of,” I said.

“Tell you what,” said Melissa, taking charge. “Get your bikini on and we’ll spend the afternoon at the beach. Nice and easy. Then drinks and dinner, and you can get an early night.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Mel,” I said. “I’m pretty beat.”

“Nonsense. You’ve come all this way, and if you go back to bed now, you’ll never get your body on schedule. Gotta tough it out till sundown, and then you’ll be set for the rest of the week. Only way. Oh!” she exclaimed suddenly. “You haven’t met Gretchen! You’re gonna love her. Right this way, missy.”

She took my hand and led me in the direction of the voices. For a split second I considered pulling back, just tensing the muscles of my arm enough to send the message and stop her in her tracks so she’d know I didn’t want to go in. But then again I didn’t really want her to know. To tell you the truth, it was almost impossible not to want to please Melissa. She was the sun.

So I walked, and we went in and there they were, Simon in his short sleeves as before, a half-empty cocktail glass in his hand; Marcus smiling faintly from him to me, his eyes evasive, both hands clasped around a beer glass as if afraid he might drop it; and a girl. A woman, I should say, but she looked young, waifish, if pretty, a less confident version of Melissa. She was wearing a summer dress and chunky jewelry that made her look like a college student, and her face was tanned, as if she had been out in the sun for several days already. I glanced at Marcus again but couldn’t read his attitude toward her.

“Gretchen, this is Jan,” said Melissa. “She used to be with Marcus, ages back, when we first met them. Now they’re just friends.”

I gaped at Melissa, who gave me a blank look as Gretchen awkwardly got to her feet and offered me a slender white hand.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m a friend of Mel and Simon.”

“Hi,” I said. Marcus was looking at Melissa with the same disbelief I was sure was painted all over my face.

“What?” asked Melissa, apparently genuinely confused.

“Nothing,” I said hurriedly, trying to move past it.

“There is,” said Melissa, taking in Marcus’s expression. “Oh, I’m sorry, was that a secret? Did I . . . ?”

“No,” Marcus and I said at once.

“Of course not,” Marcus added.

“I thought it was, you know,” said Melissa, “common knowledge or whatever.”

“It is!” I said, beaming manically.

“And you are still friends, right?” Melissa persisted.

“Absolutely!” said Marcus. “Great friends.”

“Always,” I agreed.

“We just don’t . . . ,” Marcus began, then looked panicky. “Not anymore. We’re just . . .”

“Friends,” I said, staring at him, horrified, wishing the floor would open and the earth would swallow us up. Gretchen gaped at us, eyes wide, smile fixed tight.

“OK,” said Melissa, shrugging the moment off as if it hadn’t happened and going right back to where she had been before. “So, beach, yeah? A little dip before dinner.”

“Won’t it be cold?” asked Gretchen, glad of the chance to change the subject.

“Apparently not,” said Simon, brandishing a guidebook and reading from it theatrically. “‘While the air cools in the fall, the sea retains most of its summer heat into November.’ Apparently we should expect the water to still be in the midseventies.”

He let the book slip from his fingers and fall into the lap of a startled Marcus, its apparent owner, like he was dropping the mic. Everyone laughed with just a bit more verve than the moment deserved.

“I’d better change,” I said, still avoiding Marcus’s eyes.

“That’s right, missy,” said Melissa. “Time to get some sun on that pasty skin!”

I turned to the stairs and she slapped my ass—not hard but somehow managing to get a resounding thwack that echoed round the room.

“Yes!” said Melissa. “Beach! I can’t wait.”

I fled, jogging upstairs and barely breathing till I had the bedroom door closed behind me. It was going to take an act of will to get me to open it again.