Never As It Seems

Chapter 16

Amber couldn't remember having ever had such a terrible night's sleep. She lay awake for hours and when she did fall asleep, she would dream. The dreams were vivid and brought up the feelings she had tried to push down in the day. Some were about her family and about them being separated. She would try to get them all back together in the same place but every time she tried, there was an invisible wall, which kept them apart. Her other dreams were set in the arena. Amber would be searching for Jay, knowing he was close by but never being able to find him. By the time she'd woken three times, with a growing feeling of panic, she wasn't sure whether she even wanted to go back to sleep. She did however and when she woke in the morning the house was bustling with the sound of her family getting ready to leave for the day. Looking at the clock beside her, she was relieved to see she had at least slept late. It was just after nine. Picking up her phone, which had become part of her morning ritual, she wasn't surprised to see that there were no messages. She let out a melancholy sigh anyway and wondered again what Jay was thinking. She wondered if she would ever hear from him or if he would just not bother to contact her again. No. That wasn't Jay. He was one of the most thoughtful guys she had ever met and she knew he was fair. He had been honest about needing to think hadn't he? That had to credit him.

She sloped into her en suite, stopping as she set eyes on Jay's discarded, bleached jeans, which were in a heap in the corner. They brought memories flooding back to her of the day before when he had taken off his top. The picture in her mind of his perfectly chiseled torso and the memory of the feeling of his gentle kisses on her face and neck made her smile at the knowledge he had, at least for a little while, been hers. Then she realised she was thinking of their relationship in past tense. That wasn't good. Maybe it would be easier to think that way at this stage though.

She stepped into the shower and turned the dial to as hot as she could stand. She stood for a good twenty minutes soaking in the warmth and trying to make some sense of her life. By the time she got out and wrapped a towel around her now pink skin, she had decided to forget about Jay and to go to Uni in September afterall. Everything seemed to have gone wrong when she started making her own decisions, so she decided to rewind her life. The one thing she would refuse to go back on though, was her decision not to appear at events with her mother. That side of her life she was done with for sure. Amber smiled to herself, satisfied with her decisions. She had to try something to pull some normality back... whatever normality was... She really didn't know anymore.

She realised she was still sitting on the edge of the bed with her towel wrapped around her when the doorbell chimed and pulled her from her thoughts. She considered not answering it but she was too nosy. If she didn't go and see who it was, she would wonder all day. Hurriedly throwing on her underwear and then attempting to pull on some jeans whilst reaching for a top, didn't work. As she reached out for the t-shirt, she caught her leg in the half-on trousers and almost flew halfway across the room. She twisted awkwardly to stop herself from hitting her face on the desk and in doing so, caught her thigh on it instead. Before she could acknowledge the pain, the doorbell sounded again. Amber jumped up and hurriedly left the room, adjusting the clothes she had managed to get on and pulling on the ones she hadn't. Rubbing at her thigh she rolled her eyes at her stupidity. That was going to bruise nicely.

When she opened the door, she was dumbstruck. Before her stood a dark haired, handsome man with the familiar heady scent of aftershave and quite a bit more stubble than he had been sporting yesterday. He was smiling slightly but she couldn't tell what he was thinking because his eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses. Realising she'd been checking him out for some time, she became conscious of the fact that this was now the third time she had opened the door to him in a dishevelled state. She smirked at the thought that this time she actually hoped there would be a fourth.