You Had Me at Halo

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Holly said through gritted teeth.

“And Holly wasn’t my girlfriend,” Todd retorted.

“What!”

What?

Holly felt the world stop, and for a minute she thought Dr. Alan Hill was doing his party trick again, but slowly the surrounding buzz of conversation started to ring in her ear and she realized the world hadn’t really stopped at all. It just felt like it had.

“That’s right.” Todd sneered as he folded his arms in front of his chest. “Not that it’s any of your business but I was about to break up with her the night she killed herself.”

“She did not kill herself,” she screamed as his words slowly sunk into her mind. He was going to dump her the night they were supposed to get engaged? Unbelievable. And to think she’d been planning to wear her adorable bra and panties for him. Well, even if she wasn’t dead, or a boy, there was no way in a million years he was ever going to see them now. That was for sure. And what about her ring?

“What would you know about it?” Todd demanded, his navy eyes looking cruel and hard.

“I know she didn’t kill herself,” Holly said firmly. “How can you even say that when you were going to get engaged to her?”

“You have been sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong.” Todd raised a surprised eyebrow before shrugging. “Not that it matters. I was only going to do it to get in good with the boss, but Holly didn’t fancy the idea of announcing the engagement at the ball. Talk about a lucky break, since two weeks ago I had lunch with a client who happened to go to high school with her. Apparently she tried to slit her wrists when she was there. I found out just in time what a nut case she was. Talk about a close shave.”

Holly could feel her cheeks going red with rage. Was this really the same Todd speaking to her? How could he believe those things he was saying?

“It’s all worked out for the best, because I was getting sick of just seeing Todd on the side anyway.” Rochelle purred as she put a territorial hand on Todd’s arm.

Holly started to shake.

“Why would you give a shit about this, Vince?” Amy tugged at Holly’s shirt. “If you ask me, they deserve each other.”

“That’s so not true, you stupid bitch,” Rochelle howled.

“Oh excellent.” Simon Trimmer obviously thought it was time to make his presence felt. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to kick this guy’s butt all night. So can I fight him now?”

“There isn’t going to be a fight,” Holly said in a calm voice. In the background she could hear Gemma letting out a sigh of relief, but it was a bit premature, thought Holly as she bunched her right hand into a tight fist and took a swing at Todd’s picture perfect face.

The result was instant and spectacular and as Todd dropped back down onto the seat in pain, Holly turned to Simon Trimmer and shot him a defiant glare.

“What the—?” His eyes bulged.

“Like I said, there isn’t going to be a fight. Todd got what he deserved. Now if you want to make something of it, then that’s up to you. But I warn you, I’m not in a good mood.”

Simon held up his hands and backed away. “It’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Well, I’m glad we understand each other then,” Holly said as she grabbed her jacket and headed for the door. She’d finally realized that while she was Holly Evans on the inside, she was Vince Murphy on the outside. And Vince Murphy could pack quite a punch.

As she left she could hear Todd screaming out at her. “You crazy asshole. You’ll pay for this, Murphy. You’re already on thin ice because you didn’t deliver those laptops to Peterson’s this afternoon. Somehow I don’t think you’re going to be working at Baker Colwell for too much longer. I’ll make sure of it.”

Holly ignored him as she headed out into the night. As she stalked down the road she could see Dr. Alan Hill standing by the bus stop trying to catch her attention, but Holly just kept walking.

Her head hurt, her knuckles stung and she was about to lose all of her memories. There wasn’t anything the good doctor could say that would make her feel any better. So he might as well say nothing at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

By the time she got back to Vince’s house she was shaking. Life—or in her case death—as she knew it was over. Holly couldn’t believe it. What had she done?

She’d never punched anyone in her life, but the way she had been feeling toward Todd had just been impossible to get out in any other way.

She’d ruined everything.

Was it really only a couple of hours ago that Dr. Hill had been telling her how much progress she’d been making and how she had a good chance of the manual purge actually working. She’d gone and blown it in one foul swoop by showing that her issues were as unresolved as ever.

Holly wasn’t quite sure which point had triggered her to hit Todd. Was it that he had been cheating on her? Or that he thought that she’d killed herself?

And worse, she’d inadvertently dragged Vince into it by making him look like the bad guy.

To the outside world, Vince was just a normal computer geek, but the reality was that he was a really nice guy who worked hard, kept out of trouble and still found the time to help self-absorbed dead girls sort out their issues. And now she’d just ensured that he might lose his job as well.

Nice going, Holly Evans.

In a way it wasn’t so bad that she was going to lose her memory. The more she thought about it, the less she liked a lot of what her life had been like. Well, Todd was certainly a let down of epic proportions.

To think that his ambition and determination had been one of the things she’d loved most about him, but if Amy was right and Todd was with Rochelle because he thought it would be good for his career, then it didn’t really say much about him at all, did it?

Then there was work itself. Up until now Holly hadn’t even questioned the rather heavy handed corporate environment she’d been part of, but stepping back and dying certainly had a way of giving a girl some perspective.

On top of that it seemed she had misjudged most everyone round her. Well, her stepmother and Vince Murphy for a start.

If anyone was the loser around here, it was her—Holly Evans. Stupid idiot who couldn’t even die right.

She had been such a fool.

Once inside the safety of Vince’s room, she took his boots off as the full horror of what had happened played out around her like a multi-color plasma screen in her head.

As she had left The Pool Palace she was aware of Gemma’s look of horror, Amy’s fury and Rochelle’s annoyance that some of Todd’s blood had squirted onto her skin tight jeans.

She shrugged the black leather jacket off and threw it onto the nearby chair. However she missed and the jacket landed with a thump on the floor.

Man, she thought as she wriggled off the bed to pick it up. It seemed she couldn’t do anything right these days. She was just about to lie back down when she caught sight of the bottle of tablets she’d found in his satchel.

She’d almost forgotten about them. She retrieved them from the ground and turned them around in her hand.

So what were beta-blockers?

She supposed she could go look it up on the Internet but she wasn’t quite sure she would be able to work his state of the art laptop.

“Wake up, Vince, I want to talk to you,” she said out loud, but there was nothing.

She got up and headed over to the desk in the corner. It was of no consequence that tomorrow she would