14
‘I still can’t believe you finished my chocolate Hobnobs,’ Tilly says, staring wistfully into her morning coffee.
‘I said I’d go out and get you more! It’s not like you were going to have them for breakfast and there’ll be a new packet waiting on your bed by the time you get back.’
She takes a sip whilst resting her hip against the kitchen cupboard, giving me a death stare over the rim of the mug. ‘Fine, but make it two packets.’
I agree and she perks up, weaving her way through the coats and ski boots that lie scattered on the floor as she comes over to join me on the sofa.
‘Hey, you never told me how your afternoon went yesterday?’ I ask once she’s settled in beside me.
‘Oh, it was fine,’ she says, lifting her mug and taking a long sip.
‘Fine? Is that it? No explosive arguments with David or things you’d like to complain about?’
She shrugs, one finger tapping against the side of her mug. I change course.
‘Or maybe you can finally give me more details on your night with Jason?’
After Meghan interrupted us in town the other day, I haven’t found the time again to circle back and finally draw some more details out from her.
‘Jason?’ She echoes his name back to me like she’s never heard it before, and all my suspicions resurface.
I don’t want to listen to the nagging voice in my head that thinks she’s lying, because that’s not something we do.
If she was, I can’t figure out why she’d do it, and a sinking part of me wonders if I’ve done something to upset her.
It’s the only reason I can think of, but surely if that was it she’d tell me so we could work through it.
‘Good morning, ladies!’
David saunters into the kitchen, already dressed in his salopettes and a tight-fitting thermal top.
‘Morning,’ Tilly says back.
That’s it? Morning?
No ‘leave us alone, dickhead, we’re chatting here’, or ‘it was a good morning until you showed up’.
David doesn’t say anything further in response either, and that’s enough to let me know something’s off about those two this morning. Now that I think about it, things have been a little odd between them this whole trip.
I try and piece this development together with Tilly’s story about Jason, and then it hits me.
David was there that night at the club. He’ll be able to confirm Tilly’s story and help me figure out what’s going on with her.
If she’s lying and he can confirm it, maybe he’ll be able to help me work out why.
The others trickle into the kitchen, Lucas and Meghan first, then Adam last. He looks straight at my ankle when he comes in, right where it’s resting on the coffee table propped up on a pillow.
‘Does it still hurt?’ he asks in a small voice.
‘It’s better,’ I say, ‘but not good enough that I’ll be making it to class today.’
I watch his features carefully, swearing I catch a glint of relief when he hears that, and I wonder whether that was his intention all along.
He’s apologised a million times, saying it was an accident, but he’s done a bad job of masking his anger and jealousy these last few days.
Even if it was subconsciously done, I wouldn’t put it past him to have caused my fall so I would miss a morning on the slopes with Rory.
Or maybe I’m massively overthinking, the same way I have been with everything Rory-related. Especially given the fact I now know he’s been spending time after our classes with his maybe-girlfriend.
‘We should get going, the lifts are open and your lesson starts in half an hour,’ Lucas says, ushering everyone up and out of the door.
‘Is there anything I can get for you?’ Adam asks, not following the others yet.
I shake my head. ‘No, I’ll be fine.’
I’m not in the mood to accept his help right now. I’m okay enough to move around the chalet if there’s something I need. He hesitates like he wants to say something else, apologise again maybe, but thankfully Tilly grabs the backs of his shoulders and steers him away with the rest of them.
‘Don’t have too much fun without us,’ Tilly says, clicking her skis together and grabbing her poles once she’s pushed Adam out the door.
‘Oh and—’
‘I won’t forget the Hobnobs,’ I finish for her.
‘Chocolate ones,’ she clarifies, and I roll my eyes.
‘I’m not a sadist. I wouldn’t subject you to the plain ones.’
She screws her face up at the thought.
‘Little circles of oaty hell.’ She mimes throwing up, and I laugh as she trails after the others.
Before she closes the door, she leans back in, her head peeking out of the doorway. ‘By the way, I mean it when I say don’t have too much fun.’
She’s gone before I can ask what fun she thinks I’m going to have as a sedentary invalid. I decide to let it go as I lie back against the sofa cushions to watch the light snow falling outside of the balcony doors. At least the snow means the runs should be less icy for everyone today.
It doesn’t take long for the FOMO to kick in, but I force myself to get up and do something. The view really is magical today, and it would be a shame to waste it. I hobble over to my room, leaning against every solid object around me for support as I head towards my suitcase.
I flip open the lid and dig around until I find a set of sketching pencils, then I swipe my sketchbook up from where it’s been sitting on the little table with Tilly’s sudokus.
I perch on the edge of my bed, flipping through the pages, half of which are already full of drawings from back in London.
Primrose Hill, the Rose Gardens in Regent’s Park, the flashy signs of West End shows around Leicester Square.
Sketches done on random nights when I’ve been walking through the city after a long day at work, wishing that this was what I was doing every day instead.
I close the sketchbook, forcing myself not to dwell on the what ifs when the reality is that I’m in a steady job, able to afford my old maisonette flat with Adam, as well as having the money I need to help Mum and Dad out of their frequent tight spots. I should be happy with that.
Remember Tim with his bathroom exposed in the corner? I grimace. Maybe that’s where I’d be if I’d tried art and it hadn’t gone well, and I do love having a bathroom with a door.
I balance my sketchbook and pencils in the crook of my arm as I tentatively walk back to the living room and out of the balcony doors.
I settle into the hanging egg-shaped chair that I’ve never been able to get more than five minutes in because Lucas has hogged it all holiday, and he’s stronger than me so I never win the fight when he decides to throw me out of it.
With my sketchbook resting against the top of my thigh, I try and flick to a blank page, the thick white pages a much sturdier medium than the napkin I drew on the other day. But I end up not going far enough and so I see a sketch I would have preferred to avoid.
I’d forgotten that one was in here.
I trace my fingers down the page which shows my uni room on an ordinary day, except I can remember it exactly because amongst the mess I never fully tidied away sits Adam.
I drew it from memory, Adam sitting on the floor, head down in a book that was about economics, or start-up businesses, or something equally as dull to me.
I remember how he came over with a bag of his things after our first date that was only supposed to last the weekend, but really, he never left.
All my memories of that room involve him.
This one used to be my favourite, and I know if I reminisce any longer I’ll spiral.
Part of me wants to rip it out, throw it over the railing, and let it become a victim of the snow, but instead I turn the page, and focus on the view in front of me.
Focus on the present, not the past, and not the future, which is full of uncertainties.
I’m going back over part of the mountain, cross-hatching to get the depth right, when I hear something. Then a rock flies through the air and lands on the balcony floor at my feet.
‘Lottie! Are you up there?’
I know that voice, but I also know that who I think it is can’t possibly be here.
I jump out of the chair, which is a bad decision and I only remember my injured ankle after I’ve already put all my weight on it.
I yelp, and try not to move it much as I hobble towards the edge, peering down at the man standing on the ground outside.
‘I tried the doorbell but you didn’t answer, so I thought I’d come around here.’
I was right. It is him.
‘Rory?’
I start panicking and attempt to subtly rearrange my Lilo and Stitch pyjamas to be a little more flattering.
This morning I rolled out of bed, then onto the sofa, then straight out here and I haven’t looked in the mirror in any of that time, so I dread to think what my hair is doing.
But at least he hasn’t run away so I’m hoping it’s on the human side of mountain troll.
‘I mean this in the nicest way, but what are you doing here? Don’t you have, you know, a class to teach?’
‘I got Kevin to cover for me,’ he says, giving no more explanation.
‘And you’re here because…’
He looks around as if he’s only now realised he is indeed outside my chalet. ‘I heard you got hurt.’
‘And?’ I say after he stops there, trying to force a little more out of him whilst also wondering how he found out. Also, how on earth did he even find the chalet?
But it doesn’t take me long to put those pieces together when I remember Tilly’s suspicious parting words.
‘And I wanted to check you were okay.’
I try not to let myself get carried away with the fact that he’s skipped class just to check on me, but maybe Tilly exaggerated my injury.
I feel a little bad if she did, because now I’ve pulled him away from the group, even though I’m sure Kevin’s a great teacher too.
Neither of us say anything for a while, and my brain starts drawing a parallel between us and that scene where Juliet looks down from her balcony at Romeo.
But that’s ridiculous and I’m not going to force him to climb up here, so instead I point to the front of the chalet.