“The three of them got a reputation for studying hard and partying hard. I used to go up North and stay with them for the weekend sometimes and it was pretty wild. Mitch was the life and soul of the party, great fun to hang out with, but he had a serious side too. His dad was a pilot and he was on the course to follow in his footsteps. I got the impression pleasing his dad was the only reason he was on the course.
Tom stopped talking and drew in a deep breath.
“Towards the end of the first year, Mitch was struggling to keep up with the coursework. Dan and Jerry tried to help him, but he just laughed it off and said he had to cut down on the partying. He did as well. He stayed in more to catch up on his studies.” Tom’s paused for a moment, and his jaw muscle twitched the way Dan’s did when he was stressed. “To cut a long story short, one night Dan and Jerry came home from a night out and found Mitch hanging from the stairwell.”
“Oh no... Tom, that’s awful,” I said, rubbing my arms as shivers went through me.
Tom was shaking his head. “There was a note nearby. He said he knew he wouldn’t make it as a pilot and was sorry he’d messed everything up.”
I tried to swallow down the lump that was sitting in my throat.
“It came as a massive shock to everyone. They knew he was stressed, but they hadn’t realised just how much he was suffering. Obviously it was worse for Dan. He knew he could have switched into him, and maybe helped. I don’t think he’s ever really forgiven himself.”
I frowned as I thought of the burden he’d been carrying.
“The only good thing to come out of it all is it changed Dan’s priorities. For the first time he realised how amazing the Soul Protector gift is.”
I stood shaking my head softly. Tom snapped back into his usual character and ruffled my hair.
“So long Gracie Reynolds. It’d be good if you came and joined us one day.”
He gave me another hug and disappeared out the door.
~~~
CHAPTER 16
.
Lydia
.
I sat staring at my PC screen, fingertips massaging my temples, when I saw Lydia’s name appear in my inbox. It was the first time she’d contacted me in weeks. I grabbed my mouse and clicked on her email.
Gracie, haven’t seen you for ages. Hope everything is okay. Are you free to meet me at 12 for coffee at café over road from you? Need some advice. Much love, Lydia xx
I read it a couple of times trying to work out if she’d forgiven me. I knew I had to meet her. If I rejected this offer, it would take even longer for her to thaw. I closed my eyes and sighed. I really hoped she had forgiven me because I wasn’t in the mood for grovelling. I bashed out a reply telling her I would see her at lunchtime.
~
I arrived at the café at five minutes past twelve. I peered through the window and saw Lydia was already inside. I took a deep breath, opened the door and made my way towards her. She had her hair tied back in a long ponytail and was wearing a fitted black jumper and black trousers. Her cream coat was slung over the back of her chair. To a stranger she probably looked fine, but I could tell she was uptight. Her legs were crossed and her left foot was twitching, Lydia’ tell-tale emotional leak.
I swallowed hard. “Hello, Lyd.” I said, leaning forward to give her a hug. She turned her face stiffly away. Not completely forgiven just yet.
She turned back and looked me up and down. My hands flew up to flick hair forward over my ears as her gaze finally settled on my trousers.
“Are they new? They make you look slimmer than normal.”
I nodded and smiled, wondering if there was a compliment buried in there somewhere.
“So, how are things with you?” I braved, waiting for the onslaught about my recent behaviour. She said nothing, and turned to stare out the window. I clenched my jaw and pulled a chair out, sinking down onto it.
“Lydia,” I said gently, “you were the one who invited me here. Please don’t ignore me.”
She turned round and I noticed her chin was wobbling.
“Actually, I’m not that good if you must know.”
I put my hand out and rested it on her arm. “Why, what’s wrong?”
She flicked her ponytail, and took a deep breath.
“It’s my Phil. He’s ruining everything. The wedding’s off.”
“Off? Oh no...”
She dabbed fingertips under her eyes, careful not to disturb her mascara. “He’s been fighting with me.”
“Has he hurt you?”
“No not that sort of fighting. We’ve been arguing… a lot.”
I sagged with a relief.
“But he’s taking me for granted, Gracie. He’s so bloody inconsiderate.” She flipped open the clasp on her designer handbag, took a tissue out, and gave her a nose a delicate blow.
I shook my head. “I can’t believe it. He worships the ground you walk on. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
She shrugged and dabbed under her eyes again.
“Are you absolutely sure, Lyd?”
“Yes, I’m positive.” Her mouth was tight and I realised I’d come across insensitive.
“Okay, I’m sorry. Tell me then, what’s he been doing?”
“Oh I don’t even know where to start, there’s so much. He never puts his clothes in the wash. I have to go round picking up his underwear after he’s just flung it on the floor. If he makes a sandwich he leaves stuff out on the work surface, all the crumbs and the buttery knife and everything. Oh, and he never, ever, puts the lid back on the toothpaste. I don’t know if he thinks it’s my duty to do it, or if he’s just happy living in a pigsty, but I can’t carry on like this.”
I sat shaking my head in my best sympathetic manner.
“When I remind him to do it himself, he says I’m nagging and then we have a massive argument.”
I couldn’t help thinking she was making a mistake. I knew how she felt about him. She was so used to guys adoring her she took them for granted and gave them the run-around. With MyPhil it was different. They were equal partners and she was completely genuine with him. And whenever he entered a room, she lit up.
“I’m sure you can sort this out. Have you tried talking it through calmly with him, you know, when you’re not in the middle of an argument?”
“Oh, I’ve tried. I even gave him an ultimatum. I told him I wasn’t his mother and if he didn’t sort himself out, then we were through.”
“And what did he say to that?”
“He laughed. He told me I was making a big drama out of nothing, and I should’ve just asked him to be more helpful around the apartment. But he doesn’t realise how much it’s affecting me, Gracie.”
“So you told him the wedding is off?”
“No not yet. He was supposed to be making more of an effort, but this morning when I went into the en-suite, he’d dumped his wet towel on the floor and his clothes in a heap. I just can’t put up with it anymore.”
“So pick it up and dump it round by his side of the bed or something. At least it will be out of sight.”
“No, I’ve had enough. I’m telling him tonight.”
“But I’m sure if he knew just how much it was affecting you he’d try harder.”
She sat steely-eyed, shaking her head. Then she sniffed and picked up her coffee. I looked at her mug and realised I hadn’t ordered anything for myself, but it seemed rude to interrupt her in the middle of her crisis.
“Lyd,” I said gently, “is there something else… something you’re not telling me?”
She scowled at me, coffee cup poised mid-air.
“Why do you say that? Does there need to be something else?”
I shook my head. “It’s just you two seem so happy together. I can’t believe you’re ready to call it all off over a few stray socks.”
“It’s more than a few stray socks, Gracie. Don’t try and trivialise it.”
I knew I was in dangerous territory, but I just couldn’t watch
her throw everything away.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to trivialise anything. It’s just… you two seem made for each other. I’m finding it hard to imagine one of you without the other.”
She stared into her cup and a small frown appeared.
“Just don’t rush into anything, Lyd. Getting your heart broken isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
I thought she might have softened when I said that, but instead her face crumpled and she fought back fresh tears.
I leant across the table and put my hand on top of hers. “Hey, you’ll make the right decision. All I’m saying is take your time reaching it.”
She sighed and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, she was wearing a resigned expression.
“You’re right, Gracie, as usual.”
“I am?”
She nodded. “His messy habits are annoying, but that’s not the main reason I’m calling it off.”
I sat silent, willing her to carry on.
She took a deep breath. “I’m worried he might be starting to go off me.”
My eyes widened. “Why would you think that?”
She shrugged. “Why wouldn’t he? Everyone else does?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she interrupted.
“Don’t try and put your positive spin on it, Gracie. It’s the truth. Girls don’t like me, and boys only like the look of me.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “Where on earth has this come from? Of course girls like you. What about me and Kerry, we’re girls, we count don’t we?”
“Well, you’re the only two then. But even you don’t like me as much as you like Kerry, do you?”
“What? Lydia, it’s not a competition. I think the world of you.”
“Anyway, you’re too nice for your own good, Gracie Reynolds. I bring out the bitchy side in most girls.”
I tried to lighten the mood. “Well that’s what you get for being beautiful. All the other girls are just jealous.”
Normally she would have lapped up a sentence like that, but she didn’t even acknowledge it.
“You wouldn’t understand, Gracie. You’ve had it so easy. Everyone loves you.”
I felt my jaw dropping.
“It’s true. You bring out the best in people. They warm to you. Somehow I just bring out the worst in everyone. I try really hard to make them like me, but it doesn’t work. I’m always the one left on the outside.”
And Dan thought I was good at recognising vulnerable people…
“Come on, Lyd, ever since I’ve known you there’s always been a big gang of people wanting to hang round with you.”
“Yeah, well that was just the boys. And they were only interested in one thing.”
“But what about your friends from work; the ones who came to your birthday meal when your Phil proposed?”
“They only came because they were both invited. Bet you didn’t see them talking to me much, did you?”
I squeezed her hand. “Oh Lydia, you know I’ll always be here for you, don’t you? You really need to open up more, so I know when you’re having a tough time.”
She looked at me and forced a smile. “Yeah, well you’re one to talk.”
“So,” I said, ignoring her. “Let me get this straight. The real reason you’re breaking up with Phil is because you’re worried he might go off you?”
She peered into her cup and nodded.
“You do realise you’ll be making a huge mistake?”
“Maybe… but it’s better than waiting for him to dump me.”
“Lyd, I really don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about with him.”
“But how can you be so sure?” she said, frowning.
“Because anyone can see that what you and Phil have is special. You just need to have a little faith in him.”
She was still frowning.
“Lyd, any relationship can go wrong, but you can’t throw it all away just in case. I mean, no one can ever be a hundred per cent sure, but he has to come in at a good ninety-nine.”
She turned and stared into the middle distance for a while. When she looked back, her lips were squeezed into a smile.
“You’re right… again.”
“So, promise me you’re not going to do anything silly.”
She gave me a firm nod.
“Phew. At least I’ve done something useful today.” I grinned at her and at the same time my chat with Dan at the lake popped into my head. It didn’t matter how well you thought you knew someone, you could never tell what was going on under the surface. Unless you switched with them, of course.
“So, what have you been up to? Slammed the door in anyone else’s face lately?” she said.
I bit my lip. “I’m so sorry about that.”
“Oh don’t worry about it. It’s all water under the bridge now, as long as you promise to never do that again, alright?”
“I promise.”
Her eyebrows shot up as she remembered something. “Kerry tells me there was a hot new man in your life.”
I took a deep breath. “Was is right. It finished before it really got started.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Not really.
I started to fill her in on some of the details, being careful not to reveal anything that was off-limits about the SP world. Lydia, true to form, got bored after about five minutes and turned the subject back to her, and some big project she was working on.
Lunchtime over, she skipped out the café with a big smile on her face. I plodded back to Elevate, ready to lose myself in work again.
~
I stood in the communal area and selected a hot chocolate for Arthur and poured myself some ice cold water from the cooler. I began walking back to my desk but Camille called out as I passed her office. The pitch of her voice splintered through my skull. I gritted my teeth and popped my head round her door, noticing how little paperwork she had in her in-tray compared to my overflowing one. In fact there was a crack in the bottom of mine due to sheer weight.
She was reading through some papers, and didn’t do me the honour of eye contact. “Thought I should let you know, you didn’t get that writer position.”
I gripped the door handle tighter as the words crashed inside my head.
It took me a while to find my voice. “Oh… right. Do you know why?”
She stopped what she was doing, looked up and sighed. “Do you want me to tell you, truthfully?”
“Yes, of course,” I said, moving further into her office.
“Okay, but you’re not going to like it. After Uncle Don, err, Donald, wasn’t happy with the quality of that report you compiled the other day, he felt he had no choice. He says that piece had too many errors; poor sentence structure and stuff, so he’s lost all confidence in you.”
“But Camille, what about all the other articles I’ve written? He’s been happy with those. He published all of them except that one.” My voice had gone several octaves higher. It was so unjust. One bad article and I’d blown it.
This time Camille’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle.
“I know it’s a big blow for you, Gracie, but I’ll still let you dabble in a bit of writing now and again. Anyway, what would we do without you in this department?”
I looked at her in disbelief. I could almost feel the walls closing in around me. I thought about going to see Donald to try and make him see he was making a mistake, but deep down I knew I was in no position to complain. This was my punishment for not doing that damn report the other day, for allowing my primary body to slave away while I crashed at Lydia’s. What was the saying, ‘if you snooze, you lose.’
“Okay, thank you.” I said in a small voice, and retreated out of her office.
I plonked Arthur’s hot chocolate on his desk without saying a word, which wasn’t unusual these days. Then I sat down with my head bowed and my shoulders slung forward.
“Gracie, are you okay?” he asked. “You loo
k terrible.”
“Yeah, just a bit of a headache.” I was only half-lying. “I’ll be fine when these tablets kick in.”
I felt beaten. I didn’t want to just sit there, I wanted to scream and rant and rave. The two rays of sunshine in my life, Dan and the writer position had disappeared and there was nothing I could do to get either of them back.
~
My Dad once told me, during a rare sober moment, that no matter what you do in life you should always have a Plan B, because life rarely works out the way you imagine. If you have a Plan B, when the rug is pulled out from underneath you, you’ll be okay. You’ll know which direction to turn next.
That was probably the only piece of useful advice he had ever given me. And I’d disregarded it. I didn’t have a Plan B.
Now my goal had disappeared, I wondered how I would motivate myself to work. I’d pinned everything on getting that job, originally because I really wanted it, and now I’d broken up with Dan, as a means of getting me out of bed in the morning. Without that ray of hope all I could see were days of nothingness stretched in front of me, hour after hour of monotonous drudgery.
~~~
CHAPTER 17
.
How Could She?
.
Despite the odds, I found myself at work the following day. I was in zombie mode by then, just going through the motions. I’d flirted with the idea of languishing on the sofa all day, but when I thought about it, I hated that idea even more than the thought of going to work. All that time with nothing to do but think was scary. So with a lack of other options, I put myself into automatic and followed the daily grind.
I braced myself for Nisha’s onslaught as I tried to race through the reception area.
“Hey, Gracie,” she said, smiling as she lured me in.
“Oh, morning Nisha, how’s things?” I asked, trying to focus on her instead of me.
“Yeah, fine. Did you hear they’re offering the writer position to Sean? I have to say I was quite surprised. I thought it was yours.”
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