A Night with Danny

Chapter Four

One morning in the sixth week, when I was eating my marmite on toast and staring at the perfect sky and perfect Dahlias. Something inside of me snapped. I threw my toast at the perfection outside. The slice of wholegrain slid slowly down the windowpane. I had been making an inside joke in my head and yes I was hilarious but fuck me. This was not a life I wanted to lead. Sure I had given up cocaine and I was being a good little girl but fuck off. I snatched my phone up off the side and messaged Danny.

He told me to come over. He lived about forty minutes away and so after work and an hour of tarting myself up; I dusted the car keys off and slid into the driver's seat of the Audi TT.

I hadn't driven for a while and my isolation spell had been good but it must have made me shrink slightly as I had to re adjust the seat so I could reach the pedals. I must have been really tall the last time I got in here. I had managed to sort out the insurance but hadn't had a reason to drive until now.

I turned the key in the ignition and was relieved when the engine roared to life. My real Dad was a mechanic and so I knew that the battery could have lost its charge in the time it had been sat here. The Audi might be expensive to fix but it was reliable.

I flicked the radio off and onto the Bluetooth connection on my phone. I needed something to bolster me up and so I chose Black Stone Cherry. I wheel spun off the drive and raced to the lights at the bottom of the road. I know I was meant to be keeping a low profile but I had missed having something of this power at my control. I turned the music up and the bass pounded through my ribcage. The lights turned green and I sped off to Danny's. There were almost no cars on the out and the long winding back roads were a dream. I was a good driver and I smirked as I powered into corners and owned the road. This was what I needed.

Danny lived in a shared house and I wondered how he had coped fitting in around everyone. But then I hadn't left my city and so how could I truly know if everyone in the world had black eyes? I shook my head as I walked down the stupidly long steps to his front door. He opened the glass door as I got there and from his messed up dark hair and lack of glasses, it was clear he had been sleeping. My heart was in my mouth as I closed the gap between us and he wrapped his arms around me. I inhaled his clean scent and tightened my grip on him. He took my hand and led me into a room just by the bottom of the stairs. His room was a large box shape and his favourite band was plastered all over the walls. I had bought him an ACDC pocket watch when were spending time together before and had it delivered to his house.

He sat me down on the bed and plonked himself down next to me. I moved back to lean against the wall and looked over at him. His brown eyes looked tired and he had two purple smudges under his eyes. I spoke first, "You look tired."

"Yeah. It hasn't been easy."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, everyone is the same but they just don't care about anything really."

"Oh. I had noticed they seemed to lack emotion but there is still an element of caring there. My new boss offered me the job role of events manager because he said he thought I would be perfect for it as I was so into music."

"You know how I say I just don't care about anything? Well the people around me actually do not care about stuff."

"What if they reflect our deepest insecurities?"

"What? I know you love this spiritual shit but I don't know what happened, Anna. One minute everything was fine and then the next I wake up and everyone is the same but not and I just knew I had to find you. Then you went crazy and told me to go. You've never told me to go and there was some weird light coming from you."