?s female. Natalie didn’t like me going out with anyone except her and her friends. If I’d been going with a mate from work, she still would have said no. The only way I could go anywhere was to say I was going alone.
The most terrifying thing to me was the constant fear that Natalie would find out somehow. In my position, I guess most people wouldn’t have thought it was worth the risk. Because it was a risk. Natalie’s wrath would have put Satan’s to shame.
Shit.
What the hell was I thinking? What if she does find out?
For a second, my heart jerked in my chest and I broke into a sweat thinking about what she would do to me if she knew the truth. My body tensed and I could almost feel her inflicting bruises on me already, like she had so many times before.
My vision blurred as the train pulled in, and I halted, frozen, my mind locked into that place. The place of fear that kept me chained to my flat. That stopped me doing anything other than going to work and the occasional music show.
I heard her words in my head, words she’d said so many times before:
‘Do you really think anyone wants to hang out with you, Ash? Just because you like music, doesn’t mean you’re fun to be around. You’re boring and you know it.’
And then I saw her again, her hand wrapped around my throat, her other hand raised, ready to strike me. ‘I don’t want to do this to you. You’re just so fucking stupid sometimes!’
“Sir, are you getting on this train?”
I jumped, my thoughts scattering as one of the train guards approached me, whistle in hand.
I wanted to answer, but my head was so full of her. Of what she might do to me because I’d gone against her.
“Sir?”
I blinked a couple of times, and in that second, I thought about what I needed. And what I needed was twenty-four hours when I didn’t have the looming fear of being physically abused.
I picked up my bag and nodded. “Yeah. I’m getting on.”
Since Stockport was on the way to Birmingham, I was meeting Evie on the train, and as we pulled into her stop, I looked around for her as people poured into the carriage.
She smiled when she saw me, but it was a little uneasy. She carried a small overnight bag over her shoulder, and she was wearing blue jeans, a long black coat covering the rest of her outfit. Her hair was loose, and she’d swept it over one shoulder. Similar to the last time I’d seen her, she was wearing little make-up, just light pink lipstick, her cheeks red from the cold.
“Hey,” she said, tucking her bag under the seat opposite mine and sitting down. She rubbed her hands together to warm them.
“Hi.”
My mouth had gone dry all of sudden. I hadn’t seen her since she’d come to the bar, and she now knew more about me than I ever told anyone.
This was a stupid idea. What are you going to say to her? Are you seriously going to bore her with your problems for the next twenty-four hours?
As if she could read my mind, her eyes softened. “We’ve got a lot of time, Ash. I’m thinking we start with getting some coffee and relaxing until we get there. Sound good?”
I nodded. “Yeah. That sounds good.”
I wasn’t sure what it was about Evie, but she seemed to know how to put me at ease. The one topic I needed to talk about clawed at me, but the train wasn’t the right time or place, and I still wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say. I just knew that I’d been given some kind of opportunity to unload some of the things I’d kept inside and I didn’t want to waste it.
Evie looked like she was about to say something when I spotted something that made my blood run cold.
One of Natalie’s friends, Jody, slipped in through the train doors just before they closed, looking up and down the carriage for an empty seat. She saw me as I tried to avert my eyes and called out, “Hey, Ash!” She gave me a wave and I tried to subtly glance at Evie to beg her not to talk to me for a bit longer.
She must have seen the panic on my face because she stiffened when she heard my name being called, and without a word, she just pulled out her phone from her bag and began playing around on it.
Jody walked down the carriage and took the seat beside Evie, who politely smiled at her—as people usually do when someone sits next to them on a train—and shuffled over towards the window, her eyes going back to her phone.
“Alright, Ash?” Jody asked as she rubbed her hands together to warm them. “Where are you off to?”
My own palms were sweating, and my heart was banging against my chest, but I had got good at acting like I was fine on the surface, so I smiled at her and said, “Birmingham to see a band.”