The Key to Anchor Lake ✓

35 : Blaire

B L A I R E

•

I don't want stay for coffee. I can't. But the moment Elizabeth enters the room with a mug in each hand, I freeze. The edge of the book is digging into my thigh, stuffed between the cushions just in time, and I feel a cold sweat coming on, the kind that takes over when I'm in shock.

Elizabeth hands me a mug and sits down on the other sofa, sinking into it with a happy sigh. I'm on edge and I hate it. I hate that I've gone right back to not trusting her in the time it took to read my own name; I hate that I still know hardly a thing about her. I hate that this damn book, the one giving me a bruise right now, is driving a wedge between us and she doesn't even seem to realise.

"So," she says, pulling a blanket over her lap. "What've you been up to today?"

I'm going to tell her the truth. Most of it, anyway.

"I was with Sukie, Niko, and Cat," I say. "We had kind of an impromptu book club meeting."

"Oh?" Her expression doesn't change as she sips her tea, the steam fogging up her glasses.

"I had a breakthrough, actually. We've been studying Mary Nesbitt's book – the one you didn't want me to read – and I realised that she doesn't exist. It's a pseudonym for Betsy Martins. I figured out that she wrote the book, and everything she writes about is connected somehow."

Elizabeth sighs. She shakes her head, her lips downturned. "I wish you would stop surrounding yourself with this doom and gloom, Blaire. I know you think it's helping you but I don't agree."

"It is helping me. I met Sukie through her podcast about the book. And the others, too." I let out a quiet, bitter laugh. "I've got friends for the first time in my life, all because of a book you don't want me to read. I'm happy when I'm with them. I'm happy when I'm trying to figure out what the hell Betsy Martins wanted when she wrote the book."

She hums to herself, almost the exact sound Mum would make whenever she disagreed with me. "Please don't blow up at me for asking this," Elizabeth says, "but have you considered professional help, Blaire? You've been through an awful lot and I don't know how well you're processing what's happened. It might help you to talk to someone. Someone who can help."

Don't blow up, Blaire. Don't blow up.

I suck in a deep breath to control myself. "I don't need professional help," I say, as calmly as I can. "What helps me is my friends, and our book club, and that book." I look up at her, and almost recoil at the look of genuine concern on her face. "How can you tell me to get help, anyway? I know you've been through shit too. More than me. And you seemed pretty invested in that book the other day. What makes it okay for you and not for me?"

"I've spent fifty years in therapy, Blaire," Elizabeth says, cupping her mug in both hands even though it must be boiling hot. "I think I've given it a pretty good go, and I think it could help you. It could help us."

Fifty years in therapy. The thought makes me want to retch. Not the idea of therapy – deep inside, I know I probably need it, that I'll put it off until I tip into this dark abyss and it's almost too late – but the idea of fifty years. I'm not even twenty yet. Elizabeth's been in therapy more than twice as long as I've been alive.

The urge to blurt out my question, to let her know that I found her book and I saw my name, is unreal. But I can't. I can't shake the feeling that there's a careful balancing act going on between us and the worst thing to do would be to tip the scales too far in either direction.