Head Over Heels ✓

36 / good, bad, ugly

april, age 25

Intermittent bouts of driving rain and beating sun had made for a perfect spring, bringing out the brightest colours in the flowers that bloomed all around town. Blossoming baskets hung from shop fronts, blowing in the gentle breeze beneath the cloud-speckled sky. The back garden was in full bloom: roses exploded from the trellises of the walled garden that Lucas adored. Although he had never got the soil under his nails, not even trusting the sturdiest gardening gloves. Each plant was solely down to Liliana, who spent her free time slaving away with a trowel and a trug. She had been determined about planting potatoes, despite Lucas's insistence that he would never dig them up himself. That had only given her an excuse to spend more time at his house.

Liliana had chosen not to go to university. At least, not yet. While her friends were knuckling down for their final exams of first year, and Isabella now had only a year left of her degree, Liliana was still living at home and working while she decided what she wanted to do. Her time had been split between her parents and Matilda's student flat, a forty-minute drive away, until Lucas and Asher had moved back to Farnleigh a few months ago. More and more often, she found herself having a cup of tea with the big brother she adored and admiring the garden she had made for him.

She was supposed to have come over yesterday evening, due to have a cup of tea and a catch up with her brother and his fiancé, but an accident had put a stop to those plans. After a few long hours in A&E and half an hour of humiliation with the doctor, Lucas was left with four stitches in his lip, still angrily throbbing a day later. Running his finger over the bumps, he stared out of the kitchen window as he finished doing the washing up, watching as rain catapulted down from the heavens, and he let out a long sigh.

He wasn't used to having a day off. In the five years that he had worked for Chess House, he had only taken one sick day before, when he and Asher had both come down with a bug and they had spent a miserable day together, both as useless as each other. That was three years ago now: it was strange to be at home alone, when it wasn't a weekend and Asher wasn't around to keep him company.

As reluctant as he had been to call in sick, Ishaana had insisted on it as soon as she had heard about the accident and in the very least, taking Friday off gave Lucas three days to come up with a lie to explain the painfully obvious wound. He had sworn Asher to secrecy before he had left for the office in the morning: although their jobs at Chess House were vastly differing, the company was small enough that news travelled at the speed of light between departments. And if Lucas didn't hear gossip from Asher, it was never long before Ishaana's loose lips let it spill.

It was only lunchtime. Already, Lucas didn't know what to do with himself. He had promised Asher that he wouldn't work, that he would take an honest day off, but the house was tidy and all the washing up was done, and a strange sense of loneliness was beginning to settle. He was so rarely alone these days, especially during the week, that if felt wrong when he sat down with a cup of tea and a book in the conservatory. The words wouldn't sink in, his mind jumping all over the place. Even the rain distracted him, watching as it sheeted down over his neighbours.

Lucas didn't know his neighbours very well. To the left lived a couple in their late eighties who hardly seemed to leave their house; to the right was a sour-faced middle-aged woman who seemed permanently displeased. He had no intention of befriending any of them, who had hardly ever returned his friendly smile, but he didn't care when two of his favourite people lived just down the road in the same house they had lived in for over thirty years; the same house where Lucas had spent the first year of his life. Moving back to Farnleigh had only strengthened his bond with his grandparents, though he had always been close to them, yet more substitute parents in his life.