Misguided Ghosts

Chapter Forty-Nine

Forty-Nine – Tay

My eyes slowly flickered open, a smile spreading across my face. It felt good to wake up. I rolled over, expecting Ed to still be asleep. He was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling as if it held all the answers. When he realised that I was awake, his face broke into a grin, dispelling the sleepy mist that surrounded him and he rolled over to face me.

“Morning,”

“Morning,”

He kissed the tip of my nose and I pulled the duvet tight around myself, suddenly aware of my lack of clothes. Ed chuckled, obviously aware of my sudden desire to cover up. He ghosted his palm over my bare shoulder before kissing me.

“Morning breath,” I groaned, pushing him away.

“Morning breath be damned,” He said in a low voice, leaning in to kiss me again.

I kissed him back before pushing him away once more. “As much as I’d love to continue this, I have to train this morning,”

He pouted at me. “Why can’t you ditch?”

“Because if I ditch, I’ll get kicked off the team, which means no more coaching, which means my only source of income is gone,” I said gently, trying to convince myself that I had to leave. “I think I’ll spend the rest of the day with Jared and Char, seeing as you’ll be at work,”

“Why can’t you just let me worry about the money?” He murmured, hugging me tightly.

I pulled myself away from him and sat up, wrapping the duvet tightly around myself. “Because that isn’t fair,”

I could tell by the sound of his disappointed little sigh that he wanted nothing more than to take care of me, but I wasn’t prepared to let him pay for everything. I was already living with him, and I wasn’t prepared to not pay my way. Even if he wouldn’t let me contribute to the shopping, or the rent, he could at least let me pay for something.  It wasn’t right for me to just use his hospitality.

Once I was dressed, I sat down on the edge of the bed and looked down at him. “Ed?”

“Hm?”

“When I finish school, can we get out of here?”

He sat up sharply, his eyes searching my own. “Out of Cheltenham?”

I nodded. “Just get away, start afresh. Away from all the crazy stuff that’s been going on; maybe even try to be normal,”

“Oh, Tay,” He said gently. “We’re not exactly the most normal people in the world, are we?”

“We weren’t normal in our previous lives,” I smiled. “Why do we get to remember those lives, anyway? All the philosophy goes against it,”

He shrugged. “Maybe it’s so we can do better second time around. Which, by the way, I have done. Don’t you have training to get to?”

I rolled my eyes and kissed him once more before leaving the flat, grabbing an apple for breakfast as I went.

I arrived at the pool five minutes before my session was due to start, having only just finished my apple as I walked through the doors. I shivered as I walked through the doors, wishing that I’d asked Ed to drive me. Morning training was always a nightmare: three hours of gruelling lengths testing speed, technique and endurance, coupled with the fact that none of us were really awake.  

“Morning, Tay,” A voice said from behind the reception desk as I walked through the foyer.

I waved in the vague direction of Ty, who was on the team last year and who now manned the desk in the mornings while he was saving up to go to university. Ty knew I wasn’t a morning person, having trained with me before, but he’d always said hello to me.