Haunted

That night, I took my stuff to Elisha’s and stayed there. Her son Tristan didn’t leave Oreo’s side, not that Oreo minded the attention. I’d booked two weeks off work for our honey moon which now meant two weeks doing nothing. Elisha and her husband were at work so I’d offered to look after Tristan instead of him going to nursery like he usually did. “Danni, we take Oreo for walk and go park?” he asked, in his cute, miss-out-every-other-word voice.
“That’s a good idea. Go get your shoes then.” He ran upstairs while I put Oreo on his lead. “Mummy get me ice-cream at park. You get me ice-cream at park too?”
“Alright but you gotta promise to eat all your lunch yeah?” He nodded and ran down the road, a few feet ahead of me.
No sooner had we arrived at the park, my phone started ringing. My heart started racing when I saw who was calling. “Who on phone?” Tristan asked.
“Work, go play for a minute yeah,” I said. He nodded and rushed off towards the slide.
“Hello?” I pressed the phone to my ear.
“Where the hell are you?” Liam yelled.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“I’ll come and get you, just tell me where you are.”
“No. I’m not coming home.”
“This isn’t because of the other day surely. You cheated on me, I hit you, we’re even right?”
“Whatever, bye Liam.” I cancelled the call.

That evening, I went round Xander’s for dinner. Isabelle was there too. I was annoyed; my whole life I’d dreamed of being friends with Isabelle and Xander and now here I was but I was too caught up in everything else to properly enjoy it. “Liam phoned today,” I said.
“What did he want?”
“He wants me to come home – I hung up.”
“Good. He can go fuck himself. Is, I didn’t say did I, Amandla got the part.”
“Oh wow, that’s amazing.”
“I know, it hasn’t been made official yet though so keep quiet.”
“Sure.” I loved how the whole of the Hunger Games cast got on so well and were always hanging out. Even though I was totally jealous of Amandla, I couldn’t help but love her. Xander went into the kitchen to order pizza while Isabelle filled me in on Amandla and her new role. She was so nice. I didn’t know it was possible to be so talented and friendly and popular whilst looking like a supermodel. Usually I felt really self-conscious around people so perfect but Xander and Isabelle were just so easy to talk to, it was like we’d known each other for years.

The pizza arrived and we ate and watched scary movies and talked and laughed for hours. At about eleven, Isabelle and I went home.
“You’re back late,” Elisha said, giving me a knowing look.
“Sooo…” She shrugged.
“Dunno, you seem to like him.”
“What? I know you’re into your matchmaking but no, I’ve got Liam.”
“You said so yourself, he’s an idiot. He accused you of cheating and he hit you. Is that really what you want?” I suddenly wished I hadn’t told Elisha, or Xander or Isabelle for that matter. Not that I exactly told Xander. “Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Well, I’m not gonna tell you what to do. Just don’t let anyone mess you around okay? Alright, I’m going to bed,” she muttered, trudging up the stairs. I poured myself a glass of water before going to bed myself. Maybe I’d sleep well tonight. Ha, who am I kidding?

Three days later, I woke from a restless, nightmare-filled sleep and quickly got dressed. It was half past ten; Elisha and her husband were already at work which must have meant they took Tristan to nursery. I felt terrible moving into their house, giving them short notice and now I was too busy sleeping to even look after their son. I couldn’t do it. I ran the hoover round and did some washing up and a food shop since it was the least I could do. Even so, I didn’t feel any better.

After wandering aimlessly round the house for an hour, I decided to go and visit Ryan. This time though, I wasn’t stupid enough to talk loudly. Instead I spoke in almost a whisper.
“I think I’m gonna call Liam. Why not? Now I think about it, we are even. Of course, I didn’t actually cheat on him but I did lie to him. Besides, I love him and nothing can change that. He’s sorry for what he did, though he didn’t mean to do it in the first place. The thing is, I’m still too scared to tell him the truth. So, I might not come to see you as much anymore but you’ve gotta understand, it’s not that I’m not thinking about you. This is for the best, okay. Please believe me. I love you.” I placed a bunch of white roses down in front of the gravestone. My eyes glazed over but for once I managed to hold in the tears. Crying never solved anything; it only made you feel worse. The last thing I wanted to do was give Elisha another reason to think I needed help. I got up and walked slowly towards the gate, dialling Liam’s number as I went.
“Give me an hour, I’m coming home,” I said so quickly and simply.
“Good girl, I knew you’d come around,” he said in his flat blunt voice. I went back to Elisha’s, left her a note and loaded my still packed bags into a taxi. Liam greeted me with a kiss followed by silence. I went upstairs and put my bags on the bed. “Why aren’t you unpacking? You’re back now so everything can go back to how it was.” I did as I was told but I couldn’t help feeling something had changed. This wasn’t the Liam I knew. His usually happy friendly personality had changed into a grim and boring one. He was talking as though someone had died. Maybe he just needed time. Maybe what had happened was as much of a shock to him as it was to me. He’d be back to usual before long.