Chapter 7 #2
“So –” my lungs felt tight, and my eyes roved around the room for any sign of Annabelle – “don’t use me as an excuse to get out of talking to them. I don’t want to get caught up in your family drama.”
“There is no drama.” His fingers curled. Tightened. “My siblings love to meddle, and I prefer my space. Case closed.”
Somehow, I didn’t believe him.
None of your business, I reminded myself, slipping from his grip to sit on the edge of the booth. I had more than enough of my own problems to juggle, without adding his to the mix. So I said, “What are you really doing here? I’ve never seen you at one of these things.”
“Been paying attention?”
“Call it curiosity. I figured you spent your evenings shooting espresso shots directly into your eyeballs while dissecting human hearts.”
“Only on a Wednesday,” he deadpanned. I almost laughed. “And you?”
“I’m signing up for the Cairn I’d have to break his gaze to check.
A glass clinked from across the room. A voice calling for attention.
I scarcely heard it, too focused on Alistair’s slow exhale.
Whatever that strange moment had been shattered as he quickly tugged the leg of my jeans back down.
“It’s healing nicely, wait another day or two and you can soak the stitches off with warm water. ”
I stood, nodding, my head feeling separate from my body. The sensation only grew as I spied Annabelle climbing onto a chair at the front of the room, a magnetic smile on her perfectly even features.
“Kinleith Village Committee members, please can I have your attention.” Dressed head to toe in white, Annabelle waved a hand above her head, the other tightly clutching a clipboard to her chest. “Firstly, thank you all for taking the time out of your busy lives to be here. Let’s give Malcolm Macabe and April Sinclair a big round of applause for offering to host.”
I glanced at the bar, watching as Mal blushed at the attention, and remembered exactly why Annabelle had run for committee leader unopposed. As much as I loathed to admit it, she was a natural people person.
That unicorn of a woman who never missed an opportunity to make someone feel valued.
She remembered everyone by name, sent the entire village a Christmas card and gave out free birthday cupcakes at the bakery.
Last summer, she’d single-handedly organised a fun run to raise money for the lifeboat service, then refused the offer to have a boat named after her because she was just doing what anyone would do.
I’d tried not to feel inferior to her. Tried not to feel jealous every time Cameron said, “Annie’s amazing, right?”
As the applause petered out, Annabelle made a tick against her clipboard.
I felt Alistair shift, far too aware as his breath curled over my ear. “Think she had to write that down, pause for applause?”
If anyone else had said it, I would have laughed, but my heart was still slamming in my chest.
Because of Alistair or Annabelle? I couldn’t decide.
I bit my lip, pointedly ignoring him as Annabelle kept talking, tucking a perfectly glossy brown curl behind her ear.
“Item one on tonight’s agenda is the top tourist complaint going into the summer season.
The haunted graveyard tour has started charging extra for ghosts.
Dale, you really need to put a stop to this. ”
The entire room laughed, utterly charmed by her. She grinned at their attention, like a beauty queen ready to take her crown.
I felt my shoulders curl inwards. Being in the same room as her felt like death by a thousand cuts, every glaringly obvious reason why Cameron had left me for her on display for all to see.
She was older than me, not that you could tell. She probably bathed in snail mucus or something because she was Benjamin-Buttoning her way through life.
Tuning her out, I let my eyes stray to the clock on the wall, watching the hands tick past eight o’clock as concerned committee members argued over the best way to handle zoning regulations for the end-of-summer festival.
Alistair, obviously anticipating my dark mood, stood silently at my side through it all. His elbow occasionally brushed mine as he brought his water to his lips.
It was after nine when Annabelle finally said, “I know some of you are eager to sign up for this year’s Cairn they wore matching witnesses to a car crash winces.
“I assure you: the online system is far more efficient and ensures accuracy—”
“Sounds like he doesn’t trust himself to fill out a simple prescription,” someone hollered from the back of the room. A few people snickered.
“I think that concludes this part of the meeting,” Annabelle cut in with a clap of her hands. “Thank you, Dr Macabe, that discussion was most illuminating.”
“There’s a sign-up sheet at the back of the room, or you can request an appointment on the surgery website,” Alistair added.
Absolute crickets.
Ouch.
Someone chortled. “I’m surprised he would even lower himself to mingle with us country bumpkins at all.”
My own cheeks burned as I watched Alistair stiffen, then climb down from the chair with a wobble.
Annabelle waited a cursory beat. “In the future, I would appreciate any last-minute talking points to be okayed ahead of time.”
Another round of quiet snickers.
Out the corner of my eye, I watched him keep his head up, even as his jaw ticked. Either he’d forgotten I was next to him or he refused to look at me.
The meeting wrapped up a few minutes later. I cut straight toward the door without saying goodbye to anyone. Itching to get home to Teddy.
Tomorrow I’d come up with a new plan, a new way to get the money – even if I had to sell the clothes off my back. But for now, I needed fresh air. A void to scream into.
“Isla, could we talk for a moment?”
Annabelle.
The words were laced with sugar, as sweet as she’d always been. But now they felt like a trap. As did the loose circle of fingers around my elbow.
Four months of no contact. Not even a reply to the single misjudged text message I’d sent her the night Cameron confessed.
Why?
The word still haunted me.
I turned, straightening out of her grip and folding my arms while every eye in the room turned in our direction. “Okay.”
A steady smile curled her lips, taking her words with them. “You look well.”
No, I didn’t. I looked tired, my hair was greasy, and I was sweaty from the bike ride over. No snail mucus for me. “I have to get back to Teddy.”
“Right, of course. I just wanted you to know, I’m sorry about the rule changes.
” Her brown eyes were wide. Pleading for me to understand.
“I hope you know it’s completely out of my hands.
The committee want to spice it up a bit this year – it’s why the prize fund has risen.
They’re hoping to attract local news, really put Kinleith on the map. ”
It all sounded perfectly logical. Then why didn’t I believe her?
I plastered on a smile of my own. “It’s not a problem.”
“Cameron and I would pull out in a show of solidarity, but with the cake shop just opening and all the work on the house . . .” Her words faded out. Mentally, I was in one of those demolition rooms, swinging a baseball bat against a mirror until nothing remained but sweat and shards of glass.
Of course she and Cameron were taking part.
“I’m so glad you understand.” Her hand on my arm. That head tilt again. “There’s always next year. And who knows, maybe you’ll have a new man by then. We’d both love to see you happy.”
We.
The word made my stomach drop like I was next in line for a root canal.
We. Her and Cameron.
They were a we now. And she was looking at me like she knew precisely how much that hurt to hear.
At one point Cameron and I had been a we. Then Teddy came along and that we became an us. Now it was just Teddy and me, the only we that truly mattered.
I didn’t want to talk to this woman a moment longer. “I’ll see you around, Annabelle.”
There. Calm and collected. I was almost proud of myself as I edged around her toward the door, making eye contact with a few onlookers. This was gossip I was more than happy for them to spread.
Then her next words hit me like a bucket of ice water. “Absolutely. After all, we are family now.”
“We are family now.” I huffed, cycling home. “The bloody nerve of the woman.”
The committee meeting had left me with an icky feeling coating my skin, like a layer of sweat. I breathed in the evening air, letting it wipe the grossness away.
The heat of the day had dropped, and the salty breeze exploited the weaknesses of my wide-knit cardigan, bringing forth memories of ice cream and vinegar-drenched chips on the holiday Mum and I had taken to Brighton when she and Dad were in the middle of a particularly bad split.
We’d ridden the roller coaster on Brighton Pier and eaten candyfloss until we’d been sick. It was the happiest I’d ever seen her.
We’d barely been home a day when Dad texted me, not to check in, but an apology he wanted me to pass along. Tell your mum I’m sorry, she’ll listen to you.
Dad had moved back in three weeks later.
And I’d realised that trip Mum and I had taken, Mum actually being happy, was just a spell in a fantasy world.
I channelled my frustration into every push of my feet against the pedals until the last of the light abandoned me. Exiting Kinleith village, I passed over a cattle grate, pretending there weren’t a thousand little beady-eyed sheep along the moors, waiting for me to spill from my bike and eat me.
I cursed the bike’s broken front lamp and my lack of funds to replace it.
Luckily, the one on the back still worked. A camper van drove around me at a passing place, a little too close for comfort, blasting its horn as it overtook. Probably waking the sheep.
Wobbling, I put my foot on the grass verge.
Just roll straight over me, why don’t you? You’ll get where you’re going three seconds faster, I wanted to shout, but it was already gone.
When it happened a second time, I shook my fist at the vehicle, my entire bike tipping to the left. “Roadhog! I bet you don’t stop at red lights either.”
Only to find Alistair staring back at me from the front seat of his Land Rover, a vein pulsing in his forehead. “What the fuck are you doing?”