Escapism (CL 16)

5. Decisions

"I can't believe you're making me go out again." Laura groaned. "We didn't even go out this much when we're at uni."

"We have nothing else to do." Anna shrugged. "It'll be fun! You left so early last time you missed out on half of the night."

"I don't think I missed that much." Laura shrugged. She wasn't sure how to tell Anna she wasn't exactly keen on the friends of hers they were meeting and the idea of spending another night with them didn't fill her with joy.

"No that's true, you were off getting laid." Anna smirked. "Maybe you'll find him again tonight. You two seem to just keep running into eachother."

Laura rolled her eyes at her friend. "You're being ridiculous. It was a fluke the other morning. I'm not going to see him again. I don't even want to see him again."

"You never did tell me where you went the other morning by the way." Anna smirked. "All I saw was you on the floor and that guy helping you up and then you were gone for hours."

"Nothing happened." Laura shook her head, wondering if she was blushing as much as she thought she was. Her face felt like it was on fire.

"Yeah, yeah." Anna laughed. "You're a terrible liar. I'm happy for you though. You need to get laid."

"Let's just change the subject, shall we?" Laura suggested. She'd rather talk about literally anything else than have Anna ask these same questions again.

"Let's go get drinks instead!" Anna grinned, grabbing Laura's hand and dragging her along as she made her way through the crowd to get to the bar.

Laura didn't argue. It was loud and very busy in there, and she was going to need a whole lot of alcohol if she was going to survive the night.

She'd had more than a couple of shots, downed in the quick succession, when Anna's friends arrived. She laughed and pretended to join in with their conversation, but they had very little in common. It was all talk of their plans for many holidays, trips out on their yachts and their plans for the Monaco Grand Prix.

"I'm just gonna go get some fresh air." Laura said, slipping through the crowd and making a beeline for the door before anyone could say anything.

It was relatively quiet outside and she was thankful. She could still hear the thumping music from the other side of the doors, but there weren't many people out there and she quickly took a seat, feet killing from the stupidly high heels Anna had insisted she wear again.

She pulled her phone out of her bag, aimlessly scrolling through the photos her and Anna had taken while they were getting ready to go out, posting one on instagram.

It was only five minutes later that her phone rang. Her finger hovered over the accept call button for a moment. She shouldn't answer it, she shouldn't listen to what he had to say and hear him out. She knew that. Yet she still found herself hitting the accept button and lifting the phone to her ear.

Perhaps she'd blame the alcohol.

"Hello?" The familiar voice on the other end of the phone was like a knife to her stomach. "Laura, are you there?"

"Yeah, I'm here." She said quietly. "Why are you calling me, Mike?"

"I didn't realise you were still in Monaco with Anna." He said slowly. "I uh... I've been thinking, I think you should come home."

"Just put my stuff in to storage. I'll pick it up when I come back." She told him, lip quivering as she fought back tears at the thought of him boxing up the life they'd shared and putting it into storage. "Surely you can do that for me? After everything."