Page 122 of Read My Lips

Sev’s laugh echoed along the row of houses, shrill against the hard frontages as they charged.

I darted back so fast my hamstrings twanged.

Mrs F opened her garden gate, and her dog lunged towards the lot of them, barking its tiny head off, straining to get to them. The first few flinched back. The leash stretched trip wire taut, and the dog darted between them, snapping at ankles. Shouts erupted. I didn’t stop to watch the carnage.

Pacing for the high street like Usain Bolt, or, more accurately, a startled rabbit with a pack of dogs chasing it down, adrenaline crackled through me. Jumping cracks in the pavement, striding long, I rounded the corner, darting past a mum with a buggy, a kid on a scooter.

Traffic streamed down the high street in a steady flow, and I kept on. A bus signed for Clapham loomed over the cars down the far end of the road. Simon’s house was around the corner from one of the stops on the route. If the traffic lights didn’t change, I could get to the bus stop on the other side before the bus did.

Lungs burning, I pounded down the pavement, darting around pedestrians. The lights turned green. It didn’t swing into the empty stop. Request only; no one wanted to get off.

The roar of the double-decker accelerating towards the next set of traffic lights spurred me on. I dug deeper, charging on, ignoring the muscle burn. I could do this. The high sign of the next stop was within sight – a little white and red dot hovering on its pole further down the street. I could bloody do this.

Keeping pace with the back end of it, I raced to the next set of lights like an action hero. But there wasn’t a bomb on board. Catching up meant getting on. Seeing Simon. And Christ, what was I going to say to him? What was my plan?

The distance between me and the bus stretched out as the traffic thinned and it sped up. It roared ahead with no one to flag it down. No one on board dinging the bell.

The taillights disappeared over the curve of the hill. I slowed to walk, gagging on the humid air, breath shaking. Ducking my head between my knees, I wheezed, dripping sweat onto the pavement. I couldn’t catch that bus. Who was I kidding? Of course I couldn’t catch that bus.

I leaned against the nearest lamppost, needing it to hold me up. More cardio required. What was I doing? He’d cancelled all my bookings – he didn’t want to see me. I’d told him it was just convenient sex.

Of course he didn’t want to see me, no matter what Sev said.

This was unhinged. What did a bunch of photographs from before this mess started even mean? I hadn’t really known him then. We hadn’t known each other.

In my pocket, my phone rumbled.

Gran

Apples, eggs, white sliced. Check the use-by date. The last loaf went mouldy.

Tightness balled in my chest.

Without Simon, this was it, wasn’t it? My life. Nothing would change. Ever. I’d find new clients and I’d come home to a house full of other people’s things, and I’d get Gran’s shopping in, and I’d keep on failing to complain. I’d disappear.

And I didn’t want to.

Simon knew me inside and out. I had to take a chance.

Another bus sailed past, not stopping.

I knew him now. The bits of himself he downplayed, and his protective streak, and the way he watched me. Saw me. Cared.

I cared about him. All of him. Not just the perfectly curated parts he showed the world.

Down the high street, another bus was already coming. I sucked in a breath and started running. In front of me, the stream of taillights curved out of view over the hill, but they were slowing. And I was getting to the bus stop first if it killed me.

Head down, sprinting the distance, I didn’t dare look up at the rising growl of a bus engine roaring up behind me. One foot in front of the other. Strides flying. I would get there.

Fifty yards away, it made it to the stop, and pulled in. “Wait!”

But the bus doors flapped closed as soon as a woman hopped off the back and the looming chassis shuddered, lurching down at the gear change, ready to drive off. Stumbling forward, I banged a fist against the side. “Wait!” And stumbled over my own feet, diving down onto my knees.

The engine stopped juddering.

I peeled up from the pavement, and the driver hissed the doors open right in my face.

“Are you getting on, or what mate?”