Free Every Vow You Break by Julia Crouch

line-learning nooks and crannies there were.
    ‘Don’t you want to wait until you’ve done the read-through before you learn them?’ she said. ‘You’ve always said that’s the best way.’
    ‘Best way unless you’ve got the fuck-off lead part,’ Marcus said, smiling and pushing the suitcases on to the floor. Then he stopped and looked at Lara. ‘What’s that you’ve got on? Did you buy it?’
    ‘It’s ancient. What do you think?’ She breathed in and held her arms out.
    Marcus looked her up and down.
    ‘Yes,’ he said in his slightly strangled acting voice.
    ‘You don’t like it, do you?’
    ‘I do,’ he said.
    ‘What’s the matter with it?’ She wished he was a better actor.
    ‘Don’t be angry with me.’
    ‘I won’t be angry with you if you tell me the truth,’ she said.
    ‘OK. Well, you look a little, well, bulgy in it.’
    ‘Bulgy?’
    ‘Um yes.’
    Lara paused for a second and took a sideways glance in the mirror, catching herself unawares, not pulling in.
    It’s true, she thought, her spirits plummeting.
    ‘Thank you for your honesty.’
    ‘No look. It’s lovely. It really is.’
    Lara pulled the pink floral dress off and, hung it up at the far end of a rail running down one side of the eaves room, where it would stay all summer. She walked naked back into the bedroom holding the black jersey thing Johnnie Boden promised would flatter any shape. Marcus was already lying on the bed, studying his script. He didn’t look up at her.
    She slipped the jersey thing on.
    ‘How about this?’ she said. ‘With my amber beads?’
    Marcus sighed and raised his eyes. ‘What? Oh yes, that’s a lot better,’ he said. Then, pointedly, he returned to his script.
    ‘Right,’ Lara said, taking off the dress and hanging it up again. ‘Well. I’m going to have a shower, then I’m going to get on for a bit.’
    ‘Great,’ he said.
    ‘We’ll leave for the show at about four thirty, then?’
    ‘OK, babe. Could I just get on with this?’ He gestured to his script.
    ‘Fine,’ she said. And, picking up her laptop, she went out of the door, pulling it tight shut behind her.

Nine
    ‘THIS HEAT IS DISGUSTING,’ BELLA SAID, AS SHE, OLLY AND JACK dangled on the school playground swings.
    The wooded hills beyond the perimeter of the playground made Bella feel tiny, encircled in their vast shawl of greenery. They were different to the South Downs back home, those long ridges of chalky grassland that spelled a welcome when she returned from a trip, filling her with freshness and possibility.
    These New York hills were something altogether different. They hemmed her in, as if they were sucking the breath from her and transpiring it as yet more wetness in the awful, muggy heat of the late July afternoon.
    These New York hills made her feel watched.
    A trickle of sweat worked its way down the hollow of her back.
    ‘Ugh.’ She shuddered.
    ‘Push!’ Jack commanded from his own swing.
    ‘Your turn, Olly,’ Bella said.
    ‘But …’
    ‘Just do it.’ She pulled back and swung herself up, pointing her feet in front of her, silhouetting them against the hazy sun.
    ‘Shitting hell,’ Olly said. But he got up and pushed until Jack was giggling and soaring, his small legs catching the arc of each upward swing at the same time as Bella, so they hung together for a second each time in the dense air.
    Bella and Olly had reached something of a truce since the day before – a practical step based on the fact that they were rather thrown together on Trout Island. In their usual manner, no words had been spoken about this – the ability to communicate silently with one another being one of the more socially acceptable aspects of their connection.
    ‘Looks like we’ve got company,’ Olly said, nodding over to the trees by the graveyard. Bella squinted across the shimmering tarmac and saw three boys, a little older than Olly and herself, leaning on a couple of shady headstones, swigging from bottles of