her disappearance

23

ANOUSHKA

I walk into the primary school and I smile at the teacher as she allows me in. "Ariana has been asking about you for weeks," she tells me. "She's been missing you."

I smile. "School's been getting difficult," I tell her. "Exams and all."

"Completely understandable. In fact, you had a fill in last week. I think he's here right now." she tells me.

What?

When we walk into the library, I see him. My jaw hangs as I watch Creighton sitting with Ariana as he reads with her. What is he doing here?

He notices me and grins. Ariana sees me as well and stands up, running towards and hugging me.

I kneel down to hug her gently. "I missed you, Anoushka." she tells me.

I rub her back gently, smiling at this little girl. "I missed you too."

Creighton watches our interaction with a smile on  his face. "Creigh has been reading with me when you can't come." she says. Creigh?

"That's nice of him." I murmur.

"Why don't you pick out a book for us to read?" I ask her and she smiles as she runs off to the books.

I approach Creighton. "What are you doing here?"

"Reading."

"But why? You never did this until I told you I did."

"Well Anoushka. Let's say you encouraged me."

I roll my eyes. "Plus I wanted to see how you were with kids." he continues. "You're really good with children, Angel." he tells me.

"It's easy being with kids." I tell him.

"You'll make an amazing mum one day."

My heart begins to race at his words. "One day." I murmur.

•••

After I finished reading with Ariana, I had a chemistry lesson to go to. I loathed chemistry, probably even more than I hated English.

Where I would usually sit beside Wren, I took a seat on the empty desk at the front of the classroom. Wren walks in alone and she looks at me, her brows slightly rise but she disguises her shock by sitting down on the opposite side of the room.

"So today we have an experiment to try out." the teacher says, walking into the classroom and dropping all her books on the table. "We'll be burning magnesium and discovering the colour it forms. For this, we will need to be in pairs."

She looks at the back of the classroom where three girls were sitting beside each other. "Not threes. Pairs."

She looks back at Wren, who was sitting alone. "Work with Anoushka," she tells her.

Fuck. I bite down on my bottom lip harshly as I notice Wren walking towards me. She pulls a chair beside me. "There are instructions on the board. I'll walk around and supervise." she says and we all got to work.

Wren retrieves all the equipment we need and manages to do it without communicating with me.

"Can you please do it?" she quietly asks. "I'm scared of hurting the baby." she says quietly, touching her stomach gently.

I nod stiffly as I glance at her flat stomach. She wasn't showing. She had only known that she was pregnant for a few months so it made sense but I guess she didn't want to risk her baby's health which I understood.