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She’d barely noticed her new routine until today.
It was a few texts after D’Angelos.
Which turned into adding each other on Facebook.
Then it was messages, dotted through the day.
Before Jen knew it, Holly was part of her morning routine. She was always up first, so would start the day’s conversation. Like clockwork, Holly replied around eight. Why anyone would voluntarily get up so early was beyond Jen, but she liked the company as she got ready for work.
It was nothing groundbreaking.What are you doing today?Pictures of ducks spotted in the wild, real or not. Constant jokes and banter. Jen found herself staying up later and later just to keep the conversation going, often falling asleep before they’d shared a proper goodnight. Which was fine, because it gave a good opener the next day.
Just had to ruin a good thing, eh?
Holly had snuck in under her radar, drip by drip, until she was well and truly embedded.
And now Jen had been thinking with her heart, not her head, and pushed away the one human that made her feel like a complete person.
There has to be a way to fix this.
Vodka poured, she set to work on sealing the pouches. This was good manual labour, something to keep her body and mind occupied. But there were only so many pouches she could make.
I’ll go for a run. Then watch a film or something.
Tomorrow would be rinse and repeat. Just like always. A month ago she would have loved days off like this.
Impatience was a serpent wrapped around her insides, getting tighter by the minute, and concentrating on the task at hand was impossible.
This is ridiculous.
Jen checked her phone again.Right. Nope, let’s hide it. Let’s hide the phone and you can only look at it between cocktails.
She marched the offending mobile to the back of the basement, putting it out of sight and out of mind behind a box of brown sugar.
Were relationships meant to feel like this? Like all of you ached, your stomach was a mess, and your brain felt squidgy? She’d never felt like this before. How can six hours of radio silence do this to a person?
Holly was under her skin. Regardless of what was going on, this was a serious wake-up call. She couldn’t carry on like this. She was a struck match, caught in the moment before ignition, forever on the edge.
Should she message again?I don’t want to look desperate.
She’d already done two in a row.
A double message. That looked forlorn.
A third? Holly was going to know Jen was in over her head.
Jen grabbed the sticker sheet and got to work, finishing the pouches. She shook her head as she worked, chuckling to herself. ‘You’ve finally lost it.’
You’re overreacting, idiot.
How would Holly know? This was obviously to do with something totally unrelated. Maybe she was visiting a sick relative, or at the cinema. . . seeing a six-hour film that started at the crack of dawn. Jen had been super guarded: there was no way Holly could have figured out her true intentions.
If she could just hear and know Holly was okay, that they were okay, she could stop feeling like life was on pause.
The brown sugar rumbled.
Or did it?
Was she hearing phantom vibrations now?
