by Holly Bourne
The screen flicked to a shaky helicopter shot of the scene.
“There are already miles of tailbacks on both sides of the motorway, but the biggest concern is that emergency services are struggling to get to the accident through the snow. We’re just waiting for a report from someone on the scene.”
I leaned in towards the television but it suddenly became muted. I looked at Noah and he was holding the remote control, his eyes furrowed.
“Sorry. You don’t mind, do you? I just don’t think I can watch any more. It’s too awful.”
I shrugged. “You’re probably right.” I leaned over, kissed him gently on the cheek and took the remote. “Does this hotel have a movie channel?”
“You wanna watch a movie?”
“Not particularly. But I don’t really fancy lying here in silence with a huge barrier between us until I’m sleepy.”
“We can take the barrier down.”
“Wow. Really? Lucky me,” I said drily.
Noah began to dismantle the pile of pillows. “Don’t get excited though,” he said. “I’m putting it back up at bedtime. I still haven’t recovered from the ballet.”
I laughed and helped him push the rest of the cushions off. “Fair enough. Let’s find the most unsexy film ever to watch then.”
I flicked through the channels while Noah rang down to reception and asked for some pyjamas. They were brought to us within five minutes and we both changed. They were posh flannel ones, gorgeously warm, but unattractive – enough to help calm our urges. We laughed extensively at ourselves, then snuggled under the covers, leaving a small gap in the curtains so we could watch the snow continue to fall outside.
“So what film have you picked?” Noah asked, shuffling nearer. I snuggled into the space under his armpit.
“Well, it’s between a cheesy action film or a cheesy romantic film.”
“Ergh. Both sound brilliantly dreadful. What’s the romantic film?”
I pulled a face. “Twilight.”
“Ha ha. Seriously?”
“For a five-star hotel, there really isn’t a lot of choice.”
“Have you seen it?”
“Nope. Not really my thing. But the girls are OBSESSED with it. Amanda’s got them all on DVD and won’t pick up her phone while she’s watching them.”
Noah ran a hand through his hair and smiled. “Well, it will be interesting to see what all the fuss is about.”
“I suppose. That actor in it isn’t too bad-looking either.”
“Hey!”
“What?” I protested. “It’s just an observation.”
“Well. I’m not going to watch it if you’re going to be drooling over Robert What’shisname.”
“I won’t drool.”
“Let’s do it then.”
Surprisingly, the film didn’t suck as much as I thought it would. I was expecting to hate it, but found it mildly bearable.
Noah, however, wasn’t so convinced.
He paused it again.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“What’s there to understand? He’s a vampire. She’s not.”
He shook his head. “No. I get that. I don’t understand why girls love this so much.”
I turned towards the frozen screen. The two lead characters were staring intently at each other, a habit that had taken up a reasonable percentage of the entire film.
“Well, I suppose it’s quite romantic.”
“How? How is it romantic?”
“I dunno…because their love is strong enough to get through the barriers life chucks at them…the usual stuff…he wants to eat her…she doesn’t want to get eaten…”
“That’s what I don’t get.” Noah looked genuinely confused, and a little childlike in his oversized pyjamas. “You. Girls. What is this obsession with love having to be hard? That it’s only true romance if you’ve struggled incessantly through turmoil? Why can’t girls aspire to just meet someone nice without any trouble?”
I felt myself smiling. Oh dear. Boys were just so different to girls.
“I don’t think that would make for such an interesting book or movie,” I teased.
“I still don’t get it.”
“Well, you’re not a girl.”
“Thank God. No offence. But seriously, you girls have it hard.”
“I know.”
Noah flipped onto his stomach and looked up at me. “Falling in love with you, Poppy, is the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I didn’t even have to think about it. It just happened.”
“So? What’s your point?”
“Well, does that mean our love isn’t worth as much? We’ve not had to earn it? Are we not a great love story because it wasn’t a struggle? We’re just…you know…boyfriend and girlfriend…”
He looked so cute, and anxious, that I couldn’t help but ruffle his hair.
“Is this really bothering you?”
“Not a lot. I just don’t want you to watch this film and wish we had more drama.”
I readjusted my weight on the bed. “I’m sure there will be drama. I think it’s the falling in love that’s the easy part. It’s the staying together part that causes all the drama.”
Noah gave me one of his deep, searching looks. “I can’t imagine ever not wanting to stay together with you,” he half-whispered.
“Me neither.”
“Even though I’m not a vampire? Or a werewolf? Or that being with me won’t cause some sort of insane blockbuster destruction?”
I shook my head. “Plain sailing sounds just fine.”
We snuggled further into each other and turned the film back on. Within minutes we had both fallen asleep, our bodies entwined together in the middle of the overly posh bed.
We didn’t put the barrier back up.
Dead.
Rain couldn’t believe it.
People were dead, actually dead.
He was still in the computer lab, his new home apparently. In fact, he’d forgotten what the interior of his apartment looked like, it’d been so long since he’d slept there. Sleep was a luxury he couldn’t afford at this time. He wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway, not now.
When he’d first heard about the fatalities he’d calmly excused himself and headed to the bathroom. He’d then hunched over the toilet bowl and violently vomited until he was dry-heaving. Once the nausea had passed, he’d washed his hands in the basin and examined his reflection in the mirror. He was ashamed to admit he didn’t recognize the person staring back at him. The youthful eager face that girls had always liked had disappeared. He had visibly aged at least five years in the past few weeks. His skin was sallow, black bags spread out under his sunken eyes and he’d spotted a few flecks of grey in his hair the other morning. Grey hair? In his early twenties?
None of it mattered – his appearance, his vanity, his pride. He didn’t deserve any of it. People were dead and he was responsible. That was something he would never come to terms with.
Dr. Beaumont was still at his side, his partner in crime. Oddly, the last week’s events had had an opposite effect on her appearance. She was almost glowing. Her lips were redder, her cheeks more flushed, her eyes a bright dewy white despite her lack of sleep. But any attraction he had for her had vanished. She now repulsed him. She had called the deaths “their little secret”, in an almost flirtatious way. It was horrifying.
Rain had no idea what to do or how to handle the situation. He wished he’d told someone sooner, someone higher up than Anita. But this whole screwed organization was so secretive that he had no idea who her superior was. Plus, would they really take his word over hers? After everything she’d done for the company? Without her, they were nothing – and she knew that.
“It’s not murder, you know that, right?” she’d told him the night before, while they watched the news. “We’re not directly responsible for those deaths.”
Rain was still staring in horror at the events unfolding on their global television link.
> “But we’re not innocent either,” he muttered. “These people would still be alive if we’d acted sooner…”
“You don’t know that for certain.”
“Sure I do!”
He stood up and began pacing. “Anita – sorry, I mean, Dr. Beaumont – if we’d done something sooner, if we’d sent in the collection team sooner, there wouldn’t have been adverse weather. There wouldn’t have been ice on the road, that first car wouldn’t have skidded, and therefore there wouldn’t be dozens of people trapped and dying in their cars. Don’t you see? Our lack of action has created all these other actions. It’s like the butterfly effect. The chaos theory. It’s what I learned about in training camp. It’s why I took this job. To stop these things happening. To do good. To save lives, not end them.”
He sat back down and put his head on the desk. He didn’t care if she was going to fire him, although he knew so much they would probably just “dispose” of him instead. He was choking back tears.
Anita, always calm, waited for him to compose himself.
“That,” she said, “is one way of seeing things.”
“It’s the only way.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Really?” He looked up. “How? Please tell me what explanation you have to argue away your guilt?”
She drummed her pen against the table, the only slight signal she might be feeling remorse. “Rain, you know why I’m head of this operation, don’t you? I’m sure you’ve heard the rumours.”
He looked away from her. He had heard them, yes. He still hadn’t worked out if they were true or not. He’d assumed they were just water-cooler gossip. Anita was hugely respected in the company, yet she was also pretty much despised. Her mood swings weren’t saved especially for Rain – she yelled abuse at everyone and they just had to take it.
“Anyway,” she continued, “because of my…circumstances, I am, without a doubt, the most important person to this company. You know it, I know it, even that annoying intern who polishes the floor knows it.” She smiled wryly. “So, that considered, I will disregard the fact that you’ve basically just accused me of murder, but only this one time…”
“What’s your point?”
“What I’m trying to say is, I know what I’m doing, Rain. You need to trust me.”
He looked into her cold steely eyes and summoned all his courage to speak. “If the rumours are true, Dr. Beaumont, then actually I think it would be unwise to trust you.”
She jerked back like she’d been slapped. “And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged. Angry, exhausted. “It means how can I be sure you’re acting in the universe’s best interests? That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To stop matches coming together. To stop people dying, and the world collapsing in on its axis, right? But you’ve said so yourself, this couple have a tolerance… And what if you’re thinking, they’re building a tolerance…maybe I could build a tolerance…with my soulmate?”
He stood up. “And I’m sorry, but your screwed-up little science project means people are dead. It’s your fault, Anita! You’re out of control – admit it!”
She was teetering on the brink of losing her temper. She put her face close to his, and her words were more like a growl than anything.
“How dare you? You have no right. No right at all. I know what I’m doing, Rain. We didn’t let those people die. It was an accident.”
“An accident we could have prevented.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“No one forecasted a blizzard.”
“Forget the blizzard! Don’t you see, Rain? We need to let this match run. You’ve seen the data, it’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before. This couple are building an immunity – immunity! Do you not think it’s worth staying with this? Think about what could happen if we tapped into this? How many more lives could be saved if we were able to ‘cure’ couples of being soulmates? The readings are unprecedented and they follow no pattern. It’s like what we know has evolved, it’s got bigger, scarier, even less predictable. Any data we can accumulate before the inevitable separation is like gold dust. It could potentially save hundreds of thousands more lives. What if a match like this happens again? We won’t know what to expect unless we run with these two. It’s for the greater good, Rain. How can you not see that?”
Rain’s eyes remained on the screen. “So these people who died? Are you trying to tell me they’re just…collateral damage?”
Anita smiled at him, a wild unnerving smile. She’d lost it. She’d completely lost it. But what could he do?
“Now you get it,” she beamed.
That was the moment Rain excused himself to the bathroom and retched until his insides were empty and raw.
I opened my eyes to find myself in the poshest bed in the world with Noah lying next to me. The television was still on and had been replaying the film all night. The Twilight couple were clutching at each other’s faces, the female lead blubbering as they went in for one last kiss. I smiled. Nobody looks that pretty when they cry. And if you kissed midway through a bawl-fest there would be a lot more snot.
I turned it off, then edged my way out of bed, being careful not to wake Noah, before padding over to the window.
I sat on the oversized sill, looking out at the sprawling city below. The snow had gone, as it very quickly does in London. The beautiful white blanket had turned to brown sludge, piled at the side of traffic-clogged roads. I closed my eyes, listened to the city noises and did my breathing exercises. I had another overpriced appointment with Dr. Ashley coming up and wanted to give a better impression than usual.
The world went hazy as I concentrated only on my breath, my ribcage, and my body in the present moment – until I felt the presence of Noah.
I opened my eyes to find him peering curiously at me.
“And what, may I ask, are you doing?”
I looked up at him innocently. “My exercises.”
“I see. And what exercises might those be?”
“It’s sort of like meditation. I’m supposed to do it every morning.”
“Fair enough.” Noah looked outside. “The snow’s gone.”
“Yup.”
“Pity. It would’ve been quite romantic to stay snowed-in for another day.”
I leaned my head back and he ruffled my hair.
“Don’t torture me. What time do we need to check out?”
“Eleven.”
“What time is it now?”
“Half nine.”
“Does that mean we have time to get room service?”
Noah smiled. “And that, Poppy, is another reason why I love you.”
Twenty minutes later and our hotel suite resembled some kind of massive teddy bears’ picnic – minus the teddy bears, of course. To say I got overexcited by the idea of room service was an understatement. Plus, when Noah told me that all room service was charged to the company expenses account – therefore I could order whatever I wanted – I might have got a tad carried away.
“Oh my God, you have to try these eggs Benedict,” I said, lying tummy down on the carpet while simultaneously stuffing my face. “They taste like World Peace. World Peace in egg form.”
Noah raised an eyebrow from the other side of our makeshift picnic. The stack of pancakes in front of him was so tall they almost obscured his face.
“World Peace eggs? Is that possible?”
“If everyone had these eggs for breakfast there would definitely never be any more wars.” I took another big bite. “I didn’t know what eggs Benedict was until now, but I think I definitely like it.”
Noah laughed and poured himself some freshly squeezed orange juice. “If you think those eggs are good, just wait until you try these pancakes.”
“The blueberry ones?”
“Yup.”
“Watch out. I’m coming over.”
I ran to Noah’s side. He pierced a chunk of pancake with his fork and held it out. I closed m
y eyes and let him slip it into my mouth.
I groaned. “Oh my God. World Peace pancakes! Those are so good! Noah, are the chefs here not cooking for the UN?”
He laughed again.
I grabbed Noah’s fork and dived into the fruit salad, spearing juicy pieces of ripe red melon hungrily.
“I don’t even LIKE melon!” I said as I shovelled more into my gob.
Noah was just watching me with that special thin smile he used when I was amusing him.
“I’ve never seen anyone get so excited by breakfast before.”
“Are you serious? It’s the most important meal of the day. Sometimes, at bedtime, I plan what I’m going to make for breakfast and then get so excited that I can’t sleep.”
“Very normal.”
“I don’t care if it’s not normal.”
Once we (and by that I mean I) had finished guzzling, we checked out of the hotel and got an uncancelled train back to Middletown and reality.
Far sooner than I wanted, Noah was walking me to my door.
“Thank you again for such an amazing evening,” I said, planting a kiss near his eye. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”
“I had a brilliant time too.” He entwined his fingers with mine before leaning in for a sneaky kiss on the lips – a brief one, in case Mum was looking out the window.
I shivered. There was still a lot of snow in Middletown compared with the melted streets of the capital.
Noah pulled a face. “I’ve got a bit of bad news, I’m afraid.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t worry too much. It’s just I don’t think we’re going to be able to see as much of each other as I would like in the next few weeks.”
My mood level immediately dropped.
I shook my head. Strong. Independent. Woman. I repeated to myself.
“Oh,” I said. “How come?”
“Band practice. There’s so much to do before this gig. I can’t believe it’s only two weeks away. We’re still such a mess.”
“You’re not a mess. You guys are brilliant.”
“Thanks but we definitely need a LOT of rehearsals if we’re going to look semi-professional next to Ponyboys.”
