Flying Change

Chapter 8

Your comments made me smile so much I decided to give you an update! Now don't get too excited its a short one and this probably won't happen again unless hell genuinely does freeze over. So let me know what you think! Horrid? Awful? I hope not. 

Please remember to vote and comment! 

By the way, who got the literature reference I made in the last chapter? Whoever gets it first will get a little surprise! 

XX

Shan

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Chapter 8

I didn’t realise I was shaking until I felt Phillips’ steady hand on mine.

“I’ll be over for the funeral.” His big eyes bore down on me and I nodded numbly. “Are you sure you’re okay?” I nodded again and summoned what I knew was a hollow smile. He didn’t look reassured. “Call me when you land okay?” He said as he dropped a kiss on my forehead and I turned mechanically and headed through the gate. It was the longest flight I had ever sat through, and yet, the shortest. I left the terminal and took the car that was waiting for me. How Jake or whoever it was had had the presence of mind to sort out a car I didn’t know.

When I arrived at THS I was taken to the main house. It felt like I was moving in slow motion as Jake pulled open the door and enveloped me in a desperate hug, tears flowing down his cheeks and a desperate grip that was vice like in its intensity. 

We didn’t say anything, we just stood there and hugged and for the first time since I had heard the news I cried. Silent tears running down my face. Finally after what felt like an age he detached himself and we huddled into the kitchen, to do the only properly British thing we could, drink tea.

Jake sat and stared out of the big window, clutching his tea cup with salty tears slipping down his face. I once again felt numb. The tears were gone and we sat in silence, I didn’t know where his sister was, or if he’d seen anyone I just knew that my friend looked absolutely shattered. I heard a squeak and looked down, Crash, Ritchie’s hell hound was sitting next to Jake, looking just as bereft as him and I could see Eddie lying in the corner looking like his world had fallen apart, which I guess it had. It was heart wrenching.

“Hey…” I started a sentence but I didn’t know what I was going to say so I bit my tongue, took his hand and sat with him, watching his tea go cold. Fittingly raindrops began to fall. “You know, back home in SA,” I swallowed hard, trying to stop my voice from breaking, “rain means that the person who died is being welcomed to heaven.”

As the words came out another round of sobs swelled and burst from Jake and he reached over and hugged me again, hard, clinging to me like I was a life raft. Finally, after he had recovered a bit, he spoke. “You know I’m the first one of my friends to lose a parent, I’m in my twenties, he’ll never see his grandchildren!”

The anguish in his voice was heart breaking and I felt a little stab of substitute pain. Suddenly he was looking at me, his eyes boring into mine, blue and anguished and intense. There was so much pain and emotion and I had no way to make it better, I didn’t know what to say, or how to fix it or even how to supply some sort of emotional band aid to stem the bleeding. It felt like all the air had been sucked from the room. The moment dragged on and on and I could feel his grip on my shoulders and I could see the tearstains on his face, new lines seemed to have been etched into his skin and I felt overcome with emotion and the familiarity of him and the heady mix of grief.  And that’s when the sound of someone clearing their throat cut through the fog of grief and we both looked up to see a quite clearly pissed off Kristina looking at us, perfectly plucked eyebrows raised and arms crossed. She favoured me with a frosty look for a few moments and then seemed to do an about face and switch on her emotional intelligence.