Misguided Ghosts

Chapter Forty-One

 Forty-One – Tay

I tapped my pen against the desk, looking out of the window. I shivered, sinking into my jacket even more. The cold that came with the beginning of November seemed to creep under my skin more than normal and it felt like a constant reminder of what I’d done. To me, the cold was Caleb, sinking under my skin, skirting around the edges of every day.

“Oi,” Jared asked, looking up from the small stack of work in front of him. “You okay?”

It was a typical Saturday evening in our lives: homework, takeout and whatever was on TV. We’d done it since the beginning of year eleven, which was when the real workload had begun to pick up, rotating between our three houses each week. As usual, Caleb had deigned to join us. I wasn’t sure if I could handle being in the same room as him.  

I nodded, turning my eyes back to the sociology question that I was meant to be answering.

Ed had been gone for a week.

I’d tried going round to Ed’s flat, just because I wanted to be with him, even if he wasn’t my Ed, for the umpteenth time that week. But I couldn’t find my keys and he hadn’t answered the buzzer to let me in. When I’d turned to walk away, I saw that his car wasn’t in the driveway. So where was he? Where had he been all week? He didn’t work on Saturdays. So I ended up going to Liam’s.

He had let me in the moment he’d seen me on the doorstep, but there was something different about him. His eyes weren’t shining like they normally did and they were ringed with dark circles.

“What happened?” I asked. “You look like you’ve barely slept,”

“Liam?” A sleepy voice called out.

“Is that another girl?” I hissed. “Liam, what’s happened?”

“Who are you talking to?” The voice called out again as footsteps came down the stairs.

My eyes widened when I saw who’d come downstairs. Everything about her sent tiny needles of pain pricking through my heart. Her perfect, pale skin; long legs that were barely covered by Liam’s t-shirt; her hazel eyes; her flaming hair that was now orange. Hayley.

“Liam, what the hell is she doing here?” Hayley snapped, her eyes flashing with anger.

Liam’s eyes flickered from me to Hayley, searching for something to say. 

“Well?!” She demanded.

“I was just leaving,” I said in a small voice.

“No, stay,” Liam said.

“Liam!” Hayley protested.

“What?” He said coolly, turning to face her. “This is my house.”

“I think it’s best that I go,” I said, taking in Hayley’s death glare, the one that she would always give me whenever Frank would flirt with me when I was Emilie. But something stopped me. A cat winding itself around my ankles. Liam didn’t own a cat. I looked down and felt my stomach clench into a knot. “Rodent? Liam, what’s Rodent doing in your house?”

“I’m looking after her,”

“Why?” I asked. “Do you know where Ed’s gone?”

“He wouldn’t tell me,” He said weakly.

“So what?” Hayley said scornfully. “Why don’t you go find him and stop bothering us? Everything was fine before you showed up,”     

I had left the house blinking tears away from my eyes because the girl that I’d shared everything with in a previous life hated me in my current life.