The Winter Project

32. Isabel

How she was able to sleep in the bed in the back of the van was a mystery, because when she woke up Isabel was instantly wide awake and shocked by how bumpy the ride was. With no access to windows in the back of the van she was unable to look around and confirm that they weren't in the middle of some high-speed car chase.

She climbed over the back of the passenger seat into the front of the van and sat down, racing to buckle herself into the seatbelt before they were involved in a crash and she was propelled through the windscreen. She looked over at Cleo who was clearly very tired; her eyes were heavy and bloodshot, and based on Isabel's experience she guessed that Cleo was either drunk or hungover.

"Why don't we stop for a while so you can get some sleep?" she suggested. "You look exhausted. I could drive, I feel okay about it now." She was aware that it was now dark outside, and she wondered if she would be able to suppress her fears about driving in the dark, but this concern was soon taken over by her curiosity as to what time it was. "Are we nearly in Croatia?" The drive from Budapest to Zagreb wasn't supposed to take more than half a day, and yet they had started their journey at lunchtime.

"Don't worry about it," Cleo said with a monotonous tone of voice and a fake smile that Isabel had seen her use on other people before, but never on her. She tried to work out what she had done to agitate her, but these situations between her and Cleo were becoming so frequent that she no longer had the energy to even attempt to work it out. "I'm happy to drive."

Up ahead Isabel could see flashing lights and a standstill in the traffic. The combination of brake lights from numerous cars blinded her eyes as she adjusted to being fully awake. Cleo allowed the van to grind down to a slow speed until they had stopped in the middle of the traffic jam. Isabel felt nervous about what could have happened; she hoped that nobody had been seriously injured or had died. She always felt immeasurable sadness when she saw accidents, either in real life or on the news. She thought of the families of those that had died and the amount of suffering they were feeling. A video on the news of a mother crying in the fresh news of her child's death was enough to have Isabel crying alongside her as if she was suffering the grief too.

Sirens filled the air and Isabel could barely make out what was going on. She saw a police officer was walking towards all of the cars and asking people to wind down their windows. As the officer approached the van, Isabel quickly wound down the window and poked her head outside, the sound of sirens growing louder as she did so. He explained in a thick accent that was almost incomprehensible that there had been an accident on the road involving a deer that had tried to cross the motorway and been struck, and that the driver of the car was possibly seriously injured and had to be airlifted to hospital. Once the helicopter had arrived, he assured her that they would be moving again. A car pulled up in the lane to the left of them, and he turned to repeat the story one more time.

When he turned around, Isabel saw the back of his jacket, and the white printed letters that adorned it sent her into a state of shock.

Polizia.

Polizia. The memories were flooding her head so quickly that she barely had time to process them. The Polizia in her hotel, talking to her grandmother. The Polizia at the scene who shouted at her aggressively and told her to move out of the way. The Polizia who tried to find a contact detail for her as she stood on the pavement and screamed for her mother.

"Where are we, Cleo?" she demanded. Cleo said nothing, just stared ahead as if she couldn't even hear her. "Where the FUCK are we?"

She screamed so loudly that the police officer turned around in confusion as the window was still wound down, broadcasting Isabel's fury to him and everyone else in their cars that surrounded them. Cleo looked down casually at the sat nav on the dashboard before staring back ahead at the traffic, refusing to meet Isabel's stare.

"According to my map we are a little past Verona heading west."

She sounded so nonchalant that it made Isabel's blood boil. Stupid fucking Cleo, who thought her life was so difficult because her parents got divorced like every other fucking family in the world, who had no concept of the feeling of losing both of your parents at the same time. Cleo who constantly talked about her mental health as if it were an exclusive burden to her and her alone, who romanticised it and probably even enjoyed it. Cleo, who made Isabel believe that she was her friend and yet tore her life apart and dragged her right into the heart and soul of everything that had ever caused her pain in her life.

She couldn't breathe. She was sure of it this time. Her breathing was rapid and she knew she was hyperventilating but she couldn't stop. Her eyes were covered in tears and her uncontrollable urge to keep crying made it more difficult for her to catch her breath. She climbed back into the back of the van and tried to calm her breathing to a normal rate but it was too late; the panic attack was already well under way and she knew that she would have to ride it out. She clutched onto her chest as she tried to find air, but she felt like she would run out of breath at any moment. She wanted to vomit but she had nothing in her to expel, she wanted to punch someone but all she had were the ever-shrinking walls of the claustrophobic van that Cleo had forced her to live inside.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and could hear words being said but she was unable to comprehend them. Cleo was trying to comfort her and get her through the attack like she had done many times before, but it simply made Isabel angrier this time. Why would she try to comfort her after causing the pain in the first place? What possible gain could Cleo have for taking them to Italy? She had nothing to lose and nothing to gain, and Isabel and nothing to gain and everything to lose. She wanted to go home, she wanted to forget this entire trip and she wanted to forget Cleo. She pushed Cleo away from her and although her instinct told her to leave, she had nowhere to go.

Cleo left her alone and after maybe an hour she could feel that the van was on the move again. She was aware that it was probably the middle of the night now and that Cleo had been driving for a long time. She wanted to stop and find a hotel so that she could book herself into her own room and have some thinking space. She also wanted to get off the long stretch of road that would take her back to Milan. She reluctantly climbed back into the passenger seat of the van and told Cleo to stop at the next exit that had a hotel or hostel. Cleo, now looking totally sleep deprived, agreed without further question.

They found themselves in a motel that looked like something out of an American horror film; secluded and run-down as if nobody had stayed there for years, the only signs of life being the dim lights shining through curtains from a few of the rooms. Isabel did not speak a word to Cleo as she booked herself into a separate room.

As she lay alone in the bed, she found herself becoming more and more awake as she churned over every memory from the last few months. She thought about every single time Cleo had been rude, distant or patronising. She thought about how Cleo had convinced her to quit her job and her home and how it was supposed to have healed her. She thought about how Cleo must have always had some kind of ulterior motive, because no true friend would ever have forced this nightmare upon her.

She thought about what would happen in the morning. Cleo would force her to go to Milan. If she was so sure of herself that she was willing to take Isabel hostage and drive her against her will this far, then surely she would force her to continue the rest of the way. It wasn't a chance Isabel was willing to take.

She got out of bed and got dressed immediately. She packed the small number of items dotted around the room back into her bag, grabbed the keys to the van and left without a second thought.