Chapter 3
Chapter three
Roman
It’s midday, but my curtains are closed and the room is shrouded in darkness, with only a dim splash of light coming from the space between the floor and the curtain.
There’s no furniture besides my bed in this part of the house.
My home is mostly empty because we use it for filming during the year, turning it into wild and wonderful things like an indoor ball pit or slime filled splash pool complete with a slide.
My house, in an up-and-coming neighbourhood to the west of London, is more a studio than a home. But it’s the only place I have.
There’s a terrible smell in my bedroom and I’m horrified to think that I’m the cause.
“Jesus, Supernova, you stink,” I grumble, rolling onto my side and tightening my weighted blanket around my body.
It’s usually enough to calm my anxiety, but it’s not enough today. I need more. More pressure. More weight holding me together and stopping me from splintering into a thousand tiny pieces.
My eyes burn from tears and from staring at my phone for hours on end, and I clutch the fabric of my blanket until my fingers ache.
My breathing is erratic, and not for the first time since the whole incident, I think I may be sick.
Only this time it’s an effect of the looming panic attack and not alcohol that’s to blame.
I fucked up. Big time.
I have broken bones and destroyed perfectly good cars and once accidentally shaved off my eyebrows, but this is nothing like any of those times. This is a fuck up of epic proportions.
The video went viral. Mistakes move faster across the internet than anything else. And then the comments started.
You’d think I’d be used to negativity. I’m a viral superstar, for fuck’s sake. It comes with the territory. But these are different. These are cruel, taking unkindness to an entirely new level.
Tears run down my cheeks, wetting my pillow, and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to shut out the hundreds of comments I trawled through into the early hours of the morning.
My bedroom door swings open, the light shocking me as it seeps through my closed lids and I flinch, throwing the blanket completely over my head.
“Dude,” Liam’s voice comes through muffled thanks to my blanket fort. “You have to get up.”
My mattress dips before Liam’s heavy weight is enveloping me as he both hugs me and squishes me into the bed. I let out a deep breath, and rub my face into my pillow, a sense of relief washing over me at the comfort of his strong hold.
“You’re okay, Ro. This will all blow over.”
Liam slides off me and forcefully pulls the blanket down, manoeuvring my smaller frame so that we’re facing each other. He keeps one heavy arm over my ribs, the touch grounding me even though I still feel splintered.
“You smell like shit.” His eyebrows knit together in concern.
“I know.”
“It really will be okay,” he says again.
“It won’t,” I reply, my eyes tearing up once more. It’s not even the followers I lost, or the sponsors who dropped me, thanks to my little ‘oopsie’ as we’re calling it, that has me upset. It’s the vitriol I’ve received in the aftermath.
Christmas is my favourite time of the year and to hear people saying I ruined it for all those children hurts me deeply.
Liam tightens his hold.
“It really will. It just seems terrible now because it’s fresh in everyone’s mind.”
“Did you see the memes?” I ask, ignoring his reassurances that everything will be okay. “I am a fucking meme now. And not a good one either.”
Liam bumps his forehead against mine.
“I saw them,” he says, his voice lowered. “What I think you need to do, though, is stop looking. Give it a chance to run its course. You apologised and now you have to let it be.”
“I can’t not look. My phone doesn’t stop buzzing with notifications and it’s right there every time I open any app.”
Liam rolls over and moves to stand next to the bed and I shamelessly whine at the loss of his weight. Towering over me, he levels me with the sternest expression I’ve ever seen on my bestie’s face.
“I’m going to deliver some tough love, because you’re my favourite person.”
This is the daddy bear side of Liam that I love, and I can’t help the miniscule twitch of my lips when he puts on his serious voice.
“You need to get away. Go someplace where you can’t be contacted. Where your phone doesn’t buzz and social media doesn’t exist.”
I roll onto my back, breaking eye contact with him as I push up until I’m leaning against the headrest.
“And what would I do in this mythical place?”
Liam hops onto the bed and sits opposite me, his legs crossed.
“Read. Write those songs you’re always on about.
Go for walks. Maybe you’ll even meet a sexily rugged man who owns a picturesque cottage or who chops wood for a living and goes on hikes with his Old English Sheepdog.
” He grabs my forearms and gives me a shake.
“Remember what makes you amazing and forget about all the negativity.”
I give him a half smile. “That is awfully specific, but it does sound nice,” I say, my mind already conjuring up some tall and rugged lumberjack who could sweep me off my feet and throw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
What I wouldn’t give to have someone overpower me and…
I shake my head. This is not the time to get lost in a fantasy, not while my best friend is staring at me expectantly.
Liam drops my arms and takes out his phone and a few minutes later shows me the screen. It’s a listing for a cabin up in Yorkshire.
Set deep in woodland, with a lake and a picture perfect cobbled pathway leading to the front door. It reminds me of a puzzle I once saw in the garden centre.
There’s one problem with it though.
Wrinkling my nose, I say, “There’s a lot of nature around there.”
Liam looks at me with a blank expression.
“Well, yes, it is in the woods.”
“I don’t do well with nature. Bugs and dangerous creatures. You know that.”
“Ro, you’re making excuses. There are no dangerous animals there. I don’t think.”
“You don’t think? That is not reassuring.”
He makes a sound which I have long since learned is his ‘Roman is annoying me’ noise.
“I have to leave tomorrow and I don’t like thinking of you alone in here, letting those comments eat away at you. This will be good for you, you’ll see. Trust me. When have I ever steered you wrong?”
I mull his words over. He has a point. Liam has always known what’s best for me, ever since we started this venture together.
With my aunt away on a cruise with her new husband and Liam off meeting his girlfriend’s parents for the first time, I was always spending Christmas alone.
Maybe spending it somewhere new and unexplored, instead of trapped between these bland white walls, is exactly what I need.
Go off grid. Focus on something creative. Find myself.
Become an entire motivational calendar.
And when I get back, and the festive season is over, maybe no one will remember my fuck up.
“Oooh, you’re coming home with me,” I say to the pack of Party Rings in my hand.
“As are you.” This time it’s to a packet of Bourbon Creams before they join the selection of emotional support biscuits in my trolley. Custard Creams, Rich Teas, shortbread and even Nice biscuits, which are not my favourite but they do dunk well in tea.
Tea!
Haphazardly adding three more packs of biscuits to my cart, I change direction and hurry down the hot drinks aisle.
I scour the shelves, picking out a selection of teas.
Starting with good old English breakfast and ending with a fruity blood orange and cranberry blend.
My throat is a little rough, so I add a box of camomile too.
If I’m going to be holed away in a remote cottage, I need all the necessities.
Leaning over the handle of my trolley, I frown, taking stock of everything I’ve selected before racing to the fresh produce aisle where I add apples, bananas, oranges and a bag of kale. That’s a healthy choice, right?
Back home, Liam has one of those weekly meal services deliver well-balanced prepared frozen meals direct to my door. For the next few weeks, though, I’m on my own.
I add two carrots for good measure. And a medium-sized bottle of lube.
All the necessities.
When I finally get back to my waiting cab, the sky has darkened and filled with angry grey clouds. Around me, the streetlights of the small town flick on in unison. We still have at least another half an hour before we reach our destination of Christmas Falls.
“Got everything you need?” Charles, the older gentleman who collected me from the airport, asks as I slide into the backseat of his cab. He places the book he was reading while he waited on the passenger seat and I lean into the space between the seats to take a peek.
Momentum: A DI Jack Sniper Novel by Rhett Kingsley
The cover shows the back of a man, walking over a bridge, with a large skyscraper in front of him. It’s not one I’ve heard of before, and from the cover alone I’d hazard a guess that it’s not one I’d enjoy. I’m more of a manga or graphic novel kind of guy.
“Yep! All the essentials,” I reply, sitting back and fastening my seatbelt.
My mood has massively improved since I left London. As soon as I saw Charles at the airport, I switched off my phone and started my time off-grid. And so far (one hour in) it is going very well. I’ve only had the urge to check my socials three times since and resisted every time!
As Charles drives us out of town, weaving the car down narrow roads and deeper into the forest, I keep my eyes on the scenery while we make small talk. He asks me what brings me all the way to Christmas Falls, and my cheeks heat when I tell him my story, leaving out no small detail.
“Ouch,” he remarks once I’ve finished. “That is…”
“Embarrassing? The end of my world? The worst thing to happen in the history of my adult life?”