I had lots to do to prepare for my course that started the next day, and as I stood to leave, Sophia cleared her throat and spoke.
‘Regi, we want to have a party next weekend for Mini’s birthday. We hope you don’t mind.’
I looked around the room at the sombre faces, and then I had to stifle a laugh.
‘If it’s a party surely you should all look a little a happier?’
Karen and Mini exchanged looks.
‘The girls – not me might I add – thought that it could be too much for you,’ Karen said impatiently, her eyes red from the hay fever, ‘and because this is your home too, we didn’t want to turf you out.’
‘We’re skint,’ Mini piped up. ‘And a house party is cheap and so much fun.’
I thought back to the house parties I had attended when I was a younger, funnier version of myself. When friends would pop over at the drop of a hat. When life felt like it meant something and everything was just beginning, like a flower blooming. Only to be cruelly crushed as soon as it blossomed.
‘Well, of course, you do whatever suits,’ I said as I felt my stomach tighten and my grip increase on my thumbs.
‘So, you’ll be here?’ Karen asked. It sounded as though she didn’t want me to be, and that going out would have been the better option.
‘Of course,’ I said breezily. I stood up and picked up my empty mug from the coffee table. ‘I’m off to bed – big day tomorrow.’
‘Yes, it is – good luck. Hope you find your way around the campus okay,’ Sophia said with an empathetic smile.
There were no first-day-of-university jitters. It was simply something I had to do.
As I stood my phone began to ring. Its sound penetrated the whole room.
‘Jeez, Regi!’ Karen squeaked and covered her ears. ‘Are you going deaf?’
‘Sorry, sorry.’ I went to grab the phone and in my haste I knocked it on the floor. The ringtone rang out loud and trill. ‘Sorry.’ I fell to my knees, picking it up from under the coffee table. By the time the phone was in my hand, the ringing had stopped. I looked at the missed call that had no name to it, but the number that I would never forget. I felt my gut lurch, the same way it had when it rang just yesterday.
‘Sorry, I… I guess don’t use the phone that often.’ And I didn’t. I had bought a new phone when I moved to London. I had not given this number to anyone from my past. But, of course, there were some people who, no matter how hard I tried to hide, would always be able to find me. I knew it would only have been a matter of time. I only wished I could have had a little longer to enjoy starting over and building a new life for myself.
‘Are you going to ring them back?’ Mini said. ‘It sounded urgent at that volume.’ She laughed and looked around the room for encouragement.
‘I’ll check the settings.’ I held the phone up like the alien object it was. ‘It’s newish – I need to just find the volume.’
‘Here.’ Karen stood up and brashly removed the phone from my hand, then she expertly navigated her way into the settings and found the volume control. She dragged it down with her finger.
‘See, just like this. That’s at a more acceptable level. Especially when you’re on the train tomorrow.’ Karen sounded slightly irked, a tone that had crept into some of her interactions with me, and I had yet to work out why.
‘Okay,’ I said, feeling the heat of the embarrassment creep up my neck. For the first time since I had been living here, I felt as though I were the older one trying to fit in with the young, cool kids. ‘I’ll be off to bed then.’
‘Night,’ they all called in unison, and I headed for the door. On the other side, I heard their voices drop to a whisper followed by the shrill sound of Mini laughing.
I felt the edginess creeping around my body, but comforted myself with the notion that soon I would be in bed with clean sheets, looking at what Mrs Clean had posted in the last couple of hours.
I walked into the small utility room off the hallway. I bent down and retrieved the clean sheets from the dryer. I took a moment to close my eyes and inhale the sweet, floral scent.
As I pulled the sheets away from my nose, I opened my eyes and stumbled backwards in horror as I saw the undisputed silhouette of a face close to the small window opposite me. I pulled the sheets back to my nose, shut my eyes and started breathing in the sweetness to calm myself. It’s only my imagination, I repeated to myself. But I could still see the face in my mind’s eye; the perpetual sardonic look, his lip curled at the corner, the laughter in his eyes that in the beginning I loved but by the end was as though he was laughing at me. I felt a tightening around my wrists, and I was wrestling with the blankets that had seemed to have become tangled around my arms and neck. It was no use, I couldn’t stop the panic rising. I tried to focus on the scent on the sheets. Just breathe it in, Regi. You’re okay.
Suddenly hands were on me, tight around my wrists and then tugging at the sheets as I pulled harder.
‘Regi,’ came Sophia’s voice. The sheets were pulled down from my face and Sophia began unravelling them from around my arms.
I looked to the window. The face had gone, but I could still feel a fuzzy sensation on my wrists. Sophia was looking at me. She put her hand on my shaking arm. I instinctively jerked it
