The Winter Project

29. Cleo

Cleo knew that she was too tipsy to drive and yet she was so desperate to get out of Hungary and not have to listen to Isabel nervously ask questions about the road as she drove that she had decided to take the wheel anyway. She figured that after an hour or so she would pull over and take a nap and would be much safer to continue after she had slept off the drinks.

Her anger towards Isabel had started ever since Isabel didn't want to stop at the Christmas market for mulled wine, and every day since then it continued to grow without Cleo being able to stop or control it. Since the incident at the market, Cleo had become actively aware that every time she wanted a drink, Isabel didn't. She kept trying to tell herself she was just paranoid but she was convinced that Isabel was trying to stop her from drinking, and this made her very angry. Her paranoia and anger were out of control and she was unable to rationalise her emotions anymore.

Part of her wondered if she was angry with Isabel because she could not tell her what she had been doing. She had been talking to someone online who lived in Milan for almost six months, but the conversation had turned to Cleo's liking just before she and Isabel left for the road trip, where they finally admitted that they had feelings for each other. He was in his late thirties and owned a restaurant in the outskirts of the city centre. He was kind and patient and fatherly. Cleo loved a man who could look after her, soothe her and keep her company. She was so irrationally angry with Isabel for not wanting to go to Italy and yet she knew that she couldn't possibly be angry with her friend because her reasons for not wanting to go were more than reasonable. Yet Cleo thought somehow when she even suggested this trip that it would lead her to Nic. She thought that Isabel would overcome her anxieties and want to go to Italy to face her fears, but it turned out she was more adamant than ever not to go there. Each time Cleo tried to broach the subject, Isabel refused to even discuss it and this made Cleo even angrier, even though Isabel had no idea what was going on. Cleo hated keeping secrets from her friend, but the closer she became to Nic, the more preoccupied she became with meeting him in person and the more agitated she became with Isabel for blocking her chances.

Cleo was becoming obsessed. She thought about him every moment she had spare. Every time she and Isabel had played make-believe, Nic was standing there in the audience of the bar, cheering her on as she sang songs that were written only for him. Every day they would message each other and every night that Isabel went to sleep, Cleo would go outside and talk to him for hours on the phone. Sometimes she would just tell him about their day, other times she would cry and explain how deep and painful her thoughts were. Occasionally they would talk about what he wanted to do to her, and it made her crazy with desire.

Cleo was tired of keeping her secret from Isabel, but she knew that she would be judged. Isabel was rational and frightened of the unknown, and that included strangers from the internet who would probably, in Isabel's mind, murder them and drive them out into the sticks in their own van before dismembering them. Cleo knew that it was pointless even trying to explain to Isabel that she was quite possibly in love with a man she had never met before. So she said nothing.

Her mind was like the motorways now. It was going in only one direction, and that was to Nic. She programmed his address into the navigation on her phone purely for fun, but when she saw that they were only eight and a half hours away from her whole life coming together, she couldn't resist. She abandoned the plans she and Isabel had made about going to Croatia and instead followed the directions on the sat nav. She wouldn't need anything or anyone except for him. They could get married, have children. They would live in Italy together and he would cook for her every night as he had promised so many times over the phone. They would sleep with their bodies entwined every night, warm and exhausted from relentless fucking.

She justified her actions by telling herself that Isabel would be nothing but grateful for what Cleo was doing for her. Not for herself, but for Isabel. Nic was purely the bonus, the reward Cleo would acquire for being nothing but a perfect friend and getting her friend to overcome her biggest fear of all. She thought about how non-confrontational Isabel was, and how she chose sadness over anger when she was mistreated or betrayed. Cleo assumed that in the worst case scenario, Isabel would cry about being in Milan and then she would choose to visit the site of her parent's death, holding Cleo's hand and continuously thanking her for taking her there.