Chapter 47
47
As I dropped the photograph on the floor, I couldn’t even bring myself to look at Tessa. Pushing myself up from the chair, I fumbled my way to the hallway and struggled to undo the front door. I could hear my name being called but there was no way I was staying there. I ran all the way home, not sure how I’d made it there through the tears. When I got inside, I slammed the door behind me and fell to the floor. My chest tingled, I felt light-headed and I was struggling to breathe. Thank God Doctor Hottie had diagnosed me with panic attacks or I really would have thought I was having a heart attack this time. I knew I just had to try to calm myself and get through this. It was just a moment in time and it would pass.
So much was going through my head, my thoughts totally scrambled, and I was trying to make sense of everything, trying to find a logical reason for what I’d just seen. Tessa must be lying, but why would she do that to me? It couldn’t possibly be true. Could it?
Annoyed that this was a day when neither Emma nor Michelle were home, I urged myself to breathe slowly. Only I could make myself feel better. Deep breaths, like Doctor Hottie talked me through, finally made me feel a little less panicky.
When there was a thumping on the door that I was leaning against, I jumped a mile. But when I regained my composure and slowly felt well enough to stand, I pulled myself up onto my feet, though my legs still felt wobbly.
As I opened the door, I hoped and prayed that it might be Seamus. He was the exact person I needed to help me right now.
It wasn’t.
‘I know I’m probably the last person you want to see right now, Joanna, but I really think we need to talk.’
‘You’ve got a nerve showing up here.’
‘I know I have but please, hear me out.’
She reached out and touched my arm, but I flinched and pulled away. On my run home, I’d built her up to being a nasty, cruel monster who’d lied to hurt me for some reason that I couldn’t fathom. But in front of me now stood a scared little old lady and I realised that the staring eyes that had spooked me so many times since I’d met her were exactly the same as mine. But was I ready to hear what she’d got to say?