Page 1 of Milo
Prologue
Until you’re ready to leave, Lo, and not a second before.
FIVE YEARS AGO
Milo
I stand in the kitchen looking down at the mess of broken glass and the sluggish trail of red wine that’s oozing from the shards like a bloody stream. My palms sweat, and I wipe them down the legs of the expensive black trousers he’d insisted I wear today. I catch a glimpse of myself in the shiny stainless-steel fridge and spare a split second to worry about the size of my arse in them, which had been the subject of his latest lecture. Then I go back to fretting over the bottle of wine I just broke.
“What the fuck?” comes the explosive voice from the doorway and I can’t stop the flinch that runs through my body. I wish I could, but the memory of the last time I broke something in his expensive flat is painful.
My boyfriend, Thomas, comes further into the room. He’s dressed in skinny black jeans and a black V-neck t-shirt, the neckline so low I can practically see his ribs. With his golden hair shining he looks like an angel, but the way he can’t disguise how pleased he is by my cowardly reaction is very far from angelic.
“What the hell have you done now?” he mutters, kicking the mess of glass to the side near the kitchen cupboard where I presume I’ll be expected to clean it up later. “Can’t you do anything properly?”
“I’m s-s-sorry,” I mutter, feeling the words at the back of my throat like a massive lump that I can’t swallow or spit out. They’re just there, taunting me while I stutter.
“Oh, are y-y-you?” he taunts. “How s-s-sorry are you, Milo?”
“I’ll c-c-clean it up,” I manage to get out, bending to pick up the bigger shards of glass. He moves suddenly and I flinch again and then gasp as the forgotten glass bites into my palm. I look down dumbly to see the slice white against my skin for a brief second before blood starts to seep out.
“Shit!” he says, managing to sound both aggrieved and yet in some way horribly fond. “You can’t do anything, can you? Come here, sweetheart. Let me clean it up.” I pull my hand back from his grasp and he tuts disapprovingly. “Come on, Milo. The guests will be here soon. I haven’t got time for this display of petulance. You and I both know that you won’t clean it properly. Then you’ll get an infection and we’ll be at casualty before we know it. I haven’t got the energy to waste on that performance.”
He looks me up and down dismissively. “At least you’re wearing what I suggested this time so you look at least halfway decent.” He scowls at my hair, which at his request has been cut short. “You can get more cut off next time though. It’s getting disgustingly out of control again.”
He sighs in a long-suffering manner and I fight the impulse to apologise. “I really don’t know why it’s always me havingto tell you what to do, Milo. You’re so bloody hopeless. Like a fucking amoeba with no thoughts of your own. Happy to wallow around while I pay for everything.”
He reaches out and pulls a loose strand of my hair. It’s quick and surprisingly painful as is the vicious look on his face. “Get it all cut off,” he mutters.
I try to pull back, but his grip on my hair tightens and it brings tears to my eyes. “I d-d-don’t …” I pause and take a deep breath the way my old speech therapist had told me to do and feel the now customary panic when it doesn’t work and my voice won’t come. Shit! What if this is permanent now? What if I’ve brought it back and it won’t leave? Despite the panic, I force my words out like I’m taking an axe to them. “I don’t want t-t-to …”
“Don’t want me t-t-to do what, you fucking imbecile? Help you? Well, excuse me for caring. Really, Milo, I don’t know why the fuck I put up with your useless stammering incompetence. You used to be good in bed but even that’s gone.” He lets go of my hair and looks me up and down dismissively. “Gone the way of your l-l-looks and b-b-b-brain, I suppose.”
“What thefuckis going on in here?”
The deep voice didn’t come from me. We both spin around, and I gape at the sight of Niall in the doorway. My older brother’s best friend stands there in jeans and a navy V-neck jumper, his blond hair messy and dishevelled around a face that at first showed disbelief but is now pretty quickly moving into absolute rage.
He looks extraordinarily bright at this moment, like he’s under a spotlight, and I feel an intense pull towards him because he represents home and safety and everything that’s been missing from my life since I met Thomas and at his behest abandoned everyone.
I want to move towards him so desperately but I can’t make my feet move, so I do what I’ve learned through manyhard and painful lessons over the last two years. I merge into the background and try to disappear. I’ve found that it’s frighteningly easy to vanish from your own life.
Niall
The phone rings as I cross the road. I look down at the display and connect the call. “What do you want, Gideon?”
My best friend hesitates and then laughs. “How do you know I want anything?”
“It’s like a sixth sense. Soon I’ll be seeing dead people and sleeping in a tent on the floor.”
“Well, at least I have all my own hair in this scenario, which cannot be said for Bruce Willis. And I know very well that if that tent was in the middle of a wet, muddy field, you’d be ecstatic.”
I smile. No one knows me better than him. “I repeat, what do you want?”
“It’s Milo.”
I frown as I catch a note in his voice. “What’s up with him?”
“I can’t get hold of him.”
