Scars and Souvenirs

Two

I'm not overly happy with this chapter but hey ho, it was demanded of me by a friend. (Cough, Shelly, cough)

Hope you enjoy, and thank you for reading.

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"Mykaelah?" Callum echoed, eyes darting between the pair repeatedly, Pacific depths dark with disbelief. "Nah, man, this is Taylor, she's in the same English Lecture I am. She's pretty cool, y'know, for someone who has no friends."

  Taylor listened to Callum carefully, her face a mask of confusion. She knew exactly what Hunter was talking about, why he called her Mykaelah, it was, after all, the name her parents had given her.

  Taylor smiled a closed lip smile at the familiar stranger, cautious to hide the telling gap between her two front teeth. It was how her social worker had identified her a month after she ran away from the foster home, and it would be how Hunter identified her then.

  "Hi, nice to meet you...?" She spoke softly, but loud enough for the pair to hear. Hunter's eyes were wary, emotional, as he took a step closer to the bar. His scent washed over her and it took all her willpower not to sigh and lean into him. She'd missed it, the scent of expensive aftershave and just the slightest hint of sweat. Not the bad kind of sweat, although others might think it, to Taylor it smelled of home. It had comforted her in their most intimate nights, and it comforted her then.

  "Hunter," his Irish drawl was stronger than before, but it still made her weak at the knees. His voice was deep, with just the right amount of husk. "Hunter McKillon. I'm really sorry you just look a lot like my..." Pause, guarded expression in his eyes. He was afraid of telling people about her, she could only wonder why. "A friend I used to have. Back in Aberdeen."

  "It's no bother, right, Taylor?" Callum butted in with a grin, taking his original place at the bar. Swiftly followed by Hunter, sitting on Callum's right; always on the right hand side. "I'm sure he's not the first to stare at you today."

  Taylor smiled to herself, forgetting momentarily about her teeth, "I wouldn't know."

  She served more customers, careful to avoid their side of the bar whenever she could. The less time she spent around Hunter, the better. She couldn't help but wonder though, why he'd come back to Scotland. The way his parents spoke before they left, he'd have everything set up for him over there; a job, a house, a place in a top uni, hell, even a wife if he decided to forget about Taylor, or Mykaelah, forever.

  She'd hear snippets of their conversation whenever she'd walk past, and some of what she heard made her heart do things it hadn't done since before the 'death' of Mykaelah.

  "Wasn't Mykaelah that girl you were with before you went back to Ireland?" Callum had asked through a mouthful of scampi flavoured crisps.

  "Yeah," Hunter had mumbled, "something happened to her though. I went back to her street when I came back, talked to neighbours. Nobody had seen her, told me they woke up one morning to sirens, ambulance and police cars, and they hadn't seen her since. That was three years ago."

   Taylor was standing ramrod straight the next time she made a trip to the till, terrified of what she'd hear next. She didn't want to know how much Hunter had worried for her safety. Or how little.

  "Then why did you come here? Why not stick around the East Coast just in case she came home?" Callum's voice was a mix of curiosity and concern, he was hanging onto Hunter's every word.

  "Because we always talked about here," Hunter smiled, and Taylor had to look away, engaging in polite conversation with a forty something year old widower called Janice, but only half listening as the older lady spoke about her countless cats. "This was always our place, y'know? We were going to move here after I finished school, she was smart, doing all the same classes as me even though she was a year younger. We'd finish together, rent then buy a house here. I'd study Literature, she'd study music. We'd get a husky, and, of course she'd name it something from that film, y'know, the one with David Bowie, where he has the hair and the leggings?"