Chim - Turn To Stone

Chapter 43

Forty - Three

I awoke to the sun shining brightly in my eyes. Grumbling at being woken up so suddenly, I felt around in the bed for Cheryl but she wasn’t there.

She must have got up early because the curtains were open and the clothes she had prepared to wear for today had gone. I reluctantly dragged myself out of the warm bed and in to the bathroom to get ready.

Afterwards, I threw on a pair of skinny jeans and a vest top and went down stairs to see Cheryl. It wasn’t like her to be up before the alarm, normally she was the one hitting the snooze button until the very last minute. She must have been worried about how today was going to go.

“Cheryl” I called out, walking from the living room and in to the kitchen. I put the kettle on as I passed and walked through the rooms in the downstairs of our house, but she wasn’t there.

“Cheryl?” I called up the stairs, but got no reply. It wasn’t like her to just go off without telling me. I scanned the kitchen for a note, but sighed deeply when I seen that there was none.

She wasn’t in.

I made myself a coffee and went in to the garden to take advantage of the sunny weather.

Where could she be?

She had never left without at least saying goodbye before, plus we were being picked up at 9am to do a sound check for the next venue of the tour so if she wasn’t quick, she would have to make her own way.

I sat down on the bench and sipped my coffee, enjoying the silence. I pulled my mobile out of my pocket and checked to see if she had phoned me, but she hadn’t.

I wasn’t sure if I was worried or not, but I did wonder where she had got too. Just as I was about to relent and phone her, I heard a car rolling up the drive way, its tyres crunching on our gravel driveway.

“Kimberley?” I heard her shout, walking through the kitchen. She must have seen the open door because no sooner had she called my name, she was outside.

“there you are” she replied with a smile, as if she had been looking for me for hours. “where did you get too?” I asked, trying to keep my tone conversational and not questioning.

It had already started. She had been gone from my sight for about half an hour and already I was jealous and wondering what she was up too. I didn’t want to rock the boat so I decided that I would let it drop for now.

“here” she said, handing me a piece of paper.

“what’s this?” I asked with a frown, squinting against the sun so that I could read it.

“I met up with Hilary earlier on…that’s our statement” she told me, tapping the piece of paper.

I scanned it quickly and decided it was probably much better than me or Cheryl could have come up with on her own. She seemed to be in quite a good mood which surprised me because I thought that today of all days would be hell for her.

“Hilary’s freaking out” she laughed, sitting down next to me on the garden bench and putting one of her arms around my waist.

“what did you tell her?” I asked her with a smile, knowing that it was probably the last thing that she expected to hear from Cheryl that morning.

“the truth” she said simply before leaning back and pulling me in to her.

“she has sent a few copies out already so if I were you, I’d turn your phone off” she advised me, just as hers started to vibrate. She rolled her eyes before looking at the display.

We had already told the people important to us, albeit very briefly on the phone last night. I was a bit worried about how my mum and dad had taken the news, but fortunately I had the excuse of a busy work schedule to prevent me from finding out.

She cancelled the call and switched the phone off. “I suppose we will have to get used to this” she said solemnly.

I nodded before resting my head on her shoulder. We stayed in the same position, both lost in our own thoughts until there was a knock at the door. I looked at my watch and realised it was 9am, and it was probably the driver ready to pick us up.

-

She looked out of the peep hole before turning back to me, looking a bit fearful. “there’s about 20 of them out there” she told me, referring to the paparazzi. We hadn’t even managed to get out of the door, and already I could hear them calling our names. Somewhere out there was our driver as well, although I doubted very much we would be getting in the car anytime soon.

“I turned my phone on to call Hilary, knowing that she would sort it out so we could at least get out of the house. I had 16 missed calls and the statement had only been issued 20 minutes ago.

“I’m starting to think this was a bad idea” she joked to me, although I think in reality she was being serious but was trying to stay strong for my sake.

-

Another 20 minutes had passed and a team of our security guards had come to our house and cleared the paparazzi off our drive way and on to the street. Hilary didn’t make much conversation with us about what had happened, I think she was a bit annoyed that we hadn’t told her earlier.

She had briefed us on getting in the car with the minimalist amount of fuss, but had warned us to be prepared to get mobbed. Cheryl was used to situations like this, sometimes she even got mobbed at petrol stations, but to me, it was a bit of an alien concept.

I could handle a few paparazzi, but just the thought of walking out in to that chaos was enough to make me want to stay in doors forever.

“ready girls?” Hilary asked, her hand resting on the handle ready to open the door.

“not really” Cheryl sighed before giving my hand a squeeze.

It was all over in a matter of minutes. From the time our front door opened to the time the car door shut, I couldn’t really remember what had happened. It was chaos, people were shouting both of our names and pushing and shoving each other, and even though it was daylight, the camera flashes were as clear as day.

“that wasn’t so bad” Cheryl commented when we were all safely in the car and travelling down the road. I didn’t say anything to her, I didn’t really need to, I think my look said it all.

“well it could have been worse” she finished, rolling her eyes to the heavens.

“it’ll die down In a couple of days” I said, although not very convincingly. Cheryl nodded enthusiastically, seemingly even less convinced than I was.

“yeah” I smiled back. We were both trying to reassure each other that things would be okay, but I don’t think either of us believed it would. Cheryl had more experience at dealing with the press so I just hoped that she would stay strong for the both of us.