‘Fantastic,’ I said, focusing my anger on that in an attempt to keep the rising panic at bay. My house was falling apart around me and I was leaking blood from at least one part of my body. My head was pounding and my right foot was stinging too so I wasn’t putting either of those in the clear either. I turned the torch onto the floor where the shattered table and broken window frame lay, then followed the spray of glass as the shards caught the light way across the room, twinkling back at me like tiny, vicious stars. I sat down heavily on the bed.
I looked down at my phone. Who did you call in this situation? A family member, a friend, the police? No, that was ridiculous. What the hell could the police do?Hello? I’d like to report a rogue window.More like rogue window fitters. As for the other two, I didn’t have any family and the only friends I did have were miles away back in London. Not that anyone had called to see how I was. I’d always been too busy to nurture any real friendships, and perhaps a bit suspicious. Trust wasn’t exactly something I excelled at and I’d been with my ex for a decade so his friends had become my friends. Or so I’d thought. I guess in the end, they were just his friends after all.
I took a deep inhale, tried to ignore the creak and groan of the tree just outside the window and turned to bum shuffle across the bed. The longer I stayed here, the colder I was getting. My teeth were already chattering as I grabbed the bloody throw from the bed and wrapped it around myself. It was already ruined so in for a penny, in for a pound and all that. I pushed myself up and tottered unsteadily towards the door, my hand stretched out to feel for the doorframe. As I grabbed it with relief, a loud crack reverberated around the room, the rain lashing in through the gaping hole where there had once been a window. I turned back just in time to see a huge branch tear through the roof and land sprawled on my bed, its end sticking out through the wall. My room, my house, was totalled but all I could do was stare at the huge log that now rested in the same place I had been just seconds ago.
* * *
Through the howls of the wind, I heard another noise. Still stunned as I stood staring at how much closer than planned I suddenly was to nature, I didn’t react. The noise stopped. Almost immediately, it started again. Finally the familiar sound jolted me out of my stupor and I put the phone to my ear.
‘Hello?’ I answered without checking the screen.
‘Felicity?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Jesse. Are you all right up there?’ His words were quick and sharp, tension resonating through them.
‘Umm…’
‘OK. That’s not the positive reply I was hoping for.’
‘There’s a tree in my bedroom.’ My words sounded oddly calm.
There was silence on the line and I went to drop my hand, assuming the storm, not content with crapping on my house, thought it would round out what I hoped was its finale by destroying my only contact with civilisation.
‘Felicity?’
I lifted the phone back up. ‘Sorry. I thought we’d got cut off.’ My words were as casual as if I’d been on a train and gone through a tunnel.
‘No. I was just… Did you say there’s a tree in your bedroom?’
‘Yes. I think I’m going to need a new roof. Actually, I think I’m going to need a new house. In fact…’ reality was peeling back the layers of shock and waving enthusiastically ‘…I could really do with a new life. This one’s rather turned to shit.’ And then I hung up because I felt the tears, frustration and downright fury about to blow and I had no desire to embarrass myself in front of my handsome, disapproving neighbour any more than I already had.
I was about to do what he’d likely expected me to in the first place. Something I’d never done in my life before, no matter how hard things had been. But right now, as I sat on the landing of my partially destroyed house, I couldn’t see any other way. I was going to give up. There was no way I was going to make my money back on this place, especially with its impromptu roof garden, but I’d take what I could and get the hell out of here.
For a while, I’d thought I could do it, thought I could make that shift from city living to the country. The quiet was definitely growing on me and I’d sort of made a friend in Julie, who didn’t appear to want anything in return – which in itself had been novel. But I couldn’t win against this. Where did I even bloody start when there was a sodding tree lying on my bed – or at least the remnants of the beautiful, period-style bed I’d bought with the insanely expensive mattress and seven-star hotel-quality sheets? The one bit of comfort in this disaster of a so-called house and it was smashed to pieces and sodden.
I screamed with frustration at the tree, the wind, the storm and life in general. Everything I’d done, everything I’d battled and won and worked for. Where the fuck did I go from here?
A hefty gust blew through. The painting on the wall next to me that I’d hung myself – thank you, YouTube – slammed against the wall then lifted and crashed to the floor, glass splintering everywhere, the paper inside already crumpling in the rain. I let out another lung-busting scream that encompassed all the feelings I couldn’t even begin to put into words.
‘Felicity?’ The shout came from outside and I snapped my mouth closed. ‘Felicity!’
I staggered upright, gripping the wall as heavy footsteps came racing up the stairs, torchlight dancing in front of them. Jesse. His arms reached for me and I let them. Suddenly, the muscles in my legs that I’d trained at the gym religiously four times a week felt like blancmange.
His gaze left mine momentarily to take in the surroundings. ‘Jesus. Are you all right? Are you hurt?’
I shook my head.
‘You screamed.’
I shook my head again. ‘I’m all right. Honestly.’ I looked down, suddenly embarrassed at the thought that he had heard my screams of frustration, despite the fact that they had oddly made me feel a little better.
His hand caught my face. There was a slight roughness to his skin, a man who used his hands. This was in contrast to the men I usually associated with, some of whom had a better hand and nail regimen than I did.
‘You’re sure?’
I nodded against his hand.
