Free Here We Lie by Sophie McKenzie

knowledge that losing his daughter, just
like losing Mum and Dad all those years ago, will never leave him, that the pain of it will shape his future forever. And that is a terrible burden for anyone to carry.
    ‘It’s tragic,’ Martin says, leaning forward in his chair. I meet his eyes and I know that he understands. ‘But Jed will survive it, he’s strong.’
    ‘Yes, and steady,’ Rose adds.
    ‘Yeah, the steadiest person you’ve ever been with,’ Laura says, patting my hand. ‘God and there were a few flakes back in the day.’
    I smile at her.
    ‘All charm and no substance,’ Rose agrees. ‘Like Dan Thackeray. D’you remember him, Mart?’
    My brother nods. I look down at the carpet.
    ‘Gosh, I haven’t thought about Dan Thackeray in years,’ Laura says. ‘He was
gorgeous.
I’d have totally done him if you hadn’t got there first,
sweetie.’
    I roll my eyes.
    ‘Mmm.’ Rose purses her lips. ‘Gorgeous but unreliable. God, d’you remember how upset you were when he dumped you, Emily? Cried for nearly a week without stopping.’
She tuts. ‘I’ve never seen anyone so devastated.’
    I look up to find everyone watching me.
    ‘Yeah, Dan,’ I say. ‘That takes me back.’
    It certainly does. Dan was the love of my life – at least he was before I fell in love with Jed. We met ten years ago at a party I hadn’t really even wanted to go to. I was wearing a
dress with thin straps and high, uncomfortable heels. I remember taking my shoes off to dance, feeling content and happy. I was delighted to be on my PGCE course, living away from home at last and
enjoying being out with my friends. Love was the last thing on my mind. And then Dan walked over and without warning, my heart was racing and I was caught up in the spell of his sparkling eyes. Dan
was twenty-three, like I was, and a journalist. He worked for a regional paper but was hungry for a job on one of the nationals ‘before they go completely digital’. He spoke fast and
intently and looked at me like I was the only person in the room. When he asked for my phone number, I punched it into his mobile with trembling fingers and when he called me the next day I, quite
literally, jumped up and down for joy.
    I meet Rose’s eyes. She, more than anyone, bore the brunt of my misery when the relationship ended. Because Dan turned out to be a commitment-phobe who strung me along for nearly two
years, then left me without a backward glance for a job in the States soon after we started living together.
    I remember the agony that followed all too well, and how my ever-caring sister did her best to help, bringing me food for which I had no appetite and advice about pebbles and beaches from which
I took no solace.
    I loved Dan harder, but it’s a better love with Jed: honest and solid and true. My phone rings into the silence. It’s Jed himself. I take the call halfway up the stairs, a place I
used to sit often when I was very little, watching and envying my older brother and sister allowed to stay up long after my own bedtime.
    ‘The post mortem’s in,’ Jed says, his voice thick with tension. ‘Dee Dee died from potassium cyanide poisoning.’
    ‘What?’ I’m jolted out of my nostalgic reverie. ‘How on earth—?’
    ‘It was in the ExAche powders you gave her,’ Jed says flatly.
    ‘Oh, God.’ Guilt grips me like a fist. ‘There was
poison
in the ExAche?’
    ‘Potassium cyanide, yes. It’s used in various plating industries and photographic processing. They found microscopic bits of it in the dregs of the powder left in the
sachet.’
    ‘But . . . but . . .’ My mind whirls as I try to get my head around this news.
    ‘If you’re thinking the cyanide must have tasted horrible, you’re right,’ Jed goes on. ‘But then according to your statement you’d already warned Dee Dee that
the powders were bitter and told her to drink the whole glass.’
    ‘Oh, God, Jed, I’m so sorry, I—’
    ‘I don’t mean it like that,