Chapter 58
I grab onto the bars of the cage and shake them, but they don’t budge; I scan the joins, desperately looking for a weak spot.
But I can’t see any, so I shift my gaze outside the cage, looking for a weapon.
I glance at my handbag by the door, not that there’s anything helpful in there, then the boarded-up window.
I think of the people I saw in the garden across the fence the last time I was here.
They’ll come home at some point. Would they hear me if I screamed?
I don’t know. But everyone downstairs definitely would. Then what would they do to me?
I’m trapped.
And Jonathan seems to believe whatever Riley must have told him about me.
I need to talk to him, alone. To tell him that no matter what, I love him. That there is an invisible thread linking our souls, a thread so strong that it brought us together again in this life, despite all odds . . .
I open my mouth and call to him: ‘Jonathan . . .’ but it comes out so small, so weak, I barely recognise my own voice.
I look out at the room, at the bed we’ve made love in, pushed up against the far wall, at the bedside table wedged in beside it.
The desk . . . His black leather planner, some random papers and at the edge, a bound document.
I stand up to get a better view, hold onto the bars of the cage and zoom in as best I can under these lights.
The front cover reads: Business proposal: Eternex Enterprises.
That must be for that app they’re creating.
And then my ears start to ring and throb and my insides twist. And in the echo chamber of my mind, I hear Oscar’s voice: ‘Aubrey, get back here right fucking now . . .’
I clench my eyes shut and clutch my head in my hands.
Oscar must have given up calling me on the phone, and now he’s trying to force me back.
There’s a tug in my chest that pulls me forward; I push against the cage bars, trying to get out, to get to him.
My body knows what he wants from me and my ears feel like they might explode. ‘Aubrey,’ comes his voice again.
The ringing gets even louder.
That pull towards him gets even stronger.
And as I squish against the cage bars I think, Maybe they’ll break. But they don’t. My head feels like it’s going to blow off. As I bite down hard and clear my mind and try to think of nothingness, I hear: ‘Aubrey, I mean it . . .’
And I’m thinking: I need this to stop, I need this to stop, I need this to stop.
And then, somehow . . . it does.
My ears pulse. It feels like they’re full of cotton wool, but the relief is immense, and I’m still shaking. I crumple to the floor, curl up in the foetal position and hug my knees in tight.
I stay like that, rocking back and forth, for a few minutes.
And then the door opens. And there, standing before me with a canvas bag over his shoulder, is the love of my life.
Jonathan.