Chapter 9
She and Eli ended up chatting about The Shawshank Redemption.
"You know," Eli said as he navigated the London traffic scene, "I've probably watched that film twenty times, and every single time I still get goosebumps when Andy walks out into the rain."
Rune smiled, picturing the scene. "The music, the way he lifts his arms... It's perfect. And that letter to Red at the end? Makes me cry every time."
"'Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things,'" Eli quoted, glancing at her with a grin. "Can't beat that."
She laughed softly. "You're going to make me want to rewatch it tonight."
"You should. And if you do, I expect a full review over coffee," he said, merging smoothly into the next lane. "There's a café near the river-place does a ridiculous caramel brownie. My treat."
Rune tilted her head. "Bribing me with baked goods?"
"Absolutely," he said without shame. "It's a proven strategy."
From the back seat, the weight of Dorian's silence pressed in like a storm cloud. Rune kept her gaze fixed on the passing streets, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a glance.
"I'll text you," Eli said as they pulled up to the building.
"Looking forward to it," she said, and meant it.
Dorian didn't speak the rest of the way back. He didn't even hold the lift for her – a petty, spoiled-brat move if she'd ever seen one.
By the time she reached the office, he had vanished into his office. Rune caught sight of Margo slipping in after him, only to be ejected like a torpedo within seconds. Rune allowed herself a small, private smile as she sat down at her old desk and ignored Margo's muttered jabs.
***
Two days passed.
Dorian noticed it late.
The absence.
He had studiously avoided Rune. He once told Crispin, when he commented on how appallingly he treated Rune, that no one shouts at Rune but him.
No one disciplines Rune but him. But two days ago, he had been negligent and had let Marcus run his mouth because.
.. because he was sulking and a little confused.
It was halfway through the morning that he finally glanced at the desk, the one Rune had occupied for six years, and realized it was empty. Her calendar was cleared, and her computer handed in. No files waiting, no notes left behind.
He felt... unsettled.
Because she was gone. Because he'd forgotten.
He, who never missed a date or detail, had completely overlooked that her two-week notice ended yesterday.
It was unlike him to drop the ball. And he didn't like the feeling.
Margo entered then, humming as she walked, far too pleased with herself. She was in a navy sheath dress and pearls, smelling of something expensive, which made him sneeze. Not like clean soap and orange blossoms. Or the smell of cheap coconut shampoo.
She leaned across his desk, letting her perfume fan outward. "I thought we could debrief over lunch," she said, too brightly.
Dorian didn't look up. "Get me the Kyoto file."
She blinked. "You mean the Tokyo-?"
"No," he said coolly. "Kyoto. The one I asked for an hour ago."
Margo flushed, flustered. "I'll... check the drive."
He waited until she left before muttering, "Useless."
She wouldn't do.
Tom, at least, was steady. He was a shadow of Rune, perhaps, but competent.
Across town, Rune was packing the last boxes. The movers would pick them up in an hour. The last box sat on the edge of the bed. This one was light, deceptively so.
Inside it, a thin plastic stick. It had two thin pink lines. She had put it in there about two weeks ago.
She had known for exactly two days, before the pink, before the nausea, before her body had started betraying her like everything else had.
She had suspected when Dorian had turned up at her hotel room in the middle of the night more than a month ago and held her tight.
Then he had proceeded to make love to her like he never had.
He had watched her as she came undone and had not pulled out when he realized he had forgotten to use a condom that last time.
"It will be alright," he murmured sleepily, “You won’t get pregnant."
It wasn't – we will deal with it together if you get pregnant. Or I will take care of you if you get pregnant.
Just a belief that it can never happen. Dorian would never want this child. He feared STDs like it was a plague. He insisted on 6-monthly tests. Condoms. She even had tried an implant, which made her sick, and had to be taken out. Still, this had happened.
She closed the box and moved on to the next one.
It was a photograph, one of her most precious possessions.
A frame barely held together with tape. The photo was stuck to the glass, and she was terrified that any attempt to change the frame would ruin it.
In it, a ten-year-old girl with bright eyes and wind-chapped cheeks smiled at a frail older boy, bald from treatment but still grinning.
Her brother, Owain.
She pressed a finger gently against the glass. Her voice, low and soft, filled the quiet, "I'm coming home, Owie."
Yesterday, she had dreamt of those last days. It came to her in fragments, the way dreams often did – light, too bright, wind too loud, colours sharper than they could ever be in waking life.
Rune was standing at the edge of the sheep field, the grass slick with dew, watching two children chase dogs in a lopsided game of herding.
Rome, the lumbering Labrador, ambled along behind them like a sleepy chaperone, while Rain, the wiry sheepdog, darted and spun, all muscle and precision.
The boy was laughing, his head tipped back, his hair sticking damp to his forehead.
Eleven years old, she thought. And the girl with the messy dark braid, trying to keep up, nine-year-old maybe.
A voice, small and bright with childhood, called out to him.
"Race you to the gate!" She knew exactly what day this was.
Dream Rune didn't move. She only watched, as though trapped behind glass.
The air felt heavy and the horizon was dark like a storm was coming their way.
She remembered the weeks that followed so vividly that she could almost taste them.
The bruise on Owain's arm, the cough that rattled deep in his chest, her mother's suppressed worry as she tried to carry on working about the large farmhouse while anxiety ran sharp claws down her spine.
And then, she woke up to her phone ringing.
"Rune, are you up yet, love?"
"Yes, mum, I am now," Rune replied, still fuzzy from sleep and cheeks wet with tears. They spoke for a few minutes.
"Pa and I will pick you up from the train station. Just call me, alright?"
"Will do, ma, now let me sleep," mumbled Rune.
But she did not go back to sleep, just lay there planning her last day in London. She had planned to meet up with Eli before she took the train early in the morning.