Page 75 of The Best Book Boyfriend
Kara:No.
Megan:Luke took her home.
Hattie:WHAT
Megan:OK actually bring me a coffee and a doughnut and I’ll fill you in.
Kara:He’s not here. Stop talking about me. I’m going back to sleep.
Megan:Make it two doughnuts and a lucozade.
My hangover gets progressively worse throughout the day. I can’t concentrate on anything, so I drag my duvet to the sofa and watch old episodes of Dawson’s Creek while I doze on and off. Sometime mid afternoon I eat all the leftovers from last night’s takeaway and wash them down with the drink Luke left for me. It helps a lot physically speaking, but emotionally the shame and embarrassment will take a lot more than a nap and Pad Thai to recover from.
As the sun disappears, I pull the curtains, then summon the energy to shower and change my bedding. It’s an improvement all round, and I spend a bit of time replying to Instagram messages, updating my book journal, and re-reading a steamy office romance novella from last year. I’ve barely read anything this month. All of this dating and stressing about my feelings for Luke is playing havoc with my reading time, so it’s nice to get sucked into a short story.
By the time I go to bed Luke hasn’t replied to my text, but that’s understandable. He’s probably rethinking the wholelet’s be friendsthing since I seem to be incapable of being a decent human being around him.
For one final bit of icing on the self-torture cake, I scroll through ancient photos of Adam and me on Facebook. I barely recognise the woman smiling back at me. What was that life? And what life am I living now?
By Thursday I still haven’t heard from Luke so after my last meeting I take my laptop to finish work at Sunshine and hopefully catch him there. He’s not behind the counter, and when I ask if he’s out back, Katy says he’s sick.
“Oh no, what’s wrong?” Would he tell me if he was ill? Are we those sort of friends? I’d hope so.
“He got a bug of some sort on Monday,” she says. “He said he hoped he’d be back in by this weekend.”
“And you haven’t heard from him since then?”
“No, we’ve got everything under control here.”
Shit. So he hasn’t been seen or heard from in a few days. Is that normal for Luke? I don’t know. I just thought I was getting the silent treatment. What if he’s had an accident, what if something’s really wrong? “I don’t suppose he keeps a spare key for his place here?”
“No, why?” I don’t want to alarm her, don’t want to let on that I’m thinking of worst case scenarios.
“I’ll pop round with some food for him I think, don’t want to drag him out of bed unnecessarily.”
I try to call him on my way to the supermarket, but it goes straight to voicemail and I’m really worried now. He isn’t reading texts either. I thought he was just mad at me, but has anyone seen him? Is he sick alone? When I arrive at his house, there are no lights on and I can see post sticking out on the other side of his letterbox. I’m trying not to overreact, but I also know I have a tendency to fill in the gaps sometimes when I don’t know what’s going on. It was the same when Adam left, days and weeks of searching for answers, my brain thinking the worst.
What if Luke’s had a heart attack, and he’s lying dead on the floor? What if he’s fallen off a ladder and broken his back? What if he’s been stung by a bee and it turns out he’s allergic?
I’ve got no choice left but to knock, and knock, and knock again.
Chapter 32
Luke
I’velostcountofhow long I’ve been underwater. Sometimes it hits me like a wave. I never know when it’s going to take me down, or how long it will keep me below the surface.
I don’t know if it’s stress from work, this entire mess with Kara, not sleeping well, throwing myself into doing extra jobs in the cafe, or just general grief shit, but I’m wrecked. I see myself from an out-of-body perspective, lying here in a pathetic state of despair, powerless to do anything about it.
My head is pounding.Thump, thump, thump.It eases for a moment, then anotherthump, thump, thump.It slowly dawns on me that it’s not my head, it’s my door. The lights are off, hopefully they’ll take the hint and fuck off.
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump,it continues. And then I hear my name. I’m not expecting anyone, but this person clearly knows who I am. My body creak when I get out of bed and slump downstairs to answer the door. I must look a right state because Kara gasps when she sees me.
I let her in without speaking. She kicks off her shoes then heads through to the kitchen, but I use the energy I have left to climb the stairs and back to my room. I don’t know why she’s here, and I don’t really care. I just want to go back to sleep.
“Hey Luke,” she whispers, standing in the doorway. “Katy said you were sick, so I’ve brought you some bits and bobs to keep you going.”
I can’t even find the words to say thank you, but her presence squeezes something in my chest.
