Cowardice

Chelsea chews heavily on the inside of her cheek as she trails after her Mum, walking back out into the now crisp mid-afternoon air, arms crossed over her chest to fend off the dip in temperature despite the summer month.

Her Mother is stalling, unnecessarily checking the boot of the car for any more of her daughter's possessions, glancing through the windows into the back seats and huffing as she fails to find anything else for them to carry into the house.

"Suppose that's it all." She looks defeated and still in denial that this is happening.

"Thank you for helping me, Mum." She offers a gentle smile, leaning down to engulf her in a tight hug, sighing as she feels her own tears start to swell as he Mum lets out a wet sniffle.

"I think you're very brave, Chelsea. I hope you know that."

This isn't bravery, Chelsea thinks. This is cowardice. This is running away from her problems like only she knows how to do.

"I'm not, but thank you. Again. Probably would have ended up in Scotland without your expert knowledge and sense of direction."

"I'm sure you would've been fine. Thank you for letting me say goodbye here. Makes me feel a little better that you're settled in alright. I'm glad Nana has someone keep an eye on this place."

"I'll be fine. I promise. Big girl now."

"I'll come get you whenever you want. Doesn't matter when it is. Day or night. Rain or shine." She hastily wipes away a tear, "I just wish you didn't feel you had to do this."

"It's better all round, Mum. I need some time. He needs some time. I definitely need space."

Maybe it's a bit extreme to decide that she needs two hundred miles worth of space and something close to zero percent of bumping into anyone she knows, and maybe the decision had been rash and half-cooked but she was here now and she certainly wasn't going to admit defeat and climb back into the car with her Mother.

Skelwith Bridge was about twenty minutes North East of Lake Windermere, a tiny village, boasting a few locally run shops and one hotel for the hikers to base themselves in and not much else. The scenery was something out of a picture book, probably what most people imagined when they thought of quintessential English countryside, what with it's secluded stone cottages and rolling hills.

It was a far call from the bustling city of Coventry where Chelsea had lived since the age of eight. Gone was the air filled with exhaust fumes and pollution and in it's place just crisp air, only slightly tainted by the nearby farms.

Chelsea's Grandmother had promised her peace and quiet, and she could see why. The semi-detached cottage her Nana had bought as a holiday home was set at the bottom of a fell, down it's own private gravel drive, and a good ten minute walk away from the next house.

As Chelsea stood, watching her Mother climb into her car, tears still present in her eyes, she wondered silently to herself, if this was a good idea after all.



It wasn't the that she was suddenly living alone. She'd moved out of her Mum's house aged nineteen, taking up residence in a shared house with her best friend and three other strangers. The sense of independence she'd gained outweighed the slight sick feeling she felt now she responsible for herself.

From there, she'd lived alone a dingy studio flat above a Chinese takeaway in the city centre for a few months before things became serious between her and her then boyfriend and they'd both signed on the dotted line to take up the rent of a two bedroom house in a nearby suburb.

It was only in the past month that she'd found herself living back with Mother, the relationship that had started out so hopeful now a mess of lies and betrayal and hurt.

No, the countryside cottage only set dread swimming in veins because of how secluded it really was. There was to be no calling up a friend or work colleague to see if they fancied a night in on the sofa if she got lonely, or popping along to a chain coffee shop if she suddenly felt that she'd been wallowing in her own company for too long.

Chelsea wasn't even sure there was a local pub for her to trail along too just for sound of other people's conversations.

She had thought ahead however, and in less than a week she would have the greatest invention of the modern age, Wi-Fi, installed. The mere two bars of signal she'd had since leaving the service station in Preston were promptly lost when she'd rounded the corner into Skelwith which left her with very little hope that the signal would be much good anyway.

Now her Mum's car has been waved off, rumbling up the stone-ridden driveway, there's almost silence. There's the very distant sound of some cows and the quiet melody from a song she's got playing from her phone, set down somewhere in the house to stave off that suffocating sense of isolation.

It's with one last look towards where she estimated the village was, through the thick line of trees, that Chelsea retreats inside.

Most of her belongings are still in boxes, tucked away in a storage facility in the industrial sector of her home town, but there's still a substantial amount of things to tidy away. Clothes and reminders of home. The gargantuan shop she'd done at Asda on the way up - enough cans of beans and soup to survive an apocalypse - all had to be stored properly. The new TV she'd bought to replace the ancient one her Nan couldn't ensure would still work with the years worth of dust it probably contained from disuse, had to be set up with her limited technological knowledge.

Luckily the friends her Grandmother had made on her many trips down here in the height of summer, popped in regularly to check for burst pipes and any sign of damp or structural damage, so there was no worry of being without running water or the roof caving in on her.

At least, that's what she was telling herself.



Three days into her stay, Chelsea has hastily picked up her car keys to leave at least a dozen times. Usually it's once the sky has darkened, when there's only the orange glow of the lights in the house and even the sound of the odd passing car has long disappeared.
It stops being relaxing almost immediately, and the irrational fear that she's somehow found herself in the middle of a horror film bothers her almost constantly. She's just waiting for the ominous knock at the door before she runs screaming home.

It's also on that third day, well after it's got dark and she's refusing to go to bed, only to toss and turn for hours listening to the wind and terrifying call of a fox, that a car turns down the lane.
It's headlights light up her house like something out of a crime scene and her eyes are fixated as she follows it's path towards the cottage.

Chelsea tries to reason with herself, that it's some poor fool, who left late and can't read any of the signs as they travel through the winding roads. That whoever this person is, they're just using her private drive as somewhere to safely turn themselves around.

Except the brake lights flash on and there's a kick of gravel as the car comes to a definite stop, practically in her front garden.

"Yep." She nods, throwing her head into her hands, "I'm gonna die here."

The car sits in darkness, no overhead light being flicked on to indicate a glance at a map or phone, or movement of a car door being opened. Whoever it is has decided to be the ultimate movie villain and idle.

If she was braver, Chelsea thinks, she'd go outside, knock of the window and ask if they were lost, if they needed a tow calling, if they could bloody well get off her property because they were scaring the life out of her.

Instead, she sits, wide eyed, just staring, wondering if she can be seen from her slight hiding place behind the heavy curtains in the living room. It's got to be obvious that there's someone home, what with the lights on in just about every room and the smoke billowing out of the chimney from the range in the kitchen.

After twenty heart wrenching minutes, where Chelsea considers ringing everyone from her Mother to the police, that someone finally climbs out of the vehicle. The automatic light that activates as the door is opened illuminates the person only briefly before it's slammed again and Chelsea only manages to spot that it's a male, and a relatively rough looking one.

Chelsea's brain starts sprinting with theories. This guy was a psychotic hitchhiker who killed the original owner of the car and has been driving around ever since looking for a house to hideaway in.
Or, he's a fugitive who's just nicked a load of money and scoured Google maps until he found a secluded place to live from then on.
Or she's managed to somehow upset someone enough that they've hired a hitman who's been waiting until she isolated enough for him to carry out his charge.

She doesn't get a chance to think of another one as the dark silhouette approaches, and just as Chelsea braces herself to have to run somewhere, the man opens the next cottages front gate and shuffles in through the front door with only a kick to the swollen wood.

"Fuck." Chelsea breathes, feeling all her breath leave her in one giant huff, "Fuck. Fuck."

She repeats it as she turns off all the lights, and as she rushes up the stairs. The word is still going round her brain as she brushes her teeth and when she finally climbs into the chilled bed. She starts muttering it into the pillow as she listens with tense ears for any sound of movement through the shared wall.