If I Fell

~14~

I stood for minutes then walked forward into the darkness and found the little stone wall that stood beside Jim's, sitting the suitcases down clumsily. Even being near- empty they were still lead weights in my arms after the long walk.

The door opened and I heard Ruthie giggling and laughing, a smile quickly resting on my lips to hear her golden voice. Slam and it was silent again, a figure strode out to a car that was in the street, unlocking the door and grabbing items they must have forgotten in their rush to see Jim.

 The person turned around and listened and I sucked in my breath, holding, waiting for whoever it was to march back to the house.

"Who's there. I know someone's there" The voice was Liverpudlian, deep and probing, cutting into me with the words. 

I daren't move or indeed breath in that moment.

The figure, now I knew to be a man, started for the front gate striding purposely and too soon I let out an audible, too heavy sigh. He stopped and plonked down all the things he had rushed to gather minutes previously, beside the gate.

The speed to which he approached made me spin on my heel to escape only to fall, stupidly, over my own suitcase.

"Ouch, clod" I cussed myself and the man stopped, hovering over me as I pushed the case from under my fat clumsily arse.

"Abby?"

It was him, the one I called Bill. The one I connected with on the telephone on the other side of the world, the one I confided in about the man that hurt... and touched me.

"Abby, it is you, isn't it?" His scouse accent making it's way back into my thoughts.

I sat on the case I had fallen over, hearing it moan and the sidewall near buckle with my weight.

A hand found mine and pulled me up so I stood mere inches from his body.

I decided comedy was the best way to interupt the situation I found myself in. The dimly lit street hid my face in shadows so I could not smile or frown or poke my tongue out at him to show how I really felt.

"I told you, you had buckley's" I muttered quietly into the night air between us and felt him step from one foot to the other as he registered the words, remembering the conversation, remembering the deceit I had felt.

"And I still think I should take you on a date"

"Preposterous" I took a step back trying to gain some room as his fingers fall away from my hand.

Space for my own body to be normal again.

Him, so close. His cologne, enticing, as it waft around my nostrils.

I wished I could be a more forward type of girl and step up close.

Run gentle fingers over his face, through his hair, find his lips just for a taste, a glimpse of what it might be like in another life.

"Much that I like to talk to you blindly, do you mind if we step into the light, I'm a tad terrified of the dark you know" Bill- John sniggered and I suddenly recalled the snigger of other time, I retreated back again one, two, three steps now.

"I don't know" and I didn't.

I didn't know if I should go to the house; or run and find my hotel miles away, curl up in the blankets and wait for a safer time, morning light and vision plenty.

"It's easy Abby, let's just pick up the cases and walk over to the gate, open it, and walk on through" Bill John, god I'm confused, rattled off the process, so easy if you weren't scared of the heckling and banter that would take place once you stepped over the threshold.