Джеймс Чейз - The Way the Cookie Crumbles

I’m going for a swim now. I shall go on swimming until I can’t swim anymore. I hope, by doing this, I’ll save you from getting too involved in this mess. I would like to think you will miss me a little. I am glad about Joy; she’ll make you happy and you’ve earned it.

So goodbye, and please try to believe I really wouldn’t have done it if I had known about Norena.

Love,

She put down the ballpoint and read the letter through.

She was in the beach cabin and she had on a white bikini that made her skin look more bronze than it was. She was very quiet and unemotional as she put the letter in an envelope and sealed it. She wrote Devon’s name on the envelope and propped it against a flower vase on the table.

She stood up, looked briefly around the room, then walked out into the hot sunshine.

In the far distance, she could see people bathing, but they were too far away to worry her. With long, easy strides, she walked down to the sea, her head held high, her mouth firm, her eyes dry. She walked into the sea and began to swim with powerful strokes that took her swiftly away from the land, and the new way of life that she had found but that wasn’t for her.