Chasing Clouds

by Annabelle Knight

  “Oh, Jesus, read the post,” Grace said, impatience creeping into her voice. Elodie’s eyes drifted downwards and as they did so her stomach lurched.

  Great couple of days with my sister, one of the most amazing women I know. Breakfast, courtesy of The Pig and Bear pub, was amazing!

  “So, Aaron was telling me the truth, the entire time?” Elodie asked with dawning comprehension. “Oh, I feel so awful. I’d never let him speak. Ugh, and Chase was lying to me, about everything?”

  Grace nodded.

  “Chase wouldn’t know the truth if it hit him in the face. It’s who he is, Elodie, he’s a user. He thrives on new and shiny things, women included. He tricks you, uses you and then when he’s done, acts like you never even existed, like you’re the one with the problem, like you’re crazy.” Elodie noted a touch of sadness in Grace’s voice.

  “Grace, did you and Chase…?”

  Grace nodded again.

  “We got together a long time ago now, long enough for me to be over it, not long enough for me to be happy about it still happening right under my nose. I was naïve; it was my first proper relationship, at least that’s what I thought it was. Months and months he kept me hanging on. By the end of it, I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. I almost handed my notice in, you know? But something about it wasn’t right. Why should I go? Why should he get to win? So I decided to stay, to remain professional and to learn a lesson. When I saw, or rather sensed, things going on between the two of you, I couldn’t take it. Not because I was jealous, don’t labour under that illusion. It was because I couldn’t stand to see it happening again, and then when you treated Aaron so badly, I figured that ‘you deserve what you get’. Like I said, Aaron’s a good friend and my loyalties lie firmly with him. But, as time went on and I got to know you, well… I figured you weren’t the type of girl who used and abused people, and judging by the look on your face right now, I was right.”

  Elodie was shaken. She felt really silly, stupid even. She had been so certain Chase was the good guy in all of this. She knew he was a player, the conversations she’d overheard had proved that, but never had she had him down as someone who would poison her mind. She wondered just how many other women he had done this to, how many others there were feeling bad about themselves and not understanding why. He was a master of manipulation. Elodie felt a wave of rage swell within; she slammed her glass down and stalked back towards the bedroom.

  “You can’t do anything about it, Elodie, he’s too clever for that. Besides, going off the handle only makes you look bad. Trust me, I’ve learnt the hard way that it’s better to leave some things, and some people, well alone. You should take comfort in the fact that he’s the one suffering. He’s miserable, Elodie: he hates himself and uses women like us in an attempt to distract himself from that. So, take my advice and leave it.”

  “Like you did, you mean?” Elodie whipped around, staring at Grace. “Leave it so that the next girl gets humiliated, gets her heart broken? I’m not like you, Grace, I can’t do that. You may have kept your distance from me because of how I treated Aaron and, to be honest, I don’t blame you, but part of you must have known that you should say something.”

  “Elodie,” Grace said calmly, “if I had, would you have believed me? Or, do you think Chase would have told you about me and him, said that I still had a thing for him and that I was trying to turn you against him?”

  Elodie tried to think, but her mind was foggy. She felt as though the last few months had been totally wasted, that she had ruined any chance she had had with Aaron and that above and beyond anything else, she had ruined things with her two best friends, over a worthless guy. She slumped down and rubbed her temples. She was going to ring him, she wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth, she should have confronted him when she’d overheard him trying to line up women, but she didn’t. She couldn’t let this slide, she had to have her say. If anything, just telling him what she thought of him would be cathartic.

  “You’re right, I know you are,” Elodie said, lifting her gaze to meet Grace’s. “I just can’t let it go, I’ve got to say something to him. He needs to know that what he does to people has consequences.”

  “Not so meek and mild as you’d have people believe, eh?” Grace said, solemnly pouring two more glasses from the bottle. “There’s nothing you, or I, can do about him. I tried once before. He has, well, I guess you’d call it evidence against me. He’s threatened to show the world if I make things difficult for him. So I have no choice but to leave it, be the bigger person.”

  “What an absolute pig,” Elodie replied, knowing full well exactly what it was Grace meant by ‘evidence’. They sipped their drinks in silence for some time, the steady, unrelenting wash of the ocean the only sound to mar the disquiet.

  “To answer your earlier question, Gareth’s fine. Well, he’s not but he will be,” Grace said finally

  “What do you mean?” Elodie asked confusedly, “he’s either ill or he isn’t.”

  “He’s taken some time off, had a bit of a meltdown. He had his hopes pinned on going to Mr Walker’s gala. They’re these big, posh parties, you see. Packed with famous people, models, film stars, photographers, that kind of thing. They have art exhibitions and instalments. I’ve never been, but I’ve seen pictures. They do look pretty spectacular, and if I got invited, of course I’d go, but I’m not about to go and throw myself off a bridge because I didn’t get a golden ticket. Gareth has been hankering after an invitation for years, but it’s never happened. I think he’s just too keen. He’s never taken it quite as badly before, though. I think he really felt like he’d paid his dues and deserved a reward of some kind. But no, he practically begged Mr Walker but he wasn’t budging, he said there were only a certain number of invites and that maybe next time he’d get one.”

  Elodie felt a pang of guilt,

  ‘Poor Gareth,’ she thought sadly, feeling incredibly guilty that she had not one, not two, but three of them at home.

  “So he rang in sick?” Elodie asked, unable to believe it of Gareth; he was a staunch professional through and through.

  “I just think he’s very hurt and felt as though he’d show them how valuable he really is through his absence. Don’t say anything, though: the official line is that he has the flu.”

  Elodie agreed to keep it to herself, although somewhat absentmindedly as she couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling creeping over her that she’d had one huge load of information dumped on her and taking it all in was proving to be easier said than done.

  “Thanks, Elodie, it’s been nice getting to know you properly and I’m sorry for the way I behaved. There I was, mad at you for not hearing Aaron out, when I didn’t extend you the same courtesy,” Grace said as the dregs of their glasses were emptied.

  Elodie shook her head and waved Grace’s apology away: she would have done the exact same thing if it were someone treating one of her friends badly. The thought of them made her wince. She still had that problem to deal with as well.

  Elodie went to bed that night feeling as though she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. As she lay her head down, her mind raced. If she hadn’t been so naïve, so headstrong and so stubborn things could have been so different. She had been so determined to be her own woman after her break- up with Tom that she turned a blind eye to all the warning signs. She had convinced herself that they were challenges to overcome, not reasons to turn and run. She argued with herself for most of the night, swinging back and forth between what she’d done and what she should have done. She toyed with the idea of quitting her job, of finding something else, something with better people. She sighed, knowing full well that even if the people were better, the prospects wouldn’t be. Alpha Whiskey offered her everything she ever wanted: a great wage, great places and great perks. She thought about the gala, about poor Gareth, who’d been so excited to go and who had been so sure that th
is time he would secure an invitation. A knot tightened in the pit of Elodie’s stomach.

  She rolled over and tried to get to sleep, but no matter how exhausted her body was her mind wouldn’t let her drift, each time dragging her back to consciousness. Questions plagued her. Should she call Chase? Should she speak to Aaron? Before any of this, should she make amends with her friends? Eventually, the gentle grip of sleep tightened and she found herself in the middle of a dream. Fractured memories plagued her latent thoughts: it would seem that no matter her conscious state, she couldn’t escape her recent past.

  Elodie awoke the next morning feeling far from refreshed. She looked in the mirror and could swear she’d aged ten years overnight. Her eyes looked puffy and her brow furrowed. Never before had she felt so bad about herself. It was as though Grace’s words had been a form of slow poison: the longer they had been said, the stronger Elodie felt them.

  After washing, Elodie slung her hair into a low ponytail, lathered on sunscreen, packed a beach bag and took two Paracetamol; she’d woken up with a bad head and didn’t want it to spoil her day. Heading out to sunbathe Elodie figured that wallowing on the beach was a far better option than wallowing in her bed, so she settled herself in a quiet spot next to a parasol. The beach wasn’t overly populated. The majority of tourists had packed up and gone home; October was technically out of season, after all. Elodie was grateful for it. The last thing she felt like doing was navigating a beach packed full of pasty sun- seekers, even though she was technically one of them. She held the corners of her beach towel, a bright blue one she had bought in the airport whilst working for Zip Air, and unravelled it with the flick of her wrists. She climbed on top and closed her eyes. The sun, although it was barely mid- morning, beat down heavily, and Elodie let out a contented sigh as she felt the previous evenings disquiet begin to ebb as the sound of the sea lapped soothingly in the background.

  Elodie opened her eyes. Judging by the tingling she felt all over, she knew that the protective shade in which she had lain had long gone, and the ache in her head told her that she had had too much sun and not enough water. She dragged herself up, rummaged in her bag for the bottle of water she’d stowed earlier and downed it in one. Gazing around the beach through squinted eyes, she saw that the majority of its inhabitants were couples, all of whom were enthralled in each other’s company. Elodie suddenly felt as though she stuck out like a sore thumb: she was the only person as far as she could see flying solo. She moved the parasol round so that she was once again in its welcoming shade, catching the eye of a tanned woman rubbing sunscreen onto her partner’s back as she did so. Elodie thought that there was a look of pity on the woman’s face. Elodie looked away and, although it should have been impossible, felt her cheeks flush pink. Deciding that she’d had enough sun for one day, she gathered up her belongings and headed back to the hotel, not entirely sure as to what she should do for the rest of the afternoon.

  ‘The rest of the week, even,’ Elodie thought to herself solemnly. Here she was in absolute paradise, and all she could think about was how lonely she felt and how she wished more than anything to be back at her flat and on good terms again with Carla and Steph. There was something else as well: a small something, deep in the recess of her mind. This something was named Aaron. She still felt terrible about how she had treated him; even more so now. She kicked herself, not for the first time, about the whole situation. Looking back on it now, she felt foolish, immature and a little desperate. How on earth had she allowed Chase to lead her on like that? She thought back on everything that had happened between them, on how he had run hot, then cold, then bloody freezing, time and time again. Each and every time Elodie would excuse his behaviour. Letting out a low, discontented groan, she vowed never again to ignore the advice of her friends, ever again. With her head thick from the sun and feelings of nausea beginning to wash over her Elodie decided that a cool shower and a nap were exactly what she needed.

  She climbed on top of the crisp white sheets, her hair still wet from the shower, and closed her eyes. Her headache had intensified: her temples throbbed and the late afternoon light stung her eyes. She pulled the duvet over her head and found that she had drifted into a deep sleep before the cover had fully settled over her.

  Elodie cracked one eye open and squinted. Her head still throbbed, but now her bladder did too. She dragged herself from her bed and went to the bathroom. She had left her watch on the side of the sink when she had taken her shower; she picked it up and checked the time. Puzzled, Elodie wiped her eyes and looked again. That couldn’t be right. The watch’s face showed the time to be seven pm, but it couldn’t be: Elodie felt as though she’d been asleep for hours, plural. She set the watch back down, climbed back into bed and tried to commit to memory the fact that she would need a new watch battery sorting upon her return.

  A loud banging awoke Elodie from her slumber, she groaned – someone was at the door. Cursing, Elodie extricated herself from the tangle of bed sheets and went to see what all the fuss was about.

  “Grace?” she asked in a voice thick from sleep. Grace stood at the threshold, hands on her hips and a furrow in her brow.

  “Are you alright?” she asked, surveying Elodie with a look somewhere between concern and apprehension.

  Elodie rubbed her eyes and nodded.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked confusedly, although she had to admit she really didn’t feel that good.

  “Because you’ve not been seen for an entire day, you haven’t been answering your phone and I’ve knocked at your door twice. If you hadn’t answered this time I was going to have to knock the damn thing down.”

  It took Elodie a moment to reconcile with what Grace was saying: she’d been asleep for longer than she’d thought, a lot longer in fact.

  “I don’t know. I had a horrible headache and just went to bed. I did feel a bit sick but didn’t think anything of it. I woke up once, just thought that my watch had stopped or something.”

  Grace let out a sigh of relief and walked inside. She poured Elodie a large glass of water, handed it over to her and instructed her to drink.

  “I think you’ve got sunstroke. Come on, Elodie, you’ve been doing this long enough now to know that you stay hydrated, stay in the shade and if you’re pale, wear factor fifty. Jesus, I’m half Nigerian and even I wear sunscreen,” she scolded.

  Elodie downed the cool water, not realising how thirsty she was until the liquid hit the back of her throat. She never thought she’d ever be grateful for Grace, and marvelled at how much could change in such a short space of time.

  “I think I better stay inside today,” Elodie said as she set the empty glass down on the side. “I’m still not feeling one hundred per cent.”

  To Elodie’s surprise, Grace erupted in a broad grin.

  “I thought that might be the case,” she said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a pack of playing cards, a couple of magazines and a sharing- size bag of salt and vinegar crisps. “Fancy it?”

  Elodie nodded, not entirely sure that she did fancy it, but not wanting to offend Grace, especially since it had only been a matter of days since they’d made amends and become friends.

  It was amazing how quickly time flew. Grace taught Elodie several card games and Elodie discovered that she had a natural talent for a little known Israeli card game called Yaniv, which Grace had learned on her travels. The two women chatted amiably and Elodie quickly found that the topic of conversation, as she suspected it might, turned to Chase. Elodie knew they were covering old ground but still couldn’t help herself from going over it all again and again. Elodie found herself sharing with Grace details of her home life, of Carla and Steph and how they had helped her career change and generally been there for her from the word go.

  “They sound like great friends,” Grace said, as the evening drew to a close.

  “The best,” Elodie concurred. A wave of guilt, furni
shed with sadness, washed over her.

  The day had drawn to a close and Grace got up and collected her things. Elodie gave her new friend a hug and thanked her for the day. She readied herself for bed and Grace’s final phrase echoed in her head. Carla and Steph really were the best, and yet Elodie hadn’t spoken to them properly in what seemed like forever. They had left things on such a sour note and Elodie knew that the blame for that lay squarely at her door. She had been so wrapped up in Chase, so adamant that he was the one for her that she hadn’t been able to bear the truth of it all, no matter how plain it was to see and no matter how gently Steph and Carla had tried to open her eyes. Elodie vowed to make it up to them. She still had one card up her sleeve; and hopefully, this card would see her win the game.

  Chapter 18

  Touching down on home soil, Elodie wondered if her plan would work, if everything would go back to how it was. Or, if the things she had said and the way she had acted had done irreparable damage. She whole- heartedly hoped for the former. Her last few days in Bermuda had been exquisite: she had visited the Crystal Caves, the museums and had spent a lot of time relaxing in Horseshoe Bay. Grace had accompanied her on a few excursions but for some reason wasn’t as enthused about sightseeing as Elodie was.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Thank you for choosing Alpha Whiskey Air, we wish you a safe onward journey. You are now free to disembark the aircraft at your leisure.”

  Elodie felt her stomach lurch. There was no going back now. She was going to have to face the music and just hope that Steph and Carla would see how truly sorry she was. The jet would be grounded for just a few hours. After that, it was bound for New York, as Alex Walker had a huge fashion campaign to shoot. She decided to give it a quick once- over and started with the bedroom. It was practically perfect, but that didn’t stop Elodie from checking. She re- emerged and stopped in her tracks. Aaron was there peering into a brown envelope that, as Elodie got closer, appeared to be addressed to none other than their boss, Mr Walker.