In this chap­ter, Will, referred to as “The Groom,” finds him­self nav­i­gat­ing through a pow­er out­age on a stormy night, prompt­ed to assist Aoife, a char­ac­ter with whom he shares a tense exchange. Ini­tial­ly dis­rupt­ed by weath­er-induced incon­ve­nience, the sit­u­a­tion quick­ly esca­lates into a con­fronta­tion loaded with per­son­al vendet­ta and rev­e­la­tions of a dark past. Will, per­turbed by the fierce gale mess­ing up his hair—yet unwill­ing to admit such vanity—sets out with his phone’s torch lit, only to encounter Aoife beck­on­ing in the dark­ness.

Aoife, seek­ing help with the fail­ing gen­er­a­tor, covert­ly draws Will away, only to con­front him with a bar­rage of accu­sa­tions linked to his past, par­tic­u­lar­ly cen­tered around a dis­tress­ing event involv­ing a boy named Darcey at Trev­ellyan’s. Through the guise of fix­ing a pow­er cut, Aoife reveals her true intent was to con­front Will about his involve­ment in the bul­ly­ing and even­tu­al tragedy of Darcey, who is implied to have met a fatal end due to the actions of Will and anoth­er indi­vid­ual named Jonathan Brig­gs.

Aoife, lever­ag­ing the stormy set­ting for a pri­vate reck­on­ing, exploits Will’s fame from his show “Sur­vive the Night” to lure him to the island for her con­fronta­tion. She dis­clos­es her con­nec­tion to Darcey, indi­cat­ing a per­son­al vendet­ta fueled by unre­solved grief and unan­swered ques­tions sur­round­ing the cir­cum­stances of Darcey’s death. Aoife’s metic­u­lous plan­ning cul­mi­nates in an eerie con­fronta­tion on the edge of a bog, sym­bol­i­cal­ly cho­sen for its prox­im­i­ty to Darcey’s grave—a poignant reminder of the inno­cence lost and the haunt­ing con­se­quences of Will’s past actions.

Through­out the dia­logue, the chap­ter unrav­els themes of guilt, ret­ri­bu­tion, and the inescapable shad­ows of the past. Will’s con­fronta­tion with Aoife serves as a stark rev­e­la­tion of the last­ing impacts of bul­ly­ing and the com­plex web of emo­tions sur­round­ing the untime­ly death of a young, inno­cent life. The pow­er cut, ini­tial­ly a minor incon­ve­nience, trans­forms into a metaphor­i­cal dark­ness that reflects the moral and eth­i­cal tur­moil engulf­ing the char­ac­ters, cul­mi­nat­ing in a tense, unset­tling encounter filled with impli­ca­tions of judg­ment and the quest for clo­sure.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

Ear­li­er
WILL
The Groom
Jules and I walk back to the mar­quee togeth­er. I leave Olivia
to make her own way. For one crazy moment there, real­is­ing
how near we were to the cliff edge, I was tempt­ed. It
wouldn’t have come as that much of a sur­prise. She tried to
drown her­self ear­li­er, after all – or that’s cer­tain­ly how it
looked, before I saved her. And with this wind – it’s real­ly
blow­ing a gale now – there would have been so much
con­fu­sion.
But that’s not me. I’m not a killer. I’m a good guy.
It’s all some­what out of con­trol, though, every­thing
get­ting out of hand. I’ll have to sort things out.
Obvi­ous­ly I could nev­er have told Jules about Olivia. Not
by the time I made the con­nec­tion between them that day
at her mum’s house, not when it had gone so far. What
would have been the point in hurt­ing Jules unnec­es­sar­i­ly?
The thing with Olivia – that was nev­er going to be real, was
it? It was a tem­po­rary attrac­tion. With her it was all based
on lies, hers as much as mine. In fact it was the pre­tence
that got me going when we met on that date, try­ing to be
some­one she wasn’t. Pre­tend­ing to be old­er, pre­tend­ing to
be sophis­ti­cat­ed. That inse­cu­ri­ty. It made me want to
cor­rupt her, rather like a girl­friend I had at uni once, who
was one of the good girls – smart, a hard work­er, who came
from some crum­my school and didn’t think she was good
enough to be there.
When I met Jules at that par­ty, how­ev­er, that was
dif­fer­ent. It was like fate. I saw how good we would be
togeth­er straight away. How good we’d look togeth­er –
phys­i­cal­ly, yes, but also in how well-matched we were. Me,
on the brink of a promis­ing new career, her, such a high
fly­er. I need­ed an equal, some­one with self-con­fi­dence,
ambi­tion – some­one like me. Togeth­er we’d be invin­ci­ble.
And we are.
Olivia will keep qui­et, I think. I’ve known that since the
begin­ning. Knew she wouldn’t feel any­one would believe
her. She doubts her­self too much. Except – and per­haps I’m
sim­ply being para­noid – it does feel like she’s changed since
we’ve been here. Every­thing seems changed on this island.
It’s as though the place is doing it, that we’ve been brought
here for a rea­son. I know that’s ridicu­lous. It’s the fact of
hav­ing so many peo­ple in one spot all at once: past and
present. I’m usu­al­ly so care­ful, but I admit I hadn’t thought
it all through, how it might play out hav­ing them all here
togeth­er. The con­se­quences of it.
So. Olivia: I think I’m fine there. But I’ll have to do
some­thing about John­no, soon as I get back to the mar­quee.
I can’t have him run­ning his mouth off to any­one and
every­one. I under­es­ti­mat­ed him, per­haps. I thought it was
safer to have him here than not, to keep him close. But Jules
invit­ed Piers with­out my know­ing. Yes, actu­al­ly, that’s where
it all went wrong. If she hadn’t, John­no would nev­er have
known about the TV thing and we could have car­ried on as
nor­mal. It would nev­er have worked, him on the show, he
must know that. He does, in fact: he put it so well him­self.
He’s an absolute lia­bil­i­ty. With his pot-smok­ing and his
drink­ing and his long fuck­ing mem­o­ry. He’d have had some
sort of freak-out in front of a jour­nal­ist and it would all have
come out. If he can see that – what a dis­as­ter he would
have been – then I don’t real­ly under­stand why is he so cut