Overlap

Eponine

🌱February 2020🌦️

Laura and Eddie got engaged the same week as me and Andy. They had the do at the bar and invited everyone we knew.

It was a cold, windy kind of evening but that hadn't stopped me and Sam walking the whole way there down the hill and up the bank, through town to Laura and Eddie's place, giggling and messing about.

Perhaps it would have done had I told him about the baby yet, perhaps he'd have felt the need to be more careful with me, the way that Van had been being more careful with me since I had told him.

He'd been supposed to head home, back to Wales after my last appointment - the one we'd run away from - but when Johnny had returned home from their tour Van had come with him, crashing at Lou's place on the sofa. So I'd seen a lot of him over the last week and I was beginning to enjoy feeling used to having him around.

It was a weight off because he understood me now so much more than anyone else did, but at the same time it made me nervous because I knew that he was waiting for me to tell somebody else.

He was waiting for me to tell Johnny.

"I can't believe we actually got engaged on the same day and you didn't even tell me about it!" squealed Laura pulling me into a tight hug, catching me by surprise.

Sam stood beside me smirking a little bewildered by my drunk friend who was partying that night, unwittingly, for both of us. And then when he looked down at my hand where a tiny silver band resided on my ring finger he gasped grabbing my hand and holding it up to study my fingers. As if he thought for a second it might not really be there at all.

I wished it wasn't really there at all.

"Holy shit when did that happen?!" he cracked a bewildered grin, sort of disbelieving when i shrugged it off as nothing, told him Friday.

"Same day as Laura are you deaf," i teased hoping that my rolling eyes would distract from how strange it all seemed. Because I wasn't daft. I knew it was.

"Aye alright lass but I mean..." he started but I cut him off with a laugh and my hand over his mouth, making Laura laugh when she saw me.

"Andy, obviously Sam don't be so rude!" I giggled fighting him off when he grabbed my arms and started pretending to fight me for starting on him like that. "Just because am not marrying you jesus," i rolled my eyes, my smile only fading when I saw Van and my brother wander in behind Louis.

When my voice carried and caught the attention of Van who's eyes locked with mine but only for a second as he remembered our conversation in the doctors waiting room.

I wondered whether it was the light catching the band around my finger or whether it was the guilty look which clouded my face which lured him over to me.

Which had him wrap his arms around me and hold me a little tighter than usual before my brother could steal me away.

And when he did, B's embrace hurt more than i could have imagined. Because he still knew nothing.

I felt it in my chest when I buried my face in his shirt and held onto him a little too tightly too.

"Alright beany you're gan break me ribs," he chucked pulling away from me and holding me out in front of him, "let's have a look then Laura," he turned to her with a smile pulled her into a warm hug too taking her hand to admire the band around her finger.

Laura's was delicate, pretty and simple, it was silver and it sparkled when it caught the light because it was encrusted with all these subtle diamonds. Eddie had probably spent months searching for it.