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Thunder rolled again, marginally nearer this time and Sophy winced.
‘If I were you I’d go upstairs and bury your head under a pillow,’ Mary-Beth suggested. ‘That way you won’t hear it.’
Sophy walked with her to the door and watched until her car had completely disappeared feeling that somehow she had just severed her final link with Jon. The ache in her temples had become a fully fledged pain; pain, in fact, seemed to invade her whole body. She went upstairs on dragging feet, but instead of going into her own room she went into Jon’s.
The room was clean and tidy just as she had left it after cleaning it yesterday morning and yet overwhelmingly it reminded her of him. One of his shirts half hung out of the laundry basket by the door and she went automatically to push it in, tensing as her fingers curled round the soft cotton and she was irresistibly aware of how the fabric had clung to his body. Like a sleepwalker she lifted the shirt from the empty basket, pressing its softness to her face. She wanted to cry but the tears had solidified in a lump in her chest—a lump that ached and hurt with every breath she tried to take. A scent that was exclusively Jon’s filled her senses with an awareness of him, and almost without realising what she was doing she stumbled over to his bed and flung herself down full length on it, still clutching his shirt. Outside the sky darkened, suddenly split by the first sizzling arc of lightning. Sophy cried out curling up into a tense ball, burying her face in Jon’s pillow.
Her fear of the storm seemed to release the tight knot of pain inside her and suddenly she was crying, tearing, ugly sobs that shook her body and soaked the shirt and pillow she was still clinging to. Outside the storm drew nearer and her tears slowly gave way to terror. Logic told her that she should get up and close the curtains but the fear chaining her to the bed was too great.
An hour, maybe more, passed as she lay there too terrified to move and yet oddly comforted by the indefinable presence of Jon that still clung to the room.
Suddenly it started to rain, almost torrentially so, the sound of it drowning out everything else.
Downstairs a door banged and Sophy listened to it, wondering if she had left a window open. If so the floor beneath it would surely be soaked.
Closer now the thunder rolled, lightning arcing brilliant across the sky, illuminating the darkness of the room. She moaned and covered her ears.
‘Sophy.’
A hand touched her shoulder. Her eyes opened in stunned disbelief to look into Jon’s. He was bending towards the bed. His shirt was soaked through, clinging to his skin and he had brought in with him the cool fresh smell of rain. He opened his mouth to speak, the words drowned out by the ferocity of the storm, the brilliance of the lightning jagging across the sky making Sophy scream out in terror and release her pillow to fling herself against him, burying her face in his shoulder.
She felt him shake and for a moment thought he was laughing at her but then she felt his hand on her hair, his voice roughly concerned in her ear, as his arms came round her, and his voice soothed her fear.
‘I’ll go and close the curtains.’
She didn’t want to let him go but suddenly all that had happened reminded her that she had no right to be in his arms...no place within their security and so she withdrew from him, and watched him walk across the floor.
The curtains were thick, old-fashioned ones, and instantly blotted out the storm, together with what little daylight there was. In the gloom she could barely make out Jon’s outline, until he switched on the bedside lamp.
‘That’s some storm out there,’ he told her wryly. ‘I’m soaked...I’ll have to take this off.’ He stripped off his shirt, dropping it into the laundry basket, opening his wardrobe to get another; all simple automatic movements and yet ones that moved her to great joy and pain. He didn’t put the shirt on though, pausing to turn and look across the room at her.
‘Sophy, why wouldn’t you let me talk to you?’
His voice was quiet, and if she hadn’t known better she might have said it was quite definitely edged with pain.
She could feel the tight knot returning to her chest and couldn’t speak, simply shaking her head. She knew he was coming towards her and that she should get off his bed and move away but something told her that her legs simply would not allow her to stand. As he reached her he stretched out his hand, and gently tugged away the shirt she had been clinging to.
