Fear wound everything inside her tighter and tighter, until she couldn’t think properly at all. She felt as if she could barely function, and she hated that already he’d affected her so much. She was more than halfway to falling in love with him, and perhaps he’d already broken her heart. What else was she to think?
She called him again, leaving a voicemail she hoped was upbeat but feared sounded frantic, and then settled in for a night of watching telly alone—something that wouldn’t have bothered her before, but everything had changed with Simon. She wanted so much more out of life now. She wanted to be with him, and this sudden silence from him was making her realise how much she cared about him…and how afraid she was that she’d already lost him.
Just like her dad. Issues she’d never even realised she had suddenly swamped her—because as she sat there alone, staring at the TV, she knew part of her had been waiting for this all along. To be left behind. To be discarded, because she wasn’t important enough to somebody. She never had been. Still a supporting role in her life, she thought gloomily as she dug in the freezer for a pint of mint chocolate ice cream. It was time to pull out all the comfort stops.
By New Year’s Eve Olivia was feeling utterly despondent. It had been five days since she’d seen Simon, four since she’d heard from him, and even though she kept telling herself that this still didn’t have to be a big deal, in her heart she knew it was. Simon wasn’t the kind of man to not be in touch…except it seemed he was. It had to be the end of everything, because what else could it be? She had no other answers, no possibilities that didn’t border on the utterly ludicrous.
She texted Alice to say they’d have to give New Year’s Eve a miss, and spent the last day of the year binging on a boxed set and yet another tub of ice cream, feeling utterly miserable. At least Dr Jekyll was in a friendly mood, sprawled in her lap, his purring as loud as the motor of the car.
A few minutes later, however, determined tapping at the door downstairs had Olivia upending a highly offended cat from her lap. She hurried downstairs, so sure, so absolutely certain that Simon would be standing there, with his colourful scarf and unruly hair and wry grin—and a credible, completely understandable reason why he’d been AWOL for five days. Except he wasn’t.
“Bella…?” Olivia said slowly as she opened the door to Simon’s sister. They hadn’t officially met yet, but obviously Bella knew who she was, to be here at nearly ten o’clock on New Year’s Eve—and Olivia knew who she was, from the concert in the church what felt like a lifetime ago now. “Is everything okay?” Her heart lurched with fear. “Is Simon…?”
Bella looked weary and careworn, swathed in a thick winter coat. “May I come in?”
“Yes, of course. I thought you were still visiting your in-laws…”
“I was, but when Simon didn’t answer his phone or respond to my texts, I started to get worried. I drove home this afternoon.”
Olivia’s stomach freefell towards her toes. Oh no. Oh no… “Worried…” she whispered, barely managing to get the one word out. “What… Why?”
Bella sighed heavily, raking a hand through her hair the same way Simon so often did. “You don’t…you don’t know about Simon, do you?”
“Know what?” Olivia asked numbly. She was getting really tired of people knowing more about Simon than she did. She wanted to know him completely. She wanted to be given the chance. “I know about how he got fired from his teaching job in London…” she began, trailing off uncertainly. She knew about his brother dying, and the effect it had had on him. She knew he was funny and sweet and sometimes a little bit sad. She knew a lot, and yet right now she had a feeling there was something she didn’t know. Something big.
“Simon suffers from depression,” Bella said quietly. “Quite serious depression. He’s struggled with it off and on since his teens, but it got worse after Andrew died. He was hospitalised for a short while, about a year and a half ago.”
“Oh.” Olivia’s mind whirled emptily. She tried to organise her thoughts coherently, but her mind felt buzzing and blank. She hadn’t expected something like this, and yet now she wondered if she should have. Was there any way she could have known?
“He doesn’t like talking about it,” Bella continued, “doesn’t like people knowing, because he feels like it colours their perception of him. I wouldn’t normally tell you, but I know how much he’s come to care about you, and I think it’s wrong that he’s hiding this from you…considering.” She let out a long, low breath. “He’s had a relapse over the last few days. I found him at Willoughby Close, lying in bed, practically comatose, not speaking, eating, anything. It’s how he gets sometimes. I’ve brought him back to my home, and he’s doing a bit better. He’s showered, at least.” She tried for a wry smile like Simon’s but her eyes were full of sorrow—and fear. “I don’t know what to do. He’s been on medication but he stopped it recently, and he says he doesn’t want to take it again. He won’t talk to me, and I don’t even know what set him off, if anything set him off. Sometimes it just happens.”
Bella blinked back tears. “I’m
