The Daemon's Disguise (Sequel to He Was A Dog + previously Out There)

Out There (Sequel to He Was A Dog) - Chapter 6

Chapter 6:

Phillip-

Weekends always seemed to be lonely these days; Ingrid’s side of the bed was cold and still partly made, meaning that she hadn’t come home the night before, and the curtains were drawn, shutting out the sunlight.

I lay there, tangled in the bedcovers, cigarette balanced precariously at the edge of my lips, and wondered how on earth I managed to get here. This flat was like poison; empty and boring and bland…

When Ingrid and I had met, life had been a flurry of colour and excitement. Now all I had was an absent fiancée and white walls which stared back at me disapprovingly. Perhaps it symbolised the people we had become, the separate lives we now led. All I knew was that weekends were no longer my two favourite days of the week. In fact, if it meant escaping the loneliness, I’d easily work seven days a week and be done with it.

My phone, tossed carelessly to the side when I’d fallen into bed the night before, bleeped suddenly. It was…somewhere. Possibly under the mess of papers I’d left sitting on the bedroom desk. Stubbing the cigarette in the ashtray, I swung my legs round, wincing slightly as the coolness of the floor made contact with my toes. Whoever had designed this flat with no carpet ought to be shot.

I crossed the room, stretching slightly as I went, vaguely wondering what I could fill the day with. There was no point in trying to do anything with Ingrid; she was probably off doing something with work colleagues or friends…or whatever the hell else young professional women spend their free time doing.

Lunch? Botcelli’s? x

The snort of incredulity had escaped before I’d even attempted concealing it. She wanted to meet for lunch? Christ, I hadn’t seen her properly in days.

Yeah. What time?

I hesitated, fingering lingering over the “X” key. It was ridiculous, right? The woman was going to become my wife and I couldn’t decide whether or not I wanted to put a kiss at the end of my text. That was probably some deep psychological problem that my shrink had yet to approach; we were only just getting through the blank spots in my memory that were becoming increasingly more common.

Putting the phone back down on my desk – without putting a kiss on the text – I gazed out through the window. Light glimmered on the surface of the Thames, the sun peeping out from behind the masses of buildings. There was something mesmerising about the stillness and calm at this height. Sure; moving in had been a bitch, and had taken a while getting everything into the lift, but the view…You could pretend that you weren’t in the biggest city in Britain, you could pretend you were merely a spectator on life. Nothing could really affect you when you were in this flat, looking down on the problems and the people.

One? Bring wedding book. Want to phone some venues J

Venues. Eurgh. It was definitely the V-word that should be banned from all conversations. Once I’d replied that yes, that was fine, I’d bring the bloody book, I went back to looking out of the window, leaning back in my seat. The reflection that, quite frankly, glowered  back at me made me want to go back to bed with a pillow over my head.

With sunken cheeks and dark rings under my eyes, if someone was to hold a picture of me three months ago and compare us, they’d be hard pressed to find a nice thing to say. Sleeping? No. Sleep didn’t happen. And if, by some miracle, it did happen, it was ruined by dreams of India bloody Hart.

I wasn’t obsessed. I was not one of those perverted bosses who looked down the shirts of his employees like it was some God-given right. That wasn’t it at all. It was just her. Her face some nights, her voice on others. My brain just liked to tease me. Maybe it was just the fact that I was missing Ingrid. Yeah. That would be it. I was missing my fiancée so my brain was compensating with the nearest woman.